Bro what? She has complete control over how long she turns into stone and she knows the dude will come to save her. Why would she not just go “I give him a year to save me, that should be enough time.” Like bro, he killed the dragon when he was like 13 or something. Why would she not expect him to come grab her???? Like at this point, the author is yanking our chains to keep us on edge.
This story had me GRIPPED. The beginning can be a little slow but I found Maize to be a compelling character that you want to support and see what happens when she learns the truth that she married the demon king. Then the story beats beginning picking up as you realize the mystery behind everyone’s circumstances and it becomes a real interesting story that you can’t just put down. It becomes *more* than a generic “fake marriage” scenario.
Truthfully, I couldn’t help but think back to Suddenly I became a Crow as both stories have these meta like narratives of beating destiny and being in a happy relationship where the story end with the FMC becomes a temporary divine being that erases the villain. That said, I found this story to be far better than Crow’s. The execution of a lot of Crow’s narrative directions felt flat or ridiculous to me. Ex-soldier is the story that Crow wanted to be.
Of course that’s just my opinion and I know it’s a divisive hot take to make because of how well beloved Crow is for a lot of people. I’m not saying it bad but ex-soldier simply takes the cake for me.
Rambling off topic here but this manhwa reminded me of a dungeon keeper roleplay I did last year. The difference being that my girl was a lich and had way better game than this succubus mc. OP powers, lots of smut, and lots of husbandos. Can’t believe the type of shit my rp partner let me get away with LOL I should go back and re-read our posts history before things ended abruptly
I think this manga is one of the rare examples of the “misunderstanding trope” done right. At the same time, this manga is also prime evidence as to why the “misunderstanding trope” is absolute dogshit.
Usually, authors throw in the trope just like that to make the story unnecessarily longer and more “dramatic”. But for this manga, the entire plot hinges on people misunderstanding each other intentions and desires. It all weaves into each other to create a mystery story and it all unravels well. It hits all the right story beats. But ultimately, you pull back and realize: NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF THESE DUMB FUCKING CHARACTERS JUST TALKED TO EACH OTHER FFFFFFFFF. And oooohhh mmmyyyy gooooddddd do these characters go on and on about “fate”. Fffffff that word literal lost all meaning to me. At this point “fate” is just code for “aw man, do I have to tell the truth now? But moooooom!!!”.
This story ultimately collapses on the same pitfalls that make any story weaker when using the misunderstanding trope: when the entire conflict hinges on an easily fixable problem, the story becomes a joke.
I decided to re-read the entire manhwa from the beginning since we’re have a call back to a previous character. Being able to reach each arc back to back made me realized that the manhwa is surprisingly well-paced. I know a lot of you went “WHAT?! NO?!” But listen: the reason why the story feels like it takes forever is because these chapter updates take forever. But as a binge story, it’s surprisingly good. Each arc would be like one or two episodes if it was a TV series. It’s kind of like a crime show where each episode have a focus crime with bits of the larger plot sprinkled throughout. I think this manhwa would make for for a really good animated series in hindsight.