beta
this could have had soo much potential but ended as a disappointment with many unfinished plots and worldbuilding.
mc is actually a noble, but his family was killed by the empire (?) and he was the only survivor. thus he turned being a knight with only one goal in mind: to survive, and that's why he goes along with what ml does. he doesn't fall in love with ml as quickly as others, but rather sees it as a relationship of convenience (again, survival). yes, mc does have his kid and he looks like ml. they love (???) each other, ig.
worldbuilding? you'll get little to none in this as the world feels so dead (lol). they could have done so much with the zombies and ghouls and "dark evil energy" but they brush past it after the plotline ends, like every other future plotline. mc being a noble is brushed off as ml digging into his past instead of mc going back to his homeland like he wanted. (warning: incest) schuman is in love with his half brother, thinking if he's rich then his brother will love him back (or something? it's very vague), and that's why he likes money.
idk, the premise was interesting, but these characters were so washed out they didn't even feel like main characters. hell, even senna and belle had a better background lore than everyone else. (warning: SA/r) the novel goes into more detail about them (the time where mc goes into belle's memories, it was a lot more brutal than shown with many more instigators if that makes sense, thus senna asking "who's the father?") and why her revenge was so important. but alas that plotline died. (eta: i was wondering why senna looked so young and that's bc he was young. belle was around ~15 so he could be the same or even younger, and that makes their story all the more terrible.)
tl;dr this was a letdown.
first off, let's get the child out of the way. (warning: abortion and miscommunication, lol...)
fl already has a weak/sick body and when she became pregnant, ml became afraid she would die bc his family is known to be a line of monsters(?), and her having a monster baby made him want her to get rid of the baby in case it grew up to be a monster just like him/his family. that obviously didn't happen when they reunited. (ml was heavily experimented on as a child and i believe that's why he thinks himself as a monster due to his trauma and incapabilities of having feelings)
why fl "left" and why ml wanted to marry the princess? ml engaged the princess for power to be able to defeat his half brother (who is the true antagonist) in order to protect fl. he doesn't tell fl because at this point in time she had nightmares, so his throught process was to quickly get over the marriage to the princess to achieve his power then go back to protecting fl. fl gets injured and ml breaks off the engagement to see to her, but half brother ends up killing the princess and faking fl's death to which ml is distraught over. he doesn't know what he's feeling because of his past experiments, but he knows fl's important to him. there's an 8 year time skip where ml finds fl and wants to raise the child together.
half brother is the emperor and the "better(?)" son even if he was illegitimate and grooms/conditions ml into believing he cares about him, but actually wants to use ml's power because he knows he's powerful (or something). when ml wanted to marry fl, half brother disagreed because he didn't want to "taint" their bloodline (even though it's already tainted by him but because he's the truly loved son, he gets a pass). he told ml if he can get another country as an ally, he'd accept fl as ml's wife and that's another reason why the engagement happened.
some guy named james which the novel depicts as a sml is actually a shitty character in the future even though he has his best interests for fl. there's a woman named natalie who is the ex-fiancee of ml's half brother, but she is a genuine character who actually cares for ml.
there's a lot of angst in this because they are both not emotionally there; fl from having her family be shitty toward her and ml from being experimented on. after they go through their struggles, their relationship is very peaceful.