He's been speaking to Dabi over the phone at night, which requires him to be female / use the perfume. Last time we saw, he straight up ended falling asleep because of it, and he references being tired because of it in this chapter as well.

Survival. In stories like these, royalty often have a target on their back from birth, the main question is whether the threats are external (thus giving rise to overprotectiveness) or internal (often giving rise to people who are cold and cruel). Seeing your sibling every day, eating at the same table, and yet knowing they want you dead can really affect a person's mentality, and the retainers and staff are balancing on a razor's edge because they're pawns and nobody will blink twice if they suddenly go "missing". It's even more dangerous for those who are close to the children, since the heir can be harmed indirectly through the loved one's death.

Although I agree with you it's not being done out of simple greed, I think there is one glaring issue that reduces the likelihood of some of your theories—he's only attacked them going one way. If he was protecting the territory or guarding something important, he would have struck out against them when they were heading to the meeting with the elves rather than only when they were leaving. Whatever he's doing, it is directly related to the tea and/or the trading thereof.

The removal of those shackles has really done a lot. The guy's free not just in a literal sense, but he's showing his feelings and emotions more openly as well.

Because in many ways it's a "fate worse than death". You deprive them of their ability to pursue martial arts and even take care of themself in a proper manner. Defeat is more shameful than death, and taking an arm forces them to live the rest of their life bearing the consequence of that defeat.

Specifically, it's the "listen to my advice" part she was having some trouble agreeing to at first. If he advises her to back off or to not do something because it's dangerous, he wants her to listen to and follow it.

Some normie stalking his crush and too pansy to actually say anything until Dark Form? I sleep. Hard-working chad devoting himself to training and overcoming his Dark Form through bro bond? Real shit.

Redemption arc successful.

Yeah, this seems like a double juke. He and Kiyoung have been getting along fairly well and he's been setting him up as a successor, despite Kiyoung not even really caring for that kind of position. I don't see any long-term value to killing or making an enemy out of Kiyoung here, even disregarding the many, many benefits for keeping him as an ally.

Wow, I'm not even sure if the author intended for the Witch of Stardust to be viewed as an irredeemable piece of garbage as I view her right now. The previous calamity-bringer was rather sympathetic in his motivations and his power-up was "earned" in a way, but there's basically nothing sympathetic or interesting about this one, and her current development is actively dragging this arc down. The only thing she's done I can approve of was getting stuck as the heart of the Descendent; at least now she isn't flapping her gums or taking up valuable page space with her nonsense.

It was. Chapter 55 has en-thunderscans at the top of the chapter, and you'll notice it's lacking for 56 and 57. I also checked out the site and the translation is clearly different as well; someone didn't swipe it off there and remove the credit portion, they just went ahead and decided to snipe it.

This arc already jumped the shark a bit, but I did not expect the real-world stalker plot twist. Guy was pulling in the crazies even before he arrived in a new world....

Honestly, a big part of it is that little to no people have actually seen him in combat. Even the most recent dungeon, he fought the spider out of view of the others. The most public example he's shown in memory would be when he and Aiselle took on five monsters for a test, but that involved him being very smart with how to get the monsters to fight each other as a stalling tactic while Aiselle did the heavy lifting with magic. His friends and allies think he'll win, but they can't come up with the method he will use to do so.

As for auto-cast or pre-cast defenses, given how quickly this guy is using offensive magic—and how Baek Yuseol himself didn't do it—I imagine he'll be able to activate defensive magic near instantaneously, if not automatically. Earth magic specializes in defense, as they said, and I have a feeling the earth mage is going to be even more proficient at quick-casting defense spells than he is at offensive ones.

"Ants can't cross water"? Although there were plenty of context clues that these specific ants wouldn't for whatever reason, army ants can and do cross water. If their path is blocked either by water or by open space, they will make bridges with their own bodies so the others can get across.

Did he? My memory is that the time he spent with the buff priest guy was actually between save points, but I could be wrong. If you remember what chapters he went through that arc, it would be much appreciated.

One of the supporting reasons I have for why the body is save-pointed is because his arm would have healed before the big fight otherwise. He spent practical weeks trying to train with only one arm, and his injured arm wasn't any better despite all of that time. I suppose a distinction could be made between "physical fitness" and "injuries", but my natural reaction is that the body is save-pointed as well.

I actually don't think he keeps his trained body, and that the condition of his body is saved and reset to with each regression. Most of the stuff he ends up working on with regressions is knowledge—even here, he was learning the process to effectively control his heart for heart of the superhuman, not training his heart to withstand it—whereas basic body-building stuff (such as with the "giant") happens between save points.

It's harder to map it 1:1 to real life because most people don't end up in this kind of situation, but the scenario happens a lot in card games. When a safe option leads to a guaranteed end you cannot stand or live with, it becomes necessary to take more and more risks. It's better to gamble on your opponent not having X or doing Y to chance a risky victory, than it is to let things continue on the same trajectory for a safe defeat. This is also why the guy in chains brought up how the Sky Cult Leader could have a cushy life if he just went with the safe defeat option, but it's pretty clear that's not something the cult leader can tolerate.

Probably the same reason why the Sky Cult Leader shackled the guy up in the first place, why he's placed restrictions on how many times the guy can curse him out, and so on. He's excessively controlling and prideful. In truth, he decided to accept the advice from the moment he asked it, and the follow-up theatrics are to salve his ego and prompt the guy to put the doubts lingering in his heart to rest so he can do it straightforwardly.

Some character development, though, you may have noticed how the Sky Cult Leader is no longer keeping track of and counting down how many times the other guy is allowed to curse at him or speak freely. Though it may not seem like it at first glance, that coupled with his dawning realization he actually appreciates the guy's frankness towards his bad personality is showing how their relationship is steadily improving over the course of these events.

Too much of a time gap. The EX who broke up with her five years ago isn't getting NTR'd if you hook up with her five years later. Valtezar ruined the relationship with his own hands, he didn't need outside help for that.

Uhh, not really. Even if they were in a relationship before (it's not explicitly specified despite the wording), they've clearly developed animosity towards each other, and this happened well before MC entered the picture in the setting. It'd be like saying you just got NTR'd because your girlfriend had an ex five years ago, despite both of them not having such feelings for each other anymore.

Jesus, so many watermarks on this chapter.