Vol. 1 - Had deja vu since the prologue and turns out this is the LN of the 2023 anime "The Aristocrat’s Otherworldly Adventure: Serving Gods Who Go Too Far". I dropped the LN once I realised it's the same because I didn't really enjoy the anime.

Vol. 7 - I really love how the series has a main plot that is steadily continuing forward without falling into the LN trap of just idling to fill as many volumes as possible. This feels a lot like Bookworm in that regard. And not just because there is a main plot, but also in the way it feels like it's well thought out in advance and not just what the author comes up with in the moment. It's also a good one that keeps me wondering what might happen next. And speaking of the overall plot, in this volume, the picture just became a lot clearer.

Volume 1 - Male MC is unnecessarily prickly towards female MC up to the point where it's actually annoying and off-putting. He fights a monster in the woods, gets almost killed, and she saves him, reattaches his arm, and all he does is verbally attack her every chance he gets because she's too beautiful for him to cope. Like a little kid in Kindergarten who pulls on the hair of the girl he likes. It's not behaviour I want to read about from a fully grown adventurer. The second chapter is great, though. I think it was that chapter that made it win an award, and the reason it was picked up for publication. So if anyone gives the series a read, wait until you finish the second chapter before making a judgment.

- Okay, let's play through my thoughts during the first page:

"SERENA ROSENBERG, I HEREBY BREAK OFF MY engagement with you!” a loud voice boomed. The Rosewood Academy’s graduation party, a grand and festive affair, was also a means for the royals and nobles enrolled at the school to make their societal debuts. I was in attendance when Crown Prince Edward declared that he would be breaking off our engagement."

Oh God, another one of those... I think I've read a hundred of the same novels by now.

Half a page later:

"The king cast judgment upon me, and I was sentenced to death. My harsh sentence was due to the overexaggeration of the little pranks that I’d played on the saintess. I mean, all I’d done was try to drop a flowerpot on her head from the second floor, mix some sort of drug into tea to force her to drink it, hire a ruffian to plan a kidnapping, feign an accident to run her over with a carriage, and hire an assassin take her out!"

Oh? OOoohhh? An actual villainess and not just someone framed by the Prince's new love interest? You got my attention now!