Alright, cool. I try not to complain about the direction an author takes their story unless it doesn't make sense. There was nothing logically wrong with these arcs, so I didn't feel it was my place to speak up. It's kinda gross to me when people watch someone put a bunch of time, effort, and passion into something and respond with, "I'm boooored!"

When does this part end? I've basically checked out since Thomas went off on his side quest. I genuinely do not care about any of this stuff. Supporting characters don't *need* to have their own dedicated arcs. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger never did, and their development never suffered for it. A strong supporting character may not be able to carry their own storyline.

When in doubt, language is a push to the bottom. What's the least amount of effort I can expend to communicate? Enunciating is hard, so let's slur our words so our tongues, lips, and jaw have to move as little as possible. Let's use as few words as possible to convey a meaning. That's, of course, not to be confused with efficiency. Someone dedicating no effort to communicate will almost always spend magnitudes more energy trying to communicate the same meaning as a more eloquent person, as their judgement of 'least words possible' is very, very rarely actually enough, so they'll have to spend extra time and energy clarifying that meaning.

"neither of them spoke a word." There's only two of them, so a generic descriptor like 'none' that doesn't specific quantity, while literally accurate, is not really proper to use here. That's just one of those tribal knowledges about the language that you'll really only pick up from great familiarity. Using a descriptor like 'none', based solely on a person's experience with the way it's typically used, implies more than two people as a bare minimum. Same with the phrase "spoke up a word." I'm sure some bored linguist in some ivory tower somewhere has come up with some absolutely confounding rationale to justify why this phrase is awkward, but normal people with interests in things other than esoteric, soon-to-be-outdated grammar rules just know intuitively that it is.

Am I the only one tired of capture arcs? They're never satisfying, almost always actively frustrating, and just as frequently require plot armor of some kind to justify. Don't even get me started on the escape and recapture variant.

I'm really not liking how Olpi is acting, here. She's the newcomer, but she's acting like she's entitled to deep knowledge about the people she's being allowed to tag along with. It's kinda unreasonable for a former slave.

"A full set for *me*. You guys are on your own."

Probably the same thing Thrud's great grandma does: not my problem.

That definitely is more the wyvern's fault, not Thrud's. Thrud and Jermuun just provided the rope, it was the wyvern that put it around his apprentice's neck. And honestly, between abducting undead children and the Academies just in general, Thrud's still on the least evil side.

Am I the only one that's sort of starting to root for Thrud?

Name one.

Yep. They're also installed on literally every microwave oven (those black dots on the glass are effectively a Faraday cage).

He has to upload the file to the USB drive in the first place. Keep in mind also that STUXNET got onto a closed network via a USB drive. Even if the computer isn't connected to the internet, or even if its not a computer at all, a motivated enough programmer can get it pretty much wherever they want it.

Kilot the weaponsmith? Sounds like Killgrave the murdering psychopath.

Just FYI, it took me about 4 hours to walk 10 miles, including elevation changes. As such, this is probably the only time in a minor webnovel that a numerical estimate has actually been correct.

Yeah, Kamila's definitely grown on me.

Has the author ever been in the very rough vicinity of alcohol? Because being drunk is as good a generator of lies as it is uncomfortable truths.

I wonder how Noah will react when he finds out his arch nemesis saved both his sister and his cousin.

On the one hand, I'm glad the author had the sense to have someone be suspicious of a stranger feeding an unknown liquid to the unconscious girl. On the other, I wish they were consistent about it. A very powerful stranger rides up to your gates with five corpses and the unconscious body of the daughter of your lord and you don't even take her from the stranger? A very brief eexposure to the elements as part of the handover is not going to kill a sick person. Even someone suffering from acute hypothermia could survive that. Then, on top of all that, you don't even question it and immediately lead the stranger to a girl's private rooms. Escorted or not, that's a violation of privacy at the best of times, let alone when the owner is unconscious. Lead hhim to the most comfortable yet remote guest room available. As soon as she's indoors, immediately separate her from the stranger and escort him away, politely but firmly.

No matter what, a dukedom cannot ever be called small. Otherwise its not a dukedom, by definition.