the coding bits are cool but the romance is awkward

finished the first arc and honestly the whole concept of a systems engineer rebuilding runic structures like he’s debugging a legacy codebase is exactly what I needed, it makes the typical fantasy power-up stuff feel way more grounded when he's actually logic-checking the spells. I did think it was a bit weird how quickly he mastered that third-dimensional plane shifting technique after only seeing the aristocrats do it once, it felt like he skipped about five steps of trial and error just to get to the next fight. My biggest gripe is definitely the romance subplot starting up with the merchant's daughter because their dialogue is so stiff, it feels like it was written by someone who hasn't actually talked to a girl in three years. Also pretty sure he mentioned having a sister in his past life at the start but then later says he was a total loner with zero family ties, so the author definitely lost the thread on the backstory there. Still, the action hits hard. If you can ignore the cringe flirting and focus on the way he exploits the rune systems to outsmart the nobles it's a solid binge.