I am total Flos believer; I love him as a character and I think pirateaba writes him really well (for context I listened to the audiobooks through volume 6 and opted to reread from the beginning rather than continue reading from where the audiobooks left off), however, I am struggling to suspend my disbelief with the fight scenes in this chapter. If he were using skills I’d be bought in and have no problems, but Flos grabbing the spear of a man charging on a horse is crazy. The scene felt too anime for me, and it pulled me out of this world.

The barehanded Flos vs fully armed and armored Venith later on in the chapter elicited the same reaction again. This is the first time in this story this has happened to me, but it has me wary for what the later volumes may be like as our main cast of characters continues to level up.

It seems pretty obvious that’s not what happened. He has enough support that no one attacked his capital, but a continent spanning Empire got reduced to a single, hailing city. The only people standing in place where his staunchest supporters that owed him everything.

Nothing stood still. The whole map changed.

Flos says it himself. He gave the people safety, but he didn’t give them hope. These are villagers a stonedrop from Flos’ capital that he knew by name. They never stopped believing in him.

As well, Napoleon was exiled, but never actually gave up, like Flos did. It’s one thing to keep believing in a leader that lost, and another thing entirely to believe in one that gave up.

The duration also does matter considerably. If Flos had only slept for one year, I could see his people still trusting in him. But 10 years? Unless whoever started reigning over them during that span was awful, the degradation of the kingdom due to Flos not caring about it all would have made his people hate him.

“He is not you, my King. And he was once your vassal! Taking arms against his sword master is treason!”

-> his sworn master

This comment said it better than i ever could:

“Imagine having a person make grandiose claims and then just fuck off for 10 years, only to come back with the same grand claims. Now would you support that person? Maybe, depending on the political situation. But would you exclaim from the rooftops that you’d go to war and DIE for that person? As a PEASANT, Whose friends and family died in those same previous wars? Wars which were LOST? The story wants me to believe they would. And i honestly find it insulting. This kind of braindead loyalty is just disgusting to me.”