beta
story pacing and stuff sucks way more in the light novel so my bar generally has been low with the manga. I'm glad arnald is a little softer comparatively and they're attempting to get them to show feelings even if it feels kinda meh and rushed. I hope they continue to elaborate on their relationship and smooth things in the manga out because in the light novel it literally goes from can't wait to divorce !! arnald sucks!!! to oh no I love him (weird tangent of her justifying sex that was dub/non-con)? time skip - hahah we are married with 2 kids and it's jarring.
light novel arnald is better though, especially with all the arnald povs. for example right after their first night when he basically sa-ed her, he is pretty clear he's not happy with himself and appalled. in the novel he's clear the only reason he even posed the wager was to see her reaction and he later apologises for being selfish and sticking to the contract.
something I don't think they did well enough is the scene at the party where arnald is on the balcony with dreslan-- if you're confused; "the countess comes on strong" meant she's difficult to deal with. then dreslan goes on about arnald hating women (like Carla who tries to seduce him) and teases him because he assumed byletta was like Carla too. Novel arnald started mentally gushing about how his wife is so cool, calm, collected, smart, and proceeds defending her, saying she's just his wife and he knows his wife, then when Joan (same role as dreslan in the light novel) teases he arnald and accused him of treating byletta as a free prostitute, bro denies the allegations immediately, starts going off about wife supremacy, and gushing about his wife ... felt like this kinda stuff was useful for the manga too..?
in the manga dreslan is saying that having a wife is like having a free prostitute, and that arnald is lucky byletta is so hot and more hot than any prostitute- byletta leaves before hearing arnald telling dreslan off which leads her to think arnald thinks she's a glorified prostitute and arnald barely says anything??? where was the whole section of him going oh my wife is cute interesting strong smart ramble ramble ?? sigh
the sentence tacked on about his face is also an abridged version from the light novel where they talk about how arnald has a nice face but arnald doesn't like how his face looks (because he has delicate features?) he thinks doesn't it because while it's a nice face the only thing it's good for is sucking up to superiors and getting treated like a play thing (by women like Carla) and his subordinates don't actually respect him that much (hence the line in the chapter where he didn't want to talk to his folks and byletta thinking 'i thought you were on good terms with your subordinates).
btw in the light novel byletta is on contraceptives. they haven't been fully faithful to the source material but I don't see why they wouldn't keep that in.
*I wrote this at 4am after no sleep so it's not coherent lmaO