I think I'm going to keep reading this to see if it eventually gets better, but man this manga isn't really doing anything for me anymore. I think the subversion of the "childhood friend" trope is the most interesting part of the manga so far, which definitely hooked me in the first few chapters... But now it's starting to lose me.
It's just a pattern of MC meets a new cute girl -> Rua instigates a dumb conflict -> MC Aura farms all over the place and adds another girl to his harem. There's no character development for the MC (since he's already perfect in every way) or Rua, who has the most potential, but the story refuses to try to do anything interesting with her. She's just a mechanism to start conflicts and that's it, she has yet to seriously question herself and somehow miraculously continues to misinterpret everything. She was clearly raised incorrectly, but it might be dozens of chapters until that aspect of her upbringing gets seriously tackled (I really hope I'm wrong).
But this new arc is a serious drag. Like badge classicm, are we seriously doing this??? If they wanted to make it sort of interesting at least make the people who wear the badges genuinely intelligent, or "worthy" of them to give some sense of pushback with the conflict, unlike the nameless dumbass from this chapter who was just another excuse for the MC to aura farm. All this is is just giant red flashing arrow signs pointing and saying "See!! The badge system is bad!! And the people that wear them are bad!!" all the while doing nothing interesting with it.
I feel like if this entire arc was cut out from the manga literally nothing would be lost. There's no meaningful stakes, no room for any character development, and no room for actual substance. All it is is just conflict for the sake of conflict. At this point I'm just staying to see if it gets better, and also the pretty art style, but that's kinda it. Because it really hurts to see such good art get wasted on such a boring plot.