I really dislike when manga is more text/politics than pictures/plot. It's part of why I want to pick up Spice and Wolf, but procrastinate on it.
This manga is one of the few that I'll muddle through text for. And so far, it's been a good payoff, at least for this chapter. The first half was pretty heavy (tend to forget some details when it's been months since I read this), but the second half with the backstory was a nice touch.