OK, I'm out.
I tried giving the author and his villains the benefit of doubt, but they did do the most stupid thing possible. Every. Single. Step of the way. And finally, confronting Cain head-on without the backing of someone even remotely at the level of an S-ranker. (Edit: bonus idiot points for threatening to enslave multiple princesses. Even if Cain wasn't going to survive this, Malph would have whole countries as enemies next. The guy was clearly tired of being alive.)
At first, I thought they would use political or criminal maneuvering. Framing him for some crime, for example. No, they went head-on.
Next, I thought they were mobilizing a whole (dark) guild, which would include at least a few individuals on the level of a normal S-rank adventurer. You know, those people who Malph know can level a whole city. He doesn't know that Cain's strength goes way beyond that, but he knows that he's fighting at least this level of power. Still, he chose a direct confrontation. Without anyone comparable on his side. Just quantity over quality in a world where this kind of thinking is so obviously ineffective. It didn't even seem like there was an A-rank equivalent in this crowd.
I wanted to see how it turns out later when we're past those puny political intrigues that the author is clearly not able to write, but this shows that the villains here are hopelessly too dumb to live. So dumb in fact that they should have perished way before Cain even entered the picture.
But that's enough for me. I'm not even remotely interested in this story anymore.
