Have to say, I am just enjoying this series.
The little things about it because of the "rationality" at play just make it so nice.
Like, it isn't being treated as "the worst thing in the world that my party abandoned me".
Noel is a 16 year old C-rank in relatively good standing with his peers. His future isn't ruined, like he said, parties split up, it happens.
Lightning Bite in general are just some good pals too. It just further shows how most experienced adventurers perceive him, rather than the story just telling us 'well, Noel did a kind of fucked up thing, but nobody thinks too harshly about him' like a lot of other similar series do. Or people at the bar just going like 'yo, if you lie about being a super adventurer, we are going to tell you to put your money where your mouth is on general principle', rather than some general asshole doing dumb asshole things. Still a tiny bit of that here, but also, like, it's the little things, all right?
My only gripe so far is that I just dislike equating 'rationality' with 'cruelty'. Like, he could have been more empathetic with his team mate that left. His brutal honesty could have had more tact, someone he considers his friend is having a pretty rough time, brutal honesty in that moment isn't really the right call. Cutting off ears is also, just, a weird step too far for me. It's a fairly common problem in writing though, and overall the writing of the series so far is good enough that I don't consider it to be really that big of a deal for the story.