Yeah I couldn't agree more, with Redbeanbunny. For all this author's heavy world building and political themes, which I really do enjoy seeing in a fantasy setting, he can't write people so nothing anyone does seems particularly convincing. Their motivations feel really cardboard-like, and they just move across the board the because the author placed them there, as it was necessary for the plot.
Contrast this with something like One Piece, of all things, where you might have a nation besieged by another nation or by the World Government, but they start that incredibly heavy and complex story with a poor farmer or seemingly inconsequential fellow with a funny laugh giving Luffy a sandwich and slowly confiding in him about dark shit being afoot. By the end of it, you really care about this random dude, and you're invested in the woes of the people, so when the battle heats up and people are having their lives ruined by war, you actually give a shit. When you find out that he used to be like the King or someone equally important, as a reader, you're ready to go to bat for this whole nation, because they've wormed their way into your heart.
Here, we don't really know anyone and couldn't really care less about this town because, guess what, we don't even know anything about the people who live there. We never *met* them, and we were never properly invested in their lives. Obviously a top tier manga like that is a super high bar to pass, so I don't expect them to do so, but this... this is going south in a million ways.
To begin with, monthly manga like this rarely stand a chance, because we've forgotten everything by the time another one finally rolls around. Secondly, while as readers we might have a goldfish's attention span and get bored easily, its worth the risk to take things slow and take the time to introduce us to everyone and properly build up to a climax. Its a risk you have to take with serialized comics, where people will drop a series at the smallest and most pointless provocation, because at least in a book, they're going to see it through to the end.