Enjoying this so far but the 'puppeteer' part of this comment made me think:
lmfao fucckkkkkk another chapter where I have to wait to see his true skills as a puppeteer lmao ugh
What if it there was an abandoned by party but it's revealed that the banished planned it all later in the story because of some miniscule argument they had at the start of their party to make himself the victim and lower the prestige of the former party
basically i want more sociopath mcs who are no strangers to just doing what they feel like. There's just something about unapologetic 'evil' sometimes
tho i guess that kind of like the greatest talker(though he prolly would have stayed with his party had the remained competent enough).