An Old Man from the Countryside Becomes a Swords Saint: I Was Just a Rural Sword Teacher, But My Successful Students Won’t Leave Me Alone! Chapter 15 Discussion

I read up to c15 before skipping ahead to read 72 through 75 to see if it improved. It did not. Don't bother reading this unless you are utterly obsessed with fantasy harem LNs.

This is just another LN with an extremely dense and passive boy being constantly praised by several beautiful and powerful childhood friends. I know he is supposed to be a full-grown man, but he's not. Technically the childhood friends are students but since nobody has a real personality or backstory, you can imagine that the MC is a teenager or 20-something and the harem candidates are childhood friends he separated from and the story will still work. It actually makes the MC more tolerable that way. Because the MC is supposed to be a genius sword master with little to no knowledge of things outside his village. Also he is socially awkward. Also seems to have no experience with being romantically involved with a woman. Also the current story is about him starting a new life in the capital after being kicked out of his parents' house. And yet somehow I am supposed to believe that he is a 40 year old man. Basically the author wrote that MC is 40 either to justify the MC being interested in women but weirdly passive or as part of his own fetish. Either way, the MC talks and acts like a young man, but tired. That's the best way I can describe it.

To make matters worse, the MC's humble belief that he is a mediocre swordsman gets annoying pretty quickly. It would have been neat as a learning opportunity, "MC is strongest in his village but thinks that others are stronger in the city. Only to find that he is the strongest in the city too." Unfortunately he never has that realization. Even 70 chapters later he is still saying how average he is. Even though he interacts with the strongest knights in the country every day and is clearly a better swordsman, to the point that he is their teacher. Ultimately it comes back to what I said before. This is the same fantasy LN you have read a hundred times before. Some kid with weirdly low self esteem is surrounded by ridiculously attractive women who worship the ground he walks on. The author tried to make it sound different by saying he is 40 but didn't bother to change anything else. Didn't even bother to make the "man" act like he is actually 40.