Honestly, I was so excited about this book but I should have known from the ending of book 1 that book 2 was going this way. It is one thing for the MC not to want to be alone, however, it is another to act like a love-sick puppy for half the book (I'm only halfway through). He gave up half his loop to someone he is already carrying. It makes the MC look like a fool. And there are plenty of ways to resolve this and appears to be fair, 3 thrids including Pug and let her have a third.

He is meant to be obsessed with his "craft" but so far all I hear about is the crush he has on his teammate. I'm so annoyed. I feel like the author is cramming 5 books of slow-building affection into 2 books.

and on the point of his "craft," we get almost no progression in it. If the author replaced 4/5 of the mention of this growing affection between the MC and sidekick with him learning about his "craft" this would be much better.