The current empress is a young woman that are trying to abolish status discrimination, corruption and a fixed whole lot of other sh*t the emperor before her left behind. Unfortunately the Noble disagree (except some kindhearted people) because they can't bear to have the same status as the lowly commoner and don't want to let go of their power. So they rebel against the empress and do whatever they want. This then gave birth to multiple "protagonist" that think they are the chosen one and the world resolved around them.

The Empress is not entirely useless though because she is not only managing the rebel and corruption but also other empire/kingdom/republic/secret force from invading the empire. So she can't just wantonly sent the entire army to anhiliate the rebel. On the other side, because the Empress cannot solve the current rebels and corruption yet, the people at the bottom suffered because most of these corruption comes from the tops. Commoners can't do sh*t except lay low and do their best to not cross path with Noble in fear of angering them.

John Ouzos is a chubby Otaku that are very much the perfect target for "protagonist" to release their anger at. He is a survivor of a mercenary band and have high level combat experience. His family is retired due to high ranking Noble scheme and they end up with million of debt which force John to work as mercenary. The reason why John act as a coward when he is strong enough to prevent it is simply because it not worth it to retaliate. That is simply the reason, it is the most efficient and effective ways for him to survive. John even state multiple times why he simply let people to belittle or walk all over him in the novel. One of them is because they are Nobles and have power to do whatever they want. Secondly, because John is consider ugly and a commoner. So even if John goes to complain about it, it's probably gonna get sweep under the rug or worst case get John killed for whatever reason the Noble said.

As of the current volumes, I can conclude 2 romantic interest which is Fialka (John mercenary junior and a Noblewoman) and Nosweil (one of John classmate that survive the mercenary band and work as a racing pilot). From now on is just my guess but there won't be any romance until the Empress successfully fixed the empire as a whole. Once the discrimination against status and appearance are gone, only then can the women confidently pursue John without any backlash. If you're asking why the women would pursue John and not the other way round, it's because John is attractive enough for them. Considering the current pace, maybe we will get that in volume 10+.

The super ships ruin the story. Author might as well have just made them the MC. I wanted to like this story but the super ships just ruin any build up with how OP they are. I immediately want to skip any parts involving super ships and just see the results. Worst characters in the whole series. They make every other character feel irrelevant. They are also unlikable. Why make an unlikeable character who barely plays a part in the majority of the story just come into major or actually significant battles and solves everything? Author tries to make interesting or introduce strong characters but these super ships just.... idk they were a mistake.