I don’t think he became a damsel in distress though . The people he’s dealing with now are on a completely different level than before. He’s up against people like Ilay, Rahman, Xinlu… literally monsters and Taeui was never the type to solve everything with brute force anyway. His biggest strength has always been adapting to whatever situation he’s thrown into. The manhwa just doesn’t show his thought process as well as the novel does, so he ends up looking way more passive than he actually is.

they transformed Taeui in such a loser… he keeps gettin swayed by everyone, it wasn’t like this before. i hate the “save the poor damsel in distress” plot i swear to god.