Another reviewer summed up is great, but I will add a little to this. He is pretending to be a old man, but based on his race. He’s is only in his 30’s and to other races like full elves, he is a teenager and has zero rights to be the way he is. He is NOT the big dog in the land, the author already pointed out other Gold adventurers that are HUMAN and doing the same job at a 10th of the time this lazy jerk has.
He is truly selfish and he does fall truly in the Gary Stew category.
“”Old crotchety “get off my lawn!” wizard retires from adventuring to live in a wizard tower he builds away from government and people. This is the story of his retirement, from landscaping, to enslaving bandits to do the heavy lifting, to teaching two uninteresting pupils, and on and on, but you don’t actually care about any of them. At hour 7, there are no stakes…no suspense…no backstory…no reason to care at all. If somebody comes to disturb his retirement, then what? He’s lived for 200+ years and he forgets to turn off runes or defensive arrays that nuke people’s heads entering/leaving the property? Oops. Should probably fix that. “”