Nick's a light warrior who, after he finds evidence another member of his adventuring party stole from them, is kicked out by the leader of said party. The leader's reasoning is, he raised and trained Nick, but Nick's grown to the point his values no longer align with the group's, so Nick needs to find his own place. Then Nick's girlfriend breaks up with him, because she was really only using him. In a depressive funk, he throws himself into worshiping an idol (which are like pop stars, I guess? I've never understood the "idol" thing) and soon exhausts all his money. He needs to join a new party, but how can he, after his trust was abused so badly?
Well, he can meet three other people, also drinking away their sorrows after having their trust abused. Each of them is also broke due to their vices. Gambling for Tiana the mage, women for Zem the excommunicated cleric, food for Karan the swordswoman. Nick proposes forming a party based specifically around not trusting each other. They'll only interact enough to clean out dungeons and collect things to sell, divide the money, then go their separate ways, free to blow their shares on whatever they choose. He even devises a plan where all of them are involved in guarding the money, so no one can cheat each other.
Obviously, this is not tenable for combat. They have to trust each other enough to describe their skills and weaknesses, or they won't be able to make a strategy. That sharing bleeds into other interactions. Tiana drags Nick with her to a casino. Nick teaches Karan math, because otherwise she won't be able to tell if the others are swindling her.
The arc is, at some point, they'll learn to trust each other fully, and that will make them invincible, as all of them turn out to be exceptional in their fields. Nick's former leader was the supposed greatest fighter in the world, and if Nick doesn't have the build for heavy weapons, he's probably the best around with a dagger. Karan is a dragonian, and carries the fabled enchanted broadsword of her people. Tiana knows multiple forms of elemental magic, and Zem has all kinds of spells to heal or buff the others' abilities.
They're eventually sent to investigate some ruins, looking for a magic weapon, the Sword of Bonds. Which turns out to be a sentient weapon that can essentially fuse those whose hearts are in tune and make a new warrior, one exponentially stronger. Except it's never worked between more than 3 people, and they were triplets. But the sword is certain there must be adventurers out there with that sort of trust and connection! Hint, hint.
The "Survivors" as they call themselves, don't really want the sword, but it gets them out of the ruins alive, so they agree to keep it. Just in case.
I bought the first 5 volumes before I stopped, though I think it's only gotten as far as volume 6 (the light novels it's based on may be further along.) The 5th volume gave Nick a chance for some payback against his ex-girlfriend and her party, where he not only beats her tiger-man boyfriend in a fistfight/math quiz, but the "Survivors", as they dubbed themselves, expose the Iron Tigers as cheaters and get them arrested. Then the back cover of the 6th volume said the Iron Tigers were coming back for revenge. They just got rid of them! How are they back already!? Are prisons in this world as porous as Arkham Asylum?
Mostly, the direction the series focused wasn't really doing it for me. It felt heavily centered on Nick, and to a lesser extent Karan. Not unreasonable since Nick's the most experienced adventurer, the one who suggests forming a party, the one who keeps putting himself out there in an effort to get them to work together and trust him. And Karan was left to die in the lowest level of a dungeon by her previous party because she was too naive to recognize they were using her, so her trust issues are the most severe. But the idea is the 4 of them growing to know and trust each other, and the series hadn't done anything with Zem - dude was basically a healing lamp who likes to hit nightclubs - and was just barely starting to dig into Tiana's backstory.
Maybe that's a reasonable pace if the series expected to go 15, 20, whatever volumes, but I didn't really feel like hanging on long enough for it to get there.
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