Character list for "I...Don't Want to Work Anymore" I Quit Being An Adventurer. Even if You Treat Me Better Now, I Won't Do IT! I Will NEVER Work Again. Spoilers may be unmarked.
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Protagonist
Aix
After five years in that sweatshop, FREEDOM!
A nineteen year old who was exploited by the corrupt adventurer's guild guild master. The guild master's final act of cruelty, destroying Aix's guild card, in public, finally gave Aix a legal mechanism to break free of the slave-like conditions, to the guild master's and receptionist's horror. But too late, he's not coming back, no matter how sweet an offer they make.- Almighty Janitor: Aix may only be able to cast the most basic magics, but he can extend their duration far past what any other magician could dream of. He's also been shouldering all the grunt work given to the guild for years, so when he quits the guild basically implodes in short order.
- Breaking Speech: When the guild master and the butt-kissing receptionist darken the door to his hotel room and refuse to leave, on hands and knees begging him to come back, promising an A-rank title if he does, he pointedly tells them that to him, Guild ranks are worth less than toilet paper, and if they don't leave him alone, he'll just pack up and leave town.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: In spite of his stance to "never work again," he just can't turn his back on people who genuinely need his aid. He will happily tell people who want to abuse or exploit him to go away, and even make threats when need be, but the poor, downtrodden, and helpless can always count on him for succor.
- Classical Anti-Hero: Thanks to suffering quietly slave-like conditions for five grueling years, his confidence and self-esteem are pretty much shot. Realizing that "no" is a complete sentence and actively refusing to be exploited are major victories in his mind.
- Extreme Doormat: For five years the guild exploited the hell out of him with slave-like conditions that he was legally bound to comply with. It's only because the guild-master got butt-hurt that Aix missed his monthly so-called Rousing Speech, as a result of collapsing from exhaustion, prompting the Guild Master to maliciously destroy his guild card in public and then ordered him to beg to be left with the lowest rank that gave Aix the legal mechanism to quit and tell the guild to STFU!
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: Although he can only cast Novice-level magic, his Extension skill is very useful. Besides the various utility applications, when fighting monsters he can make a simple fireball burn continuously until his target is ashes, with the monster helpless to extinguish the flames.
- Karmic Jackpot: After he quit the adventurer's guild, karma pays very close attention to how people treat him. Those who treat him well tend to have nice things happen to them. Those who treat him poorly have their comeuppance hit them like a truck, and right away.
- Mundane Luxury: He was so overworked and underpaid, that having the time to actually sit down and eat a real lunch of barbeque skewers from a street-side stall is a delicacy to him.
- Only Friend: Thanks to her agoraphobia, Aix is the only human friend Luca can have.
- Properly Paranoid: He's right to refuse to go back to the adventurer's guild in return for a high rank and right to stubbornly refuse the viscount's demand to make those 200 tubes. In the former case, there would have been nothing to stop the guild master from just arbitrarily lowering his rank again the instant it's convenient. In the latter case, if Aix agrees to do anything for the entitled sot, the viscount would have just found a new outrageous demand to saddle Aix with, and he'd clearly double down if Aix refused for any reason.
- Rage Breaking Point: After suffering in silence for five years under the cruelty of the corrupt adventurer's guild, the instant the guild master snaps his card in half for giggles, he outwardly accepts the guild master's sarcastic "advice" to quit, if he won't beg to be reinstated as an F-rank, a three-step decrease, but in his mind, he's seething with well-justified rage towards the asshat, saying "enough is enough."
- Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training: Inverted. He traded the ability to cast arch-mage level spells for the special ability "Extension," which allows his "basic" spells and cantrips to last for a full month, as opposed to the seconds or minutes they normally last. Some of his cantrips even last a full year, provided that's not a translation error.
- Seven Heavenly Virtues:
- Charity: He helps a poor little cat-girl orphan get medicine for her sick "older sister," when he doesn't have enough money for himself.
- Chastity: He's 19 and has several female interests, but he never makes unwelcome advances.
- Diligence: He states that he "doesn't want to work again" but that's just he doesn't want to be exploited again. If the need is legit, or he's responding to an act of kindness with gratitude, he won't quit until the work is done.
- Kindness: He's a total sweetheart until he's given reason not to be, but he can be particularly cruel to monsters and exploitive assholes.
- Patience: He endured five years of slave-like conditions until he was given the opportunity to quit and then grabbed it with both hands.
- Temperance: Three meals a day and a soft bed are luxuries to him, due to how deprived his life has been.
- Take This Job and Shove It: It's a major plot point that Aix's job as the adventurer's guild flunky absolutely sucked, but he trudged along in silence because he had no options, and was more or less legally enslaved to the corrupt and highly dismissive organization, with no recourse, at all. When the insufferable, arrogant, entitled, and highly corrupt, yet strangely self-righteous guild master snapped his guild card, his official ID, mind, in half and threw a considerably lower-ranked card at the floor, along with an unwarranted insult towards his capabilities, he jumped at the opportunity to politely tell the dismissive guild staff to go to hell, and in Tranquil Fury demanded the butt-kissing receptionist to make his mandatory quests public when she refused to process his quitting procedure if he refused to complete them. Then when he's completed the quests and has absolutely no further obligation to put up with the guild, cheers in elation at finally having his freedom back, even if he has no long-term prospects, at all.
- Trauma Button: Thanks to the toxic work environment he was forced to endure in the adventurer's guild, he has come to equate "work" with "exploitation". So, asking him to work for you will trigger a nervous breakdown, even if he very much likes you as a person.
- Triple Shifter: Heavily implied about his five years working for the adventurer's guild as part of their exploitative practices. In the manga, he muses on how good it is to get more than 3 hours of sleep.
Allies
Luca
Aix, you never came. You cheater.
Aix's best friend and the owner of a tailoring business, staffed by her puppets controlled with her puppetry magic. She suffers from extreme androphobia as a result of getting said magic and only Aix can get close to her without triggering a panic attack.- Blessed with Suck: Having an army of puppets to do your bidding sounds awesome, but they're all literally brainless dolls who can't grasp such simple concepts as getting the mail, or working with string, unless Aix individually boosts each and every one of them with buff magic to improve their stats.
- Cannot Spit It Out: It's pretty obvious that she is at least romantically attracted to Aix, but her intense social anxiety stops her from admitting it to him.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: She looks underage, despite being 19 like Aix, and dresses like a gothic lolita to demonstrate that she can use magic.
- Marionette Master: Her magic allows her to animate a bunch of stuffed animals to do her tailoring work.
- No Social Skills: The downside to her magical bargain leaves her with crippling androphobia, and the only people she interacts with socially are Aix and Crazy Bear.
- Ship Tease: She and Aix are so adorable together that many people, on both sides of the fourth wall, wonder if they're a couple.
- Shrinking Violet: Exaggerated. Thanks to being magically inflicted with androphobia in exchange for her puppetry magic, she's terrified of all human contact except for Aix. Why he's the exemption is never explained. It is subtly implied that Aix may have just been so dedicated to being friendly to her that she eventually got used to his presence.
Crazy Bear
Good job, partner. Turning down those scum at the adventurer's guild!
Luca's top puppet. He (identifies as male despite having no gender) became self-aware one day after repeatedly receiving stat buffs from Aix.- Animate Inanimate Object: He's a teddy bear given life by Luca's magic.
- Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: As a result of getting Aix's buffs for an extended period of time, he became self-aware and sapient.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He lambastes the receptionist when she tries, and fails, to recruit Aix back to the guild the instant things fall apart because of the way the corrupt guild master has been exploiting and abusing Aix.
- Servile Snarker: He serves Luca and Aix faithfully but that doesn't mean he won't call them out when they do something he doesn't like.
Townsfolk
Viscount Radleigh
You dare turn down my "request" to make 100 cold-air tubes?! YOU WILL MAKE ME 200!! AND IT'S A NOMINATED QUEST, DON'T YOU DARE DECLINE!!!
The lord of the town where Aix lives and one of the three last "clients" Aix had to complete a quest for. He's arrogant, entitled, and egotistical to the extreme, always making outrageous demands and blowing his stack if they're not complied with. His response to Aix restocking the magic tools in his mansion and providing the portable "cold air" device he originally asked for is to order Aix make 100 more on the spot, and when Aix refused, seeing as he had neither the time, materials, nor the obligation, blew his stack and literally doubled down, ordering 200, at which point he learned that Aix had already quit from the adventurer's guild, and had no intention of ever complying, nor could the adventurer guild compel him. He's so entitled that he still thought Aix would do it anyway, and started passing off Aix's creation as his own, promising to distribute those 200 cylinders. It takes royalty coming down on his head to make him realize he's overstepped his bounds.- Aristocrats Are Evil: He's a viscount and he's so entitled and arrogant, he'd fit right in as a Warner Brothers cartoon villain.
- Despair Gambit: He puts pressure not just on the adventurer's guild, but on all the workplaces in town to keep from hiring Aix, hoping to break the boy's will and force him to come back to the mansion on hands and knees, begging for work to pay the bills.
- Entitled Bastard: He is so entitled that he's always making outrageous demands and expects them complied with. He once threatened Aix with a sword when the guy refused the unreasonable demand of 100 cold air tubes, and then literally doubled down and demanded 200 "as leniency", planning to make it a mandatory quest for Aix, by name. Even after learning Aix has no legal obligation to do so, he still promises to distribute those 200 tubes as if he's already got them in hand, and starts to panic, willing to resort to honey traps, blackmail, and kidnapping to try and get Aix to comply as the deadline of his own funeral starts drawing closer.
- Glad I Thought of It: He takes credit for Aix's cooling tube by claiming it was originally his idea, but he commissioned Aix make a prototype.
- Mistaken for Pedophile: Thanks to an unlikely but plausible set of coincidences and his own arrogance, he winds up accidentally admitting to exploiting little girls sexually when he doesn't actually do so. An enraged Aix and his own household staff spread the word of his own foolish confession and the circumstances surrounding it...
- Moral Myopia: He's an entitled twit who is always making outrageous demands, but he thinks Aix is "selfish and conceited" because he refuses to be worked to death trying to keep up with them.
- Open Mouth, Insert Foot: He and his butler Yesman collude with a crime boss from the slums to try using a honey trap ploy on Aix, which coincidentally is where the cat-girl who needs medicine for her elder sister lives. The cat-girl goes to Aix, at the prompting of the crime-boss, on the promise that the elder sister will get the medicine she needs if she can convince Aix to head to the viscount's mansion to work on those tubes he wants. Enraged Aix marches over to the mansion and tells the butler Yesman that he and his boss are unforgivable scum for forcing a child into a honey trap scheme holding the life of her elder sister hostage. The viscount and Yesman were innocent, as that's something the crime boss decided on his own. Unfortunately, the viscount "pleads guilty" by proclaiming "So, my honey trap ploy worked, huh?" the instant he saw Aix in the foyer. Now he's got a reputation of being someone who exploits little girls...
- Rash Promise: He promises his fellow nobles and the royal family that he can produce 200 cold air tubes despite the fact that he does not have them or any way to make them without the cooperation of the one person who adamantly refuses to cooperate.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Since he's both a viscount and the lord of the town, he thinks the law is what he says it is, and goes apoplectic when he's told this is not so.
- Too Dumb to Live: Due to his arrogance and entitled attitude as a noble, the viscount doesn't realize until it's far too late, just how much hot water he's in. Demanding 200 cool air tubes from Aix when Aix is not legally obligated to do so. Promising said 200 cool air tubes for distribution when he doesn't have them. Aix is no longer there to keep his mansion's lights, freezers and water supplies going. And the final cherry to put on the karmic comeuppance sundae he's been making; having royalty deliver a "The Reason You Suck" Speech smackdown on him to show just how far he's stepped out of bounds, concerning Aix.
Butler Yesman
That guild master... HE DID IT AGAIN! INCREASE HIS SENTENCE!
The head butler of the viscount's estate. As his name suggests, he is a total yes-man who enables the viscount's entitled mindset by always proclaiming the guy is correct, even when he knows the viscount is being entirely unreasonable and unrealistic. He repeatedly tries to rope Aix into making those 200 cylinders by hook or crook, no matter what it takes.- At Least I Admit It: Contrary to everyone else who tries to exploit Aix, he is, at least internally, willing to admit that doing so is a crappy thing to do and Aix is right to hate him and his boss.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He can't bring himself to understand why Aix would continuously refuse to bow and scrape for the viscount, despite being horribly exploited in the past, because Yesman himself is constantly sucking up to the viscount and gets paid well for the "privilege" of being the guy's butler and doing the guy's dirty work, proclaiming that if Aix does what the viscount says, he could be a butler himself one day. Aix pretty much tells him and his boss to go to hell.
- Mistaken for Pedophile: Thanks to an unlikely but plausible string of coincidences, Aix is convinced he and his boss, the viscount, would happily exploit little girls sexually. The viscount adds credence to this mindset by admitting that he set up a honey trap scheme to try and force Aix to work for him, not realizing Aix was complaining about a child apparently being used for that purpose. Oops.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: When he learns that the guild master tried to skip town after failing to recruit Aix to work for the viscount's latest demands, he puts the oaf in the mines as a crime slave, using the oaf's own illegal slave-binding ring, in lieu of a refund of the "finders' fee" the guild master demanded, and spent. When he later learns that the guild master lied, stole, and spent the advance payment he provided for Aix to make those tubes, he goes apoplectic and extends the guild master's sentence 1 year for every gold coin the guy stole, 10 years in the novel, 100 in the manga.
- Punchclock Villain: If his employer was anyone but the viscount, he'd likely be a decent person, but because he has to suck up to the arrogant aristocrat to save his own hide, he has to hold his nose and do a lot of very questionable things.
- Punny Name: His name is Yesman, and he's a total yes-man who lets the entitled viscount believe he's always in the right, even when it's plain as day that he's not.
- Wrong Assumption: He presumes that since Aix can only use "Novice" or "basic" magic that any other mage could easily replace him until the viscount's own Despair Gambit forces Aix back on hands and knees begging for work. It's only after an A-rank mage shatters the urn normally used by Aix to provide the mansion with water by putting in a low-yield [Water ball] with the extension perk that he realizes this assessment is wrong, but by then Aix is already permanently alienated by the Viscount's outrageous demands and the guild's abuse and pointedly refuses to return.
- Yes-Man: It is literally his name. The series could not have made it more obvious.
Ex guild master
Just because I'm a cheap bastard and feel like it, I'm marking down this quest as a failure! Is that okay with you? Of course it is!
The man who used to be the guild master of the adventurer's guild but retired to run a bar and restaurant. When he was guild master, he changed the rules to allow him to mark quests as failures whenever he wanted to avoid paying. This comes back to bite him when he arbitrarily decides to mark Aix as a failure just because the boy was held up by Viscount Radleigh and doing the forest patrol and almost faints "just for using novice magic" after Aix had been spell casting all day long and even fought monsters during his mandatory patrol.- Bad Boss: When he ran the guild, he loved to rubber-stamp "Failure" on quests when he was feeling stingy or power-tripping and actively changed the rules to avoid external audits or forcing "failing" quest takers to repeat their quests. In the present, he throws heavy objects at Aix to express displeasure.
- Everybody Calls Him "Barkeep": Literally. When he was guild master, everyone called him guild master. Now that he runs a bar, everyone calls him Ex-guild master or barkeep. His name is never mentioned.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: It was his very rules' change that made going after Aix impossible for "failing" the mandatory quest to restock his bar's freezer with ice-magic cantrips, his kitchen with fire-magic stones and so on.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: He was just as corrupt a guild master during his day as the current guild master is, but he managed to retire and set up a bar with his retirement savings without issue. He decides to screw over Aix on the guy's last day working for the adventurer's guild, abusing and deriding him every step of the way. Now his business is failing as the enchantments Aix provides are failing and Aix utterly refuses to set foot in the bar to be berated, so there's nobody that can turn the situation around, at least not without paying tons of money for a live-in enchanter that can keep casting the ice ball enchantment his freezer needs every few minutes, and mages aren't cheap.
"Auntie"
Oh, Aix. How about hanging out with my daughter, she's going to be quite endowed in the future.
The owner of the town's general store. She is fond of boob-jokes, actually advertising her slime shaped pillows as "feels just like boobs" (which naturally catches Aix's attention). She's very fond of shipping her daughter (even though she's half his age) off to him, and even has him do her a job without going through the guild in exchange for a reward of the "Slime pillow" Aix had his eyes on. She unwittingly trips his Trauma Button when she offers him a job, until she sees he has a nervous breakdown and then comforts him.- Boob-Based Gag: She's fond of making boob-related jokes, and teaches her innocent daughter to do the same, to Aix's consternation.
- Innocently Insensitive: She had no way of knowing just how abusive Aix's tenure was with the adventurer's guild, so innocently offers him a job at her establishment only to watch Aix go into a nervous breakdown, in horror. To her credit, she apologizes and comforts him, and so does her adorable daughter.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: When she notices that Aix loves the slime pillow, advertised as "feels like boobs", she gets him to do some chores for her in exchange for giving him one of them, for free.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: She only answers to "auntie" even from her own daughter. Her real name is never mentioned.
Lina
No fair, Auntie! Aix-nii is Lina's!
"Auntie's" daughter. She's an Adorably Precocious Child who suffers from precocious puberty and already has a rather impressive bust despite being only 10. Thanks to her mother teaching her all sorts of weird things, she makes offers to Aix that could be considered sexually-charged without realizing what she's doing.- Adorably Precocious Child: She thinks she's a grown-up despite being only 10, and she's as cute as a button for it.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: As taught to her by her mother, her biggest selling point is her generous bust.
- Comically Missing the Point: When Aix points out that she shouldn't be using such a sexually suggestive line (without telling her it's sexually suggestive) as what she's saying in the page image, before she's interrupted, until she grows up (meaning older and more aware of what she's doing), she looks at her own chest and retorts "but I'm already pretty big." Aix can only look back at "Auntie" who is doing the whole "tee-hee" pose and scowl.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: Downplayed as much as possible. She is clearly not trying to be titivating, since she wears a very modest uniform and is only 10, but she makes comments that could easily be interpreted as sexually charged like "in return you can do whatever you want with m—" and groping her own breasts, no idea the message she's actually sending.
Urucal. King of the Slums
If Aix won't come willingly, why not kidnap him?
One of the local crime bosses. Through means unknown, he comes into contact with Viscount Radleigh and proposes kidnapping Aix so the viscount can pressure him into making those tubes. Yesman protests, so the viscount comes up with honey trapping Aix instead, which is clearly not Urucal's specialty.- The Magnificent: "King of the Slums" is his title but he's clearly not royalty.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Using a hostage situation to get a certain cat girl who knows Aix involved in luring the protagonist to the viscount's mansion makes Aix aware of the sick girl's needs, allowing Aix to fix the situation.
- Only in It for the Money:
- In the novel version of events, he abandons the viscount in exchange for serving as the steward of a royal after trying, and failing, to kidnap Aix. Downplayed in that the royal was in the attempt's collateral damage and offered him the job... or death.
- When he is hired to track down Aix for 1 gold coin, Amin counter-offers 5 gold coins to leave Aix alone. He takes the offer so quickly it invokes Mood Whiplash.
- Pet the Dog: He promises the cat-girl who is looking for cold medicine for her step sister the medicine she needs just for talking to Aix with no strings attached. Unfortunately, this comes right at the tail end of a honey trap ploy so there were... misunderstandings, but he came through on his promise and the little girl got better.
- Shame If Something Happened: Is not above threatening this, even if it's ambiguous over whether he'd have followed through.
- Stupid Evil: He suggests kidnapping after being informed Aix is a mage and he's wanted for his magical abilities. Sure, he suggests locking Aix up away in a cell until he submits, but how was he expecting Aix to not rebel and attempt escape the instant it became possible?
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: His default response to any problem is kidnapping and strong-arm tactics, as that's really all he knows.
Sarah
I don't have any money, so I will pay you with my (hit)
A random researcher Aix helps with buff magic one day as she was stumbling about. She later runs into a witch of prophecy who gives her a dire warning about her research into magic barriers and immediately hunts down Aix again because this prophecy is in regards to his buff magic, spelling disaster if she doesn't get it.- For Science!: She studies barrier magic just for the sake of it.
- Revenge: Discussed. She is extremely passionate about her sorcery research because she wants revenge on unstated act or acts that wronged her somehow.
- Sex for Services: When she winds up in a bidding war with Maria Ion over Aix's status buff magic, she pointedly offers herself up for sex. Even after Aix buffs her up, out of good will, she starts disrobing in front of him. He smacks her upside the head and says she can pay him with gold later, once she's completed her important research.
- Unkempt Beauty: She's very attractive, but because she neglects her hygiene in exchange for more time on research, she tends to look like a bale of hay shot out of a cannon more often than not.
Nitra
A cat-girl orphan that first meets Aix on the day he's finally free from the toxic adventurer's guild and actually has enough time to sit down and eat a real meal, rather than a pouch of nutritional supplements called "slime food." Aix sees her with a Growling Gut and feeds her a beef skewer despite not having enough for himself. She becomes attached to him as a result.
- Cat Girl: She's got cat ears atop her head and sports a cat's tail.
- Conveniently an Orphan: She's an orphan from the slums and that's how Lia is her "big sister."
- The Cutie: Everybody, even the crime boss Urucal, finds her absolutely adorable.
- Licked by the Dog: One of Aix's best "healing" moments is having her show up and give him gratitude by purring, rubbing up against him, or even falling asleep in his lap when he's sitting down and is less than aware of his surroundings.
Lia
First appears as one of the girl candidates in Urucal's "Honey Trap" ploy, but was too ill to play the part. She's actually the older sister of Nitra, the cat-girl orphan.
- Curse: She suffered, not from a cold, but from an ailment called "Farah's curse." Aix paid to cure her from his own money, and she calls him "Master" as a result, regardless of his intent.
- Delicate and Sickly: She was introduced "with a cold" but was actually a debilitating curse. Fortunately, Aix manages to cure her.
- I Owe You My Life: She dresses up like a maid and calls Aix "Master" in return for curing her of "Farah's curse" and in the novel, actually moves in to his house (when he gets one) to maintain the place as a live-in maid for him, of her own volition.
Adventurer's Guild.
Guild Master
Grit. Oi. Defect Mage. Explain why you were absent without permission. (Looks at Aix ragged and clearly exhausted from overwork).
The current guild master. He treated Aix as a borderline slave for at least 5 years, selling Aix's services via mandatory nominated quests at B-rank prices (since Aix is a mage) but paying Aix E-rank rate, if that because he broke the law and held Aix at E-rank. He kicks the dog one last time by publicly destroying Aix's guild card, in public, for daring to miss his self-aggrandizing supposed Rousing Speech that he holds once a month, out of sheer exhaustion at being worked over 24 hours straight the night before. This turns out to be one of the biggest mistakes he ever makes as the town's infrastructure, as well as the guild's is entirely dependent on Aix's "Novice Magic" buffs that only he can do, thanks to trading in his intermediate, advanced, and archamge level magics for his "extension" perk. His days of decadence quickly come to an end as a result.- Adaptational Sympathy: In the original novel, he only stole 11 gold coins from Yesman when he promised to bring Aix to the service of Viscount Radleigh and tried to run, and was shipped off to the mines by Yesman for 11 years as a result. The sentence grew to 105 years as a result of being used as a whipping boy by the viscount whenever the viscount's plans blew up. In the manga, he stole 105 gold with his empty promises and got the 105-year sentence as a result of that.
- Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: Downplayed. In the novel version, the reason he wasn't electrocuted to death when he tried to climb over an electric fence is that a random goblin came along and got itself killed trying to come at him. In the manga, when he starts getting shocked, the scene cuts to black and he wakes up in prison, staring at an enraged Yesman.
- Bad Boss: For Aix certainly. The way he treated the boy is borderline slavery via abusing his ability as guild master to force members into mandatory quests to dump chores on Aix with laughable "rewards."
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: There is no law he would not break in order to enrich himself. He embezzled money from Aix's just rewards by breaking the law and holding Aix as a member at a lower rank than he should have been while billing clients at the rate an adventurer of his status should be. He keeps and spends the advance money Yesman pays him for Aix's services and offers Aix payment from what should have been the guild master's commission, if that. He illegally buys a ring with enslavement magic to try and force Aix into his service, but fails to notice that if he actually used it, Aix would lose the very ability that makes him valuable. Lastly, when Aix tells him and receptionist Butt-kisser to take a hike, he cleans out the guild's coffers and makes a break for it, and he might have even managed to escape if he hadn't stupidly come to the conclusion that the electric fence Aix set up to deter monsters "only works on monsters and not 'good' people like me", grabbing the fence with bare hands to climb over it, getting electrocuted in the process.
- Did Not Think This Through: He mocks Aix derisively by asking "Don't you think you're not ready to be an adventurer?" shortly before breaking his guild card and then throwing a card with the lowest rank to the ground, ordering Aix to beg to be reinstated as the lowest possible rank. He's surprised that abused and exploited for the last five years, Aix quits on the spot.
- Everybody Calls Him "Barkeep": Like the former guild master, everybody just calls him "Guild Master." His real name is never mentioned in the manga, and good luck finding it in the novel, as it's mentioned once in passing as he's arrested and never again.
- Failed a Spot Check: Several notable cases.
- He had Aix's guild card in hand and it described Aix's unique ability "extension" and the fact that he sacrificed magic above "Novice" magic to get it. This should have clued him in that "extension" is something special, but instead, he just presumed that since Aix can only use novice magic, he's an easily replaceable chump.
- When he bought the ring of slavery, he didn't really pay close attention to the description until he was raring to use it. The description says that part of the enslaving process is that all magical abilities are reduced by one rank. Had he actually used the ring, Aix would have lost the ability to use magic altogether, and the ring doesn't specify if this effect is temporary or permanent.
- Fatal Flaw:
- Greed: he works Aix like a slave for years, taking Aix's hard-earned rewards for himself, and then gets in deep trouble for embezzling the money that Yesman gave him to hire Aix.
- Lack of Foresight: he decides to get back at Aix for being late to a meeting because he overworked him to the point of passing out by trying to make him beg to be reinstated as the lowest rank, and is totally surprised when Aix instead takes the chance to get the heck out of dodge, buys a slavery ring item without reading the description, as its side effects make it totally useless for using it on Aix like he'd planned, and takes the money Yesman gave him to hire Aix without Aix ever seeing it, tries to hire him anyway with a false apology instead of fleeing right away, and when he does flee he stupidly touches a magical fence because he thinks that it only works on monsters, which nearly kills him.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Yesman uses his own slavery magic imbued ring on him to enslave him and have him work in the mines, one year per gold coin he stole from Yesman. This results in 11 years of slavery in the novel, 105 in the manga.
- For Want Of A Nail: In the novel, it's spelled out that if he had run off the instant he conned Yesman into giving him cash for recruiting Aix that he never, ever intended Aix to have, instead of going and spending it, and then trying to flee after trying and failing to recruit Aix with lies, half-truths, insincere apologies, and sweet-sounding offers, he would have very likely gotten away with it. Instead, because he's Too Dumb to Live, he spends the money, tries to flee with the guild's treasury, and zaps himself with an electric fence.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: He got away with abusing and exploiting Aix for five long and hard years. Once Aix is out of his clutches, everything falls apart for him, and he winds up learning how it feels to be a slave as he's forced to Work Off the Debt in a mine.
- Moral Myopia: He embezzles money by illegally abusing Aix's rank and was caught red-handed trying to steal all the valuables in the Guild vault as he tries to flee town, but he thinks Aix is the "selfish and greedy bastard" because Aix doesn't want to be worked to death for loose change.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: By ripping apart Aix' guild card, he gives Aix the opening he needs to free himself of the slave-like conditions he was put through.
- Ordered Apology: He first sends his butt-kissing receptionist to try and recruit Aix back to the guild. She gets rebuffed by Crazy Bear, who spells out how the guild broke the law by keeping Aix at E-rank and exploited him, telling her that if the guild really wanted him back, the guild master himself had better bring along a sincere apology to even have a chance. She runs back, and drags the guild master over by the scruff of the neck, telling him that since it is his fault, he needs to apologize. Having deluded himself into thinking he did nothing wrong, his apology is very insincere, until Aix tells them both to leave, or he'll call the town guard, at which point the apology is more earnest, with perhaps empty promises of a well-deserved and long overdue rank advancement. Aix responds by telling him the offer is worth less than toilet paper an telling them both to take a hike, or he'd leave town, never coming back.
- Removing the Crucial Teammate: Invoked. His act of cruelty, demanding an explanation for "unexcused absence" when he can see Aix is clearly haggard and exhausted, and then destroying the boy's guild card to then demand the guy beg to be reinstated at the lowest possible rank, reveling in having the guild members present all mock poor Aix too, results in Aix grabbing the opportunity to flee the toxic workplace at which he was forced to work for five long and grueling years, and gave him more than ample reason to never, ever want to come back. As a direct result, the town's and guild's infrastructure soon starts to unravel, as pretty much everyone was reliant on Aix's spells and cantrips keeping everything stable.
- Stealing from the Till: The Guild Master had long been artificially deflating Aix's adventurer rank by making him start over so he could charge clients for the work Aix did, pay Aix a pittance according to his official rank, and pocket the difference for himself. When Aix quits and categorically refuses to return at any price, this behavior catches up with him quick.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In the novel version of events, as he starts being electrocuted for grabbing the electric fence, he tries to let go, but the electric jolt passing through his body clamps down the muscles on his hand and he finds that he can't free himself. It's only because a goblin charged him from the other side of the fence and broke the circuit by coming into contact with the fence instead that the guild-master managed to survive to the next day, and the author wrote into the very work that the reader comments on the web-novel thought death was too good a punishment for the guild-master.
- Too Dumb to Live: The examples are numerous. He didn't even bother to look up the Extension property of Aix's Guild Card before destroying it. Thinking that Aix would beg to be reinstated as an F-Rank, instead of taking the opportunity to quit the highly-toxic workplace. Being called out as stupid by the receptionist, when he asked who he should apologize to. Not only does he spend Aix's advance payment before he even tries to recruit Aix, he tries to flee town by climbing over an electric fence that's clearly marked "Warning. Dangerous. Do! Not! Touch!," thinking that it only affects monsters, not "good" people like himself. Sure it's a magic electric fence, but electricity doesn't care if you see yourself as a good person or not. And finally, thinking he could withstand the five years of hard labor in the mines, not realizing that his sentence had been greatly extended. Did he truly think that Yesman wouldn't find out about spending the advance payment? He's a legit Darwin Awards At Risk Survivor.
The receptionist
Come back, Aix! If you do, I'll even let you go out with me!
Introduced in chapter 1, refusing to process Aix's resignation until he completed the three last remaining nominated quests in his name. Before he agrees, Aix has her read the terms of these "vaulted" quests aloud, especially the payment. All of the guild members pointedly stated they would have refused if given such terms themselves, although an unseen person states the quests are mandatory. She is a shameless butt-kisser who enabled the guild-master's abuse and has no problems sucking up to anyone to get her way.- Blatant Lies: She tries to stroke Aix's ego by claiming all the guild master's abuse and exploitation was just some kind of Secret Test and Aix was actually a valued employee. Aix never gets the opportunity to tell her to go screw herself because Crazy Bear jumps in and calls her out on it.
- Calling the Old Man Out: When all the guild members get a buff from a replacement mage after a "motivational speech" from the guild master, and it wears off in 10 minutes, the guild finally gets wise that the buff to their stats was due to Aix, not the self-serving speeches the guild master gave every month. As a result, they demand Aix be brought back. The receptionist, now with the full backing of the guild, demands the guild master go and apologize himself. When the guild master goes "apologize? To whom?" enraged, she grabs him by the lapel and yells out "Are you stupid?! To Aix-san! TO AIX-SAN! Please go apologize to Aix-san!"
- Honey Trap: Attempted and averted. She promises Aix the opportunity to ask her out if he returns to the guild. This does nothing to sway him to return, and he happily tells her and the guild master to take a hike.
- No Name Given: Her name is never mentioned.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: She is a completely shameless suck-up who has no issues stroking any ego she can for her own advancement.
- Puppy-Dog Eyes: A tactic she tries to guilt-trip Aix into accepting the three remaining quests. It pointedly doesn't work. He only accepted the quests because they were mandatory, but in exchange had her read out the contents, publicly.
- Twisting the Words: In the manga, when the guild master realizes things are starting to unravel because he gave Aix the opportunity to quit and Aix took it, he tells her to get Aix back by promising him a starting rank of B. When she speaks with Aix in his bedroom, she promises a starting C-rank with the opportunity to earn B rank after a month of service. Nobody is fooled.
Patts, leader of Zombies
Hey! The monster stones we've been collecting are gone! We've got to go beat up Aix so we can start leeching off him again!
The leader of the party calling themselves "Zombies." During the five years that Aix was treated like a slave by the guild-master, he and his party stole the credit for all of Aix's monster kills, collecting and turning in the monster stones as their own work. He is extremely dismissive towards Aix on the day the guy quit, basically saying "good riddance," even as the receptionist is reading out the contents and pay of the nominated quests Aix was forced to take, when he loudly protested Aix received an extraordinarily large number of nominated quests that normally pay substantially.- The Bully: When he meets Aix on the street, he would go out of the way to shove the guy down and demand an apology. When Aix wasn't having it anymore and demanded an apology for being shoved down instead, he goes for his sword, only to find it locked in its sheath by Aix's ice magic. He calls in the rest of his party to attack only to find the townsfolk now coming down on them. At this point, Aix honors the townsfolks' requests he's been refusing out of gratitude that he didn't have to kill the party in self-defense.
- Entitled Bastard: After Aix quit the guild, and his party had to do their own fighting for a change, he and his crew went to hunt down Aix to force him to let them ride his coat-tails again. The townspeople, who adore Aix, took exception to that and went full-tilt angry mob on their hides.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: Without being able to exploit Aix's work anymore, their party reputation and strength hit the gutter, one of their members went missing when they tried to scavenge after a false subjugation report came in from the forest rangers, the elf member soiled her pants in fear as the party fled, and Patts himself had to sell his vaulted sword "Ignition Blade" to pay his bills. Their dignity and prowess never recovered.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: For five years, they've been living off of Aix's hard work and mocking him as "defective fucker." Looking on at him with envy for getting an unusually large number of nominated quests, that were actually just power harassment. Shortly after Aix quits, they have to do their own fighting and quickly realize how good they had it when Aix had to just leave monster stones lying around that they could snatch up for themselves, and when they tried to pressure Aix to let them do that again, the townsfolk were up in arms, literally beating their arrogance out of them.
- Locked Out of the Loop: In the manga, he and his party were completely unaware that the monster stones his party were collecting from the forest like scavengers were the result of Aix's work, and like most in the guild, did not understand that Aix's buffs were the reason for their limitless energy and combat strength. This does not excuse his dismissive treatment of Aix because the instant he and his party figured it out, they went after the guy and tried to beat him into going back to being their exploited lackey. The townsfolk were not amused.
- Stealing the Credit: He and his party turned in all of Aix's kills as their own accomplishments because Aix was legally forbidden from collecting his own monster stones while on the patrol quests where he did said monster kills, and the special branch of the guild that kept track of the kill reports was disbanded.
Other Guild Members
- Abandon Ship: With the entire guild falling apart without Aix's buffs, a large number of the members have decided to either quit as adventurers or move to a better guild.
- Entertainingly Wrong: It was previously believed by most of the adventurers, that their enormous stamina and increased stats came from the monthly 'morale speech' of the Guildmaster, followed by a buffing from Aix. With Aix no longer at the guild a substitute member was used. However, she questioned why they needed to buff themselves when they were not in combat, and pointed out that the average buff spell would only last a few minutes. When her warning proved correct and the members realized just how much they depended on Aix's long-lasting buffs, they immediately began demanding for Aix's return. The ace Maria was especially distressed over Aix's absence as she couldn't replenish her mana stores with potions without throwing up.
- Removing the Crucial Teammate: The other guild members/adventurers laughed and ridiculed Aix when the Guild Master broke his card and ordered him to accept a lower rank. However, when it was realized that it was through Aix's long-term buffs that kept them going, the adventurers found themselves at severely low levels, and failing quests frequently. It isn't long before they begin demanding that Aix be reinstated.
Maria Ion
What?! Guild master, you forced Aix out! YOU HAVE TO GET HIM BACK!
The Ace of the guild, she's entirely dependent on Aix to use her magic properly without violently vomiting, as she's developed an allergic reaction to mana potions and her magic's fuel economy is terrible without Aix buffing her ability to regenerate mana herself. She's the first to call out the guild for forcing Aix to quit by abuse, exploitation, and basically daring him to quit.- The Ace: She's the only S-rank adventurer in the guild, at least in the town where Aix lives.
- Blessed with Suck: She's a powerful magical warrior but her fuel economy is terrible, and with an allergy to magic potions, she can't be at her most effective without Aix's buffs. She tries to get by using magic potions and she winds up violently vomiting.
- Boob-Based Gag: When she yanks Aix into her chest with magic, he's immediately reminded of the slime pillows he loves and falls asleep.
- Fiery Red Head: She sports red hair and is very passionate.
- Good Feels Good: She was motivated to become an S-rank adventurer by a small child saying "thanks" with a smile, and when she does the same, Aix is moved to the point he goes "she's not fair."
- Please, I Will Do Anything!: Desperate for Aix's buff so she can continue being an adventurer, she tracks him down and gets into a bidding war with Sarah, both of them literally fighting over him. After he's collapsed and wakes up to find both of them hovering over him, she's so distraught that she can only repeat "I'm Maria Ion, S-rank adventurer. Without Aix's magic, will violently throw up" over and over again, guilt-tripping him into giving her that buff. When he does, she rewards him with thanks, and one of the most heart-warming smiles in the manga, which he calls "unfair."
Others
Princess Lula
It must be basic magic with a VEEEERY long effect.
The 12-year-old youngest princess. She gets one of the five tubes Viscount Radleigh first commissioned from Aix in the mandatory quest. Her staff goes nuts trying to understand how it works, but she figures it out in minutes, yet nobody believes her. She decides to go visit Aix himself to learn the truth.- Cassandra Truth: She tells her butler and the crown experts exactly how the tubes work, but none of them believe her. She also straight up tells Aix she's the princess, but the poor boy thinks she's just a kid playing pretend, since Aix lives in a very backwater village, far from the capital, and why the heck would the princess go all the way there without a major parade of knights and other sorts of bodyguards?
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She's blonde and a real sweetheart.
- Modest Royalty: Aix can be forgiven for not believing she's a princess because she clearly lacks all the pomp and circumstance normally associated with the crown.
- Secret Test: She uses a teleport array in the capital to teleport to Aix's home town and approaches him in disguise as a commoner to see what he's really like, if he did indeed build those tubes, and to see for herself how he actually does it. She even provides a couple of discarded scroll tubes for him after watching him meet Nia. Aix lives up to his hype by doing it for her, at the reward of a simple smile.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: Despite being only 12, she's smarter than most of the adults in the setting.
Second princess Shiron
Why doesn't Aix want to work? Is it greed? Sloth? Benevolence?! I wish I could just ask him!
Lula's older sister and the one who has to pay "the royal debt" Lula set up purely to have an excuse to grant Aix an official audience. She's initially quite wary of Aix, and is utterly confused why the word "work" is off-limits, but once she meets the guy and sees that he's a sweet and naive boy no longer has an issue with her younger sister having meetings with him.- Gilded Cage: Unlike her younger and more mischievous younger sister, she suffers under very strict rules and though she's surrounded by luxury, she has very little freedom.
- King Incognito: While her younger sister does indeed identify herself as a princess to Aix, she never does.
- Wrong Assumption: She presumes that Aix doesn't want to work just because he's lazy. She is completely clueless about how horribly abused and exploited he was. When she later meets him in person, she presumes he doesn't want to work for rewards due to being almost entirely selfless after the royal family provides him with a mountain of gold coins and he takes only one of them as payment for the "warm stones" he was looking to sell.
Amin, Queen of Iron
I am a huge fan of [Crazy Doll]! I must have a copy of that luggage!
The dwarf queen of the nearby country of Iron. She takes an immediate interest not in Aix, but Luca, for the latter's luggage. She seeks an autograph when learning Luca is the head of [Crazy Doll] tailoring.- I'm Your Biggest Fan: To Luca, who is the designer of her favorite fashion line. Learning Luca's identity literally leaves her shaking.
- Our Dwarves Are Different: She calls herself a dwarf, but she's as tall as Aix and looks more like a dark elf.
- Please, I Will Do Anything!: Money was no object for either getting a copy of Luca's luggage or buying the one Luca had.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: When she wanted to buy Luca's [Crazy Doll] designed luggage, she met Aix and Luca in person.
- Secret Test: So secret even Aix didn't know it. Luca agreed to craft a copy of her custom luggage for Amin because the latter called Luca and Aix boyfriend and girlfriend.
