Character sheet for I'm the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire!. Spoilers may be unmarked.
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Main Characters
Liam Sera Banfield
Now I get to be an evil overlord, bwahaha! (Not really)
The (self-proclaimed) Villain Protagonist whose past life in Japan was ruined. In his next life, he wants to be the "villain" and do whatever he pleases.
- The Ace: He's the best mecha pilot, strategist, soldier, official, and martial talent the empire's seen, at least since his great grandfather was alive, and some say he's even better than that guy.
- Achievement In Ignorance:
- Yasushi is, at best, a third rate swordsman, and uses tricks to make his swords skills look awesome. Yet somehow, through sheer force of belief and incessantly doing Training from Hell, Liam was able to make his tricks into actual sword skills.
- According to The Guide, he's the first to ever threaten his existence. Liam remains completely oblivious to the fact that the Guide even hates him, still convinced that all his good fortune is the Guide's doing.
- Affably Evil: Subverted. He thinks he's this, but really, he's just affable.
- Anti-Hero: Liam thinks he's a Villain Protagonist but is in reality this at worst. Thanks to his attempts to seem more evil than he really is, he ends up becoming a rude and foul-mouthed Good Is Not Nice Pragmatic Hero.
- Asians Love Tea: As a former Japanese man, he often has Amagi serve him tea and sometimes coffee in his office.
- Awesome by Analysis: Yasushi is a con-man and uses a parlor trick with a precut log to make it look like he used an Iai Sword Beam "secret technique" as part of his pitch to be Liam's swordsman trainer. Liam sees it once and is within days able to puzzle out a way to make the technique real to Yasushi's shock. A technique Liam then "perfects" by using it to execute some murderously corrupt bureaucrats in his territory.
- Benevolent Boss: As long as his underlings are loyal and don't give him any grief, they've got nothing to fear from him.
- Berserk Button: Due to his trauma in Japan, he's got a few.
- Women who remind him of his ex-wife by flaunting sexy dresses and underwear sour his mood, at best.
- People who remind him of the unscrupulous debt-collectors who made him suffer will seriously aggravate him to the point that he'd happily take a loss in business dealings just to screw them over.
- Pretending to be a charity and coming to him for donations will drive him into a barely controlled rage. He was very dutiful in donating to charity in Japan, but when he was in trouble, all the charities slammed their doors in his face and refused to help him when he was dying in his bed.
- Any insult towards Amagi (and by extension, his robot maids) will incur his wrath. Brian flat out tells the new staff that he won't be able to protect them if Liam hears them mocking her. At the end of volume four he murders the entire entourage of a nobleman who mocked them to his face shortly after he arrived on the Imperial homeworld.
- What causes him to go into a murderous rage is those who scapegoat subordinates to cover up their own crimes. It reminds him too much of his previous boss who used him to cover up his embezzlement.
- Hilariously, Liam reacts with disgust when he discovers when that his domain really likes the Beehive Hairdo hairstyle. This prompts Liam to ban the said hairstyle and his people protested on its ban rather than the tax raise.
- Big Good: He's the primary driving force for virtue, righteousness, and hope in the story.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: People who know him put up with his odd quirks because he's studious and talented, succeeding at his assigned tasks with impeccable skill.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: By the time Christiana and the others Liam rescued from Goaz were starting to recover in the hospital he had built from the ground up to help, he had completely forgot about it.
- Charles Atlas Super Power: His one-flash technique was learned through Training from Hell.
- Chick Magnet: Becomes this with Amagi coming to see him more than just a charge, Christiana and Marie (who obsess over him enough to impregnate themselves with DNA samples of him), Rosetta, and Eulisia. His maids are also rather mad at him for NOT sexually harassing them.
- A Child Shall Lead Them: His parents in the new universe abandoned him and put him in charge of the Banfield territory at age 5, and he wasn't going to be considered an adult until age 50! (Human lifespans are so long that a 50-year-old is just barely entering puberty.) He also commanded and fought his first battle before officially becoming an adult.
- Downplayed in that he has Amagi and Brian govern in his name until he's old enough to take the reins himself.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Despite Liam engaging with Rosetta just to make her submit to him in the "most Evil Overlord way", overtime Liam actually has grown to like and love Rosetta due to her gentle, loyal and strong personality. Unfortunately, he was afraid to admit it and tie the knot with her due to his deep seated trauma of his past life, causing him to make numerous excuses to delay the wedding. It took a good pep talk from his master Yasushi to make him realize that he needs to move on with his life and appreciate the affection that Rosetta gives to him.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: In spite of his Then Let Me Be Evil declaration, he's way, way too nice to be an actual villain; he ends up helping people because he can't conceive not doing so, even to benefit himself.
- Cosmic Plaything: Technically speaking, he has one god trying to ruin his life from the start and another one begins targeting him later. But everything they do just makes things easier for him.
- Culture Clash: His behavior as Liam in Japan would be scandalous, at best, which is why he calls himself a villain. He doesn't realize it, but in the Empire, his behavior is the epitome of virtue, making him an Ideal Hero.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Has dark hair and clothing, with purple eyes and a black mech. While he thinks he's the opposite he's in truth a Pragmatic Hero at worst.
- Dirty Kid: At five, he was fond of groping Amagi's breasts. He has seemingly (mostly) outgrown it off-screen and instead focuses on women he doesn't see as a Parental Substitute.
- The Dreaded:
- After his fleet defeats Goaz's, his fame is enough to cause pirates to run with their tails between their legs. Eventually, his enemies stop trying to fight him directly.
- At school no one messes with him out of fear for his retaliation.
- Enlightened Self-Interest: He recognizes that if his citizens are prosperous, it's good for him in the long-term since they'll be able to give him more money, making it the most efficient way of enriching himself, and doesn't seem to get why more nobles don't do this.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: He thinks he's a Bad Man, but nothing will hit his Berserk Button faster than when someone insults his mother figure, Amagi.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Even to the degree that he fancies himself as being evil, he despises anyone who reminds him of the people that used to push him around, even if it's someone else that's the victim. He will also take pity on anyone he acknowledges as having circumstances that are even worse than his were in his previous life.
- Evil Is Petty: The only way he really manages to be evil, and even then, it doesn't really work well. At one point, he tries to ban a haircut he hates and considers slaughtering a bunch of "protestors" who just want him to produce an heir already.
- The First Cut Is the Deepest: Because of how horribly his ex-wife screwed him over, both figuratively and literally, he has immense difficulty even considering romantic interest in a "real" woman, to the point his vassals worry about succession issues.
- Fisher King: The Banfield territory quickly goes into turmoil when he's forcibly summoned to another world. Christiana and Marie nearly tear the planet apart in a civil war while his half-brother declares himself the new ruler. Resolved at the last minute when Liam returns to cleanse his territory of disloyal subjects and Fair Weather Friends.
- Gold Fever: He is well-known for his love of gold.
- Gone Horribly Right: He sets his sights on Rosetta, planning to force her into an Arranged Marriage to have the pleasure of breaking down her (then nonexistent) iron will to break her and have her beg for his affection. He succeeds at getting her as his fiancée, and she immediately offers herself up to him without restraint, with genuine love and devotion. This is so unexpected that he doesn't know how to react, and when she starts following him around like a feral kitten, he finds he doesn't like it.
- Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: He wants to be an evil overlord but this is one of his biggest sticking points. While he doesn't really care about his citizens at all, he does recognize that it's in his own long-term self-interest that they do well so they can give him more money. He considers this the ultimate evil because it's the most efficient way to personally enrich himself. He doesn't really seem to get why other nobles don't do the same and instead comes to the conclusion that anyone who actually bothers to help their citizens must be as evil as he thinks he is.
- Good Is Not Nice: He's rude and foul-mouthed, at least by the standards of The Empire.
- Good Is Not Soft: By the standards of the empire, he's a just but merciless man who destroys any corruption or evil he uncovers, even when it would put himself in political or even physical danger.
- Gut Feeling: His assessment of people's motives and character may be horribly off, but his assessment of their methods is spot on and has an uncanny instinct that allows him to gather to himself the best and brightest people. Even conmen who look to rip him off wind up helping him immensely, despite their intentions.
- Harem Seeker: One of his stated goals is to surround himself with attractive women. His household approves of this and countless women are lining up for their chance, but his Paralyzing Fear of Sexuality leaves him unwilling to touch any of them—not to mention, he wasn't actually thinking of an anime-style harem, but rather of a Royal Harem where the women weren't there willingly. His maids even go on strike at one point because he isn't harassing them.
- The Hedonist: This is his idea of "evil"; to be cheerfully and openly individualistic, ambitious, and flaunting luxuries. Since he's pragmatic and frugal, however, his desires to keep his wealth stable end up pushing through a bunch of needed reforms.
- Heroes Love Dogs: He used to have a dog in Japan but is reluctant to adopt another one in his new life because of the greater difference in lifespans. Eventually he takes home a dog/wolf demon named Chino to serve as his maid and pet.
- Horrible Judge of Character
- Anyone he considers honorable and noble is an obvious scumbag. They're not even hiding it because they see no problem with it. Any time he comes across someone that's actually competent, disciplined and well intentioned, he decides they're an evil noble for one reason or another. Since he wants to associate with the latter and scorns the former, he ends up gathering all the honest generals and nobles and destroying the corrupt ones.
- He's completely unable to tell that Yasushi is just a con artist even decades after meeting the man. While you could argue this is because Yasushi turns out to be an extremely effective teacher, this actually has nothing to do with it. He just can't see through Yasushi's simple tricks.
- Hope Is Scary: The true reason that Liam can't reciprocate Rosetta's or his underling's feelings. He is afraid to be betrayed and get his heart broken again like what happened in his past life, that's why he always makes excuses or straight up ignore them. Yasushi gave him a much needed pep talk to face his fears and move on.
- Ideal Hero: He manages to combine this with Pragmatic Hero. Although he believes otherwise, his top priority is protecting the innocent, especially his friends and followers, and smiting the guilty, his own personal well-being a secondary priority.
- It Amused Me: The reason why he does anything. Thankfully for everyone, he finds actual destruction unamusing.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Right before he died, he swore to become evil, selfish, and spiteful, thinking he should simply take everything for himself and kill anyone who defies him. He tries to carry this personality over to his current life, yet not quite managing it, thanks to his Ideal Hero nature.
- Locked Out of the Loop: He's completely unaware that The Guide is the Big Bad and orchestrated his suffering back in Japan.
- After he throws the Planetary Restoration Group out of his planet, he declares he never will give to charity, only to be surprised when Amagi informs him that he has actually been funding several charities for years.
- Loves Only Gold: He loves gold over all other types of precious metals, even the more valuable fantasy ones. He treats receiving gold from his allied merchants as if he was a corrupt official receiving a bribe.
- Loving a Shadow: He fell in love with Rosetta for what he perceived as her iron will, refusing to bow to anyone. What he was really seeing was a woman who had been thoroughly trampled down by Imperial watchdogs, bullies, and sadistic Smug Snake nobles, and her spirit was already broken, making her a Death Seeker who was hoping he'd kill her and end her suffering. When he proposes marriage instead, promising to take her title, her lands, her everything, she fell in love with him for real.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: His ex-wife screwed around on him so much that he can't be sure the child he's forced to pay child-support for is even his. What's worse is that even if a paternity test says she isn't, Japanese law would still see her as his child as she was sired during the marriage.
- A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Avid is controlled by the controller's thoughts. So, when Nias accidentally rested her large breasts on his shoulder, the robot made a groping hand reaction, much to everyone's embarrassment, and Yasushi's jealousy.
- Modest Royalty: By the standards of the Empire at least, he's considered very frugal. While his primary residence is large enough that he needs motorized vehicles to get from one end of the mansion to the other, the norm is for the nobles to have an entire planet, or more as their own personal playground.
- Momma's Boy: A positive example, with his surrogate mother figure, Amagi, being his Morality Chain.
- Mundane Luxury: From Brian's and Wallace's point-of-view, Liam's idea of 'luxury' is rather humble.
- Nice to the Waiter: He treats his servants and soldiers well (though he ignores their advances) and he's a great tipper.
- Noble Demon: He likes to talk about what a great villain he is but even at his worst he can barely manage to be petty and apathetic. He has a particular hatred for corruption, targets exclusively pirates because he can steal their stuff legally, improves his territory because it makes him wealthier and enjoys destroying real villains.
- No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: He likes being challenged, both physically and mentally. This drove Yasushi crazy because he'd keep ramping up the difficulty of the "training" regiment, hoping to be fired before his con was exposed, but instead honed Liam into an unrivaled martial powerhouse. At this point, Yasushi declared him "fully trained" so he could escape before Liam realizes he's been had...
- No Name Given: His name as a Japanese citizen is never revealed.
- Non-Idle Rich: In contrast to his father and grandfather (and nobles in general), he actually develops his territory, pays off his family's debts and taxes, and trains himself almost every day.
- Not in This for Your Revolution: When he's magically summoned to the Kingdom of Aarl, his only priority is finding a way home. He completely ignores orders and only defeats the Demon Lord to test his skills.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Part of his motivation for cracking down on corrupt and spoiled nobles within his own territory; only Liam is allowed to oppress his people! Of course, everyone else interprets it as him having a strong sense of justice.
- Paralyzing Fear of Sexuality: Justified on two fronts.
- He has great difficulty trusting women thanks to how his ex-wife betrayed him.
- This new universe has an STD that is completely asymptomatic in women but upon infecting a man causes his groin to explode in just a matter of days. Some people he knows personally have suffered this fate.
- This is even Deconstructed in the later chapters as he can't find himself how to act intimately with his fiancée Rosetta even without thinking about his trauma.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Per his own words, he considers pirates as little more than living wallets.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: Breaks down crying when he thinks Amagi would be leaving him, thinking she was abandoning him. He then orders her to always be by his side.
- Pragmatic Villainy: His overall governance philosophy is that you can't wring water from a dry cloth, so he improves the quality of life for his subjects so that they make more money and can pay more taxes. He genuinely doesn't care about their well-being except maybe in the sense that they're his 'property' but because he thinks a little more long-term than most other nobles, he has an excellent reputation.
- Properly Paranoid: His tendency to keep people at arm's length is justified considering how cutthroat the empire is.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Although he is an impulse buyer, far more often than not he does seek out and heed the advice of his subordinates before major decisions.
- Red Baron: Liam "The Pirate Killer" Banfield.
- Relative Button: Anyone who badmouths Amagi within earshot of him is digging his own grave, and if need be, he'll go after that guy's entire household!
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: He almost constantly comes up with the right assessment by misreading the underlying premise. The list below his hardly exhaustive.
- He believes Yasushi is a Master Swordsman Badass Teacher because the latter looks cool and showed off a "secret technique" that is really a parlor trick. Yasushi's bullshit "training regimen" wound up making him the best mecha pilot, strategist, and swordsman in the empire!
- He thinks The Guide is his "guardian angel" because everything the latter does benefits him. What The Guide is really trying to do is drive him to despair, but his plans keep backfiring, either because he completely misreads the situation, or a small spirit of light that's shadowing him keeps mucking up his schemes, and he remains completely unaware of said spirit.
- Out of boredom or pity, he buys up battle-ships, carriers, or weapons from Nias of the Imperial Seventh factory, occasionally getting chewed out by Amagi, Brian, or both. Said purchases always prove justified in hindsight when some arrogant antagonist comes knocking on Liam's door only to find that he bit off more than he can chew.
- He decides to make friends with Kurt, thinking that he is a fellow future Evil Overlord. This friendship gains him a steady ally in Kurt's family (particularly after he helps them with their pirate and economic problems) and plenty of situations where he can keep crushing bad guys.
- When he's approached by a supposed charity, the Planetary Restoration Group, he's deeply offended and suspicious, openly accusing them of Condescending Compassion and angrily declaring that he won't give them a single coin. Turns out they are no charity at all, but a front for a weapons smuggling, grave robbing racket which raids destroyed planets and sells off all sorts of nasty things to the highest bidders, even providing Derrick's men with a vial of "Cursed Star Poison" which is so deadly even Elixir may not be able to cure it.
- He very politely blows off the first and second place candidates for the imperial throne and throws his hat in with Cleo, the third-in-line—in name only—because the first two were rude, ordering him to go to their headquarters, shower them with gifts, and bow before them. Cleo, desperate for sponsors—so he doesn't die—was polite and cordial. Turns out that the two top candidates are, at best, heavily corrupt and aren't fit to rule.
- Robosexual: Robot or not, Amagi is the only person Liam fully trusts, since she's programmed to be incapable of betraying him, and she is fully functional by his own design. The second volume explicitly states that he lost his virginity with her.
- Running Gag: Part of the premise of the series, is his self-deluded attempts at being an Evil Overlord all making him be seen as a paragon of virtue by everyone else.
- Screw You, Elves!: At one point, Liam is greeted by Space Elves that want to tend to one of his pioneer planets with a world tree. Shortly after he's finished interviewing them, they encounter some orcs and goblins who are also scheduled for an interview with Liam regarding said world tree. The elves immediately go Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful! and brag that they're a Horde of Alien Locusts who squeeze the world tree dry and sell the resulting Elixir but are always worshiped by humans because of their ethereal beauty. The orcs go into Liam's office for their interview and are hired without having to say a word because Liam wants to cultivate his "evil overlord" image, plus they showed more humility. The Elves are outraged and demand vengeance until The Guide sucks up their resentment for himself, and then they just go "meh, whatever" and go to find some other gullible schmuck.
- Secretly Selfish: Only his closest friends, family, and subordinates know that he really just wants to do what amuses him and promotes the well-being of his territory because it benefits him personally. This does not stop him from being an Ideal Hero because what amuses him most is smiting Stupid Evil wherever he finds it.
- Seven Heavenly Virtues: He may call himself a villain, but he's got them.
- Charity: He rationalizes it as an investment against future payoffs, but he helps the helpless and downtrodden whenever he can. He would have developed the Berkeley properties he captured, but they were simply too far away an isolated enclave for that to be feasible.
- Diligence: He works hard at his goals until he completes them.
- Patience: He is willing to wait years for his plans to play out, with little complaint.
- Temperance: He may be a big spender and impulse shopper, but he lives within his means and can justify every expense as absolutely necessary for the well-being of his people, even if the justification comes in hindsight.
- The Strategist: While he lets his subordinates deal with the fine details, he's the one who lays out the long-term plans in his household.
- Taught by Experience: After his dealings with the Berkeley family of Pirate Nobles, where they went full-tilt Revenge Myopia for the Crime of Self-Defense, whenever some uppity yahoo comes at him, he's all too eager to retaliate against that guy's entire house if he has to, so it never happens again. Word spread quickly among The Empire's top brass and they've taken measures to keep wars of that magnitude from breaking out again.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Parodied. Being a "model citizen" in Japan brought him nothing but grief, working himself to death, literally, to meet his obligations and still treated with disdain. He swore to himself that he'd be a Card-Carrying Villain when he took The Guide's offer to reincarnate in this sci-fantasy universe. Turns out that his idea of "evil" and the new universe's idea of "virtue" are nearly identical, thus giving him great popularity and turning him into an Ideal Hero.
- Trauma Button: Amagi suggesting she leave him due to the stigma attached with keeping AI around makes Liam break down, remembering how his unfaithful ex-wife left him. He orders her to stay and never leave him.
- Troll: He loves to rile up, provoke, and enrage people for his own amusement. He has repeatedly raised taxes on his subjects just to watch them squirm, which frequently backfires because the improvements the taxes pay for more than make up for the sting of the taxes themselves, has endorsed products to watch businesses fail only to be surprised when business takes off instead because he's well known for only perusing the very best goods available to him, and he snatched up Rosetta to have her marry him expecting her to be seriously aggrieved only to have her fall in love with him for real, and pursuing him very aggressively, which completely weirds him out.
- Villain Protagonist: Subverted. Liam thinks he's this but is at very worst Anti-Hero.
- Universally Beloved Leader: Liam with his main territory's population, due early on to Amagi steering his desire to exploit his people towards investing in them so that there's actually something to exploit later. There is even a scene of people reacting positively to a tax increase, as it gives them hope for planetary development of newly settled worlds. The biggest backlash he received was for trying to ban a haircut. The population of planets Liam conquers are more of a mixed bag, considering his Leave No Survivors policy with enemy fleets.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: He thinks he's in a story as a Villain Protagonist. In truth, he's the Big Good Ideal Hero!
The Guide
Now, it's Nothing Personal. I had good reason to show you that your wife was screwing around and that kid may not have been yours, but I've come to you with a very rare proposition. Choose one of these cards, and that will be the world you reincarnated into... An excellent choice, sir. An Intergalactic Empire with battleships and magic. Who knows, maybe you'll become emperor? Enjoy your new life!
- As Long as There Is Evil: Unless Liam's gratitude manages to kill him outright, and there's no guarantee that's possible (though there have been some close calls), he can always recharge and recover by sucking up hate, resentment, greed, envy, or any kind of malice. Those directed at Liam tend to be far more efficiently harvested.
- Cosmic Plaything: Some sort of spiritual being resembling a dog is following him around. Occasionally it ruins things for the Guide, though his actions usually self-destruct on their own. In a bit of irony, it seems to be feeding on his misery as it grows brighter and its form more clearly defined as the novels progress.
- Dark Is Evil: His powers manifest as a cloud of dark smoke, and he's a bundle of collected malice. However, his actual abilities are surprisingly neutral: If he didn't find being evil fun, his powers would actually improve people's lives because when he feeds on negative emotions, said emotions vanish and the person in question calms down.
- Demoted to Comic Relief: At the very start of the story, he was a complete and utter menace. After quite a few reversals, every time Liam's "gratitude weapons" attack him, and a poorly thought-out final gambit at the end of the first book, he becomes so weak he can't change numbers in a hacking attempt with his powers, only able to swap around info rather than anything else. It's become so comedic that you almost feel sorry for him. Almost.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- His overall plan was to have Liam suffer and die cursing him. This would have worked perfectly if he didn't want to screw him over by putting him in a noble family that was deeply in debt. So instead of just relaxing and becoming a hedonist, he instead spent decades improving himself and is very frugal with his wealth. This causes the Guide a ton of headaches.
- He caused a large dangerous Pirate fleet to attack Liam and tricked Liam into thinking this was a gift to prove himself a powerful lord. Because he wasn't keeping close tabs on Liam's growth, Liam utterly wipes the floor with them, causing him a lot of suffering from the genuine praise Liam gives him for this.
- Emotion Eater: Despair and hatred are his sustenance, preferably tied to himself or one of his main victims. It turns out that this applies literally when he uses this ability on bystanders, as he makes them feel better by taking away and consuming their negative emotions, which causes them to behave better.
- Failure Is the Only Option: If his plans ever did go right, the series would be over with a Sudden Downer Ending.
- Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: Justified. Because Liam keeps sending thoughts of gratitude and goodwill at him, his very existence is in constant jeopardy, and he can't sever the connection he's forged. His only hope for continued existence is Liam falling into despair or dying.
- For the Evulz: He hurts people because he likes doing so. His actual abilities drain negative emotions from his targets and make them better people, but he goes out of his way to cause misery because he thinks it's fun.
- Godzilla Threshold: He finds himself regularly using a lot more power than he should, due to Liam's constant expressions of gratitude towards him nearly killing him.
- Good Hurts Evil: At his most powerful, Liam's thoughts of good will gave him a mild headache. As Liam's gratitude and happiness grows, it becomes more and more severe until it's literally life-threatening, and he's had quite a few close calls.
- Made of Evil: He can't help being the sadistic bastard he is. He's a dark, smoky mass of malice.
- Necessary Drawback: He can't force people to do despicable things or have grudges. He can only manipulate what's already there. This applied even when he was at his most powerful.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Everything he does to try and drive Liam to despair backfires and winds up helping him instead. What's worse, the genuine gratitude Liam sends his way as a result is life-threatening.
- He sets up Liam for failure early in life, by ensuring his parents will leave him with a massive debt. Liam uses his command over his territory to pay off the debts and make it prosper, earning him the love and goodwill of his people and beyond.
- He gets a feared pirate to attack Liam's planet, and then tells Liam it's a present for him. Liam goes out so confident in victory that the pirates get crushed, and Liam rescues several people the pirates were torturing, including Tia, who becomes Liam's knight.
- He swaps Liam's stats with Peter Petack's when both go to Razel House's academy, which causes Liam to be assigned to the "commoners' course". This provides Liam with the challenge he seeks in education, and gets him lots of practical knowledge he wouldn't have gotten in the other course (which is mostly aimed at entertaining the high nobles it hosts). Plus, it puts him in contact with Kurt (who becomes Liam's first friend and a powerful ally) and keeps Liam from the messes Peter got into. And revealing his role in this change gives Liam such a good mood that he decides to back off on the first measure to anger his people.
- He spends nearly the last dredges of his power to set up an alliance between pirates and House Petack. Liam's fleet crushes them, getting not only a lot of valuables, but increasing his fame.
- In book 2, by eating the despair of Randolph Razel, he pulls him out of a depression and causes him to start rebuilding back his domain, this time without corruption. It also causes his daughter to enter a happy relationship.
- No Name Given: He's only known as "The Guide".
- Psychopomp: He often presents himself as one when selecting a new victim, offering them a "happy reincarnation". But while he technically has the power to be one, that isn't truly his main purpose.
- Revenge Myopia: Even though he acknowledges that the suffering he's enduring from Liam's gratitude is entirely his fault, and Liam's in no way aware he's even doing harm in the first place, he keeps swearing bloody vengeance on Liam. He has to, or it's likely he'll cease to exist.
- Traitor Shot: When the guy states he wanted revenge on his ex, for one panel he shoots a sadistic joyful smile, only to quickly hide it - revealing he has more sinister motives than his kind actions would suggest.
- Villain Respect: When he finds out Liam is only raising his territory to exploit it, he notes he can't hate him for doing the same thing he does.
Banfield Household
Cliff and Darcy Sera Banfield
Liam's parents, who leave Liam in charge of the Banfield Household, abandoning him for a carefree life at the Imperial Capital.
- Arranged Marriage: Darcy married Cliff purely for the sake of providing an heir to the Banfield house, as is the norm. The marriage is entirely loveless.
- At Least I Admit It: Unlike Cliff and his father, Darcy admits that the debts they racked up in the capital are their own fault, and they have no right to ask Liam for a bigger allowance, since they burned all bridges when they abandoned him and dumped a huge debt on him in the first place.
- Disowned Parent: Liam didn't care much for his parents anyway, but he officially severs ties with them after they insult Amagi and demand more money.
- Entitled Bastard: After abandoning a five-year-old Liam to run the Banfield estate with a massive debt and terrible reputation, in addition to conning Liam into signing a contract to give them a monthly allowance, when Cliff hears that Liam's managed to turn things around and made a name for himself taking down Goaz in protecting his territory, he has the gall to ask for a bigger allowance to cover his own debts. Liam tells Amagi to cut him off completely in retaliation.
- It's All About Me: After not having seeing their son for over forty years, which they dumped a huge debt on him, the first thing they ask of him is to use the reward money he got for killing Goaz to pay off their debts, pay off the suppliers for things they just bought, and to increase their allowance in a tone they just expected him to say "yes" to. When he responds to this by just cutting them off completely and kicking them out, they take major offense to this and plan to have the Empire give the territory back to them since he uses an AI - with Cliff even planning to have Liam killed for the slight.
- Loser Son of Loser Dad: Cliff like his father, is known to be a selfish, incompetent and Money Dumb wastrel who ran the family territory into the ground.
- Parental Abandonment: In order to avoid debt collectors, they con Liam into taking over control of the Banfield territories and flee to the Imperial Capital. Liam is not pleased when he finds out. Darcy at least feels somewhat guilty about it.
- Pet the Dog: At the start of the story, Darcy gifts Liam an android of his choosing. He peruses the available models and winds up choosing Amagi, the one who would become his Parental Substitute.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Since Cliff thought Liam having a "pet android" was enough reason for the Empire to reverse ownership of the Banfield territories back to him, the Prime Minister laid into him with some poignant facts of life.
- Liam pays his taxes on time and in full. Neither Cliff nor his father paid taxes at all! Thus, the empire doesn't see them as trustworthy.
- Without aid, Liam had defeated a heinous and powerful pirate fleet in open combat, doing the Empire a huge favor, and stripping his territory from him in response would be extremely unjust and unpopular.
- There's no law stating Liam can't have an android, and Liam's personal reputation far more than makes up for any racist murmurs due to the fact that Amagi helps make and keep his territory prosperous.
Brian
That Our Lord Liam has finally found a woman he's interested in! It's so painful! Weeps
- Mr. Exposition: Whenever Liam manages to get his hands on some artifact or trinket, he's usually the one who explains what it does.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: He's entirely loyal to the Banfield house, starting with Liam's great-grandfather, Alistair. He's had to suffer through two generations of disappointment, Alistair's son and grandson until Liam came into the picture and made the house even better than in its golden age.
- One Degree of Separation: He and Serena used to be quite close, which is a mystery as she used to be the head maid at the Imperial palace before being sent by the prime minister to Liam's mansion as the head-maid to train other maids.
- Parental Substitute: He's the closest thing Liam has to a genuine father, and Liam gives him proper filial piety as a result.
- Prone to Tears: He tends to cry quite easily.
- Renaissance Man: According to him, he's been a swashbuckling adventurer and an actor, is familiar with the ins and outs of the Imperial palace, and so on. Since humans have lifespans measured in centuries, he's certainly had time to do all that.
- Vetinari Job Security: He's actually mediocre as a butler, but he's got a slew of other, unstated, talents that the Banfield house doesn't want to lose.
Amagi
You keep speaking about surrounding yourself with a harem, Master, but when will you actually lay hands on a woman?
- God Guise: At the end of Volume 7, the primitive kingdom who summoned Liam accidentally was horrified that they traded one demon king for another, especially when Liam credibly threatens to glass the place. When Amagi shows up to lecture him and talk him down, the population comes to see her as a god, with temple priests even going so far as to wear maid outfits in her honor and having statues of "Goddess Amagi" built everywhere.
- Hair Color Dissonance: She's illustrated with brown hair but is often described having black.
- Happiness in Slavery: Clearly in the "beloved servant" category.
- Hyper-Competent Sidekick: At the start of the story, she's the one who ran the Banfield territory while Liam was being trained and brought up to speed. She's responsible for most of the improvements to the territory and bringing it back into solvency. Even in the present, Liam trusts her to keep everything running smoothly while he's otherwise occupied.
- I Will Only Slow You Down: When she overhears Cliff whine to the Prime Minister that Liam being with an android is enough cause for the Banfield house to be a laughingstock and could have him deposed, she begs him to throw her away. Liam, who sees her as a mother-figure of sorts would have none of it and orders her to stay by his side, no matter what.
- Lap Pillow: She is fond of laying Liam's head on her lap when they're alone, ruffling his hair, and letting him "innocently" look up at her breasts as they're talking to each other.
- Morality Chain: Her advice is the main thing keeping Liam from doing anything actually evil. Him being a massive Momma's Boy for her helps in that regard.
- Parental Substitute: Liam sees her as a mother of sorts, but he still has no problems fixating on her chest. Even when he was five, he was fond of groping them.
- Ridiculously Human Robot: She has the full range of human emotion, looks (and feels) like the real thing and she's even fully capable of sexual intercourse. Still, Liam sees her as a mother-figure of sorts and balks at even the suggestion of putting her in a risqué swim-suit.
- The Sleepless: As an android, she only needs two hours of down-time a week, unless serious repairs need to be made, at which point, she needs to return to the factory for an overhaul.
- Token Wholesome: Enforced by Liam, who refuses to have her wear anything too revealing.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: She constantly posits this question about herself. When Liam arbitrarily tried to use an artifact Brian stated would bring machines to life, it had no effect on her, and that left her wondering if she's already alive and her feelings for Liam are real, not some computer algorithm.
Yasushi
You have grown well, Count Liam! But remember, the training never ends! (Oh, gods, give it up please! If he finds out I'm a con-man, he'll kill me!)
Liam's first sword instructor.- Accidental Truth: His BS cover stories and fancy excuses to try and keep Liam from realizing he's a con-man all wind up coming true.
- Becoming the Mask: He gets hired on by the Banfield house to be Liam's instructor after he conned his way into the job. By the time he "completes" the training, he becomes a sword trainer for real. He even trains two new disciples several years later.
- Conman: What he really is.
- A Day in the Limelight: Volume 9 focuses on Yasushi and his family.
- Debt Detester: Normally, he wouldn't have gone to the Banfield house to train Liam in swords because he's neither an instructor nor a legit swordsman, and wouldn't know where to start, but the guy the Banfields reached out to asked him to go instead, and he owed that guy a favor. The prospect of scamming some coin from Liam didn't hurt his feelings either, at first.
- Doting Parent: His kids adore him, and when a corrupt governor press-gangs him into opening a dojo, said children want revenge for having their dad taken away. One of them meets Liam and that's how he finds out.
- Expy: A bearded conman who is a weak greedy hedonistic Dirty Coward, Manipulative Bastard, and loves lying about his reputation but is also respected and admired by everyone who is stronger than him, loves his family, helped the hero to get stronger and is really good on what he does? He is basically Mr. Satan from Dragon Ball. The difference is Mr. Satan loves the attention while Yatsushi just wants to lie low to protect his life.
- Genius Ditz: He's an incompetent swordsman, can't handle money at all and just barely ekes out a living as a con artist, but consistently delivers excellent results as a swordsmanship teacher. Liam and his two other chosen disciples go without saying as they're all talented freaks, but regular knights and even petty thugs end up becoming extremely competent with minimal training.
- Gone Horribly Right: He wanted to scam some cash from Liam, but ultimately wound up training him into the best swordsman, mecha-pilot, and strategist in the whole empire, to his chagrin, as now everybody wants him to train them - or kill him for turning Liam into "Pirate Hunter" Liam.
- In volume 9, he tries to hide from his pursuers and earn enough coin to put food on the table by Hiding in Plain Sight as a con-man among con-men by pretending to be one of the many fake Yatsushi's running around and opening a "fake" dojo. He not only gets the attention of criminals and petty thugs who have a grudge with society in general, if not Liam in particular, but he winds up kidnapped by Chester, a noble from Calvine's faction with delusions of grandeur, and winds up right at ground zero in the fight between Gudwar and Liam, as the former actively tries to kill him to stamp out the swordsmanship style.
- Has a Type: He is into black haired, intellectual types.
- Henpecked Husband: In volume 8, he returns to the story as a married man, completely cowed by his wife, and he likes it that way.
- Hidden Depths:
- Despite being a scummy coward conman, Yasushi really loves his family and will not abandon them for any reason. This is the reason why Yasushi finally stops running (albeit grudgingly) away from Liam when the the latter offers to give his son a better life in Liam's territory.
- Yasushi can give good advice when he is sincere about it. He was able to help Liam recover from his past life trauma of marriage and love in just one talk.
- House Husband: His wife in volume 8 works while he stays home with the kids, and it works out quite well... until a corrupt bureaucrat in Banfield's territory learns he's the swordsman teacher who trained Liam and then press-gangs him into running a dojo.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: You will know Yasushi is not faking and serious in his words when he doesn't go into Inner Monologue rant like when he conversed with Liam about the latter's insecurity in love and marriage.
- Pet the Dog: When he learned that Liam still didn't want to marry his fiancée Rosetta (unknowingly, due to his underlying trauma in his past life), Yasushi gave him a sincere and honest talk about love and marriage. This pep talk allowed Liam to recover from his trauma and move forward with his relationship with Rosetta.
- Snowball Lie: His first lie was a cheap trick with some sliced-up logs. When Liam managed to do the same thing for real, Yasushi was forced to keep making stuff up to avoid death or worse.
- Shotgun Wedding: When he returns to the story near the start of volume 8, it turns out that he's married, as a result of being baby-trapped.
- Vetinari Job Security: The rest of the Banfield house knew he was a conman who didn't know what the heck he was doing and wanted very, very much to fire him, but couldn't because his "training" was bringing forth results, and Liam himself likes him.
- Wounded Gazelle Warcry: He reveals a hideous scar going across his chest and abdomen diagonally to explain why he proclaimed "I can no longer fight" when Gudwar showed up targeting both him and Liam. He lets his first "Way of the Flash" disciple come to the conclusion that there's an even greater monster than Gudwar out there somewhere, as Liam honestly believes that Yatsushi is actually light-years ahead of him as a swordsman and for Yatsushi to be that badly wounded in battle, the enemy has to be truly impressive indeed. The truth of the matter is that his wife gave him that wound by coming at him with a meat-cleaver, off-screen, at one point.
- Wound That Will Not Heal: Discussed. To keep all three of his top disciples from realizing his con, he not only reveals a massive and hideous scar, he proclaims that even Elixir can't fully cure it. Sure, the physical wound can be healed, but the attack that wounded him also harmed his soul, and even Elixir can't fix that. Of course, this is a lie...
Avid
Oh yeah, come to papa!
Liam's personal "Knight", brought out of storage and put into use at Yasushi's recommendation.- Ace Custom: Originally an antique mecha that the Empire doesn't even make the parts for anymore, but once brought up to date by Nias of the Imperial Seventh Factory, it is completely unmatched in battle.
- Cool, but Inefficient: The time, resources, and money required to fully retrofit Avid can easily buy Liam a massive fleet of top-of-the line battleships. Liam still chooses to go with the retrofit over the fleet because at that point, he can easily afford it and the fleet at the same time.
- Difficult, but Awesome: Since it was originally built at a time where most of the "modern safety features" didn't exist, it takes a particularly talented individual to pilot. Anyone who can pilot it would be an unmatched martial powerhouse.
- Hammerspace: It has a pocket dimension where it keeps all sorts of armaments from swords to bazookas.
- Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: It starts to gain sentience after Liam inserts the Machine Heart into it.
- Meta Mecha: Just for fun, Liam had Nias put a full battleship/Combining Mecha named "the Griffin" in Avid's hammer-space. When The Guide used the "come to life" artifact on Dolph's flagship and it transformed into a mecha, Liam put this option into play...
- Old Guard Versus New Blood: In-Universe. The primary reason Avid is completely unmatched is that the newest top of the line mobile knights were built with pilot compatibility in mind, not raw power and durability.
- One-Man Army: One Avid vs 100 top-of-the-line mecha "Knights"? Curbstomp Battle in Avid's favor.
- Only the Chosen May Wield: It's bound to Liam's DNA so only he can pilot it.
- Quality over Quantity: A powerful machine that only a special pilot can pilot effectively verses mass-produced machines that could be flown by just about anyone. Avid wins, hands down, every time.
Serena
The head maid at the Banfield estate, hired from the imperial capital.
- Deadpan Snarker: She can and does snark with the best of them.
- The Dreaded: By Wallace.
- Mentor Archetype: In addition to all her other duties, it is her task to train the maids at Liam's primary estate and give bridal training to the noble ladies that come from other houses for that purpose.
- The Mole: She was placed in the Banfield house to keep an eye on Liam and his movements.
- Stern Teacher: To Wallace and Rosetta
- Workaholic: Liam and Brian outright call her this since she found retirement boring.
Christiana Leta Roseblaire
My sword, my body, and soul are yours, Lord Liam
Once the princess of a far-away space empire, her homeland fell to Goaz's fleet, and the pirate used surgery and magic to turn her into a living trophy. When Liam rescues her and arranges her recovery, she swears herself to Liam's service as her top knight.- The Ace: Enough to get her employed by the Prime Minister during her formal education, and to be Liam, and by extension Cleo's, right hand in the capital. Though her obsession to prove herself to Liam, and her petty rivalry with Marie, later make her a Broken Ace.
- Affectionate Nickname: Those close to her can call her "Tia".
- Berserk Button: Pirates piss her off thanks to her experiences under Goaz. Insulting her savior Liam is also likely to make her violent.
- Body Horror: Using surgery and magic, she was transformed into a literal talking pile of minced meat, somehow still alive. In order to cure her, Liam had to hire medical experts and build her an entire hospital so her body could be cloned and regrown from scratch!
- Death Seeker: When Liam found her aboard Goaz's flagship, she was begging for death. The fact that Liam built an entire hospital for her sake was met with surprise and gratitude.
- Double Standard: Rape, Sci-Fi: How the empire sees it when a maid impregnates herself with her master's DNA without his consent.
- Fallen Princess: She was once the princess of a country until Goaz came along, destroyed her home, and put her through hell.
- Guile Hero: Will happily use disinformation sent to spies to trick the enemy, and use a war an an excuse to purge the Empire's military of an opposing faction's supporters.
- Hime Cut: Wears her hair in this style, denoting how she used to be royalty.
- Hypocrite: When Serena asks her how she feels if a maid impregnates herself against her master's will, she's enraged. When Serena points out that's what she was planning to do, she goes on to gush about Liam and proclaim that the circumstances are different when they are not, without a shred of self-awareness.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: When assigned to be Liam's attaché to Cleo.
- Improbable Use of a Weapon: She wields a rapier, but she doesn't just thrust and parry with it. She's on-screen using slashing moves to cut apart people and objects. Rapiers can't normally do the last part.
- I Owe You My Life: If not for Liam, her prospects would have been perpetual suffering as a pile of literal minced meat, or death.
- It's Personal: Her grudge against pirates.
- The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Which makes her fiercely competitive to be Liam's best knight.
- The Purge: When she takes charge of the Empire's military during an interstellar war, she takes advantage of the opportunity to do this to supporters of Calvin's faction that opposes Liam, and spies within her own forces.
- Red Baron: "The Princess Knight".
- Rescue Romance: Liam saving her from Goaz, and then going above and beyond to help her by building an entire medical facility with top of the line equipment and staff from scratch to restore her from the Body Horror she experienced from Goaz experiments had her fall head over heels for him and dedicate her everything to him.
- Royal Rapier: She wields a rapier in battle and was once a princess.
- Stalker with a Test Tube: She is somehow able to get ahold of a test tube filled with Liam's genes and plans to impregnate herself with it with the chaos of Liam's disappearance giving her the opening to execute her plan.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: When she and Marie start fighting in front of Liam on his borrowed flagship as a major battle is looming, Liam strips both her and Marie of their ranks and titles.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: She and Marie absolutely loathed each other, with both of them not only pushing each other's Trauma Button, but seeing them hurl credible death-threats at each other was not a rare occurrence. This was brought to a screeching halt by Liam when he stripped them both of their ranks the moment he got sick of it.
- Trauma Button: Reminding her that she was literal minced meat in Goaz's ship.
- True Blue Femininity: A former princess who mostly wears blue.
- Undying Loyalty: She has sworn her sword, her body, and her soul to Liam's service in return for the kindness he's shown her.
- Unishment: Since she's a masochist, any physical force used to punish her bad behavior just excites her instead.
- Uriah Gambit: When aristocrats of Calvin's faction ignore her orders while she's leading Empire forces against the Kingdom of Oxis, she simply puts them between her own forces and the enemy, to let them kill each other.
- The Worf Effect: She's shown to be as powerful as an army without a vehicle. Liam was able to press her down to a ship's deck so hard her face made an imprint on the floor, one handed, while the other hand was used to do the same to Marie.
Marie Sera Marian
- Always Second Best: She is always outdone and out-ranked by Tia and hates it, with the two of them near-constantly hurling death-threats at each other - until Liam gets fed up. Then he slams both of them to the ground and strips away their ranks and titles.
- And I Must Scream: For 2000 some years, she was a fully conscious stone statue, unable to move or speak.
- Axe-Crazy: She's quite unhinged and prone to bouts of extreme violence.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: In her past she was avoided by others due to her wild and uncultured behavior with the only person not being afraid of her being Rosetta's ancestor, which is why she is so kind to Rosetta and considers her worthy of being Liam's fiancee.
- Berserk Button: She has a few.
- Pirates annoy her, at best, since they were fond of passing her around like a trophy.
- Insulting Liam is all but certain to set her off, and the consequences are hardly pretty, unless Liam himself restrains her.
- Anyone associated with the now 2000 years long dead emperor will make her go completely postal, especially if they're still trying to carry out his orders, or using said orders as an excuse for their nastiness.
- Until Liam stripped her and Christiana of their ranks, the mere mention of the latter's name would give her Cross-Popping Veins, on a good day.
- Crazy Sane: If she were on modern Earth, she'd be interred for her own safety, never mind everyone else's.
- Death Seeker: When she's introduced and Liam chances upon her, she's hoping he smashes her to dust to end her suffering. He cures her instead, even giving her much needed therapy. She has not fully recovered.
- Double Standard: Rape, Sci-Fi: Downplayed. The fact that she impregnates herself with Liam's DNA without his consent is seen this way by the empire.
- Hate at First Sight: She and Tia share a mutual hatred before first sight, having read the other's files and recognizing them as The Rival. They immediately trade barbs and almost kill each other at their first meeting.
- Hypocrite: When Serena asks her what she thinks about a maid impregnating herself with her master's DNA without his consent, she's murderously enraged. When Serena points out that's what she was planning to do, she goes "oh, that's different" and then goes on to gush about Liam, without a shred of self-awareness.
- Impossibly Cool Weapon: Her "sword" is a retractable chainsaw blade attached to a pistol grip.
- It's Personal: Her grudge with the old emperor and the associates still "loyal" to his memory, especially if that is an excuse to engage in nastiness.
- Living Relic: She knows what life was like in the galactic empire over 2000 years ago. She also knows how to pilot Knights like Avid because the ones in her time were quite similar.
- My Greatest Second Chance: She couldn't save her best friend in the Claudia family 2000 years ago, so she's delighted to see Rosetta and swears to protect her too.
- Nobody Touches the Hair: When she went back to the academy to get her knight license renewed, and the instructors tried to shave her head per military regulations, she got violent and beat them down, challenging them to prove they can beat her before she would comply. Liam had to order her to get her hair cut before she agreed.
- Purple Is Powerful: Has bright purple hair and eyes and is quite dangerous in her own right, is even able to pilot mechs similar to the Difficult, but Awesome Avid due to being from an era where mecha with more modern safety features had yet to be invented.
- Red Baron: She has two epithets: "Mad Dog Marie" and "Marie of the Three Knights".
- Repetitive Name: Marie Sera Marian.
- Shipper on Deck: When she hears that Liam is planning to marry Rosetta Claudia, she calls for a celebration!
- Smitten Teenage Girl: When she's around Liam, she squirms and blushes like one.
- Stalker with a Test Tube: In the event that Liam were to go missing, she prepared a test tube with his genes with her plan being to continue his bloodline by impregnating Rosetta and herself with it.
- Strange Minds Think Alike:
- She independently chooses the exact same color scheme for her personal "knight" that Tia does. When she finds out, she's livid that Tia picked that color scheme first.
- She also does the exact same thing as Tia to get pregnant from Liam. Her reaction when Serena calls her out is also the same.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: She is punished for picking a fight with her superior officer right before the start of a major battle by having her rank and titles stripped from her.
- Taken for Granite: She starts the story as a living and fully conscious stone statue.
- Trauma Button: Being called a "fossil", reminding her of the time she spent as a living statue.
- The Worf Effect: She's been shown taking on entire armies, by hand, and walking away unscathed. Liam was able to pin her to the ground, one-handed, while doing the same to Christiana.
Kukuri
- Bodyguarding a Badass: He typically guards Liam personally, while managing the rest of his covert organization.
- Cadre of Foreign Bodyguards: Leads these for Liam and the people important to him.
- Casting a Shadow: They move and hide in people's shadows.
- Dirty Business: They take care of Liam's wetwork, and to give him Plausible Deniability, they don't tell him unless he specifically orders them to.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: Although Kukuri's subordinates are rarely given attention themselves, a quick scene of them intercepting an amateur assassin disguised as a hostess shows that they do have some women on the payroll when said kunoichi shapeshifts into her right after.
- Elite Army: They are few in number, but make up for it in quality. In volume 6, Kukuri and 99 other agents crush over 1,000 enemy Black Ops members who have come in a last-ditch effort to assassinate Liam and only lose 30 in the process.
- Hidden Weapons: Contains who knows how many, and they're more than willing to add on more weapons via cybernetic upgrades and surgery. Kukuri himself utilizes some sort of hidden set of razor sharp spider legs that spring out from under his cloak to ambush people in close quarters with (which he got from fighting an enemy ninja earlier and learning about said technique).
- Intangibility: Being able to phase through walls and floors is part of what makes him and his subordinates so effective.
- Ninja: Leads a clan of sci-fi ones.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: If you see red eyes coming out of a shadow, you're in deep shit.
- Shapeshifting: Seems to be a specialty of the clan. Since they all wear masks and large cloaks that conceal their body, it's likely that they don't even know what the other members look like until after they've died and been dissected.
- Strong and Skilled: Him and his subordinates, as shown when they fight a rival organization with many of the same powers, but without the skill and experience to back it up.
- Taken for Granite: Alongside Marie, he and his subordinates were also found like this, being cured when Liam used Elixir on them.
- Token Evil Teammate: The most morally problematic members of Liam's entourage.
- Undying Loyalty: Like the rest of Liam's rescued subordinates, they serve him faithfully in return for getting their lives returned to them.
Rosetta Ceret Claudia
A struggling student Liam finds himself studying alongside, she is from a destitute family of in-name-only Duchess, hoping to change their fate. Her hard-working attitude, lack of decadence, and cold behavior towards him (driven by envy of his (apparent) ease of success), all cause Liam to become obsessed with her, and pursue her hand in marriage.
- Affectionate Nickname: After falling for Liam, she starts calling him "Darling".
- All the Other Reindeer: Her family's poor state, started by a decree from the long dead Emperor from 2,000 years ago who also petrified Marie, has made them outcast amongst the nobility and made her a target for ridicule and bullying from a majority of the student body. Said ridicule and bullying would stop after she becomes Liam's "prey", but she would remain isolated with the only person talking to her being Liam.
- Attempted Rape: The first time she and Liam actually get to speak to each other is when he's rescuing her from rape at the hands of Derrick Berkeley.
- Babies Ever After: She does eventually manage to get Liam to impregnate her, And There Was Much Rejoicing from Liam's territory. She later on gives birth to a son, Edward Sera Banfield.
- Beautiful Tears: Liam thinks she's at her most gorgeous when she's crying.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Defied since she has been betrayed so many times in the past, she will believe that anyone that's kind to her will only betray her later on.
- Birds of a Feather: Rosetta and Liam are more alike that what they seem. Both of them are Broken Birds and have severe disadvantages from the start brought by their families and actively fighting against it with someone or something actively impeding them and another party helping or helped reverse their situations. Rosetta is also shown to be hypercompetent on the things she is set on doing like Liam once the Inquisition is out of her way and receiving the same educational treatment like the others. Also underneath their facades are kind people who help anyone that deserves it.
- Cassandra Truth: She coldly dismisses Liam's proposals due to believing he is just making fun of her like every other noble she met in her life.
- The Cavalry: When Liam's facing a fleet of 60,000 battleships to his 1000, over Chester's planet, Rosetta comes swarming in with her fleet of 20,000 top-of-the-line battleships, giving him winnable odds.
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Due to the trauma of a near-rape incident and deep envy against Liam's wealth, she shouts at him after he rescues her from Derrick's rape attempt and runs off, crying, loathing herself for biting the hand that reached out to her. Ironically, this is precisely why Liam decided he had to marry her, no matter the cost: gaining her duke title was just a bonus he learned about later.
- Death Seeker: When she was first propositioned by Liam, she was so crushed by the weight of extreme nastiness sponsored, encouraged, and enabled by the decree of a 2000-year-long-dead former emperor that she was wishing someone came along and killed her. Then Liam beats her in the tournament with ease, pulls her out of the cockpit of the shoddy mecha she was forced to field against him, and escorted off to be placed in protective custody of a squadron of Ninja Maids in Liam's employ.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: She hated and resented Liam at first for seemingly having been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. When she learns that he actually worked his way up from the bottom and has just sincerely proposed to her (though she misunderstands why) she immediately melts into a cuddly little puddle. This creeps him out and he immediately starts avoiding her.
- Devoted to You: Once she officially became Liam's fiancée, she happily works herself to the bone to be of use to him. This sudden devotion leaves him completely perplexed.
- Entertainingly Wrong: When she first met Liam, she presumed he was born with a gold spoon in his mouth because of all the perks his wealth provided him. It was only after she became his fiancée that she learned he was born with a mouthful of dirt and had to claw his way to wealth.
- Green-Eyed Monster: When she and Liam first met, she was envious of him, his wealth, influence, and how easy he had things just "appear" for him. Then she learns his backstory and realizes he struggled even harder than she did and earned his perks.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Golden-haired blonde and a good woman who is completely devoted to Liam. She is even nice to Amagi when they first met and treated her like a mother-in-law, even giving her a simple gift of a braided cord accessory (which to the androids working in Liam's estate is a Serious Business).
- Hard Work Hardly Works: Justified—She works herself to exhaustion just trying to keep up with the other students. Each of them have had extensive Brain/Computer Interface prep, while her family was too poor to afford more than the bare minimum of that. When she finally gets the same educational advantages as everyone else, she proves entirely competent.
- Head-Turning Beauty: When she wears Sensual Spandex before and during her duel with Liam every guy turned around for her.
- Idiot Hair: She's illustrated with a cowlick that curves backwards.
- Impoverished Patrician: Thanks to the edict of the now dead 2000+ years former emperor, her house kept its Duke title, but little else, especially their dignity, and Imperial "Inspectors" did their damnedest to keep driving the family's face, both literally and figuratively, into the dirt, just for their sick laughs.
- Nice Girl: Despite Rosetta's rise in riches and power, her real personality didn't change. She stayed humble and modest even after being engaged with Liam and even treated Amagi like her mother-in-law despite the common knowledge of the noble's aversion to androids.
- Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Liam goes through her family against her will to set up their marriage while she still hated him, after he becomes obsessed with her, only for her to be left in disbelief upon realizing those proposals were genuine and he saved her family from being oppressed. She then shows even greater enthusiasm after learning about his background, which makes him the embodiment of her ideals. Which leads to an amusing reaction from Liam at her engagement ceremony unveiling.
- Rags to Riches: Despite their title, her family couldn't even afford a decent house, due to being forced into debt by the millennia-old organization pushing them down. This changes once she gets with Liam, and has difficulty adjusting to things like servants trying to dress her and managing a huge budget for her own expenses.
- Regal Ringlets: She's from a duke house, even if the duchy is in name only, and wears her hair with the classic "twin drills". Liam likes the look because it's a style from his past life associated with nobility, integrity, and elegance.
- The Resenter: Of Liam, before she learns about his past, realizing he's like her.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: She thinks the world of Liam because she knows he moved heaven and earth for her sake and that of her family's. She is indeed one of the women most precious to him, but not because of the "fairy tale love story" mindset she sees him through.
- Sins of Our Fathers: Because her ancient ancestor was found guilty of the "crime" of backing the wrong imperial candidate —the sure winner until a surprise upset with that guy's "accidental" death— Imperial Inquisitors have not only been harassing her house for 2000-odd years, but "encouraging" all the other noble families to do so as well, even using blackmail and other nastiness to ensure their "good behavior".
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Liam thinks his "True Enemy" is either the Emperor or someone close to him after his last meeting with The Guide had the latter in complete tatters, unable to finish his statement that someone was out to get the former (himself). After a few words about a "True Villain", she also thinks the Emperor or one of the two top princes might be scheming against Liam and orders Marie to take preventative investigations.
Klaus Sera Monto
"Why am I the only normal knight here?"
The knight who was handed the mantle of Top Knight after Christiana was stripped of the position.- The Alleged Boss: Liam put him in charge of an entire Imperial war campaign. However, since Christiana is with him, and he's never commanded such a large force while she has, she ends up taking control.
- Bodyguarding a Badass: Tasked with guarding a One-Man Army.
- Old Soldier: He's three hundred years old, but thanks to the Empire's anti-aging technology, he looks like a man from Earth in his thirties.
- Only Sane Man: In a company of Ax-Crazy knights
- Overshadowed by Awesome: He's considered an excellent knight, but Liam is a One-Man Army, and Kukuri's Ninja clan are also assigned to protect him. Thus, when they're ambushed, Liam's captain of the guard ends up a spectator!
- The Reliable One: Not the most powerful of knights, but he never falls out of line. Which is why Liam eventually names him as his Number One knight.
- Resigned to the Call: All he can do is sigh in frustration as he has the most unwelcome task of herding Liam's bloodthirsty knights and keeping them in line. His deputy being a Blood Knight who would be thrilled at a duel with Liam doesn't help.
- Springtime for Hitler: He has a "modest" work ethic and loves his job but prefers to serve quietly, Beneath Notice. Being yanked up by Liam himself and roped into the top knight position means that's never going to happen.
- Take a Third Option: He often presents these to Liam, and sometimes Liam ends up following his advice.
Chengshi Sera Tourei
Chengshi
Klaus's top deputy, a masochistic Knight with ambitions to fight an opponent who can best her.- All Amazons Want Hercules: Unlike Tia and Marie who joined Liam's forces out of gratitude for him giving them back their lives, she joined because she thought he was the toughest swordsman to test herself against.
- Blood Knight: Like most of Liam's other knights, only with the added aspiration to duel Liam since he's one of the few who can challenge her.
- Challenge Seeker: Mainly joined Liam's forces in the hopes of fighting someone who might best her, Liam himself. It gets to the point where she undergoes a full-body cybernetic replacement stuffed to the gills with hidden weapons to improve her odds.
- Combat Sadomasochist: Shows a suspicious amount of enthusiasm both for being beaten in duels with Liam, and for slaughtering foes.
- Dragon Lady: Her name and style of dress invoke this
- Girlish Pigtails: Combined with Odango Hair and has the joy, if not the innocence that goes with the style.
- Number Two: Second in command to Klaus, to his frustration.
- Sexy Slit Dress: Sports a qipao that somehow has multiple Hidden Weapons inside of it.
Eulisia Moriselle
Former top engineer of the Third Imperial Factory who became Liam's retainer after graduating from the Military Academy.
- Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Exaggerated Trope. Gets very loudly and very publicly upset about Liam not laying a hand on her after she (thinks she) became his Hot Consort.
- The Chew Toy: All her selfish schemes result in is her suffering for the reader’s amusement.
- Did Not Think This Through: She bust her ass becoming the valedictorian of Military Academy so she'd have the best chances of getting close to Liam as his aide so she could dump him. She succeeds and then realizes she racked up a massive student loan debt that she'd have to pay off in military service were she to walk away from the cushy Aide job...
- Gone Horribly Wrong: She tries to out-"honey trap" Nias by dressing up in fancy gowns, erotic underwear, and acting in aggressively sexually seductive ways towards Liam. Unfortunately for her, this trips one of Liam's Berserk Buttons by reminding him of his ex-wife who acted the exact same way when she started to screw around on him. This results in Liam firing her on the spot and cutting off all connections with the Third Imperial Factory.
- Hopeless Suitor: Liam tends to outright forget her.
- Hot Consort: A position she deludes herself into thinking she occupies once Liam hires her out of the military. In reality, she’s nothing of the sort, but don’t tell her that!
- Lazy Bum: Once Liam hires her out of the military. This gets her sent off to be retrained.
- I Love You Because I Can't Control You: She has a long off-screen history of being targeted by men and taking pride in cutting them off and dumping them when they don't prove up to snuff. Liam's the first guy, ever, to cut her off instead, and it made her obsessed with doing whatever it takes to get him interested in her so she could dump him back.
- The Rival: While she was an employee of Third Factory, she would compete with Nias all the time to see who would get the most commissioned sales from the Liam estate. Nias ultimately wins the rivalry.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: When Rosetta catches her being a Lazy Bum on Liam's payroll, she forces her into harsh special forces re-training.
Ellen Tyler
Ellen Tyler
Liam's apprentice- BFS: She carries a sword that's longer than she's tall.
- Hyper-Awareness: Liam recognizes her potential when she was able to see the pattern on his sword as he was quickly drawing and sheathing.
- It Gets Easier: Her first fight and kill was the corrupt and bloated Chester. It leaves her shaking like a leaf. Liam gives her a pat on the shoulder and a nice "well-done". She becomes a much better soldier and disciple after that.
- Only Sane Man: She's the only one of the Way of the Flash students who expresses doubt about Yasushi and questions him about some of the sketchier details of his story, immediately suspecting him of being weak but unable to go against Liam or the other two students.
Fuuka Shishigami and Riho Satsuki
Satsuki Riho
Shishigami Fuuka
Yasushi's two disciples in the Way of the Flash after Liam- BFS: Riho wields a katana that's about as long as she's tall.
- Bust-Contrast Duo: Fuuka is very curvy and Riho is slender.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: They each take on a entire sword school all by themselves. They're on the receiving end of this by Liam.
- Dual Wielding: Unlike Riho, Fuuka wields two swords and likes to Blade Spam her Flash techniques.
- Little Miss Badass
- Phoneaholic Teenager: Riho, who's also an influencer as "everyone's favorite swordswoman idol".
- Those Two Girls
- Tyke Bomb: Yasushi trained them in hopes they'll surpass Liam.
- Valley Girl: Riho talks like this.
Isaac Sera Banfield
Liam's half-brother born from his father's mistress. He tries to take over the Banfield territory in the wake of Liam's disappearance.
- Bastard Bastard: Born from an affair from his father and a mistress and has none of Liam's redeeming qualities or competence.
- Cain and Abel: The Cain to Liam's Abel.
- Dirty Coward: Only makes a move on the Banfield lands when Liam's disappearance is announced.
- Entitled Bastard: Like Father, Like Son, he thinks he deserves to have Liam's wealth and status despite not contributing to the Banfield territory. In fact, he lets everything go to pot under his brief rule, just like his father and grandfather.
- Long-Lost Relative: Was barely mentioned before he tries to take Liam's territory for himself.
- Not Worth Killing: Liam mutilates Isaac's bodyguards but leaves Isaac alive after he faints at the display.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: He's banished from Liam's home (and the plot) not long after his first and only face-to-face with Liam.
Petack Household
Peter Sera Petack
A flamboyant playboy who winds up in Liam's spot during the Razel "studying abroad" because The Guide swapped out his family's info with Liam's.
- Alliterative Name: Peter Petack. Though it becomes an Ironic Name when he catches the super STD and has his groin explode.
- Asleep in Class: Often sleeping during lessons after spending most of his nights fooling around.
- Boisterous Weakling: Brags about being a Master Swordsman, though he clearly didn't earn his title through proper training.
- Camp Straight: Has pink spiky hair and wears gaudy clothes and makeup.
- Establishing Character Moment: Bringing thousands of poorly-crewed low-quality ships just to escort him to the Razel territory and acting like a brash Upper-Class Twit to his host.
- For Want Of A Nail: Like Liam, he was abandoned by his parents and saddled with a massive debt, left to his own devices running a territory that was in dire straits, and an outdated Paper Tiger fleet that looks intimidating, but is completely out-of-date. Unlike Liam, he didn't have an Amagi or Brian to help guide him so he could prosper, so he wallowed in decadence and deluded himself into thinking he's smarter, wealthier, and tougher than he actually is.
- Foreshadowing: In a scene from Katerina Razel's POV, Peter boasts that he's getting bigger down there. Not long after, it's revealed he caught the groin-exploding STD.
- The Gambling Addict: During his tenure at the Razel house, he spent most of his time at the local pirate-run casino and racked up a huge debt.
- Heel–Face Turn: After his ruination, he realizes he had it coming and starts trying to turn his life back around. He even tells Katerina that he'll publicly humiliate himself by admitting he never consummated their marriage so as to preserve her dignity, but she declines.
- Humiliation Conga: Alienating Liam was the worst mistake this oaf could have ever made. He taunts Liam and insults Liam's "Way of the Flash" swordsmanship, resulting in Liam getting pissed and humiliating him by beating him into unconsciousness with a squeaky toy hammer. Then his fleet, allied with pirates, gets completely annihilated by Liam's vastly superior fleet, no opportunity for retreat or surrender. Then on his way home, he realizes he's got the groin exploding STD so he can't consummate his marriage with Katerina. Lastly, at home, in bed, crippled, with his fleet destroyed, his territory in a shambles, and House Razel in even worse straits, there's no hope of him or his recovering. Only then does he realize what a heel he was.
- Laser-Guided Karma: If you skip training classes and spend all day fooling around in casinos and brothels of questionable repute, things are not going to go well for you.
- No Fair Cheating: To curry favor with him, the Razel family rigged a martial arts tournament in his favor, and he's such a bad fighter that the fix is clearly obvious, yet he cruelly mocked his opponent Kurt. He tries the same with Liam, who not only was annoyed that his best friend Kurt was put through that, unable to fight honestly, but was also a target of Peter's abuse, with Peter openly insulting his swordsman training school. Liam completely curbstomps him without even trying, and gets thrown out of the wedding venue as a result, which comes back to really bite the Razel and Petack houses in the butt later.
- Plausible Deniability: Which backfires. He disguises his fleet as pirates and has them help actual pirates attack Liam as the latter is departing the Razel household. Unfortunately for the combined fleet, rather than the typical 300 ship escort they were expecting Liam to have, he brought a fleet of 12,000 top of the line battleships because he was planning an expedition to Kurt's territory to deal with the latter's pirate problem. When the Petack fleet tries to surrender and identify themselves as Petack soldiers, Liam doesn't believe it, telling his men that it's a fleet of pirates impersonating Petack soldiers, and shows no mercy.
- Redemption Equals Affliction: He realizes he was a fool and blew through the opportunity to become a better lord in the Razel house with his literal screwing around and ignoring his training and schoolwork when he's married to Katerina, but can't enjoy it because he caught the Super-STD and had his manhood explode. Furthermore, his actions have permanently alienated Liam, the one guy who has the resources that could possibly have helped.
- Spell My Name With An S: Peetak (fan translation) vs Petack (Seven Seas translation)
- Trapped by Gambling Debts: After racking up a huge tab at the casino, the pirates running it convince him to help them ambush Liam by settling his account and giving him more beautiful women to play around with.
Razel Household
Randolph Sera Razel
The patriarch of the Razel House, which has a "good reputation" for training nobles.
- Animal Motifs: Described as having a "fox-like" face, and has cunning criminal tendencies.
- Cavalry Betrayal: Plotted to let his pirates attack Liam and then "arrive too late" to save him.
- The Corrupter: He is not only affiliated with pirates, he teaches the students he favors that appeasement is the best way to deal with the pirate menace. Thus, when Liam goes to his planet for training, his subordinates are worried he'll pick up some of Razel's "noble" values.
- Humiliation Conga: Things completely fall apart for his household the moment three very influential and powerful merchant firms (as well as two-thirds of his guests) walk out of his daughter's wedding to seek out the distinguished Liam Sera Banfield. His connection to pirates becomes public knowledge when a pirate fleet, along with a fleet belong to the Petack house, attack Liam shortly after he leaves the dock. The Empire thoroughly investigates the incident, levies heavy sanctions against him, more than he can possibly pay, and demotes his rank to Baron. As a result his reputation becomes utterly shredded with all his neighbors, who close their borders leaving his territory completely isolated. Many of his merchants, knights and vassals take the opportunity to jump ship, leaving the Razel house a shell of its former glory. His house is now tied to the Petack house, including all their debts, and his daughter is Defiled Forever thanks to being married to a guy who has the "groin exploding" STD...
- In-Universe Factoid Failure: Since The Guide magically swapped the information belonging to Peter Petack and Liam Banfield, Viscount Razel made a bunch of poor decisions trying to curry favor with the Petack house while, at best, neglecting the Banfield house. In his defense, such a cyber-attack is unprecedented and Liam did inherit a house with a horrid reputation. Also, while Liam's accomplishments are public knowledge, due to the sheer scale of a multi-galaxy empire, the truth of Liam's peerage was slow to arrive at the back-water territory Randolph runs.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Out of embarrassment rather than guilt. When he sees a bunch of very high-ranked merchants walk out of the marriage ceremony between his daughter and Peter Petack in favor of Liam, he has his staff double-check their investigations, only to learn, way, way too late that he's been currying favor with the wrong guy, with no way to stop his pirate "friends" from launching an attack on Pirate Hunter Liam.
- The Quisling: He is firmly of the opinion that appeasement is the best way to deal with piracy, and actively profits from them harassing merchants entering his territory.
- Unishment: Thanks to the fact that Peter's and Liam's information was swapped in his database without his knowledge, he put Liam in the "peasant" training class, giving the boy all the unwanted chores his servants either found beneath them or were unqualified for. Liam, thinking this was the "Elite" class, actually enjoyed it and benefited from having his horizons broadened, even earning the friendship of Kurt Exner.
Katerina Sera Razel
The daughter of Viscount Razel who was given to Peter Petack in marriage to forge an alliance.
- Awful Wedded Life: Too late she realizes her father married her off to the wrong guy and now with his STD being public knowledge, nobody else would be willing to risk marrying a possible carrier. Peter offers to publicly admit that their marriage was never consummated, but with things not being much better at home, she decides to stick with him to try and improve their situation.
- Defiled Forever: A non-rape example. Since Peter's STD didn't become public knowledge until after she married him, now she's stuck with him until he dies because nobody will want to marry her and risk catching a disease that will cause his manhood to explode.
- You Remind Me of X: Liam seeing her fooling with another man reminds him of his ex-wife.
"Hot-Blooded Knight"
Oversees the students in the "peasant" training class.
- Hot-Blooded
- My Master, Right or Wrong: He stays with the Razel Household because he's indebted to Randolph.
- No Name Given
- Reasonable Authority Figure
- Stern Teacher
Exner Household
Kurt Sera Exner
Kurt Sera Exner / Lillie
Click for Lillie
Liam's roommate while "studying abroad" at House Razel, and his first friend outside his house.
- Commonality Connection: Liam was initially quite jealous of his near effeminate beauty, but then heard how Kurt is struggling with a territory that's swarming with pirates and having tremendous issues balancing the books, having inherited a massive debt caused by situations beyond his family's control. Upon hearing that, Liam happily lends a hand in the form of a 12,000-ship-strong fleet to wipe out the expected 3,000-ship pirate fleet blockading Kurt's home-world. This decision has both immediate and future positive karmic dividends.
- Defeat Equals Friendship: At first he and Liam barely spoke despite being roommates. After their first sparring match, they become more open and friendly with each other.
- Foil: To Liam. While both start the story in similar dire straits, Kurt's parents are still in his life and good role models, as opposed to Liam's who just abandoned him.
- A Friend in Need: How he sees Liam's aid in dealing with pirates and improving his family's territory.
- Hero-Worshipper: Becomes one after watching how Liam deals with a pirate ambush.
- Master Swordsman: While not on Liam's level, he has mastery in the Ahlen style of swordsmanship and is (barely) able to parry Liam's lightning-fast strikes.
- Pretty Boy: To Liam's initial dismay, he has an ethereal, almost effeminate beauty.
- Stealth Insult: After Throwing the Fight against Peter and enduring more insults from him, Kurt tells him he perfectly understands Peter's ability (or lack thereof).
- Trans Tribulations: In Volume 5, Kurt starts secretly experimenting with a sex-change potion and dating Liam as a girl named Lillie, which causes friction with Eila since she ships them as men.
Baron Exner
Kurt's father, who earned a noble rank from his distinguished military career.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: While he and Liam are in a candidacy party for Cleo, he gets shit-faced drunk and starts whining about how his son doesn't have any prospects for marriage. While this is going on, Liam gets a call from Tia regarding the fact that Cleo is looking for a marriage partner for his sister. Still drunk out of his mind, he goes "yeah, sure" when Liam asks if it's okay. Liam tells Tia "problem solved, I got just the guy for her". When Baron Exner gets home, his wife comes running out completely freaked because their family is marrying into royalty. Kurt, of course, is ecstatic, since the bride to be is not only royalty, but a peerless beauty.
- Debt Detester: When Liam's homeworld is under attack by the Berkeley armada, and Liam's warp conduit back is blockaded by corrupt Imperial nobles, he shows up and repays the favor for destroying the pirate blockade on his own homeworld, and clearing out pirates from the Exner territory, by completely annihilating the corrupt nobles, and then escorting Liam home and helping with the Berkeley armada.
- Eyepatch of Power: He wears an eyepatch and runs a powerful fleet of Imperial military battleships.
- Famed In-Story: Among the military, he is a beloved Living Legend.
- Master Swordsman: Holds the title as one and trained Kurt to be a ranked sword master himself.
- Old Soldier: He is centuries old and still in active service. The reason his territory was initially swarmed by pirates near the start of the story was because his military duty had him stationed far away.
- The Peter Principle: Just because he's a skilled soldier and general does not guarantee he'd be a competent baron. The territory he was sent to rule had, and still has, serious poverty and security issues, and he didn't know where to start. Fortunately, his son Kurt ran into Liam Banfield in the Razel house and brought him home to lend a helping hand. Liam's men happily hunted down the pirate menace, Liam secured the Exner house some much needed infrastructure loans from the Henry Chamber of Commerce and gave the baron's family some much needed economic and leadership advice to turn the situation around. While the territory is still poor, at least the economic situation is stable and slowly improving.
Ciel Sera Exner
Kurt's younger sister. She idolizes her big brother and deeply resents Liam for the fact that Kurt is so grateful for the latter's friendship that Kurt talks about him constantly.
- Big Brother Worship: She idolizes her big brother Kurt.
- Butt-Monkey: Both in-universe (Liam keeping her around just to torment her when her plans backfire) and from a narrative standpoint (the author really hates the "little sister" archetype).
- Entertainingly Wrong: She's deeply suspicious of Liam, and he trolls her by calling himself an evil overlord, so she acts like he's a manipulative bastard who is exploiting Rosetta and Kurt. Liam actually finds the adoration Kurt and Rosetta give him quite troublesome.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Twice. She actively tries to sabotage Rosetta's pending marriage with Liam because she sees him as a despicable scoundrel who is pretending otherwise.
- She has Rosetta slowly, but surely, amass herself a "small" contingent of 20,000 top-of-the-line battleships so she can flee Liam's territory, or take it over, when the opportunity presents itself. Rosetta uses this fleet to come to Liam's rescue over Chester's planet when Gudwar has a fleet of 60,000 to Liam's 1000. With the odds going from 60:1 to 3:1 Liam then has the upper hand and stomps them.
- She conspires with Yatsushi to give Liam a Breaking Speech. Yatsushi misunderstands her intentions and pushes Liam to man up and marry Rosetta already.
- Lady-In-Waiting: To Rosetta, officially serving as her education. Unofficially, to amuse Liam.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Since she thinks Liam's a scoundrel, when he gives Rosetta a budget so she can build herself a knight order of bodyguards, Ciel advises Rosetta to build a small, yet highly competent and mobile fleet and feeds into Rosetta's drive to engage in acts of charity to build up her personal reputation, so she'd have many places to run and hide when Liam "shows his true colors". This is precisely what Liam wants as he wants his future bride to be safe from the enemies of the Banfield house.
Berkeley Household
Derrick Sera Berkeley
An arrogant school-yard bully who made the mistake of antagonizing Liam.
- Arc Villain: Of Volume 3 after he starts harassing Rosetta and Liam.
- Attempted Rape: He has his lackeys pin down Rosetta as he boasts of his intent to rape her, telling her she "should be honored to get the genes of Derrick Berkeley". Fortunately for Rosetta, Liam was nearby and took offense, beating down both Derrick and his lackeys while coming to the rescue.
- The Bully: While he was in "primary school", he was fond of throwing his weight around, either by wielding his family name or by attacking with his lackeys.
- I Surrender, Suckers: He pulls this on Liam to ambush him with more Elite Mooks, and still has the gall to beg for mercy after it fails.
- Massively Numbered Siblings: He's got so many brothers and sisters, his father Casimilo can't keep track of them all.
- Mugging the Monster: Repeatedly.
- He and his lackeys attack Liam because Liam is trying to stop him from raping Rosetta in a public hallway. Derrick and company wind up Punched Across the Room.
- Since Liam's too strong to take head-on and assassins don't work, he sends his entire fleet of 6000-odd ships to attack Liam's supposedly lightly defended pioneer planet. Said planet was being protected by a Fortress-class space-craft carrier. This results in the total annihilation of his fleet when reinforcements from Liam's home-world arrive on the scene.
- Now out of options and desperate to save face with his criminal family, he hires the Imperial 'Observers' overseeing House Claudia and commissions the First Weapons Factory for an army of 100 top-of-the-line mecha to take down Liam. This one Liam sees coming and uses to give his upgraded Avid a proper field test. Result: Total Party Kill of Derrick's little army.
- Psychological Projection: Since he's a disgusting little creep who is quick to use deadly force at any slight, he believes Liam is the same way when he sees his own assassins as corpses just outside his bedroom door.
- Revenge by Proxy: When Liam proved too much for him or his lackeys to deal with, he decides to attack one of Liam's pioneer planets.
- Revenge Myopia: He repeatedly tries to kill Liam and the people he cares for after Liam fought back against his atrocities.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: How he nearly gets away with assaulting Rosetta, since students and teachers fear retribution from the Berkeley family
Casimilo Sera Berkeley
The patriarch of the Berkeley family.
- Arc Villain: Of Volume 4—He starts warring with Liam over the death of his son.
- Card-Carrying Villain: He's a heinous villain and proud of it.
- Conscription: He is fond of forcing the population in his and his sons' territories into serving in the crews of his massive pirate fleet. This generated quite a grudge against Liam's victory, which allowed The Guide to recover after he fed on it.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: After the rest of his criminal family is executed, save the children who are far too young to have any agency and those women who were forced into being brood-mares against their will, he's taken to a prominent position outside his mansion and crucified, among other horrific acts of gore.
- The Don: His family aren't just his own flesh and blood, but a crime syndicate. In fact, aside from some stragglers, he controlled all the pirate activity in the empire.
- Dystopia: He and his close relatives, especially his sons, lived in luxury while the populations of all his family territories were hell-holes.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He may not have been able to keep track of all his sons, but he still loved them. It is unknown if he shared the sentiment with his daughters.
- Human Sacrifice: His family's primary export is Elixirs. They are "manufactured" by going around and sucking the life out of entire planets, especially people.
- Ironic Name: His given name is derived from the Polish name "Casimir
" meaning "proclaimer of peace", yet Casimilo indulges in War for Fun and Profit. - Karmic Death: He was fond of killing off the families of nobles hostile to him, saving the patriarch for last. When Liam catches up to him, he suffers the same fate.
- Pyrrhic Victory: He was so focused on his criminal activities, handing out his sons Baron titles and a planet each to rule upon reaching majority, even if he had to steal it from a nearby noble, killing the poor sod's entire population, friends and family in the process, to then kill the patriarch last, that he let his own territory go to pot, especially once he started sacrificing planets to mass-produce elixirs trying to keep his economy afloat after starting an economic war upon Liam who can generate infinite wealth. His citizens are much better off with him dead.
- Revenge Myopia: He rallies his entire family to wage a bloody jihad on Liam for killing his "precious" son Derrick, when even his family states that Liam was right to kill him, both because it was self-defense and because Derrick is a little creep who couldn't manage his assets and resources properly, even costing the family a precious MacGuffin.
- Right-Hand Cat: He's got one and brings it with him every time he had a "family meeting".
Lawrence Household
Dolph Lawrence
A haughty upperclassman who decides to pick on Liam in the Military Academy.
- Break the Haughty: He goes out of his way to pick a fight with Liam, by mocking his lower rank and the fact that Liam just happens to be popular with the commoners, ropes the latter into a war simulation match, which he rigged in advance, and loses, badly, which in turn exposes how he'd been cheating his way through school and sabotaging other students so he'd always be the top scorer, forcing his family to cut him off.
- The Bully: When he couldn't sabotage students who scored better than himself, he would happily send thugs to brutalize until they were physically unable to attend class anymore, forcing them out.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: He managed to make Valedictorian for four years by cheating the system, either sabotaging his rival students, forcing them out of the academy with violence just out of sight of the professors, or simply cheating on tests and assignments. When he tries to sabotage Liam, his loss forces his crimes into the public eye, and he suffers the consequences, with his accomplices expelled for their part, and his title putting him on suspension.
- Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: If he had fought the simulated fleet battle honestly and didn't cheat, it's likely he wouldn't have got The Guide's attention, and won the fight, because he had the superior tactics and strategy. Instead, because he couldn't pass up the opportunity to cheat as big a victory for himself as possible, The Guide stepped in so he'd be humiliated and develop a grudge for Liam that The Guide could exploit.
- Doomed Moral Victor: Played for laughs. He eventually dies, of course, but he goes out laughing because he proved his point: Liam's assault tactics are not a serious threat against an organized and disciplined enemy. They only work when he has either numerical superiority or is fighting undisciplined pirates that will break and run against an aggressive enemy. Liam had to use entirely different tactics to win the battle, so Dolph doesn't even care that he's about to die.
- Evil Is Petty: He joins hands with the Berkeley "Pirate Nobles" to try and destroy Liam's home planet and its entire population, in the billions, just to soothe his ego for losing a simulated fleet battle where he was actively cheating.
- Villain Has a Point: When he pointed out that Liam would eventually lose if he kept using only aggressive tactics against his enemies, he was right, as Liam learns in class when the professor covers the subject. The point is driven in further when they finally do battle: Liam only wins because he changed up his tactics, which Dolph recognizes.
- Wrong Assumption: When he's helping the Berkeley family assemble a fleet to raid Liam's home-world, he sets up a fleet specialized to counter Liam's tried and true tactics and strategies. Unfortunately for him, Liam is a very hard-working student who earned his high grades honestly, and listens to his subordinates, so when his fleet captain, Cedric Albareto suggests attacking at range, Dolph's fleet composed of mostly short and medium range fighters starts to quickly be overwhelmed.
Merchants
Nias of the Imperial Seventh Factory
Please, Lord Liam, we'll be in trouble if you don't buy these top-of-the-line battleships! (starts unzipping blazer)
The engineer brought in to retrofit and upgrade Liam's personal craft, Avid.- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: She catches onto the fact that Liam pities her and plays up her helplessness, willingly humiliating herself (it helps that it’s usually just the two of them when she does this, or her rival Eulisia).
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: She makes Liam look perfectly sane by comparison, but she is the top engineer in the empire.
- Crippling Overspecialization: The reason her company is snubbed by the rest of the Empire, with Liam being pretty much the only client they can get is that they focus only on ship specs while ignoring aesthetics, and have interiors that are difficult to navigate, reducing functionality and making maintenance much harder.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: How she succeeds in appealing to and amusing Liam. She eventually catches on to this and plays it up.
- For Science!: Her passion is pushing the limits of technology. She'd likely be a classic Mad Scientist if her patron was anyone other than Liam.
- Honey Trap: Played for Laughs. She is so clumsy and awkward that her seduction attempts make Liam buy whatever she's selling out of pity. It's only when the "seduction" is completely unintentional and accidental (like wearing a black sports-bra under a white shirt soaked with sweat) that she actually manages to turn his head. Although she later catches on and does it deliberately.
- Royal Favorite: Essentially her relationship with Liam. He gives in to her both out of pity, and because she amuses him (which he admits). At one point, he just outright gives her a lot of rare materials, without her usual begging or clumsy enticement.
- Unkempt Beauty: Because she's almost always in the workshop, at her most attractive, she looks like a bale of hay fired out of a cannon.
- You Were Trying Too Hard: When she tries to Honey Trap Liam, she is incredibly awkward and clumsy. When she unconsciously presses her boobs against him, he is a flustered mess.
Thomas Henfrey of the Henfrey Chamber of Commerce
Liam's first exclusive merchant contract.
- Entertainingly Wrong: His assessment of Liam's character and motives is off but perfectly understandable considering the information at hand. He sees Liam as a man of impeccable virtue, and he's right, especially when considering the outcomes of Liam's decisions, but Liam's motives usually run along the lines of "I'm bored, let's see what we can do for fun today".
- Honest Corporate Executive: Aside from giving Liam some "yellow candies" as part of the agreement to do business in his territory, his transactions are all honest and above board. Even the whole "giving Liam gold as a bribe" thing is still deemed an honest part of doing business in the Empire, and he sees it as a token bribe as even though gold does still have some value, Liam turned away far more valuable commodities in favor of it.
- In-Series Nickname: To his confusion, Liam keeps calling him "Echigoya", the Japanese name for a stereotypical Corrupt Corporate Executive.
- Intrepid Merchant: He travels between star systems to engage in trade and has frequently had to skirt through pirate territories.
Pirates
Goaz
The first named pirate introduced.
- An Arm and a Leg: When he and Liam clash, Liam chops off all his arms and legs so he can't attack any more of his men, and then interrogates him.
- Bad Boss: He's shown killing his henchmen when they don't agree with him.
- Bald of Evil: Has as much hair on his head as he does morals.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: Deconstructed. He used the proceeds from his Alchemy Box to hire the best men available, buy the best ships and weapons, and it served him well, for a while. Unfortunately for him, he grew too fond of sitting back and buying things, and he's a Bad Boss who abuses his men. Naturally, this does eventually turn around and bite him somewhere sensitive when he meets someone in battle that leads his men by example and earns their loyalty.
- Card-Carrying Villain: He's atrocious and proud of it.
- Depraved Bisexual: He wanted to capture Liam as one of his male and female toys. Though could be subverted, as he just seems enjoy genetically mutating beautiful people into horrific creatures.
- Dirty Coward: Before getting a power-up from the Guide, he's cowering and crying Tears of Fear when Liam breaches his ship.
- The Dreaded: Until he lost to Liam, his name brought terror to anyone who heard it.
- For the Evulz: He didn't have to take up piracy, since he had near infinite wealth with his Alchemist's Box, he just enjoyed doing it.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Liam defeats Goaz with the Cool Sword he just found in his ship.
- Immune to Bullets: After The Guide upgraded him, all projectiles just bounced off of him. In fact, the only option Liam's men had was to run. He was also immune to most swords, but not the special katana Liam took from Goaz's own hoard.
- Muscles Are Meaningful: He's got arms and legs the size of tree-trunks and until he clashed with Liam, was able to literally squash people like bugs.
- Off with His Head!: How he dies.
- Starter Villain: The first antagonist Liam has to face in open combat.
- Villains Want Mercy: When he found himself literally at Liam's feet, he tried all sorts of promises and shamelessly begged for his life. Liam only spared him for his bounty until Liam was informed that pirates as heinous as Goaz are wanted dead or alive.
- Wrong Assumption: He came into the battle with Liam expecting the poor upstart to have his army desert and wither away in fear of him and his reputation, as has happened to many, many other of his victims. He was dumbfounded when Liam's army fearlessly charged his flagship, with Liam himself tearing through his troops and defenses as if they were paper dolls.
- You Remind Me of X: Liam quickly develops a hatred of Goaz because the latter reminds him of the debt collectors that hounded him in his past life.
- You Said You Would Let Them Go: How he captured Christiana. She surrendered to him in exchange for him sparing her home, only for him to destroy her home and turn her over to a Mad Scientist aboard his crew who turned her into literal living mincemeat.
"Big Boss"
Leader of a group of pirates that were harassing Kurt's home and had connections with Razel House
- Collector of the Strange: Kept a room full of living statues, among whom were Marie and Kukuri.
- No Name Given: His subordinates and the narrative only refer to him as the "(big) boss".
- Oh, Crap!: When he hears his subordinates have drawn the attention of "Pirate Hunter" Liam.
- Storming the Castle: His fortress gets surrounded by the joint Banfield-Exner fleet.
- Taking You with Me: Arms an enormous bomb in his fortress when he realizes there's no way out.
- Villain Ball: His final mistake was gloating about the bomb — Liam mentions it would've been smarter to keep quiet about it. It doesn't make a difference anyway since Liam anticipated something like this and had a counter-measure prepared.
- Villains Want Mercy: Immediately tries to surrender when Liam's fleet arrives, but they don't negotiate with pirates.
- You Have Failed Me: Kills several of his own subordinates when they fail to bring the necessary results, starting with the one who asked for help dealing with Liam.
Imperial House (Listed in order of appearance)
General
- Deadly Decadent Court: The Emperor's children are told from birth that all of the others are willing to murder them for the sake of taking the throne. And the nobles are keeping an eye on the fight so they can hitch themselves to the winning horse. Finally, when a new emperor is crowned, they enact The Purge on any relatives who didn't support their bid to the throne.
- Massively Numbered Siblings: The current emperor has sired at least 120 children through wives, concubines, mistresses, and... other means.
Wallace Noah Albareto
Liam, please raise my allowance!
The first royal that Liam meets.
- The Alcoholic: Frequently goes out drinking and coming back with hangovers.
- Casanova Wannabe: Justified. Until Liam became his sponsor, the only way he could get himself out of The Hunger Games known as the Imperial succession is to find somebody, anybody who would marry him, so he hit on every girl in sight, some of them repeatedly. His sheer desperation only served to turn them off.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Just as Liam was seriously considering him useless to the plot and planning to dump him, he comes running in, out of breath, announcing that Cleo, third in line to the throne, wants to speak with him.
- Drowning My Sorrows: When he hears that Liam signed on with Cleo, of all the candidates, he cancels the mixer he had planned and tries to drink himself to death. Liam initially berates him until he hears the full details of Cleo's backstory and how Cleo has no official Imperial support (meaning he's less likely to be Liam's enemy, and will almost certainly help him against the Emperor, his supposed "True Enemy"). At that point, Liam tells him to go back to drinking, as a celebration!
- Harbinger of Impending Doom: He's the one who winds up being the messenger proclaiming that the Imperial successor candidates have their eyes on Liam.
- Hidden Depths:
- While he is a lazy slacker, he does have a knowledge of several households along with rules of how the empire works due to his desperate attempts to escape Imperial succession.
- Though he's initially a largely useless hanger-on mooching off of Liam's wealth, in Volume 6 he turns out to have a knack for event-planning. Even he's surprised how good at it he is.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: He hates being among the 120 siblings sired by the current emperor, and would be happy being a commoner, just so he can live a life at peace without having to worry about waking up to a dagger in his chest.
- Irony: While several (especially Eila) consider him The Load or The Millstone to Liam due to his mooching ways, the prime minister notes that Liam was smart to become Wallace's guardian since taking an imperial prince under his wing will greatly improve his standings amongst the nobles. It's also worth noting that he indirectly is the cause for Liam's engagement with Rosetta since he is the one who told Liam he buy peerage through taking over the debt of another household and marrying a member of said household.
- Life of the Party: He proves to be talented at organizing and throwing a good party at Liam's behest.
- Money Dumb: He just can't formulate a budget to save his life. He ends up quickly wasting his allowances and begging Liam for more.
- Mood Killer: To Liam's relief, he bursts into Liam's private quarters with an urgent message from Prince Cleo as Rosetta was getting too frisky for Liam to handle. A behavior from Rosetta that the rest of House Banfield openly encouraged.
- Mr. Exposition: He is the one who explains to Liam and Kurt the history of the Claudia house and thus also Rosetta's circumstances. He also tells Liam that he can raise his peerage by marrying into a higher household and taking over their debt, which causes Liam to seek out an engagement with the aforementioned Rosetta.
- The Slacker: He prefers to spend his time fooling around, doing just the bare minimum of work to get by. He's so notorious for this that everyone asks Liam why he picked up a guy who is "neither poison nor medicine".
Cedric Albareto
One of the current generation of Adalbert siblings encountered by Liam while he was on active military duty, organizing patrols and who then was instrumental in helping Liam defeat the Berkeley pirate noble family.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Repeatedly.
- He signed on to a patrol fleet to a remote region so he could escape the literal cutthroat politics in the Imperial palace, and when he gets there is stuck in the middle of nowhere with a fleet of obsolete ships, all staffed by problematic crews, and absolutely nothing to do!
- With the boredom driving him crazy, he happily joins up with Liam, even shaking Wallace like a rattle in envy for getting a patron as promising as Liam before him. Unfortunately, signing up with Liam didn't get him the cushy job he was expecting but dragged him right back into the spotlight of the Imperial palace squabbles that he was trying to flee from!
- Expy: An officer in a Crapsack Empire who tries his best to get cushy luxurious posts away from battle, beats his superior officers at board games, comes up with winning military strategies purely because it's the best way to save his own skin, and whose humbleness causes him to get sent to the most dangerous post? He's basically Ciaphas Cain.
- Lovable Coward: He is a competent military officer but is deathly afraid of fighting and warfare, which is why he requested being sent to a patrol fleet in the first place.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: When he and Liam were at the front lines in the battle with the Berkeley family, he recommends firing at range, because he's a coward and wants the best odds of being shot at last, and being able to flee. Firing at range just so happens to be the best tactic to deal with the fleet assembled by Dolph which was composed primarily of medium and short-range fire-power specifically to counter Liam's usual aggressive tactics.
- Springtime for Hitler: He wanted to be at a rear-post, far from the front lines, so he wouldn't get caught up in any fighting. He gets dumped in the middle of nowhere, trying to keep his fleet from going "pirate" in desperation, then he's at the front lines to the shooting war with the Berkeley family, then he's sent by Liam to rack up military accomplishments, to finally be at center stage for the Imperial battle of succession!
Cleo Noah Albareto
The prince officially third in line for the throne. This is in name only as a cruel "joke" from his father The Emperor.
- Antagonistic Offspring: Justified. His mother gender-swapped him at birth, just to avoid the emperor's wrath for failing to sire a son, and when The Emperor learned of it, put him third in the succession line, without backers, just to stick it to the woman for illegally changing Cleo's gender.
- Blessed with Suck: He's third in line for the throne, but he's got no backers, so the chances are good he'll be killed by either the first or second place, if not both.
- Cruel Mercy: A victim of it. The Emperor could have legally called for his mother's death because she technically did break the law by gender-swapping him as an infant (people who have reached the age of majority can be gender-swapped with consent). Instead, the Emperor placed him third in line for succession, but without support, so Cleo's mother would be stuck helplessly watching her youngest child die!
- Gender Bender: Subverted. She was born a girl but pretended to be gender-swapped by her mother as an infant. When in reality (Vol. 10 Ch. 11) it is revealed the she has only been dressing as and pretending to be man. It is also further stated that her seclusion in the palace made it possible, and if she were to go outside the palace she would have been found out quickly. Her father also refuses to let her get a sex-change.
- Green-Eyed Monster: The reason Cleo betrayed Liam despite everyone calling how hasty and thoughtless it is due to him being tired as nothing more as a puppet or an accessory for anyone's agenda. He also consider beating Liam as a way of confirming his existence.
- Hope Is Scary: He had long ago given up being allowed to live past the day of the ascension of the new emperor, so when Liam agreed to meet with him, he just saw it as more of the same, where Liam would show up, mock him a bit and leave. When Liam showed he was serious about supporting Cleo to the throne, Cleo and his sister were terrified of the battle to come.
- Irony: Cleo is being tired of being a pawn for anyone but he didn't know that he was nothing more than a pawn for the Emperor's amusement.
- Too Desperate to Be Picky: Liam's only the latest of influential nobles invited by him or his sister to seek out aid in the succession battle. The rest showed up just to laugh at him. He presumes Liam's just going to be more of the same until he meets the man in person and sees he's serious about the support, but offers a Deal with the Devil, for terms that won't be officially addressed before taking the throne. Since the only alternative is a Cruel and Unusual Death if he's lucky, he agrees to Liam's demands.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Eventually betrays Liam, going so far as to create a disposable clone of Liam to assassinate him. Pulls this on Calvin as well by pretending to side with him against Liam.
Lysithea Noah Albareto
Cleo's older sister and bodyguard.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Cleo doesn't inform her that he's now siding against Liam.
- Satellite Character: She only appears in relation to Cleo.
- Sibling Team: With Cleo.
Calvin Noah Albareto
Second in line to the throne.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Too busy tooting his own horn to realize he entered a game of Xanatos Speed Chess with Liam.
- Faux Affably Evil: Like his elder brother, Linnus, his words are polite, but his tone drips with contempt.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: He tries to weaken Liam and Cleo's faction by assigning the latter to command a war against an invading kingdom, and having them worn down by it. However, since the forces under Calvin's influence within the warfleet are sabotaging its efforts, Tia misleads the Kingdom forces into attacking the insubordinates, matching his Uriah Gambit with her own.
- Irony: Calvin may have lost the succession war for the empire's throne to Cleo but he was way more happier as living as a commoner. Meanwhile Cleo is slowly driven mad by the pressure as the legitimate heir of the Emperor (who treats the whole thing as nothing more than amusement) and his petty grudge against Liam.
- Riches to Rags: Even when Calvin lost the right to succeed the throne and countless women later divorced him, he ended up doing well when he moved to Banfield territory along with the only woman who married him for love, where he began to take a honest worker life far from the toxic environment that was the imperial palace.
- Uriah Gambit: His plan to get rid of Liam and Cleo is to put them at the frontline of a foreign invasion of the Empire while he stays in the capital.
- Victorious Loser: While Calvin lost the succession and his status, it's more of a blessing in disguise as he doesn't have to worry being stabbed in the back due to politics (like Cedric and Wallace), works an honest and fulfilling job, and lives peacefully with his remaining wife and children on one of Liam's territories.
Linnus Noah Albareto
First in line to the throne.
- Ambition Is Evil: He happily tramples underfoot anyone and anything that he believes might stand in his way to the throne, regardless of the means.
- Bullying a Dragon: He knows Liam's track record, how powerful, influential, and talented he is, and how he has a history of overcoming every challenge thrown at him. Yet, rather than seek to curry Liam's favor to secure his pathway to the throne, he scoffs at the advice of his retainers, supporters, and even the politically neutral prime minister who fears Liam might go full-tilt Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal to openly antagonize Liam because he's butt-hurt that Liam didn't teleport into his chambers gushing with gratitude at being "honored" by his command to figuratively and literally kiss his ass.
- Evil Is Petty: He levies sanctions against Liam's territory, trying to destroy the Banfield's economy, because Liam refused the "honor" of showing up at his summons, showering him with luxurious "gifts" and then metaphorically sucking his dick. When the prime minister warns him that alienating a rare martial, strategic, and economic talent like Liam, who has managed to broker a great many friends, allies, and supporters, as well as done the empire many, many favors, he retorts "well, if he's as strong as you say he is, I'll forgive him with him just bowing his head before me!"
- Faux Affably Evil: His words are polite, but his tone and body-language drip with sarcasm and contempt.
- Face Death with Dignity: After his attempt to assassinate Liam failed spectacularly, Linnus accepted the fact that he was about to be killed when his assassin appeared in his quarters with his favorite bottle of wine.
- Smug Snake: He walks around and acts as if he's already got the throne, and the succession is just a formality. He completely blows off the prime minister's warning that alienating Liam is a bad idea.
- Underestimating Badassery: He thought Liam would be a lesser threat compared to Calvin and planned to get rid of him first. How wrong he was.
Others
Liam's ex-wife
- Asshole Victim: The moment she was finished bragging about her nastiness, her new boy toy did the same to her, dumping her on the spot and bragging about how he left all the debts he racked up in her name, and daring her to try and act on it, even pointing out how she better not try to call herself the victim as she was bragging to him just moments before, oh and even if the child is his, she can't go to court to try and make him pay her because she already pegged the kid as her ex-husband's, and they both know he's about to die.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Barely kept up the act as a faithful wife while cheating on Liam, then she falsely accused him of adultery so to she could get alimony, custody and child-support. She also helped his boss frame him for embezzlement.
- The Bus Came Back: She's briefly seen in Volume 7, subjecting her and Liam's daughter—now a teenager—to Financial Abuse to maintain her standard of living, refusing to even look for a job. Then said daughter is magically summoned to the same dimension as Liam, to a back-water planet in the stereotypical "Summon Everyman Hero to fight a demon king" plot.
- Darwinist Desire: How she justifies cheating on her husband, not wanting her child to be 'inferior' like him.
- Dinner and a Breakup: The last memory Liam has of his ex-wife is her enjoying a fancy dinner with her paramour. The Guide doesn't show him the next part, where the man throws her away, just as she did to Liam.
- Gold Digger: As she brags to her new boy-toy, she only saw the man who would be reincarnated into Liam as a wallet, having never loved him. When the wallet ran dry, she dumped all her debts, alimony, and child-support payment requirements on him so she could live the high life.
- His Story Repeats Itself: She's a complete and total parasite who always exploits her lovers, children, etc. for money, refuses to do anything to improve her prospects, and then her living wallet is yanked away by supernatural means, but even then, she never, ever learns her lesson.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The last time she's seen, she's homeless, in abject poverty, and forced to raise a child all by herself. Poor kid.
- Remarried to the Mistress: Gender reversed. Among the court documents that were used against the man who would reincarnate into Liam was the judgment that Liam had no rights to visitation because his ex was providing a stable home, remarried to the guy she had cheated on Liam with... This obviously didn't last long as The Guide watched the rather public breakup with glee.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Betrayed by the man with whom she was having an affair. He even cites her cheating as the reason he's turning his back on her.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Even The Guide doesn't know what her ultimate fate is, nor does he care.
- Woman Scorned: When the man she cheated with decides he's done playing with her, she contemplates killing him.
Eila Sera Berman
Love can overcome all obstacles!
A girl Liam met while studying in the Razel Household. She pushed Liam to become friends with Kurt.- Canon Foreigner: Only appears in the Light Novel but not in the Web Novel. She was added when the author did an Adaptation Expansion of the 2nd novel.
- Chekhov's Lecture: She warns Liam and Kurt about the groin exploding STD to dissuade them from going to any brothels.
- Jerkass to One: Eila dislikes Wallace for leeching off Liam, and especially supposedly getting in the way of her LiaKur ship. Otherwise, she's friendly to everyone else.
- One of the Boys: Immediately took a liking to both Liam and Kurt. She followed them everywhere, even to the pub where they talked about going to brothels. Neither boy ever expresses any interest in her romantically or sexually, nor vice versa.
- Positive Friend Influence: She was first to get close to Liam, and was the one who asked Liam to make friends with Kurt as they share the same dormitory room.
- Shipper on Deck: She reimagines Liam and Kurt's completely platonic friendship as a boys' love storyline, with Prince Wallace as the annoying hypotenuse in a Love Triangle. Which gets sent wildly off the rails when she finds out that "Kurt" is in fact a transgender woman, Lillie.
- Yaoi Fangirl: She has a rather active imagination and ships the (firmly heterosexual) Liam and Kurt in her head. Her dislike of Prince Wallace is not primarily because he's an Upper-Class Twit and moocher, but because her Shipper on Deck mentality causes her to see him as the hypotenuse of a Love Triangle. Which causes her to become hostile to "Kurt" when she starts experimenting with a sex-switching potion to date Liam as a woman named Lillie.
A certain unnamed Marquis house
A marquis house whose heir decides to taunt and provoke Liam and Rosetta when they arrive at the Imperial capital to attend their respective academies.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: After the heir goes and provokes Liam to declare war on the house, the rest of the marquis house runs whining to the empire to sue for peace, posthumously disowns him, and even offers up their (now) heiress into Altar Diplomacy if that will slake his wrath. To their horror, Liam is not interested. It's only because he got summoned to the chambers of Prince Cleo that the house is still standing.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: They love to flaunt their marquis title to get their way, even in places where doing so is clearly not allowed. This ultimately fails them when they decide to harass the Banfield house...
- Bullying a Dragon: In two ways.
- Despite knowing that House Banfield is a duchy as a result of Liam's pending marriage to Rosetta, and that the Imperial "Inspectors" have been utterly annihilated in the wake of the fall of the Berkeley Pirate Noble Family, the heiress decides to round up a couple of friends to harass Rosetta while the four of them are attending maid and bridal training in the capital's top academy. The entitled twit suffers off-screen humiliation as Rosetta winds up being their supervisor.
- The heir, despite knowing who Liam is and what he's capable of, takes an army and marches on Liam's residence as he arrives, mocks him for choosing to live in a historical landmark hotel that's undergoing renovation at Liam's expense, refusing to leave peacefully and quietly when given the chance, and going full-tilt Klansman even yelling "Android Lover" as Liam was escorting Amagi into the estate. At this point, Liam—well within his legal rights— slices the fat blow-hard in half, vertically. When the lout's army tries to retaliate, Liam's own army completely owns them and dumps all the corpses on the Marquis house as a declaration of war.
- Miles Gloriosus: The heir and heiress love to flaunt themselves and their house as unparalleled martial talents. The moment the house comes under actual threat, they run to the Empire to mediate and sue for peace.
- No Name Given: None of their names are ever revealed.
- Paper Tiger: They have a fleet and territory comparable in scale to the Berkeley family, but it's completely undeveloped and the ships are outdated models. Liam could stomp them with ease.
Kanami Akui (Volume 7 Spoilers)
Liam('s ex-wife)'s daughter who gets summoned to the Kingdom of Aarl, alongside Liam.
- All Take and No Give: The reason why she told Liam she wanted a new father, after her mother's boyfriend (and her biological father) briefly spoiled her with gifts. She gets better.
- Berserk Button: Insulting her father. She tries to attack Liam when he mocks her late father for being too idealistic.
- Daddy's Girl: Liam wasn't her biological father, but he was the only parent who loved her.
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: Dearly misses her father. It doesn't help that her mother's a deadbeat and her biological father abandoned them. Liam admits despite her daddy being naïve like his past self, he's a better father than Liam was.
- Dramatic Irony: Liam thinks his daughter's been living the good life with her new dad and doesn't need him anymore. He couldn't be further from the truth.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After her brief adventure comes to an end, she remembers Liam's advice to "take charge of her own life". She manages to get in contact with her maternal grandparents and have them take custody of her away from her mother. Now freed from any irresponsible parents, Kanami is able to focus on her studies and hope for a better future.
- Fantasy Keepsake: The bag of valuables Liam gifts her. She decides to keep it as a memento of him instead of selling it.
- Financial Abuse: Her mother takes her part-time earnings while refusing to find another job. Kanami was on the verge of running away from home when she got summoned to Aarl.
- I Choose to Stay: Subverted. She doesn't want to go back to Japan, but Liam convinces her otherwise, warning that the Kingdom will eventually betray her out of fear, and gives her a bag of gold to turn her life around.
- Narnia Time:
- Liam died in Japan when she was a few years old. When they reunite, she's now a high-schooler while Liam is nearly 100 years old in his new life.
- She spends more than a week in Aarl, but when she's transported home, she finds only few hours have passed since her summoning.
- New Life in Another World Bonus: Gains Super-Strength and Super-Reflexes while in the midst of combat. However, she doesn't realize her full potential due to not wanting to kill.
- Parting-Words Regret: She hurt her father's feelings by saying she wanted a new dad. He died shortly after and she's been ashamed of herself since.
- She Is All Grown Up: Played for Drama when her mother considers selling her to sex industry because of how pretty she's become.
- You Remind Me of X: Mutually with Liam, who seems somehow familiar. Liam recognizes his daughter's name, but dismisses it as coincidence.
Nancy
Yatsushi's wife.
- Axe-Crazy: She comes at Yatsushi with a meat-cleaver when she caught him trying to sneak out of the house once. This results in giving him a huge and hideous scar that covers his chest and abdomen diagonally.
- Babies Ever After: She provides Yatsushi a son, who is then drafted into being one of Liam's knights, because, for once, Yatsushi told the truth by saying that the kid simply doesn't have the talent for the "One-slash" school of martial arts.
- Happily Married: Yes. She actually loves her husband Yatsushi precisely because he's an incompetent con-man, mediocre swordsman, but still a good father, husband, and teacher.
SPOILER CHARACTER
Liam’s Dog
Liam’s pet from his past life, who weaponises his gratitude against The Guide and foils his plans at every turn, in order to protect his master.- Big Good: The true reason why Liam’s life, and by extension, the Empire’s went well.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: A literal example, being the main reason why The Guide’s plans have fallen through.
- No-Respect Guy: Since Liam is oblivious to his existence, the praise he should have gotten all went to The Guide instead. He doesn't seem to mind since said praise is literally sucking the life out of his hated enemy.
- Undying Loyalty: He snuck through The Guide’s portals into Liam’s second life, and foiled all his schemes to siphon negative emotions from his former master, all to protect him.
