Characters / Story of Sin

Dante

The main character. Before the story starts, their head had to be replaced with a clock, and ever since, they've been a Weirdness Magnet.

• The Voiceless: A curious example. Dante can tick, but no one but some of their classmates will understand what they say. Those who can hear them usually have some kind of Oddity relating to them and Vergilius has told them that the number is 12, no more and no less - which is why it freaks Dante out when Demian shows a reaction to what they are saying.
• Stock Light-Novel Everyman: Everyperson, in this case. Dante qualifies as both this trope and a Stock Light-Novel Hero depending on the chapter. The vast majority of the time, the problem of the week needs to be solved by out-smarting or out-talking the threat, but sometimes Dante will need to ask Vergilius to do the legwork. Violence almost never works permanently, however, as it usually only makes the problem temporarily go away and return in an even stronger form later. Their efforts still endear them to a number of students, even though this is not romantic in nature due to those elements being Adapted Out, which causes them being a Weirdness Magnet extraordinaire.
• Stock Light-Novel Hero: Played with. Dante is very much their own character with a past (which is not explored yet) instead of a Self-Insert. They're your average person who has a clock for a head and suffers from a desire to help any student they meet even if they barely know said student. But physically, Dante is hardly useful. They do their best to help, but can't fix their problems for them—they have to do it themselves (especially in Sinclair's case), and some of the chapter resolutions make you wonder if their actions even made a difference at all. Furthermore, most of the people who can hear them also have an Oddity attached to them. The way that no one really cares as to why this is shows that they're all really traumatized in some way or another, and it's not usually presented as something cute or healthy.
• Weirdness Magnet: They keep getting caught up in their classmates' issues, whether they want it or not. Yi Sang even warns them in chapter 2.

Vergilius

The person who arranged Dante's current head for them. Is a powerful blood mage and has knowledge of Oddities.

• All-Powerful Bystander: He doesn't really care about the students that Dante meets, and even admits to not caring about Ishmael's school life when she tells him about having to skip school. As a result, he doesn't enter the fray either unless it's something that he has to suppress like the Unloving Spirit in chapter 2 - but predictably, only Rodion can suppress it truly and Vergilius was merely trying to tire it out and buy time until Sonya arrived.
• Blood Magic: For the first time seen in chapter 2, Vergilius will sometimes make cuts in his own arm in order to shape his own blood into constructs.
• Deadpan Snarker: It's very, very obvious that Vergilius doesn't want to get caught up in the misadventures that Dante has, and will often make sardonic quips about it.

Faust

A mysterious white-haired woman who lives in Vergilius' house.

• Ambiguously Human: While she's never described as anything but human, her revealing her true nature as an Oddity makes her this. Yi Sang also says that 'Faust' is 'the name she took'.
• Hates Small Talk: The prime reason why Dante never gets to ask for her name. Yi Sang finally reveals it in chapter 6. Pointed out in chapter 3:
  The rest of your journey happens in silence, with the conversation you just had being the only talk you had. She's not much for small talk, huh, you wonder. Being in her presence makes it hard for me to think of a topic she won't shoot down. Even the thought of asking her name stirs a sort of anxiety within me somehow.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Reveals in chapter 6 that she is an Oddity herself.
• Translator Buddy: Translates for Dante if none of their classmates are there.

Dante's classmates

Gregor Samsa

The first student Dante helps. Introverted and slightly moody, he slips once and when Dante catches him, they discover that Gregor has something up his sleeve...literally.

• Abusive Parents: While it's ambiguous whether his 'mom' was really his mother, she certainly served this role in his past, deliberately mutilating him by exposing him to an Oddity known to do so.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: His arm is replaced by a bug arm.
• Call-Back: The history with his 'mom' and his arm is nearly identical to his original one.
• Image Song: "Devouring the Past".
• Lighter and Softer: Due to this Gregor being younger, he does not have his military past and straight up says that he ran away before it got to that point.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: He threatens Dante with his bug arm as a warning for them to not get involved with them. Then it's revealed that that antagonistic attitude is the result of him having to run away after being abused by his 'mother'.

Rodion Romanovich

The second student Dante helps. Rodion is known as The Fashionista of the school and has a large online following, but Dante discovers that she has more to hide.

• An Ice Person: This motif is still given to her in the form of her own body temperature being impossibly low.
• Amicable Exes: Played with. Sonya says that he and Rodion used to be a couple, but Rodion herself doesn't really want to dwell on it and leaves whatever they had in the middle for Dante to interpret. Rodion is hinted to actively stay out of his way as well even though there is no real hint of hostility between them.
• The Fashionista: Is widely known as such throughout the school as well as online. It helps her hide her own measures to keep the Spirit at bay.
• Image Song: "This Lifetime".
• Lighter and Softer: Her backstory, to the point of near Bowdlerisation. The Yurodiviye was an afterschool club, not a Syndicate, Rodion robbed the pawnbroker instead of killing her, and the pawnbroker didn't kill her neighborhood, she merely threatened them to move away.
• Locked into Strangeness: What her dyed hair is really caused by. It starts with just the tips, but when more of her hair turns a light blueish color, both Vergilius and Dante know that they have to get rid of the Oddity immediately.
• Stealth Pun: The tips of her hair are frosted.

Emil Sinclair

The third student Dante helps. For some reason, he keeps burning things in a cave, and Dante has to help him once they find out the reason.

• Animal Motif: Young birds. His jacket is supposed to be the egg shell a chick breaks through. Appropriately enough, he throws it out at the end of his story.
• Call-Back: His confrontation with Kromer is basically the original resolution of his chapter boiled down with only Sinclair, Kromer, Dante and eventually Demian.
• Image Song: "Fledgeling".
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: This is a large part of Sinclair's storyline - Dante doesn't step in to fix things and neither does Vergilius, but they instead settle on the decision that it's time for Sinclair to stand up against Kromer, which is the only way to banish the Oddity.

Yi Sang

The current class president and the fourth student Dante helps.

• Animal Motif: Crows. The way his dark Coat Cape flares out is supposed to look like a crow's wings.
• Ax-Crazy: Sang Yi, influenced by the Unchanging Crow, becomes violent, hedonistic and impulsive.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Despite his pleasant and helpful demeanor, he has a lot of repressed emotional issues just barely under the surface.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Unchanging Crow's morality is based on Yi Sang's emotional well-being, and he (in the form of Sang Yi) will mercilessly attack anyone who threatens it. He has little interest in any mainstream moral implications of his actions.
• Broken Ace: He's clever, popular and helpful, but he also has severe personal issues that have left his emotions extremely bottled up and just waiting for a chance to lash out.
• Class Representative: He's considered the ultimate class rep: Intelligent, responsible and supportive.
• Devious Daggers: In a Call-Back to the game, Sang Yi uses a dagger to kill people when he's possessed by the Crow.
• Image Song: "Confused Telepathy".
• I Never Said It Was Poison: Remarks on Dante going to Sonya in chapter 2 despite Dante not having told anyone but Sonya and Rodion. He even admits to having 'ran his mouth there'. This is an early clue as to his alternative identity as Sang Yi, who is able to know things like this as he can fly around the city.
• Jive Turkey: The Unchanging Crow when taking the form of Sang Yi talks like this. It lowkey freaks Dante out how wrong it is to hear this kind of language from Yi Sang's mouth.
  Sang Yi: "Stay out of my way, will ya? Listen, I'll leave Yi Sang alone eventually, y'know. An' I ain't got business to do with ya. So if ya wanna seek me out so badly, then I just told ya what I wanted to tell ya. Imma get goin', there are more useful things for me to do."
• Lack of Empathy: Not in an intentionally malicious way. As a result of keeping his emotions carefully regulated and under control because he doesn't want to have a friend group falling apart again, Yi Sang distances any kind of feelings that might interfere with his composed image. Vergilius notes that Yi Sang helped the Unchanging Crow not because he was concerned for it, but because he wants to be seen as a good person. Part of his chapter is Yi Sang coming in touch with his own emotions so that he could cry, laugh, hate, and love freely without worrying that it might fall apart one day again.
• Mr. Fanservice: As Sang Yi influenced by the Unchanging Crow, he runs around in a white Labcoat of Science and Medicine and a long black shirt. That's it.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Sang Yi with the Unchanging Crow stands really close to Dante every time they meet.
• Screw Yourself: His theme song, "Confused Telepathy", which are supposedly from his perspective towards Sang Yi, contains lyrics like 'I love you, so show me your love'.
• A Sinister Clue: A notable difference is that Sang Yi is left-handed, a Call-Back to him being the 'left-handed self'.
• The Smart Guy: He has immense knowledge about things like Distortions and tends to be a very good planner. Unfortunately, given his emotional issues, this makes him rather dangerous.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: He speaks in a remarkably long-winded manner and uses a lot of words to get his point across. This is a small plot point because the Unchanging Crow speaks in Jive Turkey, which is such a difference from how Yi Sang normally speaks that it only adds to the weirdness.
• Split Personality: His ideal self he created with the mirror comes to life when the Unchanging Crow possesses him. In the end, when the Unchanging Crow leaves, Sang Yi retreats into the mirror (the dagger Sang Yi used before but transfigured) again and Yi Sang regularly starts addressing himself as 'we' and 'us'.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Possession by the Unchanging Crow turns him into a Mr. Fanservice wielding a dagger and ability to fly, which takes out his stress on people by killing them. On the other hand, the Crow itself has no malice - all that's driving Yi Sang are his own worries.
• Weak, but Skilled: Vergilius makes it clear that the Unchanging Crow is very weak, but when armed with Yi Sang's incredibly deep book knowledge of the occult and offensive tactics and his own past trauma resulting in a lot of pent-up worries, it may be able to grow in the danger it presents.

Ishmael

The fifth student Dante helps.

• Foil: Her backstory forms a nice opposite to Gregor's despite them both having their fair share of similarities: while both of them were impacted by a female figure in their lives, Gregor ran away from his and would rather never see her again, while Ishmael is obsessed with finding hers back. The fact that Ishmael's Image Song is the Sequel Song on Gregor's ("Devouring the Past") is on purpose.
• Image Song: "Becoming the Ocean".
• I Will Find You: The crux of her entire problem. She can't believe Ahab is not dead, so she has dedicated herself to finding her back, and it's also why the Evil Defining Whale keeps following her around. It only stops doing so once she has made it clear to that she wants to change and break free from her obsession.
• Mirthless Laughter: Does it a few times in her chapter when she realizes she really doesn't know things so well as she should.

Heathcliff

The sixth student Dante helps. Known as the delinquent of the class.

• Animal Motifs: Wolves. He has fangs like one, long nails resembling claws and his hair also grows long in winter, but is short in summer, which is supposed to represent a wolf shedding its fur.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Dante can count the number of classes they've seen him in on one hand. Yet, Yi Sang comments on his grades being rather high in the classes he does attend.
• Changeling Tale: Sort of. He was possessed from a young age and has never been truly human from that moment on.
• Delinquents: Described as one, and is noted to regularly get into fights. Ishmael says that if he does not find trouble, he will create it.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Defied. He states that he has nothing to live for and simply lives life as he pleases it without any kind of goal in mind.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Like his book counterpart. This is also part of the M.O of the Heartbreaking Wolf - its victims will fall in love with one person only, but they will never get together with said person.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Him actually being a wolf that hops bodies, causes the victim to be shunned by society, only able to live one doomed love life after which they die, is basically just an extensive metaphor for him being verbally abused, derided and dehumanised and him internalising it as he was likely told all of the above at a young age.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: The Heartbreaking Wolf. Since it is an Oddity, when the host dies (often because of broken heart syndrome), the wolf just moves on, hides and merges with another child.
• Image Song: "Thread".
• Skipping School: A repeat offender.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Technically speaking, Heathcliff hasn't been a real "human" at all since early childhood, merely a wolf in the shape of one. But if he himself didn't know at first, and his own personality is all that anybody else has ever experienced of him, does that really make him anything but?

N Corp Oddity Investigators

Oddity investigators who have returned to the area Dante lives in. They say themselves purely being investigators, but their true purpose is kept hidden.

Hermann

• Abusive Parents: Was the mother figure to Gregor, and exposed him to an Oddity to mutate him at an early age.
• Hypocrite: Snarls at Dante for letting them accept Heathcliff as a friend even though he's a wolf. Note her arrogance in deciding for someone else's circle of friends.
• Talking the Monster to Death: She leaves because Dante couldn't bring himself to adapt to her view.

Aseah

• Emotionless Guy: He doesn't talk all that much, and is hinted to simply stand there while Hermann threatens Heathcliff. He also uses very polite language when asking Dante for directions.