Main Series: Main Characters (Naofumi Iwatani) | Naofumi's Allies | Three Heroes and Allies (Motoyasu Kitamura) | Antagonists (Malty Melromarc) | Other Characters
Spin-Offs: The Reprise of the Spear Hero
Other characters encountered throughout the story.
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Rifana
Rifana
Voiced by: Miho Okasaki (Japanese), Xanthe Huynh (English)note
A demihuman girl and childhood friend of Raphtalia. After they survived the first wave, they were sold as slaves. She became sick and died of a fever after Raphtalia was taken away.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: She had pink hair and eyes in the light novels and manga, but blonde hair and golden eyes in the anime.
- Childhood Friends: With Raphtalia and Kiel.
- Due to the Dead: Raphtalia takes her remains back to their former village so she can have a proper burial.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Her pink hair is changed to blonde in the anime, and she's depicted as nothing more than a sweet girl who dreams of marrying the Shield Hero and dies from the torture of a cruel slave master.
- Nice Girl: She's described by Raphtalia as being girlier and kinder than herself. The flashbacks show her as liking to talk about love, and hoping that she could meet and marry the Shield Hero one day.
- Peaceful in Death: She appears to Raphtalia in a vision, sincerely wishing her to be happy with the Shield Hero.
- Posthumous Character: Died before the beginning of the story.
- Rose-Haired Sweetie: She has pink hair in both the light novels and manga, and is described be much kinder and feminine than Raphtalia.
- Wicked Weasel: Inverted. Rifana is a weasel demihuman and a very sweet, feminine girl who was Too Good for This Sinful Earth.
Fitoria
Fitoria
Voiced by: Sakura Tange (Japanese), Cristina Valenzuela (English)note
The legendary first Queen of the Filolials who aided the Legendary Heroes in the past. All wild Filolials obey her commands. She has recognized Filo as her successor as ruler of the Filolials. She is also the Hero of the Carriage, the eighth member of the Seven Star Heroes. She and her Filolials have dealt with Waves that occurred far from populated regions.
- Anti-Magic: In the manga, she is capable of negating and preventing Naofumi's use of his "Cursed" shield series. She is also able to completely negate Filo's wind magic.
- Big Good: She is one of most powerful (sentient) beings in the world and is definitely a force for good, having ventured all over the world to help fight against the Waves of Catastrophe when the Four Heroes were only fighting in Melromarc. Unfortunately, she cares more about the state of the world more than humans as a whole and is very willing to kill all Four Heroes to prevent future trouble if they refuse to cooperate.
- Blow You Away: Like Filo, she is affiliated with wind magic, but has a much finer control of the element due to her advanced age and level.
- Changed My Mind, Kid: When the Three Heroes stupidly release the Spirit Turtle she writes the heroes off as hopeless and tells Naofumi to give up... but when the Spirit Turtle is bearing down on Melromarc and everyone is still doing their damnedest to stop it, Fitoria shows up as the last line of defense, bringing all of her firepower to stall the Spirit Turtle until Naofumi and company can figure out how to defeat it.
- Cloudcuckoolander: She's much wiser and more composed than Filo, but she's still a Filolial. She's very forgetful and doesn't remember much from her past, and she's just as ditzy and gluttonous as Filo. She gets confused when Naofumi wonders if she's the first Fitoria or just one of many Fitorias who inherited the name, and flatly calls herself the original as if it were obvious. Her motive for fighting the Waves and her reason for living is also very simple and animal-like: to fulfill the wish of the hero who raised her. Naofumi's first impression of her is of a child trying to act like an adult, and her quirks don't go unnoticed by him.Naofumi: She was very serious and powerful, but occasionally she displayed those very Filolial-like moments of animal stupidity.
- Good Is Not Nice: She's one of the Seven Star Heroes, as well as a major force who's been actively fighting off the Waves. However, generations of failure in ending the Waves have worn her down mentally. By the time she meets Naofumi, she's already nearly reached her limit. When she sees how poorly the other Legendary Heroes are doing, she's even willing to kill them all so that another set of Legendary Heroes can be summoned in their place.
- Hair Antennae: She has three strands of hair standing up from the top of her head.
- Heroic Vow: Fitoria keeps the promises she made to the long-dead Heroes.
- Idiot Hair: She possesses three ahoges in both her human and Filolial form. They're a sign of her status, and she gifts one to Filo as a sign of her being the next queen.
- Impossibly Graceful Giant: Bigger than a house, but moves like the wind.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While she eventually does come to understand why Naofumi refuses to make amends with the other three heroes, she also points out that by accepting the blame thrown on him, he's doing nothing but admitting guilt for something he didn't do. While Naofumi did try to plead his case at first, he also decided to embrace the negative reputation and his refusal to accept sincere gratitude from the people he's helped throughout the journey makes him look much worse as a person than he intends to. Fitoria is kidding herself if she thinks that simply trying to make nice with the other Heroes is enough to fix things, but she has a point that there's a lot more Naofumi could be doing to try and fix things with them. Especially since she knows the waves are only going to get worse from that point on and that the world's survival depends on the four heroes being able to work together. Naofumi agrees with her in the end and even tries to talk to Motoyasu when he encounters him. Outside circumstances complicate matters, but eventually Naofumi does somewhat get through to his fellow heroes.
- Kaiju: Her true form is big enough to tower over trees.
- Lightning Bruiser: She brings down a titanic beast Naofumi and his party had been unable to even scratch in fractions of a second.
- Living Legend: Fitoria is famous for her role during the past waves and her Filolials are respected as a result.
- A Lizard Named "Liz": It's maybe not quite as uncreative as "Filo", but her name is still "Filolial" with two letters changed and another removed.
- Manchild: She displays many of the same childish tendencies Filo does. Naofumi compares her to a child pretending to be an adult.
- Manipulative Bastard: Web novel only. During Filo's Mating Season Mayhem, Naofumi has two objectives: fix Filo without intercourse, and keep her the hell away from Motoyasu. He asks Fitoria for help, and she agrees if he does her a favor first: to stop some rogue Filorials that have gone on a carriage-stealing spree... but unfortunately for Naofumi, she leaves out that the culprit is Motoyasu under a lust curse, which he spreads to Filo. Naofumi quickly realizes that Fitoria duped him and that there is no way to fix Filo without intercourse, and that she basically threw the party at Motoyasu to force the issue. Naofumi only retains his virginity by trapping Filo and Melty in a Shield Prison and letting Filo have her way with her.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: In the manga adaptation, when she finds out from Naofumi that the summoned heroes are fighting each other, and it's outright impossible for Naofumi to reconcile with the others, even if it's through no fault of his own, she boldly proclaims her intent to kill them all and have new heroes summoned in their place, starting with Naofumi and his followers. She relents after Filo vouches for Naofumi both with words and with battle, but still considers it should Naofumi fail.
- Not So Above It All: She is not above using her status as the Filolial Queen to get more food.
- Single-Stroke Battle: How she destroys the Tyrannosaurus-like beast in her first appearance. She disappears from her spot in a blur, reappears behind the beast, and in the next instant it collapses, bleeding profusely from countless wounds. Considering that Naofumi's party failed to so much as scratch it, this certainly emphasizes her sheer power.
- Sizeshifter: Fitoria can control her size as a Filolial, from somewhat larger than normal to immense.
- Some Kind of Force Field: Able to generate magical barriers strong enough to repel a dragon's fire breath. When Filo manages to break through one of them and give Fitoria a superficial cut, this in and of itself is treated as a victory.
- Straw Nihilist: After the Three Heroes make it clear they're going to willingly release the Spirit Tortoise, the next time she talks to Naofumi, she flat out tells him to give up.
- Third-Person Person: How Fitoria refers to Fitoria.
- The Voiceless: Due to a promise made long ago she can only say human words of farewell. Otherwise, Filo must interpret her cries. Averted in the Manga, Light Novel and Anime.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Her manga and Light Novel incarnations are very different from her web novel one. Not only does she take on human form and speak, but she forces Filo to fight her by using Melty as a hostage as opposed to her web novel incarnation where she merely challenged Filo to a friendly spar. She does this because she's far more concerned about the fate of the world as a whole than the petty squabbles of men, regardless of who is right or wrong.
Ost Hourai
Ost Hourai
Voiced by: Kana Hanazawa (Japanese), Amber Lee Connors (English)
A Human-type familiar of the Spirit Tortoise. After the Spirit Tortoise is taken over by a hero from another world, she joins Naofumi's efforts to stop it, since it can no longer complete its original mission. She's actually the Spirit Tortoise itself, its soul.
- Canon Foreigner: She was created for the light novel.
- Dragon Lady: She looks distinctly Asian and is always depicted wearing a green (black-fading-to-green in the anime) cheongsam, and her role is to gather human souls by destroying countries and killing their people to fuel the Spirit Tortoise's special ability, to hold off the Waves of Calamity. However, since Kyo Ethnina hijacked the monster and she can no longer control it, she joins forces with Naofumi to defeat it, even if it means she will die as well.
- Dying Alone: Averted, played straight by recursion in the web novel. Had everything been going as planned, she would have never met Naofumi, and she would have died without anyone knowing who she was.
- Enemy Mine: Since she can't complete her original mission after the Spirit Tortoise is taken over by someone else, she contacts and joins forces with Naofumi to properly unseal and defeat the Spirit Tortoise.
- Femme Fatale Spy: Her original role was to slowly gather souls by bringing countries to ruin and the death that followed. The souls gathered would be eventually be used to form and power a barrier to protect the world against the waves.
- Godzilla Threshold: Averted. She would have brought out the more dangerous spirit Tortoise familiars to speed up the process, and then unseal the Spirit Tortoise itself if all else failed. Though the spirit Tortoise was taken over by a hero from another world, so this was no longer an option.
- Heroic Sacrifice: She allows the Spirit Tortoise's core to be destroyed, knowing full well it'll kill her too, to stop Kyou from manipulating the Spirit Tortoise any further and to stop him from harvesting more energy from the world.
- Informed Attractiveness: Naofumi notes how her beauty is on a whole new level compared to Raphtalia's or Eclair's. Of course, she was to use her looks to entice leaders of countries and bring them to ruin and harvest their souls.
- Meaningful Name: Ost is the German word for "East" while Hourai is the Japanese pronunciation of Penglai, a mountain from Chinese myth where immortals reside, reflecting the East Asian theme of her character.
- Spell My Name With An S: Her name may be Osto or it could be Ost according to the official English material.
- Synchronization: As she spawned from the Spirit Tortoise and is later revealed to be the soul of the Spirit Tortoise itself, if the beast dies, so will she.
- Villain of Another Story: She used to be enemies with Mirelia in political affairs is depicted as "a wicked woman" by her. Mirelia is surprised when she drops the façade and requests assistance in defeating the Spirit Tortoise with a humbled and proper tone.
Mamoru Shirono
Mamoru Shirono
A previous wielder of the Legendary Shield. He is the founder of Stilvelt.
- Barrier Warrior: Naturally, as he is the Shield Hero.
- Canon Foreigner: He was created for the light novel.
- The Chosen One: He was chosen to be the Shield Hero.
- Draw Aggro: Like Naofumi, he has a "Hate Reaction" spell, fitting for a shield user.
- Hero of Another Story: As a previous Cardinal Hero, he counts.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Natch, since he's Naofumi's predecessor. Unlike Naofumi however, for some reason his status as the shield hero still allows him some wriggle room to directly attack his opponents himself, rather than relying on his teammates to attack, although his connection to his Holy Weapon's true power still runs on The Power of Trust Like Naofumi. He can throw his shield at his enemies with his Boomerang Shield mode, and can even unleash a Counterattack via taking a beating from either enemies or allies to store up damage and use it to fuel a Charged Attack Wave-Motion Gun beam. Naofumi is not amused at finding out that even his predecessor was allowed to attack directly in some respects, unlike him who can't even use items like Bombs to attack indirectly.
- Shield Bash: One of his main forms of attack is to charge at his foe and stun them.
- Throwing Your Shield Always Works: His main method of attack is throwing his shield at opponents.
Holn Anthreya
Holn Anthreya
A previous wielder of the Vassal Whip and an archeologist.
- Canon Foreigner: She was created for the light novel.
- The Chosen One: She was chosen to be the Whip Hero.
R'yne
R'yne
A previous Sewing Kit Hero and companion of Mamarou.
- Canon Foreigner: She was created for the light novel.
- The Chosen One: She was chosen to be the Sewing Kit Hero.
The Final Arc (Unmarked Spoilers)
Medea Pideth Machina
Medea Pideth Machina
The final antagonist in the web novel. A self-proclaimed goddess originating from another world, she caused the waves by merging together eight separate worlds. Her goal is to drain each world of its energy for her own use; the suffering of the inhabitants is all for her entertainment.
- Adapted Out: Aneko Yusagi confirmed
that Medea will not be returning in the Light Novels, and is therefore non-canon. Oddly fitting considering that in the web novel she was hit by an attack that erases one from all of time and space. - Ax-Crazy: Medea is a violent, remorseless sadist who views psychological torture and murder as nothing more than simple entertainment. If you happen to be in her presence, or even so much as simply associate with her, your life is in danger.
- Bad Boss: Butchers her reincarnated underlings out of simple psychotic amusement after they fail her.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She and her fragments managed to convince many reincarnated people that she's "good" while sowing discord and death. This act is so convincing that even when she's perpetrating horrific atrocities right in front of them, and confessing to many other crimes, the "heroes" that follow her still think she's the epitome of righteousness.
- The Bully: This is what she is in the end. She necessarily drags out pain and reveling in her own superiority purely to amuse her, she needs to gloat and taunt constantly to feel superior, and the moment it turns out one of her victims can fight back she freaks out.
- Cavalry Betrayal: One of her crueler tactics is to bring back the soul of a deceased enemy and send it to their former allies, claiming to have survived their apparent death. After fighting on their side for a short time the soul will take advantage of an opening to betray them.
- The Chessmaster: She used everyone as pawns to bring about the Waves and the misfortune to the worlds.
- The Corrupter: She can invade people's dreams and brainwash them into obedience, by making them think the invasions (where monsters appear en masse and slaughter indiscriminately) are actually saving the world.
- Crocodile Tears: She cries to the reincarnators about how horribly her fragment, Malty, was treated by Naofumi and the others. Just like with said fragment, Naofumi notes she's still smiling while crying. Medea even does this in the Final Battle after Trash uses the Ice Meteor covenant spells with a resurrected Mirelia, by taking on Malty's appearance and asking him why he's putting her through this. Thankfully, Trash has none of it and denounces her for all the crimes she committed.Trash: “You are no daughter of mine! You dropped people into despair, and laughed at them with scorn. You’re just… a devil pretending to be of my own flesh and blood!”
- Deader than Dead: Her strongest attack can completely obliterate someone across all of existence, across all of time and space, in every moment and place in their lives. She'll only use it if she really, really wants someone dead and gone. She uses it on Naofumi, who only survives thanks to Arc. In the final fight, the now godlike Naofumi reflects that same attack back at her, destroying her completely and permanently, ending her evil forever.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Jerkass God who throws isekai protagonists into other worlds for her amusement and her own agenda. The story shows that a person who would do this repeatedly, uncaring of the psychological damage she caused or the effects on the world at large, would be The Sociopath.
- Deity of Human Origin: According to Arc this is the case for all so-called "gods". Whenever a world advances far enough for people to achieve true immortality and travel between worlds, whether through technology or magic, there's always going to be some Jerkass who lets that power go to their head and declare themselves a god.
- Disney Death: Not her, but the victims of her attacks undergo this.
- Evil Gloating: She gloats a lot, but is especially loud about it when killing Naofumi.
- Evil Laughter: She laughs very hard and happily after killing Naofumi and later when slowly killing all of her minions. Considering her mental state at these times, it also intersects with Laughing Mad.
- Fatal Flaw: Medea's manipulative nature ultimately ends up doing her in when Naofumi reflects her attacks back at her.
- Faux Affably Evil: She acts noble and speaks eloquently while admitting her crimes and ordering the reincarnators to kill the Heroes and their allies.
- Final Boss: By the end of the web novel, Medea becomes the final villain our heroes have to face. Averted in other adaptions, as its been confirmed by
Word of God that she's been Adapted Out. - For the Evulz: She could easily destroy the world and collect the remaining energy immediately after manifesting but decides to drag things out so she can enjoy watching her pawns make war. Arc notes that she seems more bloodthirsty than most gods he deals with, and he exists to prune the multiverse of malevolent gods.
- A God Am I: This story shows just how nasty someone with a god complex can be if they actually gain godlike power. It also explains why her fragments like Malty were so bad - each one of them had the same belief that the entire world existed solely for their benefit.
- God Is Evil: She cares nothing for her followers (or anyone for that matter) and views toying with and butchering people as fun.
- Greater-Scope Villain: She is the overarching villain of the web novel.
- Hated by All: Creating the Waves of Calamity and attempting to destroy all life just to get more power and sadistic pleasure will certainly do it.
- Hero Killer: She kills Ren and Motoyasu, and would've killed Naofumi Deader than Dead if Arc didn't save him at the last moment.
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: After Naofumi returns as a God, he reflects her one-shot attack back at her. While she at first doesn't care about being destroyed since her actual body is elsewhere, it gets pointed out that since the attack erases the target from every timeline and world, past, present or future, it also wipes out her real body resulting in her final defeat and death.
- I Have Many Names: The World Eater (the name the Legendary Weapons know her by), the Great One (called as such by some of her Reincarnators), the Self-Proclaimed God (ancient texts), Malty Melromarc (her most infamous soul shard).
- It's All About Me: She is unsurprisingly this, given that Malty is one of her fragments. It's even worse because Medea has the power of a deity to back her up.
- Light 'em Up: She uses light-based attacks.
- Light Is Not Good: She is beautiful and wields light as a weapon but is so self-centered she has destroyed eight realities just to gain a little more power.
- Mad God: A Physical God of impressive power, but a total head-case.
- Meaningful Name: Her last name is "Machina."
- Me's a Crowd: She can break off fragments of her essence and reincarnate them in new-born women so as to wreak chaos and destruction, not only to squash resistance against her invasions, but simply for the thrill of seducing, corrupting, and betraying people. Even the Medea who fights Naofumi and Raphtalia is just another fragment, her main body being supposedly safe from harm.
- Minor Injury Overreaction: When Naofumi manages to scratch her hand using the Ø series she stops playing around and breaks out the one-hit-kill attacks.
- Narcissist: Medea only cares her herself and doesn't care if all life is destroyed as it is her plan to gain all power for herself and destroy the universe; also given that she has a soul fragment of Malty which explains her egotistical personality.
- Omnicidal Maniac: She has destroyed eight entire realities to add a little bit extra to her power.
- One-Hit Kill: As Ren, Motoyasu and Naofumi found out. She discovers she isn't immune to it.
- The Ophelia: She's easy on the eyes, but you will do well to put as much distance between yourself and her as possible if you wish to stay alive.
- The Pawns Go First: Medea chooses to let her minions fight against the Heroes despite have the ability to wipe them out easily. This is solely due to her finding bloodshed and despair highly amusing. She only intervenes when her forces are in danger of losing ground as she's not about to let mortals beat her proxies.
- Physical Goddess: Being of human origin she retains a physical, if immortal, body.
- Planet Eater: She eats worlds to grow stronger. Though she could do it quite easily, she prefers to drag things out with the Waves to maximize the natives' suffering as she destroys everything they care about. The Legendary Weapons outright call her "The World Eater".
- Psychic Link: She experiences everything that her sentient fragments do, as though she were there herself. Because of this, Medea is fully aware of the people that Malty manipulated and murdered throughout her life. She has also inherited Malty's burning hatred of all who denied her selfish ambitions, particularly Naofumi and his friends. She also felt when Malty was killed Deader than Dead, which she uses to manipulate her Reincarnators.
- Psychopathic Womanchild: Acts like a very spoiled girl who throws a fit whenever things don't go her way, repeatedly setting up rules to "beat" her only to immediately break them and accuse everyone else of cheating when she doesn't win her contests.
- Sadist: Gets pleasure in killing everything around her just to gain power and because she loves to see people die.
- Satanic Archetype: Medea has a very Luciferian feeling to her character. A self-proclaimed goddess who actually becomes a God, Medea chooses to use her newfound deity powers for evil, destroying and merging multiple universes and manipulating and tempting others to do evil.
- Smug Snake: Her Fatal Flaw; she's so sure of her invulnerability and omnipotence that she has never stopped to Just Shoot Him, and she assumes she has no weaknesses.
- The Sociopath: Medea ticks many, if not all the boxes of ASPD. She's unimaginably sadistic and craves stimulation in the form of frequently torturing and murdering people, which results in her being stark-raving mad and a danger to everyone around her. She's well-versed in psychological manipulation enough to try and sucker followers for her cause when she's not using it to mentally torture her victims, has no empathy or guilt for her crimes whatsoever, is completely and totally self-centered to the point of draining worlds to bolster her power while uncaring of collateral damage, and has a grandiose sense of self-worth in the form of A God Am I. As her Villainous Breakdown progresses, she goes from a fairly-high functioning case into a raging beast intent on destroying everything in sight simply out of spite.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: After Naofumi survived the attack that one-shotted Ren and Motoyasu, she stopped going easy. Her next attack simultaneously hit him at every point of time in every parallel and divergent world.
- Too Dumb to Live: She just ops to fling One-Hit Kill spells at Naofumi once he returns as a God. Somehow, she forgets to turn them off when Naofumi deflects the spell back at her with an Attack Reflector. This eventually kills her.
- Villainous Breakdown: She does not deal with personal danger well. Being mildly injured causes her to go into a berserk rage of flinging One-Hit Kill spells everywhere, those being countered causes her to go into conceptual attacks - which is what finally kills her in the end, as Naofumi also knows an Attack Reflector for that ability.
- The Woman Behind the Man: She is the one truly behind the Waves and most of the misfortune that the worlds has suffered, whether directly or through her proxies, Malty and the reincarnators.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After her reincarnated minions suffer a complete defeat, Medea kills them slowly and painfully. She comments that seeing their expressions of agony and despair is exactly what she's been waiting for.
- Your Soul Is Mine!:
- She can capture the souls of the deceased nearby, give them physical form, and force them to obey her will.
- She can also cause souls to Reincarnate in Another World. Tact was one of many lives lived by a single soul that unknowingly served as Medea's chosen one because of its Lethally Stupid Tautological Templar beliefs.
Arc
Arc
A Godslayer of unknown origin who hunts down renegade Gods and Goddesses causing havoc in the multiverse. He helps guide Naofumi and Raphtalia in obtaining the power to confront Medea.
- Benevolent Precursors: In the past, he visited the world and left behind a diluted elixir of immortality for Fitoria to guard. He knew that if the world was again threatened the elixir could be used to unlock weapons which could defeat a god.
- Big Good: Arc works to hunt down and stop Gods and Goddesses who destroy worlds.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: His system of values is clearly his own. The fact that his motives are hard to quantify in any rational way frustrates Naofumi to no end.
- Crippling Overspecialization: Arc has the ability to outright kill gods without a fight. In exchange, he is completely defenseless against mortals.
- Kill the God: He hunts down Gods and Goddesses and kills or otherwise stops them.
- Little Bit Beastly: He sports a tail and has scales similar to a lizard but is otherwise humanoid.
- Satan Is Good: A destroyer of gods, in most settings, would be the bad guy. Here, he's an interdimensional policeman that, while alien, is the only check on power Gods have.
- Threshold Guardians: He offers Naofumi and Raphtalia the undiluted elixir of immortality which would allow them to stand against Medea. Both refuse it as they realize the power it gave would be meaningless. This is one of the final steps in them awakening to the powers they've unlocked in the gap between dimensions.
- Unskilled, but Strong: While he has the power to put down even gods, against mortals he's defenseless.
