Character list for Trash Skill Gacha. Spoilers may be unmarked.
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Protagonist
Crest Bahurst
God, why didn't you tell me this skill was hard to use in the upper world?! Maybe I'd still be banished, but maybe I'd have better equipment?
Fifth son of the Bahurst house. He is abjectly loathed by his father and four elder brothers as a "devil's child" because he dared to survive his mother's Death by Childbirth. He starts the story on his 15th birthday, about to get his skill appraised, even his father expecting good results because of a prophetic dream revealing his skill to be [Gacha], an unknown skill. Unfortunately, since this skill did not come with instructions, he couldn't use it on command. Naturally, he is unilaterally accused of lying about his skill and exiled to [The Lower World], effectively a death sentence. The only plea he can make that even marginally improves his odds is getting one of his knight captors to give him a throw-away sword.- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: In the original web-novel, he's able to brush off the trauma he endured under Albert when the two meet in the lower world, and take the guy down with ease, being very much stronger. In the manga, the trauma has him horrified, despite being way stronger, and he folds like a napkin. His tamed monsters have to rescue him and only after Albert has taken a few hits does Crest realize that he actually can fight back.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: He's able to secure a sword as he's being sent to [The Lower World] by groveling to his knight captors.
- Dark and Troubled Past: His father and four elder brothers loved to torment him for daring to survive his mother's Death By Child Birth. His self-proclaimed fiancée Ellis destroyed his academic career with slander and domestic abuse, obsessed about keeping him to herself at all costs. He doesn't know how to make friends because every time he tried, they'd be driven off by violence.
- Drunk on the Dark Side: Regardless of medium, when he's got Albert on the ground, helpless, he can't resist brutalizing the guy with potentially lethal force, even though he knows that crippling or killing him defeats his own stated purpose of sending a message back home to leave him alone and stop trying to convince him to return. He has to be pulled off by Goblia, and even then, as he's walking away, he makes it a point to tell Albert that there will be no second chances.
- Friendless Background: Thanks to his father and four elder brothers treating him like he was a murderer that escaped justice, near constantly brutalizing him, and his obsessive fiancée who intentionally sabotaged his academic career to keep him to herself, he doesn't initially know how to make friends when he makes it to the lower world. The only positive experience he had being Minuet, his school assigned sparring partner who treated him with genuine kindness.
- Giver of Lame Names: His naming skill leaves quite a bit to be desired, he names his goblin familiar Goblia and his wolf Ruffina, for starters.
- How Do I Shot Web?: His skill [Gacha] doesn't come with instructions and since he comes from a world with no concept of a gachapon, he has to learn how to operate the system through trial and error.
- I Just Want to Be Free: The reason he grows to love living in the lower world is that he's free to tend to his own agency and he doesn't have to let people push him around, free to fight back if they try. No amount of wealth or luxury will compare to that for him.
- Interspecies Romance: When he gets to [The Lower World] and finally finds a place he can call "home," he hooks up with several non-human females, even marrying a (very attractive) Goblin Queen.
- In-Universe Catharsis: Even though he's being shipped off to near-certain death as a result, he can't help but feel refreshed after slapping Ellis's feet away and telling her to go screw herself when she shoved her feet in his face, demanding that he swear to be her Sex Slave to visibly treat as her dog by licking said feet.
- Again, when he sees Albert, that sadistic monster, being carried off by goblins, with his legs broken, screaming in terror at the prospect of being used by said goblins as breeding stock, he has No Sympathy for the barbaric Big Brother Bully and is relieved that the guy won't ever come at him and his ever again.
- Invisible to Normals: His gacha is invisible to others, but somehow Livia can see it when she touches him, despite not being his familiar. When they're married, she doesn't even need to touch him any more to see it.
- Madden Into Misanthropy: After getting kicked around all his life by his family, getting slandered and abused by his fiancée, and mocked for "lying" about his [Skill], with not one person in the kingdom coming to his aid, and learning how the humans have abused the demi-humans before sending them to the lower world, he has given up on the human kingdom. It's no longer his concern if monsters are going to swarm the place. The best anyone who comes asking for his return is going to get is a firm "no," and he'll fight anyone who tries to make him go back. The only exception is Minuet, who treated him with genuine kindness and who he does care about, worrying if she's okay having to fight off waves of monsters.
- Magikarp Power: The skill [Gacha] starts out being completely useless in [The Upper World] where humans live, since it requires hunting monsters and there are no monsters up there, at least not at the very moment he gets the skill in the church ceremony. Once he starts hunting monsters and learns how it all works, he quickly grows to be strong enough to found his own village.
- A Mistake Is Born: Duke Bahurst loves to call him "a devil's child" and all his elder brothers loved to shove all the blame for their problems on his shoulders because his mother died in childbirth, resulting in his immediate family treating him like an unwelcome child.
- Necessary Drawback: The [Gacha] skill has a few.
- No overhunting. After slaying about 25 of a species of monster, no more points are earned from that species.
- Gachas are time sensitive. The rainbow skills change month to month.
- Leveling up skills becomes exponentially more expensive with each level. 1 orb for first level. 2 orb from first to second. 3 orbs from second to third and final.
- Nice to the Waiter: The family servants nearly revolted in chapter 6 of the webnovel, offering to help him escape, when they heard of his unjust banishment because he treated them kindly, as opposed to the "good" brothers and the father who would be indifferent if they were luckier than they had any right to be.
- Plagued by Nightmares: His horrific childhood has him tossing and turning at night. He has nightmare flashbacks of Ellis kicking him around in chapter 2.3 of the manga, and nightmares of Leon's slander getting him denounced by the principal of the knight academy and then getting beat up by the rest of his older brothers.
- Reality Is Unrealistic: Two notable examples from what's translated.
- He mangles his hand punching a bull-type monster in the head as it's charging and doesn't realize he's hurt until he sees the wounded hand. This does indeed happen. In a high-stress fight or flight situation, like facing a charging bull, the human body's adrenaline system can momentarily shut off the pain receptors so pain doesn't hinder the chances of survival, but the ability to feel pain comes in full-force as soon as the adrenaline wears off.
- In the manga, Crest intellectually knows he's stronger than Albert but is still terrified of him after untold years of horrific bullying indistinguishable from torture. This happens not just with humans but all across the animal kingdom. For example, an adult elephant chained to a post will break the chain and walk away. A baby elephant will struggle against the chain until he realizes he can't break free and will allow itself to be chained even well into adulthood, when it can easily snap the chain, because it "knows" that struggling won't work.
- White Sheep: He must take after his mother because all the other male members of the Bahurst family are all utterly despicable and toxic.
Tamed Monsters
Goblia
Stadard goblin
First evolution
Second evolution
Crest's first tamed familiar.- Affectionate Gesture to the Head: She loves getting head-pats from Crest.
- Badass Adorable: Once she's undergone an evolution or two, she's as cute as a button and can beat up knights in head-to-toe plate-mail, with her bare hands, even beheading one with a powerful kick to the teeth!
- Bishōnen Line: The stronger she gets, the more beautiful and graceful she becomes.
- Cute Monster Girl: Not at first, but in the higher tiers, she becomes adorable.
- Dumbass No More: She starts out as an ordinary goblin with an intelligence of 1, who is so stupid she can't understand the concept of a simple hand-shake. As she evolves into higher tiers, she becomes much more clever and cunning.
- Enlightened Self-Interest: She stops Crest from killing Albert for two reasons. 1.) She rescued him from descending into madness and becoming a sadistic vengeance machine. 2.) When she ran off, she ran to a nearby goblin tribe for help, and she apparently promised them Albert as a stud-horse to make up for all the goblins he and his knights killed, which is apparently a Fate Worse than Death for him, and a shame to his house as Duke Bahurst had a complete breakdown when he was informed.
- Love at First Punch: She becomes Crest's familiar when he ambushes and punches her, she even has heart icons appear over her head.
Ruffina
Ruff!
- Animal Companion: It's a wolf Crest tamed and is treated as an equal.
- Big Friendly Dog: Truth in Television. Dogs came about as a result of domesticating wolves, and this is exactly what Crest did.
- The Dividual: With Goblia, to the point that when Crest builds Ruffina a dog-house, Goblia crawls into the dog-house to sleep beside the wolf and refuses to go into a regular house where the wolf can't go.
- The Silent Bob: Crest can somehow understand her perfectly, despite the fact that she clearly can't speak. Even the werewolf Orphne, who can transform into a wolf, can't make sense of it, nor can Orphne understand her either.
Bahurst House
Duke Bahurst
It's all that unwanted child's fault! HE SHOULD HAVE MADE IT MORE CLEAR THAT HE GOT THE GACHA SKILL!!!
Crest's Archnemesis Dad and the one who kicks off the plot by exiling him for basically no reason.- Blaming the Victim: He loved to blame his Parental Favoritism and not only abusing Crest himself, but letting Crest's four older brothers do it, by claiming that Crest is a murderer who escaped justice by killing his mother as he was born, and then, when the king chews him out for foolishly exiling Crest at the appraisal ceremony for not being able to use his [Gacha] skill right away, he blames Crest for not trying hard enough to tell him he's got the skill when he's the one who shouted Crest down, shut him up, and dragged him off to place him in a cell, awaiting exile, and encourages his four remaining sons to think the same.
- Did Not Think This Through: He exiled Crest in a fit of pique, a result of a pure temper tantrum. He would have been better served if he kept his promise to Ellis to hold off a week, then he'd at least be able to reverse the decision and start sucking up again when the prophecy aligned with what Crest told him. Instead, he's stuck scrambling to try and win back a very, very hurt and bitter man who has no need nor desire to suck up to him, and will retaliate to any attempts to force him back.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: When he's forced to tell the king that he exiled Crest, he tries to say that Crest was a criminal that deserved the death penalty for some unstated crime. This prompts Minue, a witness, to proclaim that Crest committed no crime and was banished purely because he couldn't use his [Gacha] skill on the spot.
- He tries to buy time and redeem himself by impugning Minuet's character, opening the door for the two other duke houses to intervene and they immediately smell blood in the water and start maneuvering to claim Crest for themselves, especially since Duke Rifeld suggested the king make Crest the Bahurst duke title if he returns, and the king agreed since the situation is that desperate. This forces him to try and get Crest back first, and as impossible a task as that is, the way he chooses to try just serves to make it all worse.
- He agrees to let Albert volunteer, taking some knights with him. Albert is the one who brutalized Crest the most, and not only abuses the knights he takes with him, but "not stupidly" brings an illegal slave collar. This serves to antagonize Crest further, loses his house many knights needlessly, and Albert is lost, presumably taken by monsters.
- To attempt recovering from the above, he allows Leon to go after Albert, and try to bring news of Albert and take Crest back, if he can. Leon is even worse. In the original novel, he also tries the slave collar trick, but decides going after Crest's monsters first, and takes a dangerous Super Serum designed by a Crest's former maid, who turns out to be a demi-human, that he took custody of and abused, feeding the serum to his knights as well. In the manga, he instead decides to just straight up murder Crest out of a desire for revenge out of Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence. In either case, he winds up forcing Crest into a fight to the death.
- Fat Bastard: He's obese and he impregnated his wife, the mother of Crest and his brothers, with Crest when she apparently was too infirm to carry a child to term safely, blames the child for the woman's death, is a shameless suck-up who abuses anyone and everyone he sees as beneath him who can't or won't support his agency, and banished a recently turned 15-year-old child to near-certain death for "lying" because he couldn't immediately pull off his god-given magical skill on command.
- Freak Out: Exaggerated. In the manga, when he learns Albert was carried off by goblins to be a stud-horse against his will, his hair turns into a toupe and flies off, he foams at the mouth, collapses and has to be hospitalized, which allows Leon to one-sidedly decide he's going to go after Crest, treating becoming the next duke as a given, whether Crest comes back alive or dead.
- Like Father, Like Son: With the exception of Crest, all his sons are just as arrogant, cocky, and despicable as him, and they all refuse to accept the responsibility for their actions.
- Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: He spent every waking moment from the day Crest was old enough to understand the world around him treating the boy like a cold-blooded murderer who escaped justice for daring to survive his mother's death in giving birth to him, and it wasn't enough for verbal rebukes, giving him the minimum amount of food and shelter to keep the kingdom's laws from coming down on his head, and treating him like a second class citizen, he also openly condoned Crest's four elder brothers going out of their way to torment him in just about every way imaginable, reacting with explosive, brutal rage the moment Crest even looked like he was besmirching the family name, even if the accusation was a bald-faced lie. In the end, he completely flips his lid at Crest's appraisal ceremony for being unable to use his god's given gift "Gacha" right away and banishes him to near-certain death. The last is a blunder so epic, he may have just doomed his kingdom to total annihilation, and Crest now has no reason to want to help him or his home country in any way, and will actively fight anyone who tries to make him.
- Never My Fault: Once the king chews him out on his banishment of Crest, he blames his youngest son for “lying” over commanding his [skill]. In the first place, Crest insisted that he is using his [skill] but because only he had the power to see it, his father punished him on a whim and uses this as an excuse to abandon him for dead. Don’t get us started whenever he berate Crest over every little thing he did while shaming him as his mother’s killer, just because she suffered from Death by Childbirth. He should have known it takes two to tango, so he’s largely at fault for impregnated his wife, even though she gave birth to four other children without considering her own well being.
- Oh, Crap!: When the king's aide reads off the part of the pope's prophecy that says "Gacha, holder Crest Bahurst," his face goes ashen, he gets nervous sweats, and develops a thousand-yard stare as he realizes he's screwed up the anus without lube.
- Parental Favoritism: He treats Crest like a monster in human skin and lavishes praise on his other four sons for the "accomplishment" of simply existing.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: He's shamelessly opportunistic and will suck up to anybody and everybody the moment he thinks it benefits him, but the instant the ass he's kissing so much as smells like it's not of use to him, and is within his authority, he's kicking it to the curb, as violently as he can. He even sucks up to Crest at the start of the story because he thinks the new [Gacha] skill will somehow bring him glory and fame personally. The instant this isn't so, he turns on Crest and rakes him over the coals unjustly.
- A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: If only he hadn't exiled Crest in a temper tantrum, his house wouldn't be facing elimination.
- Villainous Legacy: Combined with Villainous Lineage. With the exception of Crest, all his sons are borderline sociopaths, and they take over role of antagonsit when the plot sidelines him after Crest was unjustly exiled to near-certain death.
Igril Bahurst
The oldest of the Bahurst sons.
- Never My Fault: When the family is trying to figure out how to convince Crest to return, he posits that he never personally tormented him, but is called out by Gwell, who states that he would order others to brutalize Crest in his stead, and Crest knows it.
Albert Bahurst
Hehehe! I know he'll obey me because of the [Trauma]. Now to just put this slave collar on him.
The second son of the Bahurst house.- Adaptational Intelligence: Though he's otherwise still too stupid to heed/have self-preservation instincts, the manga version of him clearly understands some high-level psychological manipulation, as he was the ringleader in designing a tormenting regiment that would leave Crest far too traumatized to ever resist his orders out of sheer terror. It's only because Goblia came up with a clever gambit to exploit the guy's arrogance that this many years' worth of tyranny failed.
- Adaptational Sympathy: He's a lot less sympathetic in the manga than in the original web-novel. In the web-novel, he's only cruel to Crest because that's how he was raised, being told over and over again that Crest murdered their mutual mother and got away with it, and he's cruel to the knights attending him because he was also raised to believe that the family knights are disposable pawns whose job is to protect him and his interests at all costs, and they are to be harshly punished for failure. In the manga, he's a sadistic monster who uses all of the above as an excuse for his cruelty and openly enjoys brutalizing Crest, especially by murdering any living thing that got close to the poor boy and blaming Crest himself for it, just to traumatize him into being so abjectly terrified that he would never dare resist.
- Adaptational Villainy: In the original web-novel, all he did was use "sparring practice" as an excuse to beat Crest up. In the manga, a flashback shows him and the rest of his brothers beating Crest down while he murdered Crest's pet and then making it abundantly clear that he'll keep on brutalizing Crest for the rest of his life as a "parent killer."
- Assumed Win: When the pope's prophecy was being read, he presumed he'd be the third name to be called, because of his [Fire Level 5] skill. When the word "Gacha" is said, he gapes in shock.
- Backstab Backfire: Crest would have straight up killed him if Goblina didn't stop him, instead walking away and telling Albert to go home and deliver the message that Crest is not coming back. Albert "thanks" him for the mercy by grabbing the slave collar in his pocket and attacking Crest from behind. Some nearby goblins take the opportunity to attack him from behind in return, break his legs, chain his arms, strip him naked, and drag him off to use as breeding stock. BWAHAHA!
- Bad Boss: He shouts death threats at the knights his father provided for him and beats them up to vent his frustrations.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: In the manga, he is on screen shown beating up Crest's pet dog to death while Crest's three other brothers held him down so he couldn't fight back, and then promising that Crest is the unforgivable one and he'd go out of his way to destroy everything Crest ever hold dear, be prepared.
- Barbaric Bully: He would beat the ever-loving shit out of Crest, or have his three brothers do it, while destroying Crest's possessions, especially living animals, specifically for the purpose of making Crest too traumatized to ever resist their commands.
- Big Brother Bully: To such horrific levels, it's behavior seen in guards of prison camps!
- Blaming the Victim: In addition to all the stuff his father blames on Crest, he blames Crest for being "weak and incompetent" for straight up murdering his pet right in front of him, after the rest of his brothers beat him down 3 on 1, purely to traumatize him further.
- Exit, Pursued by a Bear: A tribe of friendly goblins breaks his arms and legs and drags him off to use as breeding stock. Bwahaha!
- Hate Sink: All of Crest's family are lamentable pieces of human garbage, but this guy takes the cake. Of his brothers, Albert dealt the most physical and psychological abuse to Crest, such as killing Crest's pet dog and placing the blame on him for being too weak to stop him in the manga. When he volunteers to bring Crest back, he plans to use a slave collar on him, and once reunited, Albert resorts to pressing Crest's Trauma Button to get him to cooperate. Additionally, Albert is a terrible leader, berating and viciously beating the knights he brought him for their perceived incompetence, even killing one for understandably getting tired of his shit and wanting to go back to the Upper World.
- Hope Spot: After he fakes his surrender, hoping to find an opening to put the slave collar on Crest, Crest looks like he's accepting the request for assistance only to stab him in the shoulder and let him know he is never coming back after being abused and abandoned, and the upper world can burn for all he cares, making Albert scared for his life for a change.
- Hypocrite: He’s extremely vicious at his torture of his youngest brother, Crest, even going as far as to force him to watch as he kills his pet dog, and he has the audacity to label him the monster. Just because their mother died giving birth to Crest, something that was beyond Crest’s control.
- Karmic Rape: Delivered by unaffiliated monsters. Albert has been uttered monstrous to Crest for the boy's entire life and was happily looking to keep doing it, and as a final spit on Crest's mercy, tries to attack the latter from behind to slap a slave collar on him, not to mention brutalizing his own knights and keeping them in line with death-threats. Being the last man standing because of his own Bad Boss antics, he never noticed that a swarm of goblins were coming for him. So they break his legs with a boulder and drag him off for breeding stock. Crest is spared because Goblina is with him, and he treats his tamed monsters kindly.
- Never My Fault: Once he reunites with Crest, he’s called out for killing his pet dog. But he has the gall to blame Crest for said dog’s death because he’s “too weak and unskilled” since he couldn’t fight back. Even though the rest of his brothers were pinning down Crest as he’s killing the dog.
- Playing with Fire: His skill of [Fire level 5] allows him to hurl around powerful fire attacks.
- Too Dumb to Live: Despite repeatedly telling himself he's "not stupid," he's so moronic he deserves a Darwin Award. First, he tries to convince Minuet to ditch a summon from the king to go play around with him. Duke house or not, that's lése-majestè and the king could well execute him for the affront with legal impunity. He openly ignores the warnings of the gatekeepers, who've been there for years, that the monsters he will face are far more dangerous than he's used to in [Upper World], both in cunning and strength, and lastly, he abuses his knights with death threats, physical assault, and forcing those with [Detect] magic to keep it on at all times, making them run out of mana when they really need it. Lastly, he ignores Crest's mercy due to an attack of unfounded aristocratic pride and attacks him from behind when Crest has him outgunned and outnumbered 3 to 1, his knights out of commission, and he pays absolutely no attention to his surroundings, letting a flock of goblins take him by surprise.
Gwell Bahurst
The third brother.
- Assumed Win: When the pope's prophecy is being read aloud after Ellis and Minuet are called upon as god's chosen heroes, he thinks the third name is going to be his until he hears the word "Gacha" and his mouth agape in shock.
- Casanova Wannabe: Just like Albert, he believes he's a genuine lady's man when he's a total boor.
- Entitled to Have You: To Ellis. Even though Ellis herself tells him, to his face, that he's vastly inferior to Crest, he thinks he's her perfect marriage partner and continues to pursue her, to her eternal disgust.
- Just Following Orders: During the first family meeting regarding Crest, when Igril protests "But I never bullied Crest," he counters "Yeah, because you ordered me to do it for you!" Pointing to the family policy of the firstborn's orders being absolute, unless countered by orders from dad.
- Too Dumb to Live: Just like Albert, he suggests blowing off a summons from the king to Ellis so the two of them can fool around, even though he knows the king could have him executed if he found out.
Leon Bahurst
You are the only one I can't forgive, Crest! I'll Kill You!!
The fourth brother and the second attempt by the Bahurst family to recover Crest from The Lower World.- Adaptational Intelligence: Downplayed. In the original web-novel, he never suspected Marnaas, despite abusing the demi-human that was Crest's maid, consuming the magical stone she provided without question. In the manga, he does have suspicions, testing the tools she provides on convicts first, but after everything's been going well for a while, he brushes them off and thinks that she's being completely obedient because the slave bracelet he sees on her seems to be working.
- Adaptation Deviation: In the original novel, when he faces off against Crest in the lower world, he goes murder-crazy and becomes a mindless monster after consuming one magic stone, fighting Crest on near-even terms, with Crest just barely squeaking out a victory after a hard-fought battle. In the manga, he confronts Crest having already consumed the magic stone, still murderous but still somewhat self-aware. After seeing that even with the power-boost Crest is still the better fighter, he swallows several more stones, turning himself into a monster before Crest can deliver the final blow, and tears through Crest like he's made of paper mache.
- Bad Boss: Like Albert, he also threatens and abuses his knights, but the knights love him because he lets them go around and engage in Torture for Fun and Information.
- Berserk Button: When things don't line up with how he expected them to, he completely flips out and goes Axe-Crazy.
- The Corruption: Consuming a magic gem for a power-up before going after Crest eats away at his body and mind, turning him from a mere Big Brother Bully into an insane murder machine, slowly but surely. By the time he and Crest clash, the only remedy is his death.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He's utterly incapable of understanding why Goblia would resist his demands to betray Crest even when he's got her head in a literal vice-grip. He just presumes she's too stupid to realize his "greatness."
- Evil Makes You Ugly: Even before swallowing the magic stone, his face visibly distorts and warps every time he so much and schemes to do an evil act, and when he's thwarted and wants self-righteous vengeance, his veins bulge out to the point his appearance is monstrous.
- Fantastic Racism: In his eyes, simply being a demi-human means you're a "sinner" who deserves to be enslaved and slapped around. Sadly, this view is shared by the vast majority of the humans in his kingdom and a few others.
- Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: He wants revenge against Crest for "countless acts of humiliation and always stealing what's his." Turns out that "stealing" is Crest refusing to hand over what little bit he's got, and the "humiliation" is entirely self-inflicted as he demands duels, loses, and then gets angry that Crest didn't let him win, as he expects from simply being an older sibling.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: In a flashback of chapter 16.1, as his final memory before he goes completely mindless, it's revealed that his mother died when he was just barely able to walk and talk, leaving him lost, confused, and scared. This still doesn't excuse the way he abuses the family knights, beats up on commoners, and feels so entitled and sadistic to his younger brother, as the latter had no mother at all and is still a decent person in spite of everything he's endured.
- Helpful Hallucination: In chapter 16.3 of the manga, he sees a hallucination of his mother coming to pick him up and take him to heaven as he lies dying from his own monstrous actions. Even Crest's skills can do nothing for him at that point.
- Malicious Slander: When he loses an on-screen duel/mock combat to Crest he goes and spreads rumors and informs the principal that Crest threw the fights by bribing his fellow students to lose on purpose. The principal believes this hogwash at face value, getting Crest beat up by his three other elder brothers for smearing the family name while Leon smugly smirks just around the corner where only Crest, who's on the ground literally getting curbstomped can see it.
- Revenge Before Reason: Combined with Misplaced Retribution. Chapter 16.2 has Crest see this guy's memories via magic stone shenanigans. Leon, at his mother's grave, proclaims that when Crest was shipped off, the other brothers began taking out their sadism on him instead. Rather than retaliate to them, he proclaims that Crest's very existence somehow "cursed" the family, and the only remedy is to "avenge his mother's death" by hunting Crest down and killing him, personally. Crest is sick and tired of this worn-out Insane Troll Logic, convinced that he now has no choice but to kill Leon, dead.
- Self-Disposing Villain: Subverted. When Crest escapes his ill-thought-out murder attempt and tries to talk him down in chapter 15.3, he sees it as yet another "huge humiliation" and consumes several more magic stones. His head turns red and explodes, gushing blood in several directions, but before Crest can finish the job and pierce his heart, he stands back up again, having turned himself into a powerful mutant monster and blowing a hole in Crest's body, sending the sword arm flying, and Crest to the ground, about to die...
- Smug Snake: He's nowhere near as smart, skilled, or strong as he thinks he is, and gets vengeful when evidence of this is apparent, like the fact that he loses duels to Crest that he himself demands.
- The Sociopath: He showed some signs of it in the original novel, like seeing all his brothers as nothing more than the unwanted competition for the duke title, useful pawns, or both. In the manga, it is far more pronounced, as he has a pathological need to be amused by trampling Crest, and when that's thwarted, demands vengeance for "being looked down on" or "countless humiliations," has an overblown view of his own importance, enforcing it with violence, has absolutely no empathy or sympathy for anyone, and while he almost immediately became a mindless murder machine after swallowing the mana stone in the original novel, in the manga, he completely assimilates it and maintains his consciousness, thinking he's superior to the skill-granting gods!
- Sore Loser: He feels entitled to have Crest openly let him win in any conflict, no matter how high the stakes. He takes the fact that Crest always fights him fairly, and he loses as a result, as a complete and abject humiliation, which is completely undeserved. This reaches its zenith in manga chapter 15.3 where he tries to straight-up murder Crest, using the headless corpse of his fellow knight to hold Crest in place. When Crest survives despite that, he screams out that he "can't afford to lose anymore" consumes several more stones, and then mutates into a monster blowing off Crest's arm with a huge hole in Crest's body.
- Stupid Evil: He somehow learned that Crest's former maid is a youkai fox-type demi-human and took custody of her when Crest was exiled. He demands her to be in her Youkai form when he thinks they're alone (if anyone realized he was cavorting with a demi-human, he would be arrested and jailed, at best) and brutalizes her, then expects that simply because she's wearing a slave bracelet (or what looks like one) that he can almost completely trust the magical tools she makes. (He does feed the magic crystals to convicts and then extracts them from the convicts' corpses when the test is done, but never ponders that maybe Marsaas expected that and put in a mechanism to exploit this, nor does he ever suspect that feeding these crystals to convicts first would make them more dangerous.)
- Sympathy for the Devil: In the manga, Crest actually pities him for his "mommy issues."
Marnaas
Forgive me, Leon-sama. The tools are ready.
Formerly Crest's maid. She's a fox-type Youkai demi-human and an expert magical tool maker.- Adaptation Personality Change: In the original web-novel, her scheme to give Leon a nice Uriah Gambit was just the opening salvo in her war on the kingdom, and who can blame her, considering how her entire race was treated by the racist humans? In the manga, she had no choice but to do it to be free of the abusive little psycho so she could return to her beloved master, Crest.
- Apologizes a Lot: Invoked. If she doesn't apologize for every other sentence, Leon beats her around.
- Beast Man: She's half-fox, half-woman.
- The Dog Bites Back: She sucks up to Leon because she has no choice, but when Leon is preparing to go after Crest, she presents him magic stones that she knows will corrupt and taint him into a mindless beast that has to be struck down.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The night before Crest was to be unjustly exiled, she came to his cell and tearfully offered to help him escape. He turned her down because he knew that wouldn't do any good and would only get her in trouble. She is then passed off to Leon who brutalizes her.
Leon's knights
Healing potion. It's confirmed. Let's show her what we "the torture knights" who made all those people in the upper world obedient can do! AAAHAHAHAHA!
- Card-Carrying Villain: They happily call themselves "The Torture Knights" and brag about torturing people into obedience in the Upper World, who are presumed to be innocents, since convicts are usually shipped down to the Lower World to "atone for their sins."
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The knight who got beheaded by Goblia kicking him in the teeth apparently just recently got married.
- Kick Them While They're Down: They further brutalize Goblia after Leon has crushed her skull, and beat her down when she tries to retaliate or escape, to the point she would have died if she didn't just happen to be in a field of flowers with healing properties and Crest managed to find her and unlock her next evolution.
- Moral Myopia: They absolutely brutalized Goblia, kicking her while was down after Leon beat her, and had a contingent of mages at their back, using a magical incense to isolate her so she couldn't call for help, nor could Crest summon her back, but when Goblia retaliates and kicks one of them in the teeth, beheading him, his fellows yell out "attacking in the area where he had no protection, you coward!"
- People Puppets: Consuming the magic stones Leon provided them allows Leon to control their bodies even after death. The knight Goblia beheaded stands up again and grabs Crest from behind as Leon is charging a powerful wind spell. After Rufina pushes Crest out of the way of the spell, Goblia responds by reaching down the guy's throat, ripping out and graphically crushing the knight's heart, which is what finally breaks Leon's control.
- Tempting Fate: After seeing his partner get beheaded by Goblia kicking him in the teeth, one of the knights closes his faceplate and yells "Now you can't hurt me!" Goblia finds a way, and his death is... ''messy.
Rifeld House
Ellis Rifeld
You will regret not being my slave, Crest! Don't come crying to me later!
Crest's former fiancée. She has a very, very twisted affection for him, obsessed with keeping him all to herself and tormenting him for her own amusement, but when she learns that he really was banished is filled with regret.- Abhorrent Admirer: Despite her beauty, her rotten personality and sadistic treatment of him have made Crest fearful and resentful of her.
- A-Cup Angst: She's got a bust that perfectly suits her frame, but she's murderously jealous of Minuet because the latter's chest is bigger.
- Berserk Button: Don't call her an Angelic Beauty. She's more beautiful than angels!
- Blasphemous Boast: She thinks angels pale before her own beauty.
- Domestic Abuser: She loved to publicly and privately humiliate and torment Crest, starting with mounting him like a horse and whipping him with a riding crop, just for her own pleasure. Even as he's being chewed out by his father "for lying," she can clearly be seen smiling in pure bliss as his face is dyed in despair.
- Entitled to Have You: To Crest. Even when Crest himself tells her to go and screw herself, she still thinks he's hers and refuses to brook any counterargument.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When Minuet tells her that Crest doesn't care for being in a Gilded Cage and just wants to be free, her response is "Freedom, what's that?" and can't understand, for the life of her, why Crest would prefer death to being her "dog" and being treated as a slave in the lap of luxury.
- Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: People throughout the kingdom praise her for her angelic beauty and noble elegance, but behind closed doors, she's a sadistic Domestic Abuser who gets off on humiliating and tormenting her marriage partner.
- Hero with an F in Good: She does genuinely care for Crest and takes her duty to protect the people of the kingdom seriously, but she's vain, arrogant, entitled, and toxically possessive of the man she cares for, and she's needlessly hateful of her self-perceived love rival, and takes out her frustrations on the guy she cares for, driving him away.
- Hypocritical Heartwarming: It's okay if she torments Crest for whom she has a twisted love, but when his brothers insult and torment him, she's sickened and enraged.
- Ignored Epiphany: While she does legitimately feel terrible for causing Crest pain, she also thinks a simple apology will fix everything, not realizing that Crest won't forgive her that easily. It's unlikely she'll change her behavior either.
- I Love You Because I Can't Control You: The reason she initially fixates on Crest is that he doesn't swoon and fawn all over her, instead asking her to stay away due to being seen as a pariah by his family.
- Leonine Contract: The night before Crest was exiled, she came to the dingy cell he was being held in and promised to use all her ducal connections to save him if he got on his hands and knees, literally licked her feet, and swore unswerving loyalty as her slave, and she already demonstrated how humiliating that is during their academic career. He is briefly tempted before he slaps the foot she was shoving in his face away and tells her to go screw herself.
- Loving Bully: Exaggerated and Deconstructed. She treats Crest like he's lower than the dirt on the bottom of her shoe and Crest is aware that her terrible treatment of him is due to her obsessive "love" of him, but he makes it clear that these same actions are exactly why he hates her.
- Malicious Slander: While she and Crest were in the knight academy, her obsession with keeping Crest for herself, to the point of socially isolating him, led her to spread rumors to intentionally destroy his reputation so nobody would want to approach him. This is a major contributing factor leading to his eventual exile and having him spurn her when she comes knocking, trying to force him into a Leonine Contract.
- Obliviously Evil: She's made Crest's abusive childhood worse with her twisted affections, but it's not until Crest is telling her to go screw herself and he's exiled that she comes to realize this is a bad thing, and even then, she thinks a simple apology is all she needs to do to get back into his good graces, insisting on calling Crest hers.
- Parting-Words Regret: She was expecting to be able to see Crest again to offer him a Last-Second Chance before his exile, but because Duke Bahurst went back on his word and exiled him early in a tantrum, the last words she said to Crest were "don't come running to me later" and she may never see him again.
- Vanity Is Feminine: She is a woman who has believed that her beauty surpasses that of angels since she was a small child. It doesn't get any vainer than that.
- Wrong Assumption: She presumed that when Crest was "caught lying" at the appraisal ceremony, he'd have no choice but to accept her "offer" of a lifetime of treatment as a slave and she'd own him for life. She was almost right, but by that point, Crest had suffered enough indignities and resolved himself to face death rather than tolerate one more moment of her selfish whims.
- Yandere: Her idea of "love" is putting her marriage partner on a leash, literally, locking him up as much as humanly possible, and completely dominating him, crushing his free will, and she wonders why said partner would face death rather than that.
Duke Rifeld
Your majesty, I propose that Crest become the next Duke Bahurst, so he may punish the Bahurst house for their mistreatment of him!
Ellis's father.- Dramatic Irony: He believes that Ellis and Crest are still on good terms (in fact his plans hinge on it), when in fact Crest hates Ellis and would rather die than be close to her for one more minute.
- Enlightened Self-Interest: Yes, he pushes for Crest to get justice against his evil father and brothers by having the king grant him the duke title instead, but he's doing it under the presumption that Ellis and Crest are on good terms and once they're married the family will have the armies and power of two duchies, making the family stronger than the royalty. This puts even more pressure on Ellis to get to Crest before Minuet does.
- Ignored Expert: He points out that because of the abuse Crest endured under the Bahurst family, just from the unjust exiling alone, if the attempt to entice him back is handled poorly, Crest could well become completely antagonistic to the kingdom in its entirety. Not only does King Resifel allow the Bahurst family to go after Crest, after making it clear that Crest will be the next duke and enact retribution if he wishes, but Duke Bahurst completely ignores how he and his four sons treated Crest and allows the most antagonistic of his sons to go after Crest, not even bothering to ask how they intend to succeed.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: He wears glasses and he's among the most intelligent of the characters to date. While not aware that Crest actually hates his daughter, he is aware of Crest's hatred of his biological family and proposes a reasonable plan to gain Crest's loyalty by transferring Duke Bahurt's power to Crest and allowing him to punish his family as he pleases. He also understands how sensitive the situation is and that Crest could easily turn against the kingdom entirely.
Mycelian House
Minuet Mycelian
Just as I thought. Ellis, you don't understand Crest at all!
Crest's academy assigned sparring partner and the owner of the skill [Spire of the Hero].- Aristocrats Are Evil: Averted. Apart from Crest, she's the only known aristocrat who is not evil.
- Big-Breast Pride: She doesn't flaunt it, but she's rather fond of the fact that she has a generous bust.
- Heroic Bastard: She's a half-commoner girl, and the most heroic individual in the Kingdom.
- Ideal Hero: She has the skill [Hero] and is genuinely heroic, protecting the innocent from the guilty regardless of station, to the ire of the Bahurst elder brothers who think they're above such petty things as "morality".
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: She likes Crest greatly, and they have good chemistry, but she'd be perfectly content to move on if he's happy with someone else. The reason she opposes Ellis so much is that she knows Ellis is pointedly not a good match for Crest, at all.
- Only Friend: During their academy days, she's the only one who treated Crest with genuine kindness, asking nothing in return aside from his goodwill, which he was all too happy to give.
- Secretly Selfish: She is genuinely heroic, defending the people of the kingdom without asking for a reward, but she knows that if she's sent to the Lower World after him, she'd be tempted to never want to come back, and as her father and Ellis's are fighting over which family will send assets to try and recover Crest, all she can think of is when she'll see him again.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: She gives one to Ellis for naively thinking that offering Crest his family's ducal position as an apology for his ill-treatment will convince him to come back, and what he truly desired was freedom. Ellis didn't understand what this meant.
Kincaid Kingdom
King Resifel Kincaid VII
I don't care who it is, just bring back Crest NOW!!!
The current king.- Facepalm: He cups his hand over his face when he hears from Minuet that Duke Bahurst exiled Crest to die in a tantrum because Crest couldn't use his [Gacha] skill right away and then points out how foolish an act that was.
- Head-in-the-Sand Management: Granted, the balance of power is so delicate that the royal army can only match one of the three duke houses, with the duke houses keeping each other in check, but that doesn't excuse being completely ignorant of their movements, especially inter-ducal house marriages, like Ellis and Crest, and what's worse, being completely blindsided by very public information, like how Crest was treated at the appraisal ceremony, or how he was treated by Ellis while they were in academy together, when this is all something that may well impact his throne!
- Minor Major Character: He's a king and hardly has any influence on the plot.
- Orcus on His Throne: He's only seen in the throne room, nowhere else in the story.
- Pointy-Haired Boss: After hearing how Duke Bahurst abused and unjustly exiled Crest and then agreeing to the extremely unorthodox option of skipping the line of succession to make Crest the next duke for the express purpose of deciding the Bahurst House's fate, because the situation is that dire, and he's been informed that Crest could turn on the country as a whole if this is handled poorly, he shouldn't be letting the Bahurst house anywhere near Crest, at all, and should send his own agents to try and negotiate Crest's return, and maybe seek help from the church that brought forward the prophecy, if he needs more hands. Instead, he just blindly presumes that whoever goes after Crest would have the kingdom's best interests at heart and has his own faction do whatever it is that they're doing behind the scenes.
- Rage Breaking Point: When Minuet and Ellis are arguing before him along the lines of Minuet going "You had a hand in getting Crest exiled and he hates you, Ellis" and Ellis retorting "It's not my fault, it's yours/his" and Minuet retorts "Oh, yes, it is, and Crest is not yours!" The king gets fed up and shouts "I don't care who brings him back, just bring him back NOW!"
- What the Hell, Hero?: He calls out Duke Bahurst for his impulsive idiocy in exiling Crest in a temper tantrum for no real reason.
Monster Allies
Livia
I... have a favor. My village, could you save it?
A goblin queen Crest meets as he's returning "home" after his encounter with Albert.- Creative Sterility: What she and her village suffer from. Technology does not transfer from generation to generation. Her people do have brief tech advancements when one or more of them wind up with an artisan skill like [Architecture] or [Weaving] but when they pass on, none of what they demonstrate is understood by others, nor does anyone else even have the desire to try. This explains why Livia has access to a see-thru teddy-doll that looks like it was ripped out of a Victoria Secret catalog, but doesn't know what a bucket is until Crest shows her one, and even then asks how to use it...
- Cute Monster Girl: She's a goblin queen and is absolutely adorable.
- Extreme Libido: For all goblins, the urge to mate when in mating season is overwhelming, and it's especially bad for her as a goblin queen. She doesn't want some random guy being a stud-horse, so she asks Crest for his hand in marriage. The moment he says "yes", they happily knock boots like it's going out of style, all night long. Of course, it's off-screen.
- Horned Humanoid: She has tiny horns on her forehead.
- Interspecies Romance: She dates Crest, sleeps beside him, and they do eventually get married.
- I Owe You My Life: She welcomes Crest to her home village after he rescued her from a rhino-type monster with a sword coming out of its forehead, instead of a horn and also provides an antidote to the poison that would have killed her in a few more minutes.
- Rescue Romance: She begins to have feelings for Crest because he not only saved her life twice over but came to her village as a savior, asking only for a place to stay in return.
- Wacky Marriage Proposal: When Crest moves in to her village, she comes to him in ancestral lingere and asks to be married. He turns her down because it was a political marriage. When she later does it again for love, he accepts, and consummates the marriage on the spot.
Orphe
Duel me, Crest. If I win obey me!
A werewolf king who tried to forge an alliance with Livia via marriage to avenge himself against his evil brother.- The Bet: He challenges Crest to a duel of leadership.
- Cain and Abel: The Abel to his younger brother.
- Defeat Means Friendship: He becomes one of Crest's strongest allies after losing a duel to him.
- Frame-Up: He's framed for murdering his father by his evil brother.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: He wears a leather jacket and leather pants.
Sphy
Just so you know, we don't like humans either.
A slime queen Crest finds as he's preparing for war against the Norther werewolves being controlled by Orphe's brother.- Dramatic Irony: She utterly loathes humans after the way the people of Aquafield treated her and her fellow slimes, yet when she gains consciousness after floating down-river into the lower world, she wakes up as a slime in a humanoid form and takes a humanoid form by default.
- Fantastic Racism: Justified. She doesn't like werewolves after Orphe's brother tricked her with talk of an alliance only to murder her people when they didn't want to be his slaves. She also hates humans because she and her people were treated as slaves in the country of Aquafield, which had the slime population do all sorts of horrific things, like forcing them to eat human sewage.
- Heroic Neutral: She is truly morally upright, but she's primarily concerned with the well-being of her people, ignoring the bigger world unless it affects them directly.
Others
Veld
So we meet again, Orphe. Shame about our father!
Orphe's brother.- Ambition Is Evil: All he cares about is getting more power and authority for himself, whatever it takes.
- Cain and Abel: Clearly the Cain.
- The Corruption: On the receiving and giving end. He eats a magical stone for a power-up and gives these stones to his followers, but the stones twist their minds and bodies, making them mindless beasts that have to be struck down.
- Join or Die: He goes around to various other demi-human races and offers an "alliance." If they refuse to let themselves become his slaves, he kills them.
- Klingon Promotion: He took control of the werewolf tribe by murdering his father and framing his brother.
