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    In General 
  • Back from the Brink: In a way. Before Van arrived, most of Vida's races north of the Boundary Range lived scattered and under constant threat from Alda's followers. Once they're united under Vandalieu's leadership, they quickly grow in size and power, gaining living conditions far better than most of humanity on the outside.
  • Badass Army: They began as a numerous Badass Crew, but now they're probably the strongest non-human force in the continent.
  • Creepy Good: Most of them are inhuman creatures seen as monsters by human societies, but they're all completely loyal to Vandalieu. Van himself practically embodies this trope as well.
  • Hub City: Originally Van only planned to return sporadically to Talosheim after becoming an adventurer, but after enough disappointments at the Orbaume Kingdom, he has decided to make Talosheim the center of a new civilization.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: As a nation, they have the smallest population among the nations of the Bahn Gaia continent, but most of its inhabitants are or become One Person Armies, making the disadvantage in numbers almost irrelevant. Even after Talosheim becomes an Empire, their territory and population remains smaller than the Amid Empire and Orbaume Kingdom, for now.
    • This is confirmed by Duke Alcheim and his allies during his visit, declaring that even thinking they could possibly oppose a country where every single inhabitant is a warrior is nothing but the delusion of a fool. And that is not even considering the actual fighters of the nation.
  • Rising Empire: With Van rebuilding, revitalizing and expanding Talosheim, he leads to the creation of a completely new super-power.
  • Serious Business: Food. Getting ingredients for their next meal is incredibly important to all of them, especially undead who are finally enjoying their new lives.

Inhabitants of Talosheim

    Vandalieu 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/000van.png
In his current life.
Click here to see him in his 1st life
Click here to see him in his 2nd life

The protagonist and eponymous death mage of the story, once known as Amamiya Hiroto. After dying during a terrorist attack in a ship, he and a hundred other passengers were reincarnated by the god Rodcorte with each being granted a "cheat skill" and improved luck as a blessing. However, due to Rodcorte's negligence, another reincarnator received Hiroto's blessing. He was instead sent off with no blessing and no abilities beyond a giant mana pool he could not use. He was quickly sold to a research facility, which discovered that he had a mysterious type of magic that, up until then, was unknown to the world he was in: Death magic.

After undergoing twenty years of inhumane experiments, he was eventually killed due to a researcher's overzealous work. Freed from his crippled body, he became an undead, went berserk and destroyed the facility, killing all the researchers and setting free all other research subjects. He exited the facility to see the other reincarnators and ran towards them in joy after assuming they had come to rescue him. Unfortunately, they had no idea who he was and immediately killed him with his guard being down.

He once again meets Rodcorte, who informs him he'll be reincarnated a second time. Due to Hiroto's extreme rage at having been "betrayed", Rodcorte curses him in the hopes that he'll commit suicide. He then sends him to another world entirely to reincarnate, where he is born as a dhampir to a young dark elf woman named Darcia. And to hell with Rodcorte, this time he's going to make the most of his time and is not going to die again.


  • Above Good and Evil: His Demon Guider and Demon Path Enticement skills are the Guider abilities for those who have left behind the path of good and evil for something... different.
  • The Ace: He's possibly the strongest mortal alive as well as an excellent cook, scientist, inventor, artisan, engineer and so on. Being able to make large numbers of spirit clones of himself so he can multi-task, never sleep, and work to the point even his friends are worried he's going to suffer a psychotic break gives him a lot of time to polish up all sorts of skills.
  • Achievements in Ignorance: Vandalieu unknowingly kills and consumes the Evil God of the Magic Tome Burburdura before he knew he could do that. At that point and time, he picked up a book to read, and after getting rid of an itch, and suddenly he has new skills. It wasn't until a year later when he met Fidirg and then he learned about what he did.
  • Adaptational Heroism: In the original web novel, his rescue attempt of the other test subjects that would later become known as "Eighth Guidance" was simply an accidental by-product of his rampage in the facility that made his life hell shortly after he was born in Origin, and had to be retconned in later to explain the existence of those children and their hatred for the Bravers. In the manga, as he's breaking out of the lab, he comes across them, and puts his rampage on hold, placing their well being as his top priority. When he's got them just one door away from freedom, along come the Bravers who happily gun him down, and then pat themselves on the back "for a job well done".
  • Adaptational Sympathy: While he was the subject of great sympathy in the original novel for his horrifying experiences in Origin's unethical, if not illegal, labs, the manga makes him even more so. When he manages to break free of his restraints and retaliate, he comes across the children who would become 8th Guidance. In the original work, the fact that he freed them was an accidental result of his rampage. In the manga, he stops his rampage and intentionally frees them, trying to lead them to safety. It doesn't work, but not for lack of trying.
  • Always Save the Girl: His first priority is always to his people and friends rather than any bigger picture. When Iris begs him to spare two fellow resistance leaders for purely strategic reasons he refuses very bluntly by saying it's the only favor he won't extend to her even though having the pair of them alive would serve his own interests as well. This does eventually cause him to fail at his objective in the Sauron duchy, forcing him to look elsewhere in the kingdom for allies.
  • And I Must Scream: Thanks to Curatos's little scheme, his soul gets sucked into the dungeon's copy body, and for years, he was Forced to Watch as Heinz and crew cut through his friends and family over and over again, with his own body going crazy and refusing to respond to him, every time he went to sleep, and even when he briefly managed to take control and strike back, he was ignored. Small wonder he was completely homicidal the moment he managed to take over completely and lashed out when he had the chance.
  • The Anticipator: During his first confrontation with Kanako, Doug and Melissa, he's completely prepared to deal with them as well as Asagi, Shouko and Tendou who were nearby listening in the conversation.
  • Anti-Hero: In addition to his anti-villain tendencies listed below, especially his contempt for the law on Lambda (and who can blame him), when he does engage in heroic acts, he goes way, way above and beyond what's required. The following list is hardly exhaustive.
    • He does not endanger innocents.
    • He does not just beat up a few bandits and call it a day, he takes down, takes control, and either reforms or destroys the bandit's entire organization.
    • He doesn't leave victims of slave raiders to their own devices, unattended, like most of those who "rescue" them, leaving them with no prospects so they then wind up back in slavery, legally, when they can't pay their taxes.
    • He doesn't abandon, or worse, kill, victims of monster attacks and then pat himself on the back for "being merciful." He takes them in and gives them the time, training, and resources they need to recover, so they can once again stand on their own feet, figuratively or literally.
    • He doesn't go after the children or relatives of his targets and then turn around and calls himself "merciful" by stating they had no chance to live anyway, and he was just cutting short their suffering.
  • Anti-Villain: Because his mind breaks early in the story and he loses a normal sense of morality, he engages in vicious practices like Necromancy, Mad Scientist experiments on captured enemies, cannibalism and more... but only towards those who bare their fangs at him first and his responses tend to be proportionate and limited in scope. He takes no real pleasure in murder or terrorism, only using them as means to secure the livelihood of his people, who are mostly made up of extremely oppressed minorities struggling to survive. Also, while he doesn't punish his new subordinates for old crimes, they do have to control themselves in the future, indicating they've all been effectively rehabilitated.
  • Arch-Enemy: Alda considers Van to be the greatest threat to the order he has created, and perhaps an even greater threat to Lambda than the first demon king. Van even gets access to a job with this name as result.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: When he gets a chance for a "private chat" with Heinz and his party, he asks some key questions, the most prominent of which is "what have you done after using my mother's name to launch your career to help Vida's races?" Most of the party responds with Stunned Silence. Heinz himself instead retorts with another question, but never bothers to answer.
  • Armor-Piercing Response: He answers all of the questions presented to him by Heinz and his party honestly, in the way most certain to shake their delusions of "righteousness" and shake their fundamental precepts to the core. The only ones not swayed are Edgar and Heinz himself.
  • The Assimilator: Any Demon King Fragment that he comes across is gleeful at being absorbed and incorporated into his body. Devouring Gods and Reincarnated Individuals incorporates their powers and abilities into his own, although he can't use them outright but can compliment his existing ones.
  • Astral Projection: He learned how to manifest his "spirit body" and how to use it to interact with solid objects. While he does use it for fighting and increase his calculation power to cast spells, most of the time he use it to sleep while using his "spirit body" to continue working.
  • At Least I Admit It: Unlike his many enemies, and those who antagonized him across all three worlds, when he does something illegal, immoral, or just plain wrong, he's honest with himself and others, and is fully willing to accept the consequences. This is the primary reason others going Never My Fault tends to piss him off, even if he agrees that they haven't actually broken the law or betrayed the values they were raised with.
  • Bad Powers, Good People: His Death-Attribute magic could be easily used to kill and spread disease, but he mostly uses it to make the life of his followers easier, like preserving food, killing pathogens and creating golems.
  • Barrier Warrior: He has two barriers that negate either Physical or Magical attacks, and also a spell that creates a barrier around a mage and drains of their mana.
  • The Beastmaster: Becomes able to control insect-type monsters and plant-type monsters, which are normally considered untamable by the rest of the world. After absorbing multiple Demon King fragments, Demon type monsters begin to instinctively obey him as they once did for Guduranis.
  • Benevolent Mage Ruler: He uses his unique and highly varied Death Magic to promote the growth of his nation from preserving food to eliminating diseases and providing a near-limitless labor force.
  • Berserk Button
    • During the trial of Zakkart, the implication that he might be unable to save everyone in Talosheim causes him to come to a dead standstill in fury and the need to prove himself. While he knows he's only seeing an illusion and could easily disable it, he refuses to advance until he finally fires a giant unstoppable laser beam that pierces the entirety of the dungeon and somehow destroys the illusion outright.
    • People being unable to read him and saying he's calm when he's actually furious makes him even angrier. Much angrier.
    • Also Played for Laughs. He has a tendency to consider killing anyone who so much as flirts with his mother, only barely holding himself back with justifications like he doesn't want to become a mass murderer, give his mother a bad reputation, get in the way of her personal relationships, and so on.
    • People raising their voices puts him on edge at best. People tend to panic when they realize he might just kill them if they don't apologize quickly.
    • People who don't take responsibility for their own actions is another notable button. Vandalieu is cruel in dealing with his vengeance and a hypocrite for torturing prisoners For Science! when he was also a victim, he admits it.
  • Best Served Cold: When it comes to his revenge on Darcia's kidnappers and killers, Van is incredibly patient. When he sees Heinz in person he tries desperately to think of some way he could possibly kill the man and escape, but upon failing leaves in an incoherent fury. So he waits until he's strong enough and then kill him. Van also won't pursue vengeance if it will endanger his loved ones. When his spirit is brought to Earth by Zuruwarn to meet Earth's god, he had ample opportunity to curse his Evil Uncle, Evil Aunt, and apathetic cousin for the crap they put him through, but passed it up when Zuruwarn informed him that it would tip off Rodcorte. Instead, he leaves it to their own terrible characters and the randomness of Rodcorte's reincarnation system to to bring misfortune on them for stealing his inheritance and abusing him.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: He is an impeccably polite and well-behaved, little boy, always has been, but he's also always been a Lovecraftian horror. Making an enemy of him is the worst mistake you could ever make in your entire life.
  • Big Eater
    • The more creatures he has "equipped" to himself, the more calories he requires to sustain them. This normally isn't a problem, but during parts of the Trial of Zakkart he's almost constantly eating.
    • When he finally reaches the early stages of puberty, his body goes absolutely berserk and becomes completely incapacitated by growing pains as his body struggles to match the power of his soul. He ends up having to eat truckloads of raw meat to keep up his caloric requirements as he rapidly shoots up several inches pretty much overnight.
  • Blessed with Suck: Thanks to Rodcorte's ineptitude, he starts the story with a mana pool of 100 million, but absolutely no aptitude for magic, so he can't use it, and then is shoved into a "research" facility that tries to use him as a battery.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: He knows the concepts of right and wrong exist but puts no particular value in them. As such, when he undertakes action, he doesn't consider the inherent morality, but goes almost purely by cost-benefit analysis, and as for personal relationships, he basically just pack-bonds to people who treat him nicely, and then extends the pack to people who treat them nicely. People who would harm the pack are a threat to be neutralized, and if they refuse to stop being a threat, destroyed. The fate of the pack takes priority over cost-benefit analysis, always.
    • As a result of being raised by ghouls, who are stuck in resource poor Devil's Nests for reasons of biology and have to use or eat anything they can, Van has extended this to include even the bodies of gods that he slays. While this is not completely unheard of - Scylla are known to be edible and various races regularly harvest each other for alchemy ingredients - this extends to the point of feeding an Orbaume duke the corpse of the God of Cannibalism and an Alda sided Colossus to Titan subspecies. Neither group is really amused by this but they grudgingly go along with it.
  • Born Unlucky: He was reincarnated with no fortune or destiny by Rodcorte and other gods trying to extend him blessings typically fail. Oddly enough, this is not entirely bad: His lack of destiny actually strongly interferes with Rodcorte's attempt to get him killed before he can mess with the other reincarnators. His "bad luck" also sometimes manifests in purely beneficial ways, such as finding a cursed book that basically throws itself into his stomach for a free power up.
  • Boring, but Practical: His inadvertent "cheat" from Rodcorte, his empty frame, just gives him a massive mana pool rather than a fancy, unique ability like the Bravers have. However, as Van notes, thanks to that mana pool, even if he could just use fire magic or something else mundane, he could pump a fireball full of so much power he could create a miniature sun and liquify a planet. Similarly, Van has used his giant mana pool to basically turn his death magic abilities into the public and industrial infrastructure for Talosheim, creating nearly all the city-state's automated defenses, food production and storage, waste disposal, medical technology and so forth with his magic alone.
  • Brainwashing for the Greater Good: He knows he has a mind control aura known as Guidance that will permanently affect most people who stay in proximity to him so long as they're not already opposed to him with speed varying on how much they intend to resist and how close their values already were to his. The longer they stay around him, the more they are Guided into following his ideology and adapting or outright abandoning their own values. As such, he often takes advantage of this by deliberately going to large population centers and being publicly visible so people pay attention to him and begin to be Guided. Fortunately, this usually just amounts to being less of an asshole and being more tolerant of other races and, after being Guided, people also usually become stronger and the mentally ill... actually don't really improve, but they become sick in a way that's more happy and functional.
  • Brought Down to Badass: During his confrontation against the Five-Colored Blades inside Curatos' Dungeon, he lacks several Demon King fragments, has no Dead Spirit Magic to rely on, no allies, no equipped monsters and all around reduced capabilities, but still ends up wrecking Heinz's party without much effort, "killing" Jennifer and Diana with ease while crippling Edgar before Curatos can end the fight prematurely before he can permanently erase the rest of the party.
  • But Not Too Foreign: He's half vampire, half dark elf and half god for starters, but the majority of his cultural values are inoffensive Japanese customsnote  and the majority of his down time is spent doing culturally relatable things like trying to acquire familiar rice or make mayo.
  • Charm Person: His [Death-Attribute Charm] skill makes Undead immediately wish to help or even serve him and makes him likable to "half-undead" races like Ghouls and Vampires. People who wish to die or have suffered severe mental trauma also tend to exhibit religious fervor for Vandalieu. It eventually grows so that insects, plants and even demons become subservient to him, and after becoming a Guider, causes anyone who shares similar views to him to see him as highly charismatic. However, it's not all powerful: Borkus No Sells it during their first meeting and only voluntarily comes under it later because he's genuinely loyal and sees no point in resisting. As such, it's functionally more of an opening move in diplomacy or religious conversion. It's later indicated that this is not an automatic advantage given to death attribute mages: Only those who possess genuine respect for the dead and the living acquire this skill, so undead feel subconsciously loyal to him because he cares about them by default the way he would any other person. Thus, Amemiya Mei possesses DAC but Rikudou Hijiri does not: Rikudou can cultivate fanatical loyalty, but as a sociopath his charm is too superficial to translate into a skill, so ghosts hate him.
  • Chick Magnet: Despite not hitting puberty, he already has more than a dozen suitors. The exact number is unclear as there are multiple women around him such as Eisen, Gufadgarnnote  or Quinn who never directly state any kind of romantic intentions but are often included alongside said group nonetheless.
  • A Child Shall Lead Them: Ghoul King at not even three years old, Eclipse King at five and his list of titles and those whom he rules keep increasing. Eventually, he becomes the emperor of all nations that worship Vida before hitting puberty.
  • The Chosen One: Vida prophesied his coming to Lambda and upon his arrival did everything in her limited power to help him. She even tried to give him her divine protection, but failed. Turns out to actually be an invoked trope: Vida did all this for Van because his soul is made of the fragments of Vida and her allies four champions who had their souls broken by the Demon King 100,000 years ago, and then were taken away by Rodcorte. Vida simply wanted to assuage her guilt by helping what was left of her lost friend, rather than wanting Van to fulfill some heroic prophecy.
  • Combat Pragmatist: While he has no problem fighting fair if there are no stakes, in a real fight he will use every advantage and trick on his arsenal to utterly destroy whoever picks a fight with him, sometimes thinking outside the box to take them by surprise.
  • The Comically Serious: Because he always has a dead expression and a flat tone of voice, his reactions based on body language can be rather amusing.
  • Confusion Fu: On top of the sheer strength of his abilities, most of them are skills, spells and weird abilities that have either never existed before or at least never used by a humanoid. This makes fighting him extremely stressful at best.
  • Crazy-Prepared: Because he knows he can't depend on luck, he always ponders his options and prepares for as many contingencies as he can think of. It pays off quite well.
  • Crazy Sane: The narration notes that he actually went mad at some point. He completely lost any aversion to murder and is obsessed with the idea of luxury, which (courtesy of his abusive family in his life as Amamiya) is actually quite modest and more focused on seeming rich than actually using his wealth. His behavior and decision making also hints at legal insanity, as in he can't be held accountable for his actions in court because of both being unable to tell right from wrong and showing an inability to control his actions. If he were on Earth, he couldn't be considered fit to stand trial nor sign any legal agreements.
  • Creating Life Is Unforeseen: He wasn't trying to create new races with his Death attribute magic, and he's always pleased whenever one of his friends evolves into a new race.
  • Creepy Child: Strangers find him disturbing because he literally cannot emote unless he consciously moves his facial muscles. Furthermore, he has absolutely no presence and looks like a ghost. To help compensate he works to give himself highly expressive body language so people can tell how he's feeling.
  • Cruel Mercy:
    • To punish the town of Evbejia for killing his mother and profiting from her death, he spends several weeks turning the city walls, fields and building into golems. Then he simply has them all get up and walk away into the wilderness, forcing the town to rebuild itself, estimating at least a decade to complete, provided monsters and wild animals don't get to the people first. He could have killed them all, but chose to be "merciful".
    • After the invasion by the Mirg Shield-Nation, he retaliated with only a weak force of zombies and then plaguing the fields that the country had stolen from his Ghoul subjects, leaving them a warning that the fields were now poisonous and unusable. He considered this a kindness since he could have used a plague to wipe them all out or sent a much more dangerous attack force, but Thomas Palpapek and the citizens interpret this gesture as trying to pick a fight.
  • Cursed with Awesome: Not being given a destiny or great fortune makes things harder for him, but it also makes him Immune to Fate and very difficult to predict. His three curses from Rodcorte are also completely open to Loophole Abuse and inadvertently grant him an even bigger mana pool than he had in his second life.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Generally quite kind to everyone, and definitely not the sort of evil one might expect of a user of the death attribute. While a lot of his abilities are rather evil when you get right down to it, he tends to use them as ethically as possible except against his most hated enemies.
  • Deceased Parents Are the Best: Those parental figures who were all good to him? Died trying to keep him safe and happy, without exception.
  • Dhampyr: Dhampir are the cross between a vampire and another race, possibly only those without Ranks. As such, he has racial skills from both parent races, most notably Bloodsucking and Status Effect Resistance. Unlike his vampire parent, since he's 3/4 "human" race, he has no Rank, though he does mostly likely have 5x the lifespan of a dark elf. As a racial trait, he has one purple and one red eye, can extend his claws as weapons and possesses fangs. He has no vulnerability to sunlight, silver or other vampire weaknesses.
  • Did Not Think This Through: Some of his early decisions and impulsive acts turned around to bite him.
    • At the start of the story, he hears Rodcorte call a name that sounds like his and sees someone that looks like him stand up and walk up to Rodcorte. Rather than get up himself, he just sits and sulks, causing him to miss out on his blessings because Rodcorte couldn't be bothered to double-check, until he was the only one left, and it was way, way too late.
    • After the hell that was Origin, when he's before Rodcorte a second time, he proclaims out loud that he intends to retaliate to the Braver's foolish act of gunning him down by killing them, to see how they like it. Naturally, Rodcorte doesn't take kindly to that and decides to preemptively remove him from the equation with three hastily crafted curses and then telling him to go kill himself, not bothering to think that maybe, just maybe this would make Vandalieu even more bitter and recalcitrant.
  • Disappeared Dad: If there's one constant in all three of his lives, is that he had no paternal figures while growing up; his father on Earth died while he was young, so he was raised by his Evil Uncle, in Origin he never knew his biological father, and in Lambda his father Valen was killed before he was born.
  • Dissonant Serenity: While his face is incapable of emoting without conscious effort, he trained himself to show his emotions with extremely visible and exaggerated body language so people would know how he feels. However, when he's panicking, upset or angry, he suddenly stops making gestures because he's spending effort to keep control of himself instead. While his allies recognize this, when he appears very calm in front of the likes of the Five Colored Blades it actually means that he's angrier than he's ever been in his entire life.
  • Don't You Dare Pity Me!: When Heinz notices that the adventurer's guild in Hartner Duchy is turning him away, due to changing the rules arbitrarily, it takes every ounce of self-restraint to keep Van from lashing out and attacking his party. He only barely manages to restrain himself because there was no way to walk away from a fight with Heinz's full party alive at the time.
  • Doppelgänger Attack: Using Out-Of-Body-Experience, he can create several different bodies, and with [Parallel Thought Proccessing] skill each of these bodies can do something completely different.
    • Played for Laughs sometimes where he designates one of his copies to mope about his latest failure while the others do something more productive.
  • The Dreaded: His powers have become so great even Gods that are on his side fear to anger him.
  • Driven to Villainy: Despite his extensive crimes, left to his own devices he'd really rather just live quietly with his friends and family. Unfortunately, events conspire to force him to seek out power and steadily warp his mind and morals.
    • On Earth, being a quiet, law-abiding high schooler got him smacked around by his asshole aunt and uncle if he ever so much looked at anything his uncle considered a "luxury," a category that changed day to day, giving him several deep complexes, most notably a great hostility towards perceived aggression and raised voices as well as an overprotective attitude towards those who do treat him well.
    • Rodcorte, the apathetic and cruel god of reincarnation, screws up his own lazy plan and then sends him off to live a cursed, miserable and short life that makes him feel hostile towards the people who were supposed to save him but killed him instead. Rather than apologize for his mistakes and make up for it, Rodcorte actually puts curses on him and sends him off to die a third miserable death, showing him that the gods themselves could easily be hostile towards him and forcing him into a life of conflict.
    • On Lambda, he gets a good and loving mother for half a year until some vampires, a fanatical priest and a party of adventurers temporarily work together to have her burned at the stake and placing a target on his head, after which the entire town celebrates, which completes the process of breaking his mind by taking away the one person that has actually cared about him in his entire life up to this point. After disposing of the first two, is it any wonder that he's in no mood to forgive the adventurers just because they "regret" what they did but don't seem interested in actually apologizing or disarming themselves so that they don't have to fight again? Heroes or not, the Five Colored Bladers are still murderers that are only interested in atonement on their terms.
    • The world at large is also hostile to everyone he cares about, especially himself and the people he feels closest to, the undead. Even holding up and becoming a hermit is noted in other contexts to not be an option because people will come hunting for him anyway. And since he's not the only one being persecuted, when he finds others he offers his help regardless of the damage it causes to people he doesn't care about, even if the people he cares about aren't exactly the greatest people in the world.
  • Dude Looks Like a Lady: Many people who encounter Van in the early arcs assume he's a little girl due to his high pitched voice and doll-like looks, much to his own disappointment with him wanting to look like a big and manly 'hollywood actor' and all. He eventually grows out of it as he grows up, especially once he reaches puberty.
  • The Emperor: Eventually becomes the undisputed ruler of all of Vida's races as the Eclipse Emperor.
  • The Engineer: Not only has Van recreated various pieces of technology from Earth on Origin, he's also developed all new types of metals, magic, medical treatments, armor, weapons, artifacts, and so on. Something he shares with the shards of the four creation-oriented Champions his soul was created from.
  • Entertainingly Wrong: Played for laughs and played for drama. There are several situations where the way he misreads the premise fits perfectly with the information at hand, but is completely wrong due to lacking certain context.
    • When he's up against Bugogan, it goes both ways. He launches his then mightiest attack at Bugogan only for the latter to defy it at tremendous effort, and Bugogan retaliates with his mightiest attack, just barely piercing his shield. Both of them are convinced the other has launched a probing attack and hasn't gotten serious yet, getting more and more desperate as the battle goes on, until Van's allies show up, at which point Van, not realizing he now has an overwhelming advantage, uses a near suicidal attack to trick Bugogan into killing himself.
    • When Van meets Fang, he presumes the feral dog is giving him a "play bite" because the dog is a normal dog, if feral, and can't bite past his barriers. Fang, despite being a dog, realizes Van's not a threat and submits.
    • Mane, the horse, feels as if Van is death itself and resigns to the inevitable. Van and the horse owner looking to sell the animal just presume the horse is being particularly obedient.
    • Huf, also a horse, reacts to Van with terror and tries to stomp on Van's chest in a panic. Van presumes the horse is just playing "shake" because, again, it's a normal animal and can't get past Van's physical protection.
    • In Bellwood's dungeon, when Curatos pulls of his last, desperate gambit bringing a copy of Darcia which stops Van's attack but Heinz fails to do so and destroys the copy and successfully wounds Van, reawakening past trauma for the both of them, Van questions Heinz why they waited so long to pull it off, because he's seen Heinz and Curatos chatting, but couldn't hear what they were saying, busy fighting random puppets Curatos threw his way. Heinz does not answer. After mulling it over for a while, Van comes to the conclusion that Heinz and Curatos waited until the most strategic moment to pull it off for maximum tactical advantage, since it's a tactic that's most effective the first time it's seen. At this point, Heinz tries to deny involvement, but Van doesn't believe him, as Heinz has a long, long history of trying to shift the blame for what he actually has done. By that point, it was the Point of No Return, as Vida herself enters this dungeon and is proven that Heinz destroyed his own credibility, Vida awards him with the title, "Vida's Mortal Enemy".
  • Everyone Has Standards: Typically, he takes an approach of moral relativism. When wronged by someone because of their deeply held beliefs, he will acknowledge that they believed they were doing the right thing and can't fairly be blamed for that. He kills them anyway, sure, but he doesn't fault them or argue about how they're wrong, just that they pissed off the wrong person. However, this does have an exception: Hypocrisy.
    • When Ray and Rick Paris defend their behavior by saying they're making small sacrifices to take down a greater evil, Van kills Ray to use him as bait for an evil Pure Breed Vampire, successfully killing it. The point is lost on Rick, who only wants other people to make sacrifices.
    • Thomas Palpapek unwisely defends the execution of Darcia by pointing out that she was only punished according to the law, which she knew she was breaking. Thus, he cannot be blamed. Instead of the usual 'Sure, but I'm going to kill you anyway' speech he'd normally give, he instead points out that Palpapek is a much greater criminal because he's siding with an evil vampire cult and thus by his own standards is due for an even worse punishment.
  • A Father to His Men: He constantly worries about his retainers and people and goes out of his way to make them as safe as possible, even going as far as confronting enemies that are out of their league himself.
  • Forgiveness: Played with.
    • Despite his initial desire to murder all the Bravers for killing him in his second life, he gives up on this and tells them to not mind it after becoming Vandalieu. This is noted at first to be rooted in indifference, though he later decides he honestly can be friends with at least some of them after he gets to know Kanako, Melissa and Doug following their defection.
    • Also, while it rarely comes up thanks to his greatest enemies being way too stubborn, he'd also forgive them if they apologized sincerely, worked to make amends and convinced him they were not a threat to his current friends and family. Martina for instance earned his forgiveness by causing a loss of identity to herself, removing any motivations she had to want to harm his loved ones. Marshkuzarl similarly was no longer considered a target of revenge by Van after losing all his political power and being captured by Schneider, making him functionally incapable of harming Van's loved ones.
  • Freaky Is Cool: He finds all sort of monstrous looking creatures to be cool or beautiful.
  • Freudian Excuse: While he himself indicates that it's possible that he would have still grown into a new [Demon King] even if it wasn't for Heinz and his motley crew wrecking his life in Lambda by capturing his mother and turning her over to Alda fanatics for cash, putting him through hell for ten years, to then insist they've done nothing wrong when confronted about it, the fact that Heinz and party did indeed grievously wrong him has forced him into this role, and they'd better get real accustomed, real quick to the fact that he's got every reason possible to want them dead, and their continued antagonism of Vida's races just keeps piling up new grudges atop old wounds.
  • Freudian Excuse Denial: When he and Heinz managed to have a "private chat" in Bellwood's dungeon, he shatters Heinz's sweet self-delusion that killing Vandalieu will be the perfect "atonement" for having kidnapped Darcia, sold her to a fanatical priest to be tortured and burned at the stake, and then putting Vandalieu himself through hell for the better part of 10 years, constantly on the run for the "crime" of being born, because he'd be "cleaning up his own mess" in eliminating the Demon King. Van does this by telling Heinz that becoming the Demon King and Heinz's crimes are two entirely different and independent matters and that the former did not necessarily result from the latter. Heinz remains unmoved until Darcia herself shows up, tells him that because of his "regret," she forgives him for what he did to her, leaving him dismayed because he can no longer use his self-proclaimed "atonement" as an excuse, and then his motivation is destroyed entirely when she angrily decries the way he's been treating her son, blasting him and his party members to kingdom come to "vent her anger a bit."
  • Friendless Background: Back on Earth, because of his atrophied social skills he never made any friends, and in Origin spirits who happened to be there became his only company. Hence why he treasures his friends and followers so much.
  • Friend to Bugs: He actually likes bugs, and the very first insects he tames are the Cemetery Bees
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: From a powerless child to a ruler that even Gods fear to anger.
  • Gender Bender: As his soul is made of the four creation champions, half of its body parts and faces are female and half male, despite Van himself being a male in his current lifetime. He also eventually absorbs the Demon King's Fallopian Tubes, which allows him to lay eggs containing new Demon King Fragment Avatars.
  • A God I Am Not: Played for Laughs. Despite consuming an increasing number of pieces of divinity from various gods including the pieces of Demon King Guduranis, Van continues to insist that he is in no way a god himself, due to his desire to be a normal, regular person other normal, regular people feel they can be friends with.
  • God-Eating: He has killed and eaten a few gods, such as a god that was hiding inside a magic tome, the lord of the gillmen, the evil god of release, the gods sealed by Vida's faction and Curatos. He himself is already stronger than many gods, so this is not particularly surprising, though they find it terrifying since gods aren't really supposed to be killable.
  • God Was My Copilot: He wonders early on why Vida seems to favor him but hasn't sent any messages or offered her divine protection. It turns out later that she tried but most of her blessings (such as bonus affinity for life magic) are incompatible with the death attribute. He actually did still have her divine protection, but it simply wouldn't display or show any easily understandable effects, especially since he had it from birth and thus had no point of comparison.
  • Gone Native: Most of the Bravers are shocked to see him abandoning what they consider foolish and short sighted behaviors like completely eliminating attacking armies or eliminating untrustworthy potential "allies" like Ray Paris. Thing is, these values and others are entirely in line with how a competent ruler behaves in Lambda and not even a particularly harsh one at that. He has adapted in a way that someone like Asagi never will because the Asagis of the world never question whether there's a problem with themselves or if they need to change.
  • The Good King: He's quiet and strives to be reasonable and fair as well as throwing himself into the front lines so that he's the only one in danger rather than people who are really supposed to be his guards.
  • Guide Dang It!: Whenever he goes to the "Job Change" chamber, the available jobs only list titles, not what they do. With his curse that stops him from acquiring existing and well-known jobs, he's stuck choosing from jobs nobody knows anything about and has to guess as to what benefits and pitfalls are involved (e.g. The Pale Rider job, Van thought this job has something to do with riding when this job is based off of Revelation 6:8 and would give him great improvements of his Death abilities and/or become the embodiment of death itself and The Demiurge job makes Van a Demigod). This, more than anything else, really makes him want to punch Rodcorte in the face if he could. While this generally works out well anyway, a few jobs like Zombie Maker have turned out to have only niche utility or even be detrimental at first.
  • Has a Type: An early profile notes that he's actually not really into monster girls even though he acknowledges that the ghouls are gorgeous. Instead, he has a weird fixation on anyone with muscles.
  • Healing Factor: He has low grade self healing early on which later improves to the ability to flat out regenerate things like missing limbs at high speed.
  • Healing Hands: Due to his knowledge of anatomy he can use Out-Of-Body-Experience to rejuvenate certain parts of a body, reaching an effect that is similar to this for the onlookers. However, his direct healing abilities are all but nonexistent: He can preserve someone on the edge of death for a few days, remove pathogens, perform medical procedures to treat wounds, and share his own Healing Factor with others. But he has no actual healing magic per se. For the living, at least, since he has the ability to preserve and even regenerate undead.
  • Heroic Neutral: All he truly cares about is people, regardless of race, having the right to pursue happiness without trampling the happiness of others. Look at other people as nothing more than prey, and he finds out about it and you're lunch, literally.
  • Heroic Self-Deprecation
    • He has a strong tendency to underestimate himself and overestimate his potential enemies, such as believing at first that he could never beat the Bravers due to their cheats and that he could never defeat a god. Experience eventually shows him otherwise and he reevaluates accordingly.
    • After hijacking and ruining Curatos and Alda's training dungeon he's eventually kicked out and considers it a draw with much irritation. Curatos wonders what the hell kind of standards he's using when by almost anyone else's standards it was a massive loss for Alda's faction: The dungeon is wrecked, Bellwood was nearly killed while defenseless, Heinz's party was half destroyed, Curatos himself is killed and numerous other side benefits. All Van lost in the end was the time he'll need to rest afterward.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: A trope Vandalieu is well aware of, and actively strives to avoid. He does not want to wind up like those insane "researchers" who tortured him for 20+ years for their own selfish convenience.
  • The High King: He eventually becomes the emperor of the nations south of the Boundary Mountains, but functions more like the high king: Each of the nations south of Talosheim has their own leaders who simply acknowledge him as being above them, but he tends not to interfere in their governments.
  • Hive Mind: Van gains an increasing number of skills that allow him to spread his consciousness across multiple bodies. This starts with him able to make multiple spirit copies of himself, then later fill avatars made of demon king fragments with copies of himself, then any piece of his soul being able to act as a fully sentient copy of Van himself, then even other entities' copies of Van becoming a part of the original.
  • Honor Before Reason: In the Sauron duchy he chooses to execute Ray Paris to avenge his murder victims despite it being spelled out that this is tactically terrible decision. While satisfying for everyone involved (except Rick) the lack of ties to a semi legitimate successor and politician does come back to bite him: Iris is unable to play politics with Orbaume like Ray, so despite her military victories she and her forces are declared dead and marginalized. The new Sauron heir not only doesn't reward them for their work, he also takes land that was already in the rebel army and Scylla's possession and hands it out to his backers. That being said, it doesn't work out well for him either: Van basically curses the land, making it unusable and leaving it a quiet but still active threat to Sauron as a whole.
  • Horrifying the Horror: For some reason, while Lambda's native gods (basically all humanoid or beast-like in appearance) only find the appearance of his soul somewhat alarming and pitiful, the evil gods associated with them (think Cthulhu type monster) are all flat out terrified of him.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Because his soul is made of soul fragments from four totally different souls broken and lazily glued together by an asshole, it's fundamentally unstable. While it looked normal to begin with, once he began gaining in power and acquiring demon king fragments it quickly began mutating into a rather horrifying appearance. After breaking his own soul into pieces and devouring himself he and his friends manage to clean it up a little so that it's simply very ugly rather than mutated looking.
  • Human Resources: He doesn't mind using his body parts to create objects, such as blood potions or weapons using the Demon King's fragments, since he can always make more.
    • Played for Laughs during the fight against Fitun, instead of worrying about how one of his arms was completely severed, he gives it to Doug to use as a weapon and wonders if he could make a weapon made out of it.
  • Hypocrisy Nod: His internal monologue points out how hypocritical it is to use Pauvina as a guinea pig for his experiments when he was used as a guinea pig and hated it. However, Van can justify himself by the fact that he had fully informed consent while the "researchers" in Origin only cared about their results and took away his ability to refuse consent in every way imaginable, including making him a paraplegic who couldn't even feed himself.
  • Hypocrite: Hates the researchers who eventually killed him in Origin, but when he abducts Duke Marme and his men, he conducts similarly gruesome experiments on them until they die because of it. For Science!! His justification is that they were essentially death row inmates anyway so he might as well put them to some use. Which is also not okay from a modern standpoint, but Van has never cared about that.
  • I Got Bigger: Right around the beginning of puberty and after eating a few gods his main body goes comatose as it madly tries to grow in size and strength to match his new strength and properly display the strength he should have already had: Van's stats were far lower than they should have been after so many jobs because the physique of a child couldn't keep up. After just a few days he's already a few centimeters taller and with no sign of stopping his growth any time soon.
  • I Have Many Names: He has been given a long list of titles; Ghoul King, Eclipse King, Holy Son of Vida, Scaled King, Tentacled King and probably more.
  • Immune to Fate: Invoked, but averted. Rodcorte made sure that his soul would have no luck or destiny, but it was already prophesied long ago that he would come to Lambda and he's Vida's personal chosen one. She tries to extend several blessings to him but they get absorbed by his death magic. It does work in one sense, however, in that he has no real course in life and therefore is difficult to predict using standard means.
  • Improbable Age: Even in a world where non-human children can grow in power quickly, and even considering he has memories of his past two lives to give him greater intelligence and maturity, Van racks up a ridiculous number of achievements, subordinates, titles and recognition long before reaching puberty.
  • Improbable Infant Survival: He's not even one year old when he's orphaned, but manages to survive anyway.
  • Informed Attribute: Said to have no luck or destiny, and yet Ricklent is somehow able to prophesize his arrival on Lambda long before he got there, the Garland evil gods similarly somehow send an oracle he's coming long before he gets there. Further, his often "bad luck" of stumbling into doomed towns (like with the Ghouls, the Scylla, the cultivation villages, the Archnae, and so on) or on deadly cursed items (like the Evil God of Tomes or Demon King fragments) tends to net him powerful allies and new abilities after he resolves the situation.
    • It is important to remember that the one who informed us of the impossibility to predict Vandalieu's future is Rodcorte.
    • Vandalieu's successes tend to benefit the people around him far more than they benefit him. He only starts to experience anything resembling good luck when he has hundreds of people who directly benefit from his continued existence. And even then he needs to be reminded to not work himself to death.
  • Insanity Immunity: Near the start of the series, Van learns that Darcia, his mother, died horribly at the stake at the hands of cruel people, and the trauma causes him to gain the Mental Corruption skill all the way to level 10, which the audience later learns represents an insanity of sorts, which makes it very hard to affect him with mental abilities. When Eleanora first meets him and tries to use her Hypnotic Eyes on him, she correctly worries that he's resisted them and that he has this skill, but then dismisses this because normally, a person with high Mental Corruption would be a raving madman who can't hold a conversation.
  • In-Series Nickname: Multiple characters in the story itself call him Van instead of his full name Vandalieu.
  • Irony: The character list at the end of volume 10 states that Orbaume followers have canonized him a patron saint of Fitun and Alda after Fitun's little stunt concerning Morksi...
  • It's All My Fault: In the aftermath of Darcia's death, he blames himself and his own "weakness" for her fate. Darcia's attempts to comfort him only serve to make him more determined to avenge her, and drive himself past his limits so it never happens again.
  • It's Personal: His revenge for Darcia's death.
  • I Warned You: When he meets Heinz' current party in chapter 200, he states up front that he's opening dialogue purely because he's getting accustomed to the "sock puppet" body Curatos set-up, and that both sides needed time to prepare for the inevitable battle to the death. Somehow, they're shocked and feel betrayed when Van attacks them as soon as he's ready, cutting off their conversation basically mid thought.
  • Just a Kid: People often underestimate him early on in human nations due to his age. The nations of Vida's races don't make this mistake for the most part.
  • Kavorka Man: He's a child, often mistaken for a girl, feels more like a ghost than a person, doesn't express emotions through his face, has the waxy skin of a corpse, and as he gathers more demon king fragments he became a Humanoid Abomination, but still can't seem to stop gathering suitors. Part of this is due to subtle charm effects, however, though the story never comes close to addressing the consent issues this raises.
  • Keystone Army: Discussed. A number of mortals and gods fear if Vandelieu dies, things could get very, very bad for his entire city-state of Talosheim. The very powerful undead among the citizens could suffer a Death of Personality again and go on rampage, ghouls would lose the ability to reproduce safely and at a reasonable rate and the entire infrastructure of Talosheim would instantly collapse.
  • Killing Intent: The Lemures that he can conjure can emit one so powerful that even Evil Gods can't help but prepare to defend against it, even at the cost of not defending against the enemy that is right in front of them.
  • King Incognito: He has a very hands-on approach to handling intelligence ops, and will disguise himself as just about anything, a steward in Palpipek's mansion, a servant boy in Duke Marme's fort, and even as a slave aboard a caravan run by a criminal organization that gets slaves by raiding villages and kidnapping people. Those who find out tend to have very short life-spans, if they're lucky.
  • Lack of Empathy: Averted. His limited ability to emote makes many, especially his enemies, think he is an emotionless monster. But in actuality, he is driven by his emotions, and the love of his family and friends, to the point of obsession, believing he has to kill those who have harmed his loved ones no matter how powerful or well connected they may be.
  • Last Chance to Quit: During Heinz's descent into Bellwood's trial, he and the party notice several red flags about who he's apparently being trained to fight, but they brush it off. When Vandalieu finally makes an appearance in person, he begins a discussion with Heinz about the fundamental efficacy of his quest but is met with an unwillingness to compromise or reexamine his beliefs, despite the obvious implications that he's being groomed for a war of genocide against someone he already greatly wronged once. Unwilling to continue the argument, Van starts a fight that by the end completely alienates both Van and Vida, which makes his goals of peaceful coexistence on his terms impossible. Notably, while Van was secretly gearing up to fight throughout the entire conversation, going by past behavior he probably would have been willing to work with Heinz if the latter had accepted his own faults.
  • Lineage Comes from the Father: The more important parent in terms of race is probably Valen given that Van is essentially just a vampire without the traditional weaknesses and with no Rank. Naturally, he's Van's father rather than his mother. Being part dark elf isn't entirely irrelevant, though it doesn't show in his features at all.
  • Logical Weakness: His [Danger Sense: Death] warns him of anyone who might wish to hurt him, but is useless if the person in question isn't trying to kill him, which is when he can be taken by surprise.
  • Loophole Abuse: There are two categories of magic: Attribute magic and support magic like alchemy and spiritual magic. Van only had the death attribute so he can't use fire magic and so on. He also can't use spirit magic because death-aligned elemental spirits do not exist. However, he ends up creating some out of ghosts and therefore gets around the "no non death attribute magic" thing by simply sending the mana to some of his undead followers like Levia or Orbia who transformed into ghosts with special fire and water powers and largely function as additional power-ups for him. Needless to say, Van takes full advantage of this to make up for Rodcorte's Curses.
  • Lovecraftian Superpower: Most of his physical techniques are based on bizarre and disturbing abilities like growing out his tongue several meters to use as a whip. He can even create lesser and gruesome-looking copies of himself by combining multiple demon king fragments.
  • Loved by All: Extremely popular with his people due to his innovative streak, protective nature and willingness to extend a helping hand. And also because he has multiple magic abilities that basically make certain races of people adore him, but it's noted that the stronger ones could No-Sell it if they wanted to.
  • Love Martyr: It's mentioned early on that he's a natural one: While an enemy abusing him would be met with instant death, if lucky, if someone he loved like Darcia was abusive he'd be unable to stand up for himself and just cave under the pressure.
  • Magnetic Hero: Thanks to Death-Attribute Charm skill line and his tendency to help people in need because Good Feels Good, he tends to attract lots of allies everywhere he goes.
  • Magnetic Medium: Naturally attracts spirits wherever he goes. This is bad for nearby spiritualists who rely on information the spirits provide.
  • Make Me Wanna Shout: His [Scream] skill drowns the area in a high pitched sound that causes direct mental damage and confusion, bypassing effects like status resistance. Against weak opponents, it's enough to cause people to go insane while stronger opponents are still left in agony and are also more likely to have the tools to negate it outright. He's also used it to echolocate.
  • Marshmallow Hell: Was subjected to being surrounded and hugged on all sides, repeatedly, by his various female retainers and friends after he came back from his stint on the Hartner Duchy.
  • Matter Replicator: With the Golem Creator Job, he became able to recreate anything using only his mana, though the rarer the metal/mineral/item and the more intricate it's design the more mana it costs, to the point where just creating the metal and the working it using Golem Transmutation is cheaper mana wise. Even then he still isn't able to create Orichalcum.
  • Mechanically Unusual Class: His version of the "tamer" job, "user", allows Van to "equip" certain kinds of creatures into his own body in addition to controlling them in battle. The remain hidden inside his body feeding off his body until he calls them out. It's noted that using this ability makes him look like he's been parasitized.
  • Me's a Crowd: With his [Out-Of-Body Experience] he can create multiple Spiritual copies of himself to perform tasks or confuse his opponents.
  • Might Makes Right: When someone has a legitimate reason for their behavior from his perspective, he acknowledges the point, but says it doesn't matter. They aren't strong enough to defeat him, so he'll kill them and move on.
  • Mind Manipulation: His [Mental Encroachment] skill allows him to alter people's minds in various ways. This can be as simple as treating traumas, or as complicated as brainwashing people with weak wills into carrying out basic tasks for him. However, if he pushes things too far, the target will just suffer a psychotic break and turn into a gibbering wreck for weeks or even months. In fact, it's so dangerous that it pretty much always ends up breaking a person's mind unless being used for therapy. The only time it doesn't is when he uses it to Guide people spying on Talosheim.
  • Mister Seahorse: Eventually gains the ability to lay eggs that can hatch into malformed lesser demon king fragment copies of himself that he can either pilot or allow to act on their own initiative and follow the orders of his followers.
  • Momma's Boy: Very attached to Darcia, who is the first parent in his three lives to love him as a parent should.
  • Money Fetish: Because of his first life without "luxuries", he once filled a bathtub with gold and tried to swim in it with obvious results. He also has an obsession with appearing wealthy rather than actually being wealthy, which he is as a natural consequence of completely controlling the Talosheim economy.
  • Moral Pragmatist: He will perform whatever actions he believes contribute most to the happiness and well being of himself and his loved ones. If going full-tilt Eviler than Thou will allow him to eliminate criminals attacking others or threats to his loved ones, he'll break all manner of taboos. But if being an Ideal Hero will help him protect his family through good publicity, he'll also be a hero. Even his one rule to Never Hurt an Innocent is born out of the belief that harming others without any reason would end up turning the entire world against him and endangering his loved ones.
  • Morality Chain: After being in his presence, undead regain their full sanity, and can once again maintain their rationality and converse normally rather than succumbing to crazed hatred for the living. Though since no one knows if this effect is permanent, a number of other characters begin to fear that the many, many Undead under Van could go insane again if Van dies.
  • My Sister Is Off-Limits: Van starts inadvertently releasing Bloodlust and considering whether or not he should kill anyone who attempts to hit on his mother Darcia, only barely holding himself back with multiple rationalizations about not wanting to become a mass murderer, not wanting to get in the way of his mother's love life, and so on. Miles is understandably... concerned... if he can trust Van to keep his cool when asked to pose as Darcia's boyfriend during Van and Darcia's time in Morski.
  • Necromancer: Can create and command already created undead creatures. This ranges from zombies and ghosts to golems and other objects that are possessed by dead spirits.
  • Never Hurt an Innocent: He never lets his revenge extend to innocent bystanders or the families of those he wants dead. Otherwise innocent guards who get in his way typically just have their minds altered so that they have no clue what happened during the incident.
  • Never Be Hurt Again: His justification for getting revenge on the people who led to the death of his mother is that since they've already demonstrated they're willing to harm the people he loves once, he can't allow them to live, lest they try to take away the love and happiness in his life a second time.
  • Noble Demon: The next Demon King and yet he is only cruel to those who attack him or anyone close to him. The worst possible enemy you could make but also the most invaluable ally if you support Talosheim.
  • Non-Human Humanoid Hybrid: Half vampire, half Dark elf. Later get's upgraded to half vampire, half goddess after his mother Darcia becomes the Avatar of Vida.
  • Normally, I Would Be Dead Now: Thanks to being able to control his physical body with his spirit and soul alone rather than his brain, Vandalieu has his head lopped off at least twice but continued to fight anyway.
  • No-Sell
    • Mind control abilities do not work on him due to his Mental Corruption skill, which later changes to Grotesque Mind. Him learning to control his body and mind with his spirit or even his soul alone also blocks more subtle mental attacks from skills like [Venus].
    • After gaining the [Abyss] skill, vision based abilities also basically become useless. They technically still work, but as they get reflected back automatically: Van instantly becomes aware of and can himself monitor users of surveillance type skills. And for attack type skils, Van's death magic, Healing Factor and increasingly infinite backup organs mean the user will end up dying long before Van suffers more damage than he can recover from.
    • Several Braver cheat skills flat out don't work on him or can be bypassed by him and others have extremely diminished effects. Which is why Kanako, Doug and Melissa all go along with Murakami to pretend they're going to try to kill him only to immediately defect once they have the tools necessary to reach him. The Eight Legion were already immune to Venus while touching raw death aura with Aegis and Hecatoncheir was enough to kill the other two instantly.
    • The Disease Demon job allows him to create diseases that ignore disease resistance because they consist of flesh-eating bacteria that simply tear the victim apart piece by piece, meaning it counts as a physical attack. You are not reading this wrong, Van can weaponize Necrotizing Fasciitis.
  • Not Distracted by the Sexy: Since he hasn't even hit puberty yet, though he notes that the girls around him are all beautiful and if he was older he doesn't know if he would react differently to the situations that he finds himself in.
  • Older Than They Look: It's not immediately clear how quickly he'll age, but around the time he hits eleven it seems as though he ages at the same rate as a dark elf, meaning he looks slightly younger than his true age. If dark elves age like normal elvesnote  then his appearance and actual age are likely to end up quite far apart over the next five to ten years.
  • One-Man Industrial Revolution: Thanks to the Death-attribute magic he has brought to Lambda many modern commodities (which were explicitly prohibited by Bellwood thousands of years ago) like mass-production factories, functional bathhouses and plumbing, all sorts of foods, automatic fans, and even refrigerators.
  • Our Souls Are Different: Because his soul is a mashup of the pieces of four different ones, and he began to absorb more and more Demon King Fragments, his soul is utterly strange and grotesque. It's described as still vaguely humanoid, but has multiple sets of limbs, a head covered with four different faces, and an increasing number of random body parts from completely different species sticking out of it, looking closer to something out of Hindu Mythology or the Book of Revelation than a normal human. He's also capable of putting it back together if it gets damaged, though he's unsure if he put it together right or if that even means anything.
  • Overly Long Name: By arc 12, his full name has become Vandalieu Ark Hillwillow Solder Zakkart.
  • Pals with Jesus: When Asagi tries confronting him about the dangers of his magic and how the gods will never accept such an abomination, he just gives a confused "what're you talking about?" and notes that he has directly spoken with Vida, Zuruwarn and Ricklent on top of numerous lesser gods, all of whom support him and can be considered allies at the very least. In fact, every high god other than Alda approves of or is willing to work with him.
  • The Paranoiac: What the Bravers think of him when they get a good bird's eye view of Talosheim and it's massive, overbearing defenses. Happens he's Properly Paranoid as what they saw is the minimum he needs to keep his people safe and happy.
  • Parental Substitute: To Zorcodrio's extreme confusion, Van's charm skills have an immense effect on him and leave him feeling like he's gained another parent.
  • Patchwork Kids: His left eye is purple while the right one is red. The purple is inherited from his mother and one of only a very few features he shares with her while the red eye is for his vampire father.
  • Pay Evil unto Evil: One thing is certain. Vandalieu will judge people by their own standards, and the punishments are seldom pretty.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: His mana pool is so massive he could easily pump even a simple fireball full of so much power it would liquify a planet. As he's a death mage, this also means he could easily cause a Zombie Apocalypse, or create multiple plagues that could wipe out the majority of the population, or just create a World-Wrecking Wave of death magic that would sap the life from anything caught in it. Luckily, Van himself doesn't want to do anything that would harm his friends and family.
  • Phlebotinum Battery: Since he has more mana than he knows what to do with, he regularly uses his entire pool to help others train or during combat so the mages can keep firing spells. The transfer efficiency is low, but since every other mage in the story is about a thousand times more efficient than him when using mana he can keep them supplied more or less indefinitely.
  • Power Nullifier: Has two barriers that can counter both physical and magical attacks. They can stop a basically infinite amount of weak to medium strength attacks, but if either is overwhelmed by a strong attack it will break and be unusable until he can put it back up again.
  • Pragmatic Hero: He will help the helpless, provided he has good reason to believe they're not evil asshats who deserve whatever they're suffering, but he'll ultimately do it in the way that is to his own best advantage and benefit.
  • Rage Against the Heavens: He understandably wishes he could kill Rodcorte, the god who made his second life miserable, and continues to do its best to make his third life short and meaningless. He also has a serious grudge against Alda's faction for, well, being Alda's faction but has been convinced to offer them mercy if they ask for it.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: He's willing to listen to his retainers and change his plans accordingly all the time.
  • Readings Are Off the Scale: When one considers that a Court Mage in Lambda has around 10000 mana, Vandalieu was born with over 100 million and only grew from there. Nowadays his mana is in the billions range and keeps growing.
  • Red Baron: Received several titles during the story, but the most prominent are The Ghoul King, The Eclipse King (both change to Emperor later), Holy Son of Vida and Demon King.
  • Reforged into a Minion: Enemies of his that he doesn't find particularly useful or sympathetic tend to end up as mindless golems. At one point he pulls a spirit outside of a printing press golem so it can speak to Luciliano, but like he expected, it has adapted too much to being a golem to say anything sensible, so Van puts it back to work.
  • Renaissance Man: On top of being extremely powerful, he also has a natural itch to innovate and improve. As such, he has multiple skills like carpentry, cooking and engineering.
  • Required Secondary Powers: The apparent point of the Death Attribute Charm skill seems to be the justification for why undead obey the necromancer who raised them even if they were enemies in life. However, Van doesn't personally create that many undead and the skill eventually changes into a broader series of skills based on the Guider jobs. As such, the secondary power is probably more valuable than the primary ability.
  • Revenge Before Reason: A downplayed version. Even though the likes of The Unapologetic Riley and Gordon would make valuable pawns, trying to forgive them after they've "repented" by dying causes negative effects on his health.
    • The general rule of thumb is that Vandalieu won't go out of his way to inflict vengeance on his targets, but if they fall into his lap, he will be compelled to show them how it feels to be on the receiving end of their crimes, and in equal measure. Those who repent and admit fault, or stay out of his way, tend to be left alone.
  • Right for the Wrong Reasons: As controversial as shattering the souls of Riley and Gordan is, it proves justified in hindsight when Rodcorte comments on it. Riley and Gordan's loyalty, while sincere, was never genuine, anybody manages to overcome Van's "Charm Undead" effect, and they'd both immediately turn on him, especially as Gordan was half deluded into thinking Van was the avatar of Alda under its effects. Banishing both souls would have given away critical intel to both Rodcorte and Alda, respectively, with Gordan becoming one of Alda's subordinate Jerkass Gods. Lastly, neither of them was in any way repentant, nor willing to even admit fault, in their sadistic torture and murder of an innocent dark-elf woman, in the name of money and fanaticism.
    • He goes full-tilt Honor Before Reason in executing Rick Paris as punishment for his murder spree among the Scylla, despite Iris and The Resistance telling him it's a poor tactical choice. Putting Rick Paris forward as their claim to the Sauron Duchy would have been even worse. Rick had a deep-seated loathing for the Scylla because they wouldn't just summarily bow their heads to the ground and worship Raymond, willing to die for the duchy, despite having nothing to gain and everything to lose. Rick also was also murderously vengeful against Van for Raymond's unwilling "sacrifice" to take down Gubamon, despite lining up with the brothers' own policy of making sacrifices to fight a greater evil, and the fact that Raymond was chosen for the ploy because he tried to murder Van first. Rick could in no way be trusted to hold the best interests of either the Scylla or even The Resistance the moment he got into power.
    • He condemns Heinz as a man whose self-proclaimed atonement is nothing but self-serving lies after Curatos's stunt. Heinz was actually innocent, but Van doesn't believe it. Chapters 254 and 255 go on to vindicate Van's assessment when he meets a merfolk woman who had to convert from Tristan to The Righteous Evil God of the Crimson Sea to survive after Heinz attacked her temple, killing most of her followers, and tried to slaughter her, to steal the Demon King's Mucus Gland, based purely on a noble's hand-delivered note, highlighting beyond any shadow of a doubt that Heinz hasn't repented or atoned, at all, no matter what he tells himself.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Subverted. Though Van has a tendency to kill multiple people when getting vengeance for cruelties done against him, he goes out of his way to only target those directly responsible and leave all others out.
    • After reawakening as the Undead it's indicated that he slaughtered everyone in the facility before being put down, but he was actually very selective in only killing researchers and guards who showed hostility. On top of that, he even went out of his way to rescue a bunch of imprisoned children and attempt to guide them to safety. Because those children came to worship him as the one person who ever showed them decency they modeled their group after his behavior and became the Eight Guidance.
    • Similarly, his revenge targets for the death of his mother Darcia are only the people that directly wronged him. When Dalton hears that Van has two more places to stop before the night is over, he assumes Van is planning to slaughter Thomas Palpapek's family and his most trusted servant. He was actually just going to come up with a cover story that the Amid empire could officially accept for the death of Palpapek and the disappearance of the Legston family. He genuinely does not care at all about the people related to his targets.
  • Royal Harem: He stumbles his way into a large number of arranged marriages and potential suitors that he isn't super enthusiastic about but also not particularly against. His early protests based on his views on marriage are met with rejection given that Vida's races are all polyamorous and, even setting that aside, even human followers of the stricter gods of Alda's faction will often have multiple wives and concubines if they can financially support them. He eventually gives up on fighting it and gloomily acknowledges the strong possibility that those like Pauvina and Rapiecage might want in once they reach mental adulthood as well.
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Van believes the happiness of himself, his loved ones, and people in general, as what's most important in life. Thus, while he's glad countries have laws that help and protect people, he will readily break any and all of those laws as soon as he judges they're in getting in the way of helping those same people.
  • Semi-Divine
    • Following Darcia reviving as a chaos elf / incarnation of Vida, his species name goes from Dhampir (Dark Elf) to Dhampir (Goddess). The significance of this is not entirely clear.
    • Before this, he had also been showing the ability to grant divine protection despite not being a god. This is considered highly unusual as mortals aren't typically supposed to be able to do that and eventually leads him into taking the Demiurge job, hinting that he's a kind of false god. The Demigod skill he possesses after taking this job indicates that at a spiritual level he's akin to beings like Colossi and Elder Dragons with only his physical body holding him back from true divinity. It even places him above some Demigods like Pure Breed Vampires in that he can grant Divine Protections and have parts of himself descend as pseudo Familiar Spirits.
  • Shared Unusual Trait: As with all Dhampirs, one of his eyes is red and the other is the same color of his non-vampire parent.
  • Showy Invincible Hero: To date he hasn't lost a single person he's actually close to in battle and has only actually struggled in a fight maybe two or three times. The story is less about "can he win this fight" and more "how will the world respond to him winning this fight?"
  • Skewed Priorities: Has been shown to do impractical things due to his obsession about with "luxuries", like starting a conquest campaign because he wanted to make cream.
  • The Sleepless: As an infant he needed to sleep more than normal, but he forced himself to stay awake with his Status Effect Resistances. He actually abused this to the point where he gained the Surpass Limits skill and got told off by everyone who made him take the day off. After he learned to manifest his spirit and materialize it so he could interact with it, he just left his "main" body sleeping while his spirit clones worked.
  • Spanner in the Works: He doesn't even realize it, but his normal actions totally screw over Rodcorte and his transmigration system all the time. That being said, after having the Guider jobs for awhile it's indicated that he does know about the multiple transmigration systems: He only accepts Kanako's group as immigrants after they've been moved to Vida's system.
    • He creates undead, which while a minor nuisance is still a problem.
    • He's making people functionally immortal, meaning less souls passing through the system.
    • He breaks souls, causing massive errors in Rodcorte's system.
    • As a resort of his Guider job variant he actually begins pulling people out of Rodcorte's system and into Vida's. The pace quickens with the more alternate Guider jobs and the Demiurge job he picks up.
    • When Rodcorte realizes that he's a reincarnation of Zakkart he tries to cut Lambda, Earth and Origin loose from his system only to be assaulted by terrible pain out of nowhere. He stops and investigates, only to realize much to his horror that enough people in Lambda now know who he is that he counts as a god of that world and cannot detach himself from it. He didn't expect anyone to tell so many people they were reincarnations sent by a god no one had ever heard of.
  • Spell My Name With An S: Properly romanized, his name really ought to be Vandaru. Or possibly Vandar if you take into account that he's named for Valen and Darcia, his parents rather than going strictly by the katakana used for his name. The translators went with Vandalieu instead, however, presumably for aesthetic reasons.
  • The Stoic: Played with. His actual emotions are clear enough from his narration, but his facial muscles simply do not move unless he consciously commands them to. The only way to tell how he feels normally is to pay attention to minute changes in his word choice and his body language.
  • Super-Empowering:
    • His [Strenghten Followers] and [Strenghten Subbordinates] skills do this.
    • After he acquired the Demon Guider Job several of his servants became able to do things that they couldn't before, like Sam being able to fly. This gets even worse after he begins to hand out Divine Protections.
  • Supernaturally Young Parent: At age twelve, he fathered Bakunawa with Tiamat. By giving Tiamat a bone fragment of the long dead Dragon God Marduke bathed in his blood to eat.
  • Swiss-Army Superpower: His "Death Attribute" magic has so many uses, both mundane and martial, that it's a much, much shorter list to mention what they can't do.
  • Sympathetic P.O.V.: From almost everyone else's perspective he'd be the villain, but his POV shows that he mostly just wants people to leave him alone and to protect his subjects. It's even directly noted by Alda that by the standards of Lambda he would in no way be consider a tyrant.
  • That Man Is Dead: When Asagi tries to appeal to him by calling him by his old name, he answers that he no longer feels any attachment towards the name Hiroto Amamiya, since it's been thirty years since he died. He's Vandalieu now. Asagi clearly doesn't accept or even understand this but humors Van by agreeing to his request.
  • This Means War!: When Duke Marme managed to cajole the Amid emperor to send The Evil Slaying Blades at him with a Join or Die proposal, starting by grievously harming his True Companions and holding the survivors hostage, Vandalieu retaliates by the Blades' own standards by disgracing the remains of Rickert and Duke Marme as an unofficial declaration of war.
  • Took a Level in Badass: This is his life-motto, stemming from his Never Be Hurt Again mindset, not only for himself, but his family and friends too. He will always use whatever means he has at his disposal to help himself and his friends to reach their maximum potential.
  • Too Many Halves: He's half vampire, half dark elf, eventually half god from his mom's side, and also a demigod and also part of him is a full god, but somewhere else.
  • Tranquil Fury: Because of his expressionless visage, it's easy for him to hide when he's royally pissed. Just ask the Fifteen Evil-Breaking Swords, oh wait, you can't.
  • Übermensch: After being betrayed by family members, governments, religions and other authorities in his various lives, Van generally rejects the concept of objective morality or god given rights, and instead believes in his own subjective morality of finding happiness in his own life, treating those who treat him well or poorly in kind, and helping those who need help because it makes him feel good rather than out of any underlying moral obligation. Van will also readily admit to his various antagonists that from their own subjective viewpoints he may seem insane or evil, but he still intends to try to lead a life that makes him and those he cares about happy.
  • Unscrupulous Hero: He tends to do good wherever he goes, but generally with murder, mayhem, terrorism and other assorted crimes thrown into the mix, though not against the innocent. The explanation is that he has gone insane and is only really limited by a desire to be a son his mother can be proud of and a need to protect his image.
  • Unskilled, but Strong: He has to brute force magic because he doesn't have talent for it in the normal sense of the word. Early on this means just spending absurd amounts of mana to cast spells he isn't really qualified to cast yet while later on it just means that while he is capable of casting certain spells, he's doing so very inefficiently despite having the Mana Control line of skills. Since his mana pool is so large, this more than compensates. It also lets him make normally weak skills very powerful just by throwing more mana into them than is strictly necessary.
  • Vampires Are Sex Gods: Played for laughs. While using the Youth Transformation Spell on Zadiris the other Ghouls hear her moans and decided that Dhampirs were just that good because he wasn't even two years old at the time.
  • Villain Protagonist: He ends up as the king of races that are typically villains such as cannibalistic ghouls and spider people and even becomes the demon king while displaying appropriate behavior for the role, such as terrorism, blasphemy, murder, brainwashing, slavery and so on. However, these actions are almost always reactionary in nature to deal with threats to his people, disposing of those that are even worse than himself or can be considered as extending mercy towards criminals. Even the Hero Antagonist figures are more 'heroes' due to their story role and intentions rather than because of great moral differences. Heinz, for example, routinely causes significant damage to groups he says he wants to protect without even trying to understand the situation, never learns from his mistakes and is incapable of admitting when he is wrong.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: By using his spirit form ability, he can extend a ghostly form of himself outside his body. Spirit forms are malleable if you're insane like Van and don't have a strong sense of a fixed shape, meaning he can alter his spirit form to tentacles or whatever. Then he can use Materialization to turn the spirit form physical again. Speaking practically, however, this is only useful as a combat or support technique and not as a disguise.
  • Wave-Motion Gun: His [Hollow Canon] No-Attribute Magic line of skills has him firing a massive beam of pure, hyper-compressed mana that can cut through even things that are Made of Indestructium, like orichalcum or dungeon walls.
  • The Woobie: In-universe. By the time the manga reaches chapter 4, he's already got the skill "mental corruption" (a skill indicating severe trauma) maxed out and transcending into a higher-tier skill.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Due to his death magic having the ability to heal undead and even give them their egos back, he sees undead as people just like any other fantasy race on Lambda. This is something that a majority of people in the human empires can't even comprehend, having only seen undead that are mindless monsters whose sole desire seems to be killing the living.
  • Why Won't You Die?: The Fifteen Evil Vanquishing Blades have this reaction when they cut Vandalieu's head off and he just keeps fighting. At that point in time, Van is even more difficult to kill than Alucard.
  • You Killed My Father: He breaks Sercrent's soul for having killed his father, but openly admits he's only doing it on behalf of his mom. He never met Valen, doesn't love him, and doesn't know if he can even respect a man he never spoke to.
  • You Kill It, You Bought It: After killing and consuming a partially resurrected Guduranis in volume 14, Van obtains the [True Demon King] title. Luciano later theorizes at this point it's impossible for anyone else to be recognized as a Demon King on Lambda and obtain the various benefits Van has from the status system, short of killing Van themselves to take the title and skills from him.
  • You're Insane!: He's been called evil or insane by several people who don't share similar beliefs to him, but while he recognizes that what he does might be considered evil or unnatural by their standards, he has decided he will only live by his own standards without caring much what people from outside think.
  • Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Given the facts that being decent and law-abiding resulted in three lifetimes' worth of absolute hell, progressively getting worse each time, the cruel and apathetic Rodcorte makes it worse with his mad obsession with killing him, refusing to comprehend that this just serves to make Vandalieu more and more bitter, vengeful, and recalcitrant, and that the people who treat Van kindly have been on the receiving end genocidal persecution for tens of thousands of years, run by the paranoid, xenophobic, and tyrannically racist self-proclaimed god of light and fate, Alda, it shouldn't be a surprise that Van is willing to take less than legal, or ethical, methods to secure his safety and that of those he cares for, even if that includes "terrorism," even if the terror is merely giving his enemies a punishment based on their own standards. That being said, if a Reasonable Authority Figure presents an olive branch and provides him a peaceful conduit for his goals, he'll take it, as Earl Morksi can testify first hand.

    Darcia 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/darcia_manga_cover.jpg
Vandalieu, you are such a good, smart boy! I'm so proud of your "gentle" nature.

Vandalieu's mother and the first person to shown him affection. After being discovered by Alda's church, she was burned alive for giving birth to a dhampir, after which she was made unable to return to the reincarnation cycle by Van and started to travel beside him as a spirit.


  • Almighty Mom: Invoked. She goes through an extreme amount of training with legendary heroic spirits and gods before her resurrection in order to be a mom who can make sure no one, whether they be heroes, monsters or deities, can bully her son.
  • Ambiguous Syntax: When she tells Heinz she will never forgive what he's done to her young son, the most common interpretation is Heinz' actions in Bellwood's dungeon. However, Heinz has been traumatizing Van both directly and indirectly, near continuously, for some 10 odd years since Van was half a year old, and is completely unrepentant when called out on it, insisting he's done nothing wrong, even when he admits his actions are inherently evil, and he fully intends to keep doing it. If she meant the latter, such a thing is truly unforgivable, as it's impossible to forgive someone that seems to not want it...
  • Back from the Dead: What Vandalieu dedicated himself during the first years of his life, and what he finally achieved after giving her a new body made from the legacy of Zakkart.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. Her body as a spirit is covered in scars and burns because of the psychological effect that being tortured to death had on her.
  • Blatant Lies: When she shows up at the gate to Morksi, she tries to cover-up the fact that Vandalieu is turning parts of Fitun's stampede into undead by stating that he's using some kind of hard-to-handle poison that causes the dragons and giants to enter a confused state and start fighting each other. Her story doesn't hold up under questioning, in the slightest, but the situation is so dire, the town guards and Earl Morski just have to take her assertions as fact, even with their misgivings.
  • Burn the Witch!: How she died.
  • Call to Adventure: Why she became an adventurer. She didn't want to stay in her village anymore.
  • Came Back Strong: Darcia and Van decide separately that they don't want her coming back only as she was when alive. Van prepares some truly ridiculous items for resurrecting her like an orichalcum skeleton and Vida's blood while Darcia trains with some of Vida's heroic spirits. As a result, she comes back to life as a powerful Chaos Elf. She's damn near indestructible, has powerful regeneration even if you manage to hurt her and even with no acquired Jobs has multiple superior grade skills and fighting power on par with Pure Breed Vampires.
  • Good Parents: The first adult in Van's existence that truly cares about him.
  • Even the Girls Want Her: Along with men, it's noted that quite a few women are also highly taken with Darcia following her resurrection. Presumably, this is due to her high ranking Allure skill, though she declined the opportunity to raise her Lovemaking type skills.
  • Healing Factor: Even if you get through all the defenses listed under Nigh-Invulnerable below, she also has regenerative abilities far in excess of what mortals are supposed to be able to achieve. Even if you were to cut off one of her limbs it would regrow within a minute.
  • The Heart: Is this for the majority of the story since she can't do anything aside from talking while being tied to the bone Vandalieu put her soul into.
  • Holy Backlight: When using her [Goddess Descent] to incarnate Vida into herself, she gains a holy aura and makes her blindingly brilliant, causing Heinz to have to avert his eyes in her presence.
  • Idol Singer: Post resurrection she performs with Kanako as an idol singer to spread awareness of Vida's revived church and the upcoming hostilities with the human nations.
  • Innocent Fanservice Girl: Dark elves typically wear highly revealing clothing without a thought.
  • Interspecies Romance: She fell in love with the subordinate vampire Valen. She recognizes that she has little room to criticize some of Van's love interests based on how incredibly shady her lover was given that he was a vampire, followed an evil god and as a day job worked as a spy by seducing women.
  • Invisible to Normals: People without Spiritualist Job can't see her unless Van casts a particular spell on her, but undead can. However, even they can't really hear her unassisted.
  • Love Redeems: Her mother's love is the one thing that kept Vandalieu from going full-tilt Then Let Me Be Evil.
  • Mama Bear: Not even while under torture would she reveal the whereabouts of her baby boy.
  • Monster Progenitor: She becomes the first Chaos Elf following her resurrection, and has the ability to turn various other races into Chaos Elves as well if they wish. She's also by far the most powerful Chaos Elf yet seen, with greater control of her [Chaos] skill and higher level versions of their racial skills like magic resistance and a Healing Factor.
  • Morality Chain: Whenever she thinks that Van is doing something inappropriate she scolds him to stop, which he always obeys. However, since her own morals are a little skewed this only tends to be with little things and the broad implicit instruction to not be a bad person.
  • Mr. Exposition: She explains to Van the legend of how the world of Lambda came to be.
  • Nigh-Invulnerable: Has level ten in physical, magic and status resistance, meaning she's extremely resistant to physical and magical attacks as well as nearly immune to poison. Her skeleton is also made of orichalcum and her joints are extremely flexible, meaning even piercing her skin won't damage the underlying bone and using hold based attacks won't inflict any pain. Even twisting her limbs completely around won't break them as they'll just snap back into place as soon as you stop applying force to them.
  • Pals with Jesus: During her training within Vida's Divine Realm, she became friends with not only Veld, but also Vida, Zuruwarn and Ricklent as well
  • Parental Substitute: About half of the supporting cast decide they want to be her daughter.
  • Semi-Divine: After training to resonate with Vida prior to her resurrection, she came to be considered an avatar of the goddess and gained a [Vida's Incarnation] title and unique skill from the system. This grants her high level abilities in skills related to Vida's concepts of life and love and a [Descent] type skill that doesn't just allow her to temporarily share a body with one of Vida's familiar or heroic spirits, but the high goddess Vida herself.
  • Spirit Advisor: Her spirit is always dwelling near her son.
  • Soul Jar: Her spirit is contained within a bone fragment that Vandalieu managed to find.
  • Struggling Single Mother: While she was alive, she had to hide the fact that she was a mother of a Dhampir while trying to gather food for him. She was planning to move back home to her village but was caught and murdered before she could start.
  • This Is Unforgivable!: She has no intention of ever forgiving Heinz for the way the self-proclaimed "hero" has mistreated, and continues to mistreat, her son, as part of some self-proclaimed Redemption Quest. If she had the means, he'd be Deader than Dead.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Before dying, she was just a D ranked adventurer. Basically on par with complete small fry like Kasim or Kachia before they met Van. Post resurrection she's stated to be as strong as, say, the S ranked Schneider or Zorcodrio. And that's with no acquired jobs.
  • Unreliable Expositor: She's Van's main source of information very early on in the story, but she's not particularly well educated and her village was in an area highly influenced by the Alda religion, meaning she gets some pretty important things wrong. For starters, she's wrong about the origins of several of Vida's races, her knowledge of the Orbaume kingdom is biased and she has a faulty view of relations between elves and dark elves: None of Vida's races are descended from monsters, the Orbaume kingdom is corrupt and not that great to Vida's races either and the relations between elves and dark elves are actually significantly better than she believes. After Van realizes this he stops asking her for information.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: After becoming a Chaos Elf, her [Chaos] unique skill allows her to alter her body in a wide variety of ways, such as forming blades on her arms, legs, feet and hands with her Orichalcum skeleton. Or creating wings out of her shoulder blades or arms. Or turning her feet into razor sharp talons.
  • Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Compared to her rather serious son, Darcia is rather easy going and forgetful. While this in part due to being a spirit for much of the story, it's also her natural personality.

    Eighth Guidance/Legion 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eighth.jpg
As seen in Origin.

When the members of Eighth Guidance perished in Origin, Zuruwarn the god of space and creation, took their souls before they entered Rodcorte's reincarnation cycle and placed them in a lump of flesh created by Vandalieu as prototype for a body for Darcia. This created an entirely new creature named Legion, which appears to be a variation on the Orc race's Flesh Wives, which are female humanoids with a sturdy physique but no face or combat ability. As such, it actually has the ability to learn Jobs despite being a monster in appearance.

The twelve different personalities that inhabit the body are: Hitomi Minuma/Gazer, Pluto, Baba Yaga, Ereshkigal, Valkyrie, Enma, Izanami, Ghost, Isis, Jack, Shade and Berserk.


Tropes relating to Eight Guidance as a whole and their Legion form
  • Abnormal Ammo: Tear off parts of their own body to throw them at enemies.
  • Achilles' Heel
    • Averted. While most similar creatures like slimes will have some kind of vulnerable core, Legion is simply a massive ball of undifferentiated flesh with no weak points. Rickert tries to attack Pluto believing she must be the weak point after trying everything else, but it doesn't help.
    • Apart from lacking a vulnerable core, Legion is born with a weakness to fire and lightning... which they notice and take steps to deal with, eventually gaining lightning, fire and outright magic resistance skills.
    • Their counter ability has a critical weakness to it: It only reflects the most recent attack. Thus, you can hit them with a big attack and then immediately give them a light tap and their most potent offensive ability is useless.
  • Adaptational Early Appearance: While in the Web novel they weren't mentioned until several chapters after Vandalieu had reincarnated, they are briefly seen being released by The Undead in the second chapter of the manga. It's also established that Van was attempting to escort them to safety, which was something that was unclear from in the web novel.
  • And I Must Scream: In the manga at least, when Experiment D-01 stumbles upon them, their nervous system was also severed so they couldn't control their bodies. Experiment D-01 uses death magic to revitalize the dead nerves to allow them to control their own bodies so they can escape. It would have worked too if not for those so-called "heroes" who handed them over to a self-proclaimed branch of the UN for "recuperation".
  • Attack Reflector: Legion's offenses aren't that well developed, but Ereshkigal can reflect attacks that hit them, which is extremely useful for a monster with no defenses but basically infinite HP.
  • Bizarre Alien Biology: They have no internal organs, body parts of both sexes are present and eventually they become capable of creating separate bodies for each respective personality.
  • Bizarre Alien Sexes: When they were just a floating blob of flesh it would be difficult say what sex they were, if any or even just one. After gaining Formshifting, they apparently have the sexual organs of whatever body they're using.
  • Crime of Self-Defense: They became labeled a terrorist organization for the "crime" of escaping the labs that locked them up and performed experiments on death magic upon them, against their will.
  • Death Seeker: As the Eighth Guidance their final goal was to die and hopefully rejoin the Undead if they could. Thanks to Ricklent, Zuruwarn and the god of Origin, they succeed.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Jumped right over it the moment "The Undead" was shot down before their eyes, and the Hundred Bravers handed them over to a whole new "research" laboratory, new faces, same treatment, and escape? Even going into hiding, a normal, peaceful life is impossible, and even death is not an escape as the corpse will just be fodder for more "research". Even Asagi couldn't help but admit that they had zero options.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Looks like a huge sphere made of flesh mannequins bundled together with the personalities of at least 10 people. However, they function as one of Vida's mixed monster/human races within the system and can therefore learn jobs.
  • Everyone Has Standards: They were strictly focused on only one goal: Eliminating illegal research centers focusing on the death attribute. Only researchers, guards and other directly involved personnel would be killed while everyone else would be let go. Even guards would be spared if they surrendered. In her free time, Pluto also performed acts of healing and mercy kills for the terminally ill. Also, they refuse to kill children which is why they spared Narumi when the Hundred Braves attacked: She was already pregnant with Mei.
  • A Good Way to Die: The ultimate goal of the group was to die on their own terms. Before doing so, they wanted to take down as many Bravers and facilities researching the death attribute as possible.
  • Healing Factor: Passive regen skills work based on a percentage of total HP, or vitality in this case. So while its defense is rock bottom, the ridiculous huge amount of HP means its passive regen makes it super tanky.
  • How Do I Shot Web?: Played for laughs. They spent enough time as a floating blob monster that the Eighth Guidance forgot how to walk.
  • Idol Singer: They work as backup for Kanako's group and have been learning to dance and sing, but aren't formally part of the group due to the nature of their body and the difficulty in finding time to support their efforts 100%.
  • Mighty Glacier: Damn near indestructible, but can only float around slowly. It's noted that if Rickert had tried escaping he might well have been able to do so, but assumed that Legion was capable of true flight and therefore faster than him.
  • Mind Hive: The Eighth Guidance's souls have partially fused together into a single body made of undifferentiated flesh. They maintain their individual minds and personalities, but cannot truly separate from each other and at their core are simply a part of Legion. They can still argue and have their own opinions and so on, including a fierce ongoing debate about magical girls.
  • Monstrous Humanoid: Their early shapeshifting abilities are very poor, leaving them as a boneless lump of "walking" flesh. They improve over time, but still don't really have the knack of it.
  • No-Sell: It's not explained why, but Venus doesn't work on them. If it did, Kanako wouldn't have needed to go through so much effort to secure them.
  • Re-Power: As Legion, they can't or don't make use of many of the abilities they had as the Eighth Guidance because they're useless, too limited or highly impractical given their form. Instead, they use basic magic attacks and certain types of flesh based combat.
  • Required Secondary Powers: They lack a surprising one: They're made of literally nothing but muscle tissue and maybe a bit of skin covering it, but since they lack a skeleton to anchor it too they can't actually exert much more or move very fast until they borrow a mountain giant's skeleton and realize this flaw in their biology.
  • Sizeshifter: They can change from the size of a ball to at least 3 meters in diameter.
  • Taking You with Me: They knew it was only a matter of time before they were killed by their enemies, so they made sure to take as many Bravers as they could with them to the next life.
  • Technically Naked Shapeshifter: They developed shapeshifting abilities only gradually. During one of the first scenes where they've managed to produce a convincingly human body, they note that their clothes are actually a part of their body and, despite their appearance, feel like flesh if touched.
  • Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: They break one section of the Trial of Zakkart because it has no clue how to handle multiple joined souls dwelling inside one body. It makes a reflection of them that has their appearance but only speaks gibberish before disappearing.
  • Undying Loyalty: To the Undead, the one being who did anything nice to them without asking anything in return. When they first arrive in Lambda they're shocked and hurt that he has no clue what they are let alone who, but things end up working out okay.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting:
    • To an extent. By concentrating, they can alter their form, but it's only by squishing around their body parts into a crude facsimile. The don't gain anything like an internal skeleton or even lose the bizarre, fleshy and tumorous appearance. Basically, it's only good for having a humanoid shape and them throwing a cloak over it.
    • After increasing in rank again, they gain the ability to shapeshift in the more classic sense by picking the form of one of their original bodies. However, they still lack an internal skeleton, which can make their movements unnerving if they attempt complex movement such as dancing. After some practice they do learn to mimic basic humanoid movement better.
  • What Would X Do?: Before they became the Eighth Guidance, they decided to do their best to follow what the Undead would do based on their limited knowledge of him. They came to the conclusion that they should destroy death attribute researchers, free research subjects and not to kill the innocent.
  • Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Governments and the media label them as terrorists, but they remain extremely popular with the general public because of their restraint, narrow focus, philanthropic actions and having the pretty, frail Pluto as the face of the group. People just don't buy that they're a serious threat to their own well-being because they obviously aren't.

Trope relating to specific members

  • Ambiguous Gender:
    • Shade lost his body in infancy, so he basically had to have a body built from scratch to have his own form when Legion learns Formshifting. The result is an androgynous face that is pleasant to look upon but very forgettable, which he likes because it could be used for undercover work. The actual sex is apparently undefined.
    • Because of the tumors, Izanami's gender was unable to be determined by sight alone. She was originally female and, with Van's help, eventually manages to piece together a good approximation of what she should look like.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Berserk's ability to take over a host requires it to parasitize the brain, but since the fur is noticeably the main body, this leaves it vulnerable to fire and light magic. The only reason it was so effective in the fight against the United Nations was thanks to Melissa's Aegis.
  • The Berserker: Berserker takes over a body and turns it into a maddened beast, like the berserkers from myth.
  • Big-Breast Pride: Valkyrie has the habit of proudly puffing out her large chest. She can be identified by this habit alone.
  • Black Eyes of Crazy: Enma's sclera was black due to the influence of death magic.
  • Blessed with Suck: While all of their abilities are weird and disturbing, Ereshkigal's only did anything whenever she got attacked while Izanami's was weaponized cancer because her body was covered with strange growths that she could tear off and turn into monsters. Neither had any way whatsoever of counteracting the side effects of their abilities.
  • Body Horror: Izanami's body was covered with protuberances the size of babies' heads growing all over her body, which were considered tumors.
  • Boisterous Weakling: Valkyrie was loud, brash and big, but because she had an artificial heart she was actually really physically weak.
  • Deity of Human Origin: A deity version of Pluto is born in Origin after the original is long dead thanks to people seeing her as a goddess who saved them from death. Her personality doesn't really match the real thing because it's peoples' perception of her, not a genuine copy.
  • Dreadlock Rasta: Isis is a beautiful black woman with dreadlocks.
  • The Face: Pluto is the most well known member of the group and generally assumed to be the leader, but in truth they're all of equal status. Rickert does end up assuming she's the core of Legion, only to find out that she's no more important than the others.
  • Girlish Pigtails: Baba Yaga's style, which was useful to get her enemies to lower their guard around her.
  • Healing Hands: After stealing the life of one person, Pluto can give it back to another. Generally, she would perform mercy kills on those without hope for recovery to power this.
  • Heart Is an Awesome Power: Enma is able to know the names and faces of those who have died in the world, regardless of how long it's been.
  • Hollywood Cyborg: Valkyrie's heart was surgically removed and replaced with a mana-powered pump, purely as a "proof of concept" that she still had mana in her body. She is understandably not thrilled at this treatment.
  • Incendiary Exponent: Baba Yaga can cause any body, animal, human, dead, or alive, to combust, even her own.
  • I Surrender, Suckers
    • Baba Yaga faked her surrender so she could lure Asagi close enough to take him with her when she blew herself up.
    • Pluto pretended to be a helpless captive of the rest of the group with the assistance of Enma, who pretended he was attacking her. The act was really bad, but it only needed to confuse the Bravers for a few seconds until Pluto could touch a priority target.
  • It Only Works Once:
    • Shade only possessed corpses because were he to possess a living human, he would be unable to leave, and if that person died, he could not transfer his soul to a new body. He takes over Endou's body and commits suicide after sending the Bravers a plan that will ensure several casualties.
    • Ereshkigal's ability to reflect the injuries inflicted on her would only be useful if she took a lethal injury, which she used to kill Ifrit with her own power.
  • Kindhearted Simpleton: Jack is implied to be hydrocephalic and with at least moderate brain damage as a result, which has left him with a rather simple and innocent personality.
  • Large Ham: Valkyrie pretty much all the time, often speaking in a loud and exaggerated manner
  • Life Drinker: Pluto's "Death Magic" attribute allows her to steal the life of others either for herself or for whomever she desires.
  • Man of Kryptonite: One observer of the Rickert/Legion battle actually ended up feeling rather sorry for the former because it was a completely unwinnable fight: Rickert was equipped to deal a Death of a Thousand Cuts to enemies with certain types of regeneration and his own skills incline him towards striking an enemy's vitals for a quick death. Legion is a magically created lifeform that is somehow alive while being nothing more than a big pile of floating meat. They have no weak points but are instead a Stone Wall with intense regenerative abilities that Rickert's sword was not built to counter. The only potentially winning move Rickert had was blocked by a flawed assumption: Because Legion floats, he assumed they were capable of true flight and therefore impossible to run from. In truth, Legion is very slow and doesn't have particularly potent offensive ability, so if he had tried to run he probably could have escaped.
  • Meaningful Name: Berserk is literally a bear sark (skin), the origin of the word berserk. Or at least it looks that way.
  • Mook Maker: Izanami has the ability to create skinless ape-looking creatures from her own flesh. They're not very strong, but they are useful for Zerg Rushing or battles of attrition.
  • My Death Is Just the Beginning: Trying to perform an autopsy on Pluto's corpse is a fundamentally bad idea, as Murakami and his "Federal Nation" allies found out the hard way: Cutting into her skin unleashes the death aura she had been storing up, which ends up wiping out the Pentagon and nearly taking out the entire east coast before being contained.
  • Necromancer: Isis is able to create undead with the same strength they had while alive, but it takes her from one hour to half a day in order to take full effect. While this sounds kind of useless given where she ends up, Van does appreciate her work since she doesn't make zombies the same way he does.
  • No Biological Sex: Shade's body does not appear to have a single defined sex, though he's typically referred to as male.
  • Non-Action Guy: Enma's ability is completely useless for combat and he has no combat abilities either.
  • No-Sell: Because Isis controls her body using only her soul, Hajime's ability to control the nervous system became useless since she has no nerve impulses he can manipulate.
  • Older Than They Look: While the age of most of the Eighth Guidance are vague and could be anywhere from fifteen up, Pluto in particular is noted to look like she's in her mid teens yet her appearance hasn't changed since a decade ago.
  • Perception Filter: Ghost's ability makes him be unable to be perceived by those around him, pointing out that security cameras, sensors or even being in direct sight of people make him acknowledged until he announce his presence by touching others or talking. This doesn't work quite as well with Legion, but still lets the part of him sticking out turn invisible for surprise attacks.
  • Required Secondary Superpowers: Averted: Ereshkigal did not have any regenerative abilities nor super toughness to make her counter ability good for anything but a single attack. Izanami's ability was just weaponized mutant magic monster cancer that eventually kills her.
  • Shut Up, Kirk!: Asagi tried to lecture Baba Yaga by sadly asking why she didn't just choose a simple quiet life with her friends. She agrees that that might have been nice, but was utterly impossible. As desperately wanted as they were by researchers they had zero chance of a normal life. He realizes suddenly that they truly were screwed from the start... and then she burns him to death.
  • The Sneaky Guy: Ghost so good at being unnoticed, not even 'Super Sense' Kaoru Gotouta was able to detect him, leading to their deaths. Actually attacking someone is the one thing that could blow his cover, so he decided to specialize in one hit kills as he had little faith in his knife fighting abilities.
  • Our Souls Are Different: Shade lost his body in infancy and can use his soul to take over recently made corpses. If he were to take over a living body, he would not be able to leave until he died.
  • Suicide Attack: Isis tries to kill Hajime with the bomb implanted in her head, and while she fails, she prevents the United nations from recovering her body.
  • Thanatos Gambit: Enma pretended to attack Pluto and lets himself be killed so Pluto can touch the Bravers.
  • And Then John Was a Zombie:
    • After being gunned down, Valkyrie gets back up and starts to stumble around, becoming another "Brave Warrior".
    • After Izanami's overuse of her abilities kills her, her corpse transforms into yet another "Yomo" type creature. Forcing her body's complete destruction.
  • Third-Person Person: Jack refers to himself this way.
  • Together in Death: Jack and Hitomi killed Mao Smith, and died together when her plane fell.
  • Token Non-Human: Berserk is the only member that wasn't human, instead it was a parasitic organism that looked like bear fur. In Lambda it manifests as an actual bear.
  • Teleportation: Jack can teleport himself and someone else to the location of something that's dying. He and Gazer took advantage of her prediction powers to surprise Mao Smith and fatally injure her.
  • Vague Age: Pluto looks like she's in her teens, but her age and appearance haven't changed for at least a decade when she's introduced in the Origin side-story arc. Her real age is unknown.
  • Would Not Hurt A Child: When Pluto realized Amemiya Nanami was pregnant, she did everything she could to spare the latter's life.
  • Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Pluto pretended to be hurt and helpless so that Nanami would be lured close enough to touch her.
  • Your Days Are Numbered: Unlike the rest of the group, Izanami really wasn't going to live much longer no matter what she did: Her tumors were still some form of extremely aggressive cancer, after all, and about halfway through the final confrontation with the Bravers she reaches her limit.

    Pauvina 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pauvina.jpg
Whee!
Once a woman whose corpse was used by Luciliano to infiltrate the Noble Orc camp, after being impregnated by the Noble Orc Bugogan, Vandalieu uses the fetus to grant her soul a new life. She's eventually born again, this time as the very first half-Noble Orc in history and Van treats her as a younger sister since then.
  • Big Little Sister: Vandalieu treats her like a younger sister, and despite being three years younger than him, she's probably thrice his height.
  • Carry a Big Stick: Wields a steel mace given to her by Vandalieu, and she has all the strength to wield it.
  • Child by Rape: She's basically her own daughter: Her "mother" died due to unknown causes, was revived as a Live-Dead by Luciliano and sent as a scout into the orc territory inside the ghouls' devil's nest. The walking corpse was captured, raped and impregnated. Because her spirit wasn't in the body she wasn't as traumatized as you might expect, but still considered this defilement of her corpse by her (implied) murderer, Luciliano's employer. Van offered to revive her as the fetus within the body because it didn't have its own soul yet and she accepted after he promised to make sure she would not be born as an orc. Thus, she basically gave birth to herself.
  • Cute Giant: See that image on the right side of the page? Adorable, right? She's already ten feet tall at the (equivalent) age of ten, meaning she's likely to end up even bigger than her Noble Orc parent.
  • First Of Its Kind: Because of Van's gene-therapy, she's the first half-orc ever to be born. Despite the mixed heritage, however, she does not qualify as a monster race like Noble Orcs or even the likes of Arachne, which have Ranks as monsters while also being able to acquire Jobs.
  • Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Blonde due to her half-Noble Orc heritage, and a very pleasant child who adores life in Talosheim.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: She's half-Human half-Noble Orc, which normally can't exist due to the offspring of orcs and humans always being orcs, however Vandalieu manipulated her genetics in vitro using death magic to make her as human as possible. And indeed, despite her mixed heritage, the status system gods treat her like one of the pure human races, giving her access to Jobs like "natives" rather than Ranks like "monsters".
  • Little Bit Beastly: She looks like a girl with a pig's tail and ears. At a glance this makes her similar to a beast person, except there are no such thing as boar beast people.
  • The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Though she has the soul and partial memories of an adult adventurer, her mental age matches her physical appearance and even Van's magic can't do very much about that. This is implicitly why he doesn't reincarnate Darcia using the same method: She would basically end up a different person with only some personality traits in common.
  • People Puppets: Her original human body was used as a puppet by Luciliano, something her spirit wasn't pleased about.
  • Resurrection Sickness: Van helps her to revive to see if artificial reincarnation is an acceptable way to bring back his mother, but he decides against it offscreen because while Pauvina has some similarities to the woman who birthed her and a few of her memories, she is essentially a different person entirely. All she really inherited was her looks and an attachment to Van. Van wants Darcia to come back 100% as she was or better, so he gives up on this approach.
  • Soulless Shell: When her body was a Live-Dead under Luciliano's control, she was considered to be an undead despite her normal bodily functions because her soul had already left the body. The body still had to eat and perform all other bodily functions or it would die, but was incapable of doing so without being ordered. This is why Life magic cannot truly revive the dead even if it can restore a corpse to life: Control over the soul is part of Death magic.
  • Super-Strength: She has inherited the strength of her noble Orc side. Even as a toddler she possess enough physical strength to break an adult man's bones without trying.
  • Totally Not a Werewolf: She's frequently assumed to be a boar-type beast person with titan blood, but is actually half-Noble Orc. She's already taller than all but the tallest Titans at the (apparent) age of ten and boar-type beast people don't actually exist, however people have no idea what else she could possibly be and tend to just stop thinking about it.
  • Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Her greatest joy is going into combat and smashing things to a pulp with her mace. Whether that's a product of her environment, her half-orc heritage, or some other mix of factors is unclear.
  • Unskilled, but Strong: Van refuses to let her participate in real battles early on because despite her Super-Strength she lacks the Skills to make use of it.
  • Younger Than They Look: Because Orcs mature much more quickly than humans, she always looks and acts several years older than she actually is, such as looking six when she's actually three, or speaking in full sentences at the age of two. However, despite her height, she's never judged to be an adult or even a teenager.

    Privel 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/privel.png

A Scylla shrine maiden from the Sauron Duchy who accidentally becomes one of Van's many future wives after a misunderstanding. After Van obtains the blessings of the four Elder Dragon Gods, she becomes an Origin Scylla High Druid.


  • Accidental Proposal: She was practicing a courtship ritual when she met Vandalieu, and her mother decided to go along with it, making her one of his many future wives.
  • A-Cup Angst: Because of so many large-chested women already living in Talosheim, she tries to compensate with the number of legs. The end-of-chapter breast rankings helpfully note that since she's quite young she will most likely increase in size, although she'll never become super busty. Gizania in particular depresses her: She has a larger chest and eight legs.
  • The Chief's Daughter: She's the daughter of Periveil, the chief of the Scylla village.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Played With. While she is very open to Van having many fiancees, the possibility of them having more legs than her (her self-appointed charm point) make her enter long tirades of jealousy.
  • The Glomp: Scyllas by nature like to instinctively cuddle, especially if they're excited. She's simply the first one who does it.
  • Unscaled Merfolk: She's a Scylla, whose lower half is that of an octopus.

Ghouls

    Zadiris 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zadirisvol2.png
All hail King Vandalieu!

The Chief of a Ghoul village Vandalieu and his friends come across after saving her from adventurers bent on raping her. She acted as Vandalieu's magic teacher early on and after the rebirth of Talosheim, she becomes their lead mage.


  • Action Mom: While she might not be a physical powerhouse like her daughter, she's still an experienced mage.
  • A-Cup Angst: Because she stopped aging during her teenage years, she has a complex about her chest being on the small side... for a Ghoul. She's still a B-cup, with a larger chest than quite a few other members of the cast.
  • Antiquated Linguistics: She has archaic speech patterns which would not be out of place on an old man, which is pretty jarring coming from a woman who looks like she's only in her teens.
  • Atrocious Alias: Downplayed. She doesn't like the "Princess" part in her race title because she thinks she's too old for this and in desperately trying to become at least "Queen", to the point of envying Quinn because she was born with that title.
  • Court Mage: She's promoted to Talosheim's court mage when Vandalieu becomes the Eclipse King.
  • Glass Cannon: As a Ghoul Mage, she's not made to be on the front lines, but her magical aptitudes are quite high for a Ghoul.
  • Idol Singer: Joins Kanako as an idol where she proves highly popular with ghoul audiences, all of whom view her with awe for her high rank. She plans to quit in about ten years, however, at which point it's implied Basdia might take over for her.
  • Magical Girl: Is the first one Van gives his transformation staff equipment to, which lets her transform into a frilly, girly outfit that gives her a massive boost in her magical abilities. After going through a number of rank ups and class changes, she eventually becomes a ghoul magic princess with the Magical Girl job. She doesn't understand what this means, but nonetheless has a strong suspicion that the job system is making fun of her.
  • Magic Staff: Used a plain staff carved from wood or later monster parts before receiving her transformation staff from Vandalieu.
  • Mum Looks Like a Sister: Because Ghouls stop aging once they've given birth, she looks younger than her daughter despite being hundreds of years older.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Despite looking like a teenager, she was almost 300 years old when she first met Van. Complicated further by Van using [Youth Transformation] magic on her to extend her lifespan, making her biologically a teenager again as well.
  • Sure, Let's Go with That: The most scary thing for her is that she more than once caught herself thinking "Maybe this is not so bad after all" about her race Title containing the word "Princess".
  • Team Mom: As a long serving chief of a ghoul village and multiple time mother, she often serves a parental and mentor role for Van and his various other followers.
  • Tsundere: Downplayed. Seems to have a crush on Van, but is in complete denial about it and insists on acting like his mentor.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Has this dynamic with Tarea, being the oldest among his Ghoul followers.
  • Your Days Are Numbered: Before Vandalieu used Youth Transformation on her, she was approaching 300 years old, which is the maximum lifespan for a ghoul. Now she's actually the same age as her appearance.

    Basdia 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/basdia.jpg
Let me take a look at the future father of my child!
The daughter of Zadiris and one of the physically strongest female ghouls, which contrasts her mother's mastery of magic. Deciding to let Van become the father of her second child when he comes of age, she constantly reminds him of their promise so he doesn't see her as merely a Cool Big Sis.
  • Action Mom: She finally gives birth to her first child, a girl named Jadal, with the help of Van. She's just as badass as ever.
  • Amazonian Beauty: She's toned, beautiful and 190cm tall. Van compares her to a beautiful martial artist or an athlete.
  • Birds of a Feather: Immediately becomes friends with Arachne Gizania because they're both muscular warrior women.
  • Buxom Beauty Standard: She and Tarea have comparable bust sizes that are classified as H-Cup. They argue about whose are better a lot with Basdia's seeming to be slightly smaller but much perkier.
  • Braids of Action: She wears her hair in a long braid, which contrasts with her mother's loose hair.
  • The Jailbait Wait: She doesn't mind waiting for Vandelieu to reach maturity to bear his child, since Ghouls stop aging once they've given birth, so she can wait a few (hundred) years if she has to.
  • Law of Inverse Fertility: She wants to bear Van's child eventually, but before then needs to get pregnant to stop her aging. Unfortunately, her ovaries aren't fully developed, which leaves her infertile. The easiest solution would be to use life magic, but since all the life magic users have a poor understanding of biology Van has to use a roundabout method to solve the problem instead.
  • Murderous Thighs: The manga adaptation of the Battle of Talosheim show her killing a soldier only using her muscular legs.
  • Parent-Child Team: She and Vigaro have weak parental bonds between them, but as two melee types they work well together and even have a student/teacher type relationship.
  • Power Tattoo: After ranking up into a Ghoul Amazon, she gains several tattoo-like markings on her skin. They change a little the more she ranks up.
  • Self-Proclaimed Love Interest: She constantly reminds Van she wants him to be the father of her second child.
  • Statuesque Stunner: She's around 190cm tall, or about 6'3 in imperial units. And, like all female ghouls, she's gorgeous.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: She's the tomboy to her friend Bilde's Girly Girl.
  • Weapon Specialization: Much like her biological father Vigaro, her main weapon is the battle-axe.
  • Women Prefer Strong Men: She likes men with a lot of strength, so she becomes interested in Van because of his magical strength.

    Tarea 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/vol02_09.png
Allow me to be your Queen, your highness Vandalieu!
Once a human who fled into a Devil's Nest and turned into a Ghoul, she rose in their hierarchy thanks to her skill at smithing using Monster materials. She pledged her full allegiance to Vandalieu the moment she laid eyes on him. She and Zadiris constantly bicker over their respective ages and closeness to Van.
  • The Blacksmith: While her physical prowess is extremely low, compared to other Ghouls, her skills as a blacksmith from when she was human have been useful for her.
  • Buxom Beauty Standard: She and Basdia have comparable bust sizes that are classified as H-Cup. Tarea seems to take pride in apparently being slightly larger, though Basdia calls her breasts saggy.
  • Heir Club for Men: She was a better smith than her brothers, but since they were okay in their own right and she was also very pretty, her parents sold her into slavery instead.
  • Ignored Enamored Underling: Because Vandalieu is still a child, he doesn't actually think anything about her in a romantic sense.
  • Made a Slave: She was sold as a slave by her parents so they could use the money to help establish her less talented brothers. She was then captured by ghouls and turned into one to help maintain their population. She was basically a slave there as well until they learned she had valuable smithing skills, after which she leveraged her skills to gain popularity and political power despite her near nonexistent combat abilities.
  • Non-Action Girl: She's not a frontline combatant and usually stays in the back or at Talosheim when there's fighting. Although thanks to Van, she has leveled up.
  • Ojou Ringlets: Her hairstyle in the manga, and she certainly likes acting like The Ojou despite her lower-class background.
  • Power is Sexy: Falls for Vandalieu because of his power, even though he's only two years old at the time.
  • Really 700 Years Old: She was 260 years old when she met Vandalieu, but looks slightly younger than Basdia (who's 27 after stopping her aging).
  • The Rival: She immediately becomes Basdia's rival for Van's affection.
  • Self-Made Man: She was an escaped slave who was captured by ghouls, turned into one, and then kept around as little more than breeding stock. However, the ghouls learned that she was a talented craftsman, which allowed her social position to skyrocket until she became the ruler of the tribe.
  • Sex Slave: She was sold into prostitution after being enslaved by her own parents, to pave the way for her elder brothers to inherit the blacksmithing shop. In fact, the slavers forced her to job-change into "Prostitute" against her will. She was eventually turned into a ghoul and was kept as a slave until they realized she was a talented smith, which allowed her status to skyrocket.
  • Vicariously Ambitious: Ever since she first met him, she has wished for Van to rule over the entire continent with her at his side.
  • Was Once a Man: She was born human, but was captured by ghouls and transformed into one against her will through a magic ritual developed to compensate for the low fecundity of ghouls.
  • Your Days Are Numbered: Before Vandalieu used Youth Transformation on her, she was approaching 300 years old, which is the maximum lifespan for a ghoul. Now she's actually the same age as her appearance.

    Vigaro 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/vol01_15.png
All who would harm our king shall fall before my axe!
The leader of the male Ghouls from Zadiris' village and her apparent successor. After emigrating to Talosheim, he becomes one of Vandalieu's frontline fighters alongside Borkus and Basdia. He's also the father of Basdia, but because of the loose culture of Ghouls, neither he nor Basdia think much of their relation
  • Action Dad: He's actually the father of Basdia (although he's certainly not Zadiris' husband). The story is unclear as whether he knows or not, but either way the two have a very Bash Brothers type relationship.
  • The Big Guy: Whenever he's in a party he serves as this role.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: He's big, loud, and always eager for a challenge.
  • Dual Wielding: Eventually quadruple wielding.
  • Friendly Rivalry: He and Borkus have one to be Vandalieu's Big Brother Mentor.
  • Genius Bruiser: He's noted to be quite a bit smarter than the average male Ghoul, which puts him at roughly average human intelligence.
  • Large and in Charge: He's the biggest of the male Ghouls, and grows even larger after increasing in Rank.
  • Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Grows an extra pair of arms after becoming a Ghoul Tyrant, the highest verified rank a Ghoul can achieve. He also learns to use a limited form of spirit form to make a fifth arm grow out of his back in combat.
  • Proud Warrior Race Guy: As is the case for the majority of the male Ghouls.
  • Really Gets Around: He's quite popular with the female Ghouls, especially after Ranking up all the way into a Ghoul Ark Tyrant.
  • Weapon Specialization: Vigaro has always favored the axe as his weapon of choice.

    Kachia 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kachia.jpg
An adventurer who was captured and turned into a plaything of the Noble Orcs. After being rescued by Vandalieu and the Ghouls, she decides to become a Ghoul herself since she doesn't want to return to human society after being defiled by Orcs.
  • Broken Bird: What she was when Vandalieu met her. After becoming a Ghoul she eventually recovers.
  • Can't Catch Up: She hit a wall in her development and since early in her career she had been classified as a Master of None in the magic department. Thanks to Van, her growth has slowly improved, but is still there.
  • Defiled Forever: Even though she's a victim, having been raped so much by orcs would make her shunned in human society as unclean, which is why she and the other captive adventurers refuse to return. Van offers them the chance to become ghouls instead, which she takes.
  • Does Not Like Men: After becoming a plaything for orcs, she developed a fear of men besides Vandalieu. A few years later she has mostly recovered.
  • Magic Knight: At first she only had skills in swordsmanship, but at Vandalieu's suggestion, she starts learning magic from the Ghouls as well as they're more racially suited for magic than humans.
  • Significant Wardrobe Shift: She embraces becoming a Ghoul by dressing far more provocatively than how she did as a human, with some Side Boob and a mini-skirt.

Undead

    Sam 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sam_33.jpg
Sam's human projection
The spirit of a carriage driver who was murdered by bandits alongside his daughters, his soul is transferred to a carriage and becomes Van's driver, constantly running over enemies.
  • Adaptational Early Appearance: Barely. In the Web novel he and his daughters debut after Van has dealt with the group of bandits, while in the manga they debut before the attack, telling Vandalieu exactly what the bandits did.
  • Astral Projection: After ranking up a few times, he can create ghostly visages of horses and of his body when he was human sitting on the coach seat. He's actually the carriage itself, so the horses and apparent driver are little more than accessories to his true body.
  • Badass Driver: Though he himself is the vehicle, he was a coach driver when alive, and because of that he has some skills that got transported over when he became an Undead. Even when he's trampling over enemies he rarely lets his passengers comfort level drop, though it isn't foolproof.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: He's none too pleased to see men ogling his daughters. He only has himself to blame, though, because he's the one who asked Van to make them that way without thinking.
  • Car Fu: Since the carriage is his body, he's constantly running over enemies.
  • Did Not Think This Through: Has Van resurrect his daughters by turning them into stripperiffic undead armor over his protests and warnings. They later regain humanoid bodies and now walk about looking mostly naked as a result, much to his annoyance.
  • Foe-Tossing Charge: His preferred (only?) method of attack. His [Charge] skill let's him barrel through the enemy lines.
  • Hellish Horse: While Sam's body is the carriage, the Astral Projection of the horses are this.
  • High on Homicide: As a ghost carriage onward, he feels euphoric glee upon running over people and monsters, even proclaiming that it might be addictive.
  • Sentient Vehicle: His true body is the carriage that moves, not the driver or horses that pull it, which are simply representations of his old living self.
  • Undying Loyalty: For Vandelieu.

    Saria and Rita 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/3_rofdqhimm0jzt.jpg
Undead (left) Alive (right)

The daughters of Sam who worked as maids before being murdered and burned alive by bandits. Inhabiting two suits of armor given to them by Vandalieu, they eventually become incredibly powerful Animated Armors.


  • Animated Armor: Funnily enough, it is Chainmail Bikini, something their father initially was happy about (since now that they have bodies they can help Van), that is, until they properly materialized their body under the armor.
  • Chainmail Bikini: Van places their spirits into magical armor that looks designed for fetish play rather than battle. This is more practical than most examples, however, because they are the armor, not the spirit form body that the armor eventually covers as they grow stronger. This means that any enemy attacking their "vitals" is about as effective as trying to fight fog with a sword. This even lacks the normal weaknesses of living armor: Because it comes in distinct pieces already, it can't be separated to "kill" the undead that makes it up, such as by removing the helmet from a full set of possessed plate armor.
  • Curtains Match the Windows: The Light Novel and manga illustration shows they have eyes of their respective hair colors.
  • The Dividual: They never appear in a scene without the other.
  • Ghost Amnesia: Unlike their father, they didn't have the strength of will to maintain their self awareness and self image as spirits. Though they're brought back to awareness by Van's undead charm, they don't remember what they looked like anymore and have to form new mental images of themselves. As such, when they regain a humanoid form it's indicated that it's probably not what they looked like in life.
  • Girlish Pigtails: This is how Rita's hairstyle manifests.
  • Leotard of Power: Saria is turned into a Living Armor possessing one that appears to be a leotard.
  • Meido: They used to be simple maids, but are revived in fetish play armor sets. While they don't have great instincts for battle or any experience to work with, they still end up becoming Ninja Maids due to undead being able to train twenty four hours a day.
  • Nigh-Invulnerable: Effectively. While Breast Plate style armor is noted to be absurd and just pure fanservice, in their case it works out well because it means any opponent would be sure to strike at their unprotected "vitals" rather than the tiny bikinis that they actually are. Stabbing at what looks like their bodies accomplishes next to nothing.
  • Ninja Maid: They end up possessing a unique Rank of living armor: Maid armor. This requires not only martial ability but also properly developing their housework skills.
  • Psycho Party Member: They enjoy the act of killing and bathing in the blood of their enemies.
  • Rape as Backstory: They were raped by bandits and then burned to death. Their initial spirit forms are of burnt corpses as a result.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Saria is usually more calm and proper than the energetic and playful Rita. The light novel illustration makes it even clearer by giving Saria blue hair and Rita red hair.
  • Shameless Fanservice Girl: Both no longer care how revealing their new bodies look, mainly because the armor is their bodies.
  • Sibling Team: They always fight together.
  • Weapon Specialization: Rita uses a Naginata and Saria a Halberd.

    Rapiéçage 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rapiecage.png
Rappie...!
A patchwork zombie created by Vandalieu using the remaining body parts of Mikhail's party members and monster organs to compensate. While physically an adult, her mindset is that of a child, requiring her to mentally age the normal way. Very close to Pauvina and Yamata.
  • Adaptational Ugliness: In the novel art, she basically looks like a beautiful woman with wings, strange arms and a tail. The manga art makes Van's work look much cruder with stitching everywhere, inconsistent musculature, bad posture and much more exaggerated changes in skin tone. As described, she actually seems to be somewhere in between: The novel art at best doesn't show that her skin is brown, white or even green depending on where you look but the manga is straight into Fan Disservice.
  • Amazonian Beauty: She has the well-endowed body of a female elf, the head and muscles of an amazon and the well-toned limbs of an ogre.
  • Artificial Family Member: She was created by Vandalieu, but he treats her as a little sister.
  • Beauty Is Bad: From a normal person's perspective, at least. She's quite attractive, but her odd proportions and strange skin tone are said to give her a corrupt sort of beauty.
  • Beware My Stinger Tail: She has the tail of a Venom Wyvern with the stinger of a Cemetery Bee, and the venom glands of a Shark-Eating Anemone and a Hydra.
  • Frankenstein's Monster: She was made with the corpses of Mikhail's party and monster organs. After raising her rank a few times all these different parts are considered to be "her" and will regenerate as is if she's injured.
  • Gratuitous French: Her name.
  • Healing Factor: She gains Regeneration based abilities, which is notable in that if she had an arm cut off, for example, a new ogre arm would regrow to replace it rather than an elf arm to match her torso.
  • Horned Humanoid: She has the horns of a triceratops as well.
  • In-Series Nickname: Rappie.
  • Meaningful Name: "Rapiéçage" means patching in French.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: While her main body is of the party that came to Talosheim with Mikhail, Vandalieu adds horns from another monster and even a tail with stingers on her.
  • Monstrous Humanoid: Her body is a mix and match of various people and creatures. It has a pretty face and an attractive body, but with weird stitching, wings, disproportionate limbs and a scorpion tail.
  • Totally Not a Werewolf: She's mistaken for a Majin at one point because she bears a passing resemblance to a succubus with her demonic features. However, she's just a patchwork undead creature.
  • Winged Humanoid: She also has the wings of a pterodactyl.
  • Womanchild: Because she's a recently born creature, she acts like a young child instead of the adult she looks. She begins slowly developing in maturity as she hangs out with Pauvina and Yamata.

    Bone Man 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bone_man_28manga29.png
Jyuu!
A skeleton reanimated by Vandalieu using the spirits of mice to serve as part of his fighting force early on. Despite being a human skeleton, the soul inhabiting it is actually that of a mouse. Because he initially lacks human intelligence, it's difficult for him to gain weapon skills. Once he obtains human intelligence he grows to be one of Vandalieu's most reliable fighters.
  • Big Brother Mentor: Intends to become one for the rat sisters Urumi, Maroru and Suruga since he was once mice spirits.
  • Dem Bones: He's a skeleton from a long abandoned corpse.
  • Detachment Combat: He's learned how to separate the bones in his body and have them all attack independently as sharpened, flying projectiles.
  • Dragon Rider: Rides Leo, the Zombie Swamp Dragon that Borkus killed.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Van wasn't feeling very creative when he named him.
  • Friendly Skeleton: He's a dutiful and completely loyal skeleton.
  • Jaw Drop: Literally. When shocked his jawbone simply falls to the floor.
  • Monster Knight: He's no mere skeleton. Not only does he gain the "knight" title, he has all the skill and mannerisms fitting of the class.
  • Took a Level in Badass: From a weak bunch of bones to one of the deadlier fighters in Talosheim.
  • Undying Loyalty: He's amongst Van's oldest followers.
  • Verbal Tic: Because he was once mice spirits that inhabited a skeleton, he starts or ends his sentences with "jyuuh...", a Japanese onomatopoeia equivalent to "squeak..."
  • Vocal Dissonance: After gaining human-like sentience, he develops a deep and gentlemanly voice, but his Verbal Tic and past as mice spirits are rather disconcerting for Van.
  • The Worm That Walks: He's a human undead skeleton possesed by the fused spirits of multiple mice.

    Knochen 
Originally four separate animal skeletons, after being almost destroyed they ask Vandalieu to combine them into a single creature that is renamed Knochen, a massive creature made entirely of bones.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: It's a good thing Knochen can change his size, otherwise he may end up trampling the entire country!
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Knochen's "fight" against Heroic Spirit Shestun. Shestun was able to defeat over a thousand skeletons, but since this is Knochen that loss is barely noticable to the Bone Pandemonium. The inevitable happens.
  • Gratuitous German: Its name means bones in German.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: After being fused into a Bone Chimera.
  • Mook Maker: Eventually becomes able to create skeleton soldiers with poisonous breath. Millions of them.
  • Mundane Utility: What better use for a gigantic mobile flying living fighting fortress than as a concert venue.
  • Nigh-Invulnerability: The only way to kill it would be to destroy each and every bone that makes up its body. Good luck with that.
  • Raising the Steaks: It was once a Bone Bear, a Bone Monkey, a Bone Wolf and a Bone Bird.
  • Sapient House: Eventually becomes a Bone Fort, a sentient building made of bones. As its rank increases from there he grows even larger until he evolves into a massive Bone Palace.
  • Sizeshifter: After becoming a Bone Fort it can change sizes slightly. It can't reduce it too much but can get as big as Talosheim's castle.
  • Stone Wall: While its offensive capabilities are rather low, it's so large and comprised of so many bones that it could defeat much stronger enemies than its rank indicates. Its first real fight of the series is against a heroic spirit, aka a former mortal hero as strong as a low to mid ranked god, and the poor bastard is almost completely unable to inflict any damage at all. He manages to break a thousand or so of Knochen's bones, but not only is this an inconsequential amount, but a broken bone is still made of bone. It's just two smaller bones now.
  • That's No Moon: There is said that there are three castles in Talosheim; the royal castle, the Gehenna Bees' beehive and Knochen.

    Chezare Legston 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/17122527343556986292186011116202.jpg
Second son of the Legston Marshal family, he was assigned as second in-command of the Mirg nation's Expedition force. Unlike General Mauvid, he actually cared about the men under his command. He was killed at Talosheim and after turning into a zombie, he becomes Vandalieu's Prime Minister.
  • Always on Duty: After being turned into an Undead by Vandalieu he seems to be always working, which drives his brother Kurt insane since he was supposed to work under him.
  • Desk Jockey: While not an outstanding military commander, he's a very good civil official and he's constantly in charge of paperwork.
  • Heel–Face Turn: While at first he was a supporter of Alda, after dying and becoming an Undead, he becomes one of the most reliable supporters of Vandalieu.
  • Honest Advisor: After being turned into an Undead he becomes this to Vandalieu.
  • Irony: It's been noted he's livelier and nicer now that he's an undead than when he was alive.
  • My Greatest Second Chance: Considers his life after becoming an Undead under Vandalieu to be more fulfilling than when he was still alive.
  • Number Two: He's practically Prime Minister of Talosheim for Vandalieu.
  • Sibling Team: With his brother Kurt.
  • Unwitting Pawn: He was not aware that the Vampires who worship the Evil God of Joyful Life were the ones pulling the strings behind the Expedition inside the Boundary Mountain Range.
  • Workaholic: Though he says that he would have died of overwork if he wasn’t already dead, he works like crazy and presses Vandalieu to establish things like a national flag, currency and laws.

    Orbia 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/orbia.jpg
A Scylla who was killed by Rick Paris and whose spirit is encountered by Vandalieu. She's Privel's cousin and the fury at Rick's betrayal turned her into a vengeful Water Ghost. Now she serves as Van's Familiar alongside Levia and Kimberley.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: She's a very nice woman, who is utterly terrifying when angry. Just ask the Paris brothers.
  • Curtains Match the Window: Like most scylla, including her relative Privel, she has green hair and green eyes.
  • Dissonant Serenity: As she starts drowning Rick Paris she's actually laughing and "happy" to understand what he's really like, including that his fixation on his brother was really all he ever cared about.
  • Fire, Ice, Lightning: She's the ice to Levia's fire and Kimberley's lightning.
  • Kill It with Water: She almost drowns Raymond Paris when she turns into a Water Ghost, and drowns Rick Paris, the one who killed her, along with the other ghosts of Scylla he murdered.
  • Making a Splash: Is the Water for Vandalieu's Dead Spirit Magic.
  • Odd Friendship: She gets along well with Levia the Flame Ghost and Kimberley the Thunder Ghost.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: She becomes a Water Ghost, an angry spirit who died near water.
  • Woman Scorned: When she finds out the man who killed her never loved her, she turns into a ghost and murders him.

    Yamata 
An Undead Hydra created by Ternecia who came into Vandalieu's service after killing Ternecia. Despite having the appearance of multiple beautiful women, her "actual" brain is still that of a hydra and is thus much less intelligent than she appears, though she does seem to be developing when freed from her former master.
  • Birds of a Feather: She gets along with Rapiéçage as if they were sisters because they're both chimeric creatures that just recently gained sentience.
  • Frankenstein's Monster: She's an undead nine-headed Hydra created by Ternecia whose heads were replaced with the torsos of beautiful women from different races.
  • Horrifying Hero: She might have had good intentions and be completely loyal to Van, but she's still a monstrous undead, so normal humans freak out, faint, or soil themselves when they see her for the first time.
  • Manchild: Despite seemingly having nine adult bodies, Yamata's real brain is located at the base of her necks. Thus, she only had a hydra's intelligence when working under Ternecia. Seemingly because she's slowly starting to use the brains of the women who make up her heads, she's apparently starting to grow a bit more intelligent and capable of communicating, but is noted to really only be about as smart as a wolf despite her limited speech.
  • Meaningful Name: Named after the mythological Yamata no Orochi, the eight-headed serpent. Even more meaningful after her race change to Orochi.
  • Mind Hive: The dominant mind is located at the base of the various necks, not in the humanoid heads. However, these heads do have a limited amount of intelligence and personality, which is apparently why several of them can frequently be found singing to themselves with no apparent reason for doing so.
  • Multiple Head Case: Specifically averted. While the torsos on the ends of her necks are becoming more "awake" and gaining more personality, in the end they're all still controlled by a brain at the base of the necks.
  • Our Hydras Are Different: As a modified undead, she's far from a standard hydra at this point. However, her normal biology is quirky enough on its own: She's a nineheaded mutant and considered a type of inferior dragon, though of the least intelligent type. Her normal hydra heads didn't have complete brains in their head but rather nerve clusters used to distribute information processing while the true brain was at the base of the necks. This artifact of her original biology carries on: While she has humanoid torsos at the ends of her neck stumps, the brains are not really active at the start of the story and thus she's still only as intelligent as a fairly smart animal despite being able to speak simple words and sing.
  • Smarter Than You Look: Inverted. People look at the humanoid torsos at the end of her necks and assume she's as intelligent as the bodies making her up. However, the people who were killed to make her are, well, dead. The one doing the thinking is the hydra, a species that has their own real brain at the base of their necks while hydra heads contain little more than nerve clusters. She gets some use out of the brains and they do have very small amounts of individual personality, but Yamata in her current state should not be mistaken for an actual person. Whether she will remain that way is unclear.

    Kimberley 
A scout from the Amid Empire's Extermination force that was electrocuted to death by Rapiéçage, he's turned into a Thunder Ghost by Vandalieu to serve as his Familiar alongside Levia and Orbia.
  • Army Scout: What he was in life, only to end up at the wrong place and time when Rappie chose to zap someone to death.
  • Covert Pervert: In life, he was serious and stoic. After becoming a ghost his true personality started showing himself more, meaning he now leers at people a lot and makes lewd comments.
  • Fire, Ice, Lightning: He's the lightning to Orbia's ice and Levia's fire.
  • Gender-Blender Name: Kimberley is usually a female name.
  • Punched Across the Room: When he said something perverted, Levia punched him several feet away, showing Ghosts can hurt each other.
  • Shock and Awe: He's a Thunder Ghost.
  • Took a Level in Cheerfulness: According to Kurt, he was rather stoic and non-talkative while working under Mardock, but now he's more cheerful and talkative as a Ghost.

    Mikhail 
Once a great hero from the Mirg shield-nation, he killed Borkus, Jeena and Zandia 200 years ago. He lost all his party members fighting Vida's Dragon Golem and eventually died from his injuries, although not before killing the vampire sent to recover Borkus' corpse. He was released from Gubamon's control by Van, but his past deeds made the Dhampir turn him into a training dummy for the inhabitants of Talosheim. Feeling pity for his once worthy foe, Borkus convinces Van to give him back his free will, but he's still not much better from a slave.
  • A Hero to His Hometown: He was greatly appreciated in his home Mirg shield-nation.
  • And I Must Scream: Was in a trance-like state while under the control of Gubamon. Later when he was brought to Talosheim, he was forbidden from voicing his thoughts and only served as training dummy for the inhabitants of Talosheim. He's eventually allowed speak freely, but he's still not much better than a slave.
  • The Atoner: After regaining control over himself, he willingly let himself be used as a training dummy for everything he did in Talosheim. And even when that stopped, he gave no complaints about being filled with explosives as a security measure in case he tried to escape.
  • Bouncer: Eventually graduates from training dummy to idol security guard, though most of the idols are almost as strong with Darcia in theory being even stronger.
  • Boxed Crook: How he sees himself as a "citizen" of Talosheim. He thinks this is more than fair, considering his checkered past.
  • Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: Borkus, among others, pleaded with Vandalieu to restore his agency to self-expression and self-awareness, but not a full acquittal. Vandalieu agrees.
  • Heel Realization: It wasn't until after his death that he thought to question the values he had been raised with. He feels he deserves his punishment for what he did to Talosheim.
  • Innocent Bigot: At the time of the Mirg Shield Nation attack on Talosheim, he was born and raised under the belief that Talosheim was filled only with mindless monsters, and thus he didn't know any better. After becoming an undead, he learned, to his horror, how wrong he was. He believed his time spent as a training dummy, and later being a "crime slave" with an Explosive Leash was more than fair punishment.
  • Never Found the Body: His tomb in Mirg Shield Nation is empty due to his body being stolen by one of Gubamon's subordinates, something that was never revealed to the public so they didn't see the expedition as a complete failure.
  • Weapon Specialization: His weapon of choice was the spear, and eventually he received the Ancestral Weapon [Ice Age]. He's later given back the now de-powered Ice-Age.
  • What's Up, King Dude?: Inverted. He is one of the only people who actually talks to Vandalieu in a respectful manner as one should royalty while everyone else treat him as just another friend.
  • Worthy Opponent: Borkus considered him his worst enemy when alive, but seeing him as a training dummy makes him uncomfortable because he feels that Mikhail deserves better than that at least. The other titans believe that Talosheim would have fallen even without Mikhail, which he feels is insulting: Borkus can accept losing to another great hero, but not to mooks.

    Chipuras 
Chipuras was one of Ternecia's three most powerful chief vassals. After being killed by the Five-Colored Blades, his spirit turned into a wisp, a Ghost without memories, until he found Vandalieu. He eventually recovered his memories and has become one of his many advisors.
  • Fat Bastard: Back when he was alive, he was a former guild master who grew fat after drinking so much blood. Now that he's a ghost he has turned into a Big Fun guy.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: After dying he became a Wisp, a Ghost without memories, after spending enough time with Van, he regained his memories and personality.
  • Light 'em Up: He and the other Five-Dogs evolved into Light Ghosts, a new type of Undead that's a regular vampire's worst nightmare.
  • Took a Level in Badass: From a powerless wisp with no memories, to a powerful Evil Bright Ghost capable of harming even high-ranking Vampires with his light powers. The other two Dogs, Daroak and Berkert are the same.
  • Villain with Good Publicity: He was perceived as a friendly former guild master, when in fact he was a vampire serving an Evil God.

Titans

    Borkus 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/vol03_06.png
I will serve you until these old bones are ground to dust, Lord Vandalieu!
Nicknamed the Sword King, he was an A-Class Titan adventurer who fell during the destruction of the original Talosheim. After becoming an Undead, he roamed the same place where he died for 200 years until Vandalieu gave him a new purpose and the promise of finding his missing companions, earning his full loyalty.
  • Action Dad: Father of Gopher and considered The Ace of the titan race.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Lost his sword arm in his fight against Mikhail, but Van restores it with his magic.
  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: He's the most powerful of the Undead Titans in Talosheim, and undoubtedly their leader.
  • Bald Head of Toughness: Half his head is bald, and he's incredibly tough even by Titan standards, and grows even stronger than he ever was in life.
  • BFS: While his original sword was destroyed by Mikhail, Van gives a new enchanted sword that he took from Bugogan. He's later given an even stronger sword made from Demon King fragments.
  • Blood Knight: Loves a good fight, to the point of complaining that there's few people who could actually give him one.
  • Bruiser with a Soft Center: Becomes submissive against his daughter after rescuing her and bringing her back to Talosheim.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: The three Subordinate Vampires that attacked him didn't even had a prayer against him.
  • Heroes Prefer Swords: Was known as the Sword King while still alive and continued after being turned into an Undead.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Munches on some dead vampires he just killed.
  • Like a Son to Me: He sees Jeena as a little sister, and Zandia like a second daughter.
  • Living Legend: Though is more like Unliving Legend nowadays, given that he's an Undead, but he still is the most powerful warrior inside the Boundary Mountain Range, behind only Vandalieu as of late. While he was alive he was also known to be the strongest Titan.
  • Manly Facial Hair: Half his head still has a beard, and he's just as muscular and manly as most Titans.
  • Mangst: While fighting the training dummy Mikhail, he gets increasingly more and more frustrated.
  • My Greatest Failure: Failing to protect Talosheim's Inner Sanctum from Mikhail, and the deaths of Zandia and Jeena.
  • Red Baron: Sword King
  • Strength Equals Worthiness: Only came to Vandalieu's side after they fought for a bit.
  • Two-Faced: Half his head is a skull while the other half still has flesh.
  • You Shall Not Pass!: Tried to do this to Mikhail and his party during the fall of Talosheim 200 years before, but failed.

    Levia 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/levia_7.png
Anyone who threatens the king shall Burn.

The former First Princess of Talosheim, who was betrayed and killed by their supposed allies on the Hartner Duchy when looking for shelter for her people. Her spirit wandered the crypts of Hartner's castle until Van released them. Remembering her anger at the betrayal, she turned into a powerful Flame Ghost. Now she acts as Van's familiar alongside Orbia and Kimberley.


    Jeena 
A Titan hero who was killed by Mikhail and companion of Borkus and Zandia, as well as the head of Vida's church when she was alive. She was turned into an Undead by Gubamon but she was eventually rescued and restored to her original self.
  • Amazonian Beauty: She's a titan, so of course she's 2.7m tall, muscular, curvy and gorgeous, despite being a zombie now.
  • Combat Medic: She might be called Saint of Healing, but she's still a Titan, with all the strength that comes with it.
  • Detachment Combat: Because of Gubamon's experiments, she became able to separate her lower and upper half and float it, and thanks to Vandalieu's and Legion's surgery, she can now use it more effectively.
  • Has a Type: She prefers men that are smaller than her.
  • Red Baron: Saint of Healing.
  • Shield Bash: She served as shield bearer as an adventurer, and she can do this despite technically being a White Mage.
  • This Is Unforgivable!: When she heard of the treason of the Hartner duchy, she immediately tried to go there and castrate every male member of the Hartner family to end their line, while trying to take Vandalieu with her.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With her partner Zandia.

    Zandia 
Second Princess of Talosheim and party member of Borkus and Jeena. Known as the Tiny Genius for her skill with all attributes of Magic, she and her companions were killed by Mikhail 200 years ago. She was turned into an Undead by Gubamon, but she was eventually rescued and restored mostly to her original self by Vandalieu.

    Gopher 
The daughter of Borkus who was evacuated from Talosheim along with Princess Levia. When the Hartner Duchy betrayed their nominal allies, she was enslaved along with the other elderly and young people, being forced to work at Hartner's slave mine. She and the remaining slaves are freed by Vandalieu, returning to Talosheim where she can achieve her childhood dream of becoming an Adventurer.
  • Daddy's Girl: She may be a full-grown woman now, but she and her father quickly reconnect after being reunited.
  • Made a Slave: Enslaved along with the remaining Titan refugees by their so-called allies on the Hartner duchy.
  • Missing Mom: Her mother (Borkus' wife) died two hundred years ago and her spirit has long since returned to the transmigration cycle.
  • Outliving One's Offspring: One of her three children died during the enslavement, and their spirit is long gone, meaning there's no way for Van to bring them back.
  • Satellite Character: She's Borkus's daughter and not much else.
  • You Are in Command Now: Became one of the leaders of the remaining Titans after the passing of the elders.

    Nuaza 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nuaza_manga.png
Let's make a new statue.
A Titan Lich and former warrior priest of Vida, who received a prophecy from the goddess of the arrival of the Holy Son. Now he serves as leader of Vida's church at Talosheim.
  • Carry a Big Stick: Wields a mace in combat during the siege of Talosheim.
  • Creative Sterility: Though a sculptor, he basically denies being an artist because he only carves statues exactly as he sees them. There is no actual input or expression in the work he does.
  • Hero-Worshipper: Towards Vandalieu, and every time Van comes up with something new, he insists on creating a new statue.
  • High Priest: Being the only remaining priest among the undead Titans, he's named this by Vandalieu, and Jeena is not interested in retaking the spot.
  • Mr. Exposition: The one who tells Vandalieu the history of Talosheim.
  • Our Liches Are Different: He's a Titan Lich, and looks like a mummified corpse. Because of his strength as a Titan, he's not that powerful when it comes to spells.
  • Younger Than They Look: He was actually rather young by Titan standards when he died, despite currently looking like a mummy.

    Zran 
An undead Titan Scout who becomes Braga's teacher in stealth. He later also decides to become a ninja.

    Datara 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/datara_manga.png
An undead Titan who worked as a blacksmith, spending two centuries swinging his hammer without actually making anything. After Van rebuilds Talosheim, he reopens his business, occasionally competing with Tarea over who makes the better equipment.
  • The Blacksmith: Unlike Tarea, who specializes in manufacturing equipment from monster materials, Datara is a smith specialized in actual metals, which is an entirely different job.
  • Cool Old Guy: While a bit stubborn when alive, he's a hardworking, cool, elderly Titan.
  • Creative Sterility: He notes that after becoming an undead that when working by himself he can only use old techniques he'd used before. If any new problems or techniques come up he has to go get help.

Vampires

    Eleanora 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eleanora_better_quality.png
Let us destroy these scum who insult you, Vandalieu-sama!

A recently-turned Noble-born Vampire working for Birkyne that was sent to kill Vandalieu. When they met she quickly had a change of heart and after witnessing Van's power to destroy souls, she gives him her full loyalty. Now she's one of Talosheim's most reliable fighters.


  • Abusive Parents: The first people to smack her around and terrorize her were her own parents.
  • Curtains Match the Windows: Red hair and red eyes.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Her entire childhood was one abusive tragedy after another.
  • Daywalking Vampire: After becoming an Abyssal Vampire, she has lost her weakness towards sunlight and silver completely.
  • Disposable Woman: Not that she knew, but she was this to Birkyne. He intended for her to grow a bit more before breaking her, though.
  • Explosive Leash: Combined with Cyanide Pill. At her own request, she asks Van to put a piercing in her tongue that will turn into a golem and kill her if she ever turns against him. Considering the alternative...
  • Fight Off the Kryptonite: Thanks to Van, she became capable of withstanding sunlight, and her Subordinate vampires also receive that protection.
  • Flanderization: Invoked. She used to be relatively normal apart from a masochistic streak, but now she's considered one of the weirder Talosheim residents.
  • Flight: Many Vampires can fly and she's no exception.
  • Freudian Excuse: Her entire life has been a case of being on the receiving end of a Reign of Terror. Serving under Birkyne is no exception.
  • Friendly Rivalry: With a dash of Vitriolic Best Buds. While she and Isla don't get along they both are loyal to Vandalieu to a fault.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Because of her rivalry with Isla, both of them are this in relation to anything Vandalieu does to or with the other.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Leaves Birkyne to become Vandalieu's subordinate.
  • High-Heel–Face Turn: Of all the vampires sent to Talosheim to assassinate Van, of course it's the pretty redhead who surrenders and survives.
  • Hypnotic Eyes: Her Demon Enchanting Eyes do this for almost anyone with the exception of Vandalieu.
  • Immortality Begins at Twenty: She has only been a vampire for twelve years since she was 20.
  • Know When to Fold 'Em: Flips to Van's side because while she may or may not have been able to kill him, it was just too risky. Failure meant annihilation of her soul. Doesn't help that she didn't trust or like any of her coworkers or bosses.
  • Lady of War: She's graceful, elegant and a deadly swordswoman.
  • Made a Slave: When she was a child, she was sold into slavery.
  • Neck Lift: Does this to a criminal who had insulted Vandalieu, unsurprisingly without effort.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: When she was a villain, she refused to kill a hypnotized Tarea because doing so would alert the entirety of Talosheim about her presence. This is what makes Van spare her life, otherwise he would have killed her like he did with Sercrent.
  • Subordinate Excuse: Her reasoning for not pursuing a relationship with Van.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: She and Isla are constantly at each other's throats.
  • Undying Loyalty: While at first she only joined Vandalieu's side to save herself, she quickly becomes one of his most loyal followers.

    Isla 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/vol05_12.png
The Hound is ready to hunt for her King
One of Ternecia's Five Dogs, she was sent by her mistress to kill Vandalieu while hiding amongst the Mirg nation's expedition army. She was killed by Eleanora and turned into a Zombie Vampire by Vandalieu, becoming his subordinate in the process since he had no personal grudge against her.
  • Aggressive Submissive: Strongly implied to be a masochist despite her murderous tendencies.
  • Ax-Crazy: She wasn't that stable to begin with when she was alive, and now that she's a zombie it shows more often.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Acts sweet and friendly as a zombie to earn Van's trust so that he can put her to use. He sees through it, but actually appreciates that she has the ability to at least try using trickery and subversive tactics.
  • Black Knight: She eventually becomes the captain of the Dark Night Knights order.
  • Collared by Fashion: She's given a choker to represent her recognition as Vandalieu's hound.
  • Friendly Rivalry: With a dash of Vitriolic Best Buds. While she and Eleanora don't get along they both are loyal to Vandalieu to a fault.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Because of her rivalry with Eleanora, both of them are this in relation to anything Vandalieu to or with the other.
  • Heel–Face Brainwashing: As soon as she's killed, Van turns her into a zombie and her allegiance quickly switches towards Vandalieu thanks to his Death-Charm Attribute.
  • Psycho Supporter: She's as bloodthirsty as she was when working for Ternecia, but completely devoted to Vandalieu.
  • Off with His Head!: Eleanora kills Isla by chopping Isla's head off with her sword.
  • Really 700 Years Old: She's been a vampire for at least 30,000 years.
  • Red and Black and Evil All Over: Is described wearing an armor that is reminiscent of a "Female Evil Boss".
  • Red Baron: Ternecia's Hound, but later it changes to Eclipse King's Hound.

    Bellmond 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bellmond2.jpg
She's forever at the service of her master

The weakest of Ternecia's Five Dogs who was assigned to guard her backup mansion and be used as blood source for her mistress. After being defeated by Vandalieu, she asked to be killed, only for Van to make her his steward instead. Once a Forest-Monkey Beast Person with Lamia ancestry that was raped and mutilated, Vandalieu used his magic to restore her appearance and beauty, becoming the first Abyssal Vampire in the process.


  • Apologetic Attacker: She apologizes to the soldiers of Amid's Extermination force for not being able to capture them alive. Her apology is ignored and a soldier tries to attack her. She still kills him in a single blow.
  • Battle Butler: She's Van's steward for a reason.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. She's covered in scars and burns, or at least she was until Van's cosmetic surgery. The people around her didn't actually think they made her ugly, but she herself had a problem with them.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: Turns to Van's side because he basically forces her to, but secures her genuine loyalty within a week by being the first person who has ever cared about her.
  • Berserk Button: Don't touch her tail without permission, it was given to her by Vandalieu, as a thug leader learnt the hard way.
  • Boyish Short Hair: Her hair is illustrated this way. She would qualify as a Bifauxnen if she didn't have that body shape.
  • Broken Bird: When she lost to Vandalieu she thought that she would finally die after suffering for 10,000 years.
  • Covert Pervert: Despite how uncomfortable she is with Isla and Eleanora being such masochists, she's secretly begun wanting a collar of her own.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: A Monkey-type beast person, she was exiled from her home, raped, mutilated, before being found and turned into a Vampire by Ternecia to serve as essentially emergency rations because of her Unique Skill.
  • Death Seeker: For some time she has only wanted to die. Van doesn't let her.
  • Fanservice Pack: Thanks to Vandalieu's surgery, she goes from scarred and flat-chested to buxom and curvy.
  • Go Mad from the Isolation: She was hidden away in a safe place by Ternecia to serve as an emergency recovery option. Her mind slowly broke down from being alone for years at a time and eventually reached the point where gaps of entire years would be missing from her memory.
  • Little Bit Beastly: She was once a Monkey Beast-Person (with some Lamia's ancestry), so Van gives a new, fluffy tail transplanted from a chimera.
  • Magically Inept Fighter: She has decent to good close combat skills, but despite being ten thousand years old she sucks at magic: She's primarily a beast person, who are rarely very good with magic.
  • Ninja Maid: More like Ninja Butler but after getting the Kunoichi job, she's this in all but name. She even starts wearing ninja fishnet stockings beneath her clothes.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Part monkey beast person part Lamia vampire battle butler with magic eyes!
  • Non-Human Humanoid Hybrid: She's a beast person with distant Lamia ancestry.
  • Parental Abandonment: Was this to such a degree that she wanted Vandalieu to kill her after he proved to be stronger than her, since she knew that Ternecia didn't care about her.
  • Prehensile Tail: Her tail now is so strong it can send a full-grown man through a roof with absolutely no effort.
  • Rape as Backstory: She was mutilated and raped for being a beast-person before she was found by Ternecia and turned into a vampire.
  • Razor Floss: This is her main way of fighting, not that normal enemies have a chance against her.
  • Really 700 Years Old: She's been a vampire for at least 10,000 years.
  • Red Baron: Was known as Ternecia's Foolish Dog, but it later changes to Eclipse Emperor's Loyal Dog.
  • Samus Is a Girl: Masqueraded as a male butler, although Van was able to see through her disguise.
  • Subordinate Excuse: Her reasoning for not pursuing a relationship with Van.
  • Willfully Weak: She's strongest with a short sword, but prefers using thread in battle.
  • Yandere: At her core she's kind of unstable, so she makes sure to keep a slight distance from Van to help control it. His charm ability didn't really help either.

    Miles Rouge 

An effeminate Noble-born Vampire working for Gubamon who, realizing his master has gone insane, abandons his pride and surrenders to Vandalieu. After prolongated consumption of Van's Blood Potion, he evolves into the third known Abyssal Vampire, calling Bellmond "big sister".


  • Agent Peacock: He wears lipstick and speaks in an effeminate way, but he's still a dangerous and powerful noble-born vampire.
  • Ain't Too Proud to Beg: He and his surviving subordinates abandon their pride as vampires and beg Van to save them from Gubamon's madness in exchange for their fealty. Unlike previous instances, Van decides to give them a chance.
  • Camp Straight: Despite his effeminate speech and dress, he clarifies at one point that he's not gay. He just wants to look beautiful.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Quickly turns to Vandalieu's side after Gubamon goes insane. After working for him for awhile, he truly reforms on his own rather than simply switching to the strongest side, recognizing that before he was too arrogant.
  • Know When to Fold 'Em: He made half hearted efforts to follow Gubamon's crazy orders, but when he found out that Raymond had been captured by Vandalieu before he could do it, he just surrendered and begged for mercy. There was no way to beat him, no way to steal Raymond away, nowhere to run and no possibility of retreat. Since he was more useful alive than dead, Van accepted his surrender.
  • Macho Camp: Despite his attire and speech, he's actually quite muscular.
  • Mistaken for Gay: Or possibly just something he's used to hearing: A pure breed vampire that looks like a young boy asks him how he looks and Miles takes it as an assumption that he's gay.
  • My Significance Sense Is Tingling: His Unique Skill "Warning" tells him when things could get dangerous and it has helped him survive the cutthroat society of vampires for centuries.
  • Red Baron: Starving Wolf.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Abandons Gubamon for Vandalieu when he sees that Gubamon has gone off the deep end.
  • Undercover as Lovers: He and Darcia pretend to be a couple so thugs at Moksi know she's not available and to ease the sells of Vandalieu's business.

Humans

    Luciliano 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/luciliano_manga.png
Please, take me as an apprentice, Master.

A C-class adventurer specialized in the study of the Undead, earning the moniker of [Degenerate] by Alda's Followers. He used the body of the woman that would be reincarnated into Pauvina as a Live-Dead to spy on the noble Orcs. Crossing paths with Vandalieu again after becoming a slave at the Hartner Duchy, he decides to become Van's follower because of their mutual interest with the Undead.


  • The Bait: Used a Live-Dead of a woman (that later reincarnated as Pauvina) as a bait to infiltrate the Orc's camp.
  • Birds of a Feather: Their mutual interest in Undead is what makes him give his allegiance to Vandalieu.
  • Bestiality Is Depraved: He certainly thinks so, and he wasn't very keen on sharing senses with the Live-Dead that got an Orc's attention.
  • Butt-Monkey: With his drive to know anything about Undead, the others have to sometimes "handle" him.
  • Captured by Cannibals: Subverted. He believes that's what's happening with the Live-Dead that the Ghouls rescue from the Orc's camp and hopes that they kill her already so he can report to his superior.
  • Got Volunteered: Has a history of this happening to him. In his first appearance he's made to use a Live-Dead to infiltrate an Orc camp, then he got embroiled into the succession crisis on the Hartner Duchy by some nobles. He also didn't want to accompany Vandalieu's party to The Trial Of Zakkart but got dragged in anyway.
  • High-Class Glass: The manga shows him with a monocle.
  • Human Subspecies: He's among the first to become a Dark Human, a new race born after consuming enough of Van's blood and being under his protection for so long.
  • Made a Slave: After fleeing the Amid Empire, he got a new patron in the Hartner duchy. Unfortunately, while he's very intelligent he's not terribly politically savvy and ends up getting enslaved and quietly sidelined for knowing too much about his patron's affairs.
  • Mad Scientist: Albeit one with standards.
  • Non-Action Guy: He's technically a C rank adventurer when the story begins, but loathes combat. He just wants to sit around researching undead all day.
  • Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: After being spared by Van the first time they met, he quickly fled the Mirg shield-nation and joined the Hartner Duchy.
  • The Smart Guy: Not really the smartest around, but he fills this role most of the time in relation to knowledge outside of the Boundary Mountain Range.

    Kasim, Fester and Zeno 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kasim_party_trio_vol7.png
From Top to Bottom: Zeno, Kasim, Fester

Three friends from the Sauron Duchy that became refugees on the Hartner Duchy after the former was occupied by the Amid Empire. When men from the Hartner Duchy try to destroy their villages, Van offers them and all the inhabitants of the cultivation villages the choice to immigrate to Talosheim as their first human residents, which they gladly accept.


  • Butt-Monkey: Fester is constantly (but always teasingly) picked on by his friends, and his wife for that matter.
  • Fighter, Mage, Thief: Kasim is technically the fighter, Fester is the magic swordsman and Zeno is the thief (later scout).
  • I Love the Dead: Kasim falls in love with Gerda, one of the Undead elves in the training center, and is told by her to get another undead girl willing to go out with him before they can start dating. That being said, under Vandalieu the only meaningful difference between undead and the living is that undead are sterile and have a lower body temperature. Later, it's just body temperature.
  • Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Fester is illustrated with long hair and he's not bad looking.
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Kasim is a shield bearer.
  • Magic Knight: Fester eventually becomes a magic swordsman.
  • Oblivious to Love: Zeno isn't aware that Gaol, the Empusa Berserker, is in love with him. She keeps asking him to go to dungeons with her so she can show off how attractive she is by Empusa standards, but he doesn't understand that to her it's a date.
  • Official Couple: Fester eventually marries Lina.
  • Polyamory: Apparently Lina wants Fester to get a second wife who's her friend, while Gerda wants Kasim to date some of her undead friends alongside her.
  • Shield Bash: Kasim can do this since he's a shield-bearer.
  • Token Human: Since Elves and Dwarves are considered humans, the trio, along with the people of the cultivation villages are the first humans to make residence in Talosheim and are the only three living humans to accompany Vandalieu in battle for quite some time.

    Kurt Legston 
Third son of the Legston Marshal family, he was stationed at an unimportant fort in the Sauron Duchy for the utter failure of the Expedition at Talosheim. He's convinced to defect by his now Undead brother Chezare, and now serves as a civil officer alongside him.
  • Everybody Has Standards: Despite facing Van, and knowing he would lose handily, he was still prepared to be wiped out fighting to the last, until he learned Marshall Palpapek was a willing thrall to the Pure Breed vampires serving Hihiryushukaka. At that point, he surrendered and emigrated to Talosheim.
  • Faking the Dead: With the help of Van, his death is staged while he defects to Talosheim.
  • Heel–Face Turn: He's convinced by his brother Chezare to abandon the Amid Empire and becomes a citizen of Talosheim.
  • Impoverished Patrician: Because of the utter failure of the expedition at Talosheim and the death of his brother, the prestige and wealth of his family took a huge hit, hence why he was in a unimportant fort during the occupation of the Sauron Duchy.
  • Punch-Clock Villain: Back when he was still at the empire, he held almost no animosity for Vida's races and was only looking to do his job. While he was angry at first, he came to recognize that the Mirg Shield Nation had basically just lost a war like any other and suffered from a retaliatory attack in response.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Despite already intending to grudgingly surrender to Van for the sake of his men and because resistance was pointless, when he learns that Palpapek is compromised he immediately defects. What's the point to staying loyal to Mirg when Mirg is heavily infiltrated by the world's most powerful criminal cult?
  • Sibling Team: He joins Talosheim because his brother vouches for Van's nation. The two work together as administrators and diplomats.
  • Successful Sibling Syndrome: Didn't feel that way about Chezare before coming to Talosheim, but now that his brother became practically a perpetual motion machine he's struggling.
  • The Team Normal: In terms of skills and abilities, he's pretty average.
  • Troubled Fetal Position: Goes into one to cope with being exposed to the presence of Zozogante, Evil God of the Dark Forest (even if it wasn't the God's intention).

Monster Races

    Braga 

A Black Goblin that was born from the rape of a Ghoul woman by a goblin, he becomes one of Talosheim foremost explorers and ninjas.


  • Dark Is Not Evil: He might be black colored and serves as a killer, but he's a pretty nice guy when not fighting, which is why Marie fell in love with him.
  • Do Wrong, Right: He gets annoyed that a copycat that imitates his face-tearing killings is not making such a clean job as himself and his goblins.
  • Our Goblins Are Different: Black Goblins are a new race that was born after being exposed to Vandalieu's death magic in the womb, they are stronger and smarter than regular goblins, with more human-like features, and a slightly slower maturity rate.
  • Interspecies Romance: With Marie, a human prostitute girl he saved from a brothel.
  • Polyamory: Married to Marie and another human girl named Linda, and they're quite happy together.
  • Red Baron: Face-Stealing Demon.
  • Stealth Expert: After becoming a Ninja.
  • Vigilante Man: He and his goblins target and execute criminals that cannot be dealt with by conventional means, leaving only their faces as evidence.
  • Younger Than They Look: Goblins mature much faster than humans, and while his kind matures more slowly, he's still a year younger than Vandalieu but is already considered an adult goblin.

    Gorba 

An Orcus that was born from the rape of a Ghoul woman by an orc, he is chosen to lead the Black Fangs Order by Vandalieu.


  • The Beastmaster: Not only he's responsible for re-taming the Gigas birds that are used as poultry on Talosheim, he has also trained several birds to serve as messengers.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Like Black Goblins and Anubis, Orcuses look like huge, black colored orcs, but he's earnest and loyal.
  • Horse of a Different Color: He rides a Diatryma, a huge five meters tall non-flying bird that evolved from a Gigas.
  • Interspecies Romance: He has a Ghoul lover and a child with her.
  • Our Orcs Are Different: Orcus are huge, black colored orcs with a boar's head instead of a pig's, that are just as strong and intelligent as Noble Orcs.

    Zemedo and Memediga 

Anubis brother and sister that were born from the rape of a Ghoul woman by a Kobold, they are among the more prominent members of Vandalieu's Death-attribute infused races.


  • Butter Face: They're described as having very attractive human bodies unlike the normal kobold humanoid dog look. However, they still have the heads of dogs on top. Van still considers them aesthetically charming, however, and residents of Talosheim don't seem to find it notably ugly.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Much like the deity they're named after, Anubis look like dark-skinned humans with a dog's head and tail, but they're all unfailingly loyal to Vandalieu.
  • Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Zemedo is a frontline fighter while Memediga is a combat mage.
  • My Sister Is Off-Limits: Zemedo is rather overprotective of his sister, which kind of annoys her.
  • She's All Grown Up: At the age of ten months Zemedo and Memediga have developed beautiful bodies and good-looking dog's heads.

    Pete 

A centipede monster who found its way into Vandalieu's hair and whom Vandalieu took affection to. After years of training besides Vandalieu, it evolved into a giant, poisonous, lighting shooting centipede the size of a big house.


  • Attack Animal: It's a giant tamed centipede that Van can use to attack his enemies.
  • Big Creepy-Crawlies: It's a giant, nigh-invulnerable centipede.
  • Creepy Centipedes: It's a huge, still growing centipede, and to everyone but Van, quite creepy.
  • The Dragonslayer: He has a fondness for eating dragons, which he presumably hunts and kills on his own.
  • Equippable Ally: Thanks to Van's Insect Tamer ability, he can now store it within his body.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: A giant poisonous, lightning-shooting centipede named Pete.
  • Loyal Animal Companion: Is always with Vandalieu, either fighting for him or "equipped" inside him.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: After ranking up one too many times it became a "Great Roaring Lightning Metal Demon Centipede".
Lucilliano: "...Can this even be called a centipede anymore? It's larger than a Dragon and the force of its charge would likely be enough to penetrate an entire fort, never mind a single wall."
  • Pet Monstrosity: Like Kühl the slime and Pain the Wooly Worm, Pete is a huge monstrous centipede that Van keeps as pet.
  • Shock and Awe: He's poisonous and shoots lightning as well.

    Quinn 

The queen of the Cemetery Bees found in the Borkus's Sub-Dragon Savannah dungeon. Asked Vandalieu to perform a pseudo-reincarnation with her using one of her eggs to reach higher strength, eventually reincarnating into the first Gehenna Bee.


  • Animal Eyes: Has the compound eyes of a bee, though at a glance they just look a bit large.
  • Bee People: With Vandalieu's help, she eventually pseudo-reincarnates into a Gehenna Bee, which is a three meter tall humanoid insect with two legs that transition into an insect's below the knee, four arms, compound eyes, insect wings and an insect's abdomen attached to her waist. She's also covered in a light fuzz and has an armor like appearance. Other than that, she's basically human in appearance... though that's rather a lot to be brushed aside with the description "other than that".
  • First Of Its Kind: She's the first and only Gehenna Bee around for a few volumes after being mutated and reincarnated by Van. She seems to either reproduce asexually or was born still carrying the sperm stored from the one time she mated as a Cemetary Bee as she quickly begins a new colony of humanoid bee monsters. As a race, Gehenna bees seem to reach adulthood in just a few months at most.
  • Flunky Boss: During the trial of Zakkart she hits rank 12 at some point, which is just a step below the point where creatures start becoming divine beings. However, she's relatively weak in a direct fight and, when pressed, fights by forcibly spawning new soldiers every fives seconds or so. She's noted to still be strong enough to physically crush a B ranked adventurer, but looking at her skill lineup you can see there isn't much more she could really do beyond that by herself, so that's likely her limit when alone. Her actual skill-set is noted to only really work via commanding her daughters.
  • Insect Queen: Even after evolving, her subjects continue to worship and serve her. In a nod to bee biology, she notes that she only mated once with a drone a long time ago in order to store sperm.
  • Mook Maker: As the Gehenna Bee Queen, she has the ability to spawn eggs in quick succession by using magic, though the resulting bees are apparently weaker and have a shorter life span than the ones she births normally. Her direct combat ability is thus significantly weaker than her rank would normally imply.
  • Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Has four human-looking arms that are covered by her exoskeleton.
  • Murder Is the Best Solution: Typically suggests turning anyone that bothers Van into meatballs.
  • Non-Mammal Mammaries: Despite being an egg laying insect, she apparently has a bust on par with Bellmond or Eisen even when you adjust for her larger size.
  • Starfish Language: While she can speak an understandable language, she's often seen "speaking" to Vandalieu without using words by way of them twitching their antennae at each other. This is how most members of her species communicate as they don't seem capable of speech.

    Shashuja 

A lizard man descending from a Tribe of Lizardmen that had a non-aggression pact with Talosheim 200 years ago. Currently serving as representative of the Lizardmen.


  • Cozy Catastrophe: He and the other lizardmen don't mind that they will eventually go extinct and be replaced by the crocodile-headed Armans, since they're happy their descendants evolved into a stronger race.
  • Heart Is an Awesome Power: Played for laughs. His special ability is that he can somehow make puppy dog eyes despite being a giant walking lizard, which made Van pity him and decide to help out rather than wipe out the lizardmen like he otherwise might have.
  • Language Barrier: Lizardmen are incapable of speaking human language, so Van has to use an Undead Lizardman and him as interpreters. His name is actually the closest to its real pronunciation in human language.
  • Lizard Folk: He's the typical lizard man, looking like a bipedal reptile.
  • Puppy-Dog Eyes: Has the capability of doing this, which is rather odd on a reptile's face. Normally this would be useless, but it was this expression what made Van pity the lizard men and help them.

    Kühl 

A Slime that Van comes across in a dungeon, he decides to make it his pet and rank it up alongside his other pet monsters. Has developed a rivalry with Legion because they're both slimy-looking.


  • Achilles' Heel: Like most Slimes, it has a core that will kill it if its destroyed.
  • Blob Monster: It's a Slime that grows in size and strength after ranking up.
  • Equippable Ally: While not an insect, Van can equip it with his Insect Tamer skill because it's a creature that crawls.
  • No Biological Sex: Slimes don't have a gender, and Kühl is no exception.
  • The Rival: Of a comical variant with Legion, whom it tries to imitate by changing its shape to a more humanoid appearance. Van finds this amusing and imitates Kuhl in turn via the Demon King's ink sac.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Slimes are normally weak, albeit rarely found monsters that adventurers can kill with relative ease, but as soon as it becomes Van's pet, it quickly grows in size and rank.

    Eisen 

Originally an apple vendor in the Hartner Duchy who stole Vandalieu's money and later tried to kidnap and sell him who was accidentally killed by him in a moment of rage. After meeting Van again as a mostly amnesiac ghost, she is reincarnated as a Ent, later evolving into the first Skogsrå.


  • Asshole Victim: One of a number of people accidentally killed by Van when he went berserk. However, she had already cheated him for basically no reason before and was trying to capture and sell him into slavery at the time of her death.
  • The Atoner: While mostly amnesiac due to dying twice, she still feels the impulse to give Vandalieu fruit for what she did while living.
  • Bizarre Alien Biology: Don't be fooled by her nearly human appearance: She is a plant and is built like one internally. She lacks a centralized brain and organs, meaning she has no obvious weak points. To actually kill her you cannot try to simplify things by hitting any supposed vulnerable points but rather just use large attacks to damage her faster than she can regenerate.
  • Cool Crown: After receiving Zozogante's blessing and evolving into a Skogsrå Empress, Eisen now has a crown made of branches.
  • Edible Bludgeon: As noted below, her fruit is so hard that one needs superhuman strength to even take a bite. It's also noted to be delicious and juicy, but normal humans can't eat it without boiling it first.
  • Epic Flail: Her primary form of fighting early on was by bashing the enemy using her steel like fruit.
  • First Of Its Kind: The first Skogsrå, a type of Plant Person evolved from an Ent. She creates more (as well as male equivents called Leshi) with a unique skill. Given that they have two sexes, this does imply some form of sexual reproduction and the true birth of a new species.
  • Little Bit Beastly: Like the creature from the myth, she has a cow's tail.
  • Manchild: Much like Rapieçage, her appearance is not indicative of her true mental age. While she looks like a beautiful woman in the ballpark of thirty, at first the only thing she can or will say is "Eat!" while handing out fruit. Her intellect and vocabulary improve more quickly than Rapiecage or Yamata, however, and by volume eight or nine she's capable of expressing complex thoughts and conversing normally.
  • Monster Progenitor: She's the first Skogsra, a race of walking plant women balanced by the Leshi, which she and Van also had a hand in creating. It is unclear if gender means much in the normal sense to them, however, as details of their reproduction make it pretty clear they aren't really having sex in a way that a person would be able to recognize.
  • Mugging the Monster: After learning that Van carries an amount of money he shouldn't be capable of protecting, she and some other townspeople tried to rob him. Instead, the lot were driven completely mad by a PTSD suffering Van's out of control [Scream] skill, and proceeded to tear each other and themselves to pieces. Van, meanwhile, didn't even realize he killed them all after he comes out of his stress episode.
  • Murder Is the Best Solution: Whenever someone inconveniences Van, even slightly, she will immediately suggest turning them into fertilizer.
  • Non-Mammal Mammaries: She has some of the biggest breasts in Talosheim even though she's just a walking plant, which are not noted for nursing live young. Whether Skogsra and their Spear Counterpart race Leshi reproduce like that at all is unknown because she simply creates more around her via a unique skill that mutates plants.
  • Plant Person: She was an Ent tree that evolved into a beautiful green-skinned woman with branches emerging from her back and a cow's tail. Enemies often fail to recognize that she's a plant and doesn't have a brain or organs to target as a weak point.
  • Resurrection Sickness: Died once as a human fruit merchant who cheated Van and was then reincarnated as a dungeon monster with somewhat diminished faculties. After being killed by Heinz a second time her soul migrated to Talosheim, presumably being damaged not only by the second death but by the travel time and being an unprotected soul. By the time she makes it there and reincarnates as an ent subspecies, her original mind and personality are all but gone, leaving nothing but an instinctive urge to hand Van fruit. She eventually grows back into a functional adult but it seems pretty clear the name 'Danae' would only confuse her.
  • Was Once a Man: She was once a middle aged woman named Daene who sold apples on the Hartner Duchy, before dying and her spirit reincarnated as an Immortal Ent.

    Fang 

Once a stray dog that Vandalieu found and adopted while in the city of Moksi, thanks to Van's guidance and meat, he quickly evolves into a monster Dog, growing in strength and size.


  • Amplified Animal Aptitude: Thanks to Van's guidance, he goes from average dog intelligence to understanding almost every command his master gives.
  • Angry Guard Dog: When guarding Van's stand at Moksi, especially after growing in size.
  • Big Friendly Dog: To anyone who's friendly with Van, Fang is very quick to accept.
  • Canis Major: Starts like an average small dog, but grows to the size of a large breed as soon as he evolves. By the time he reaches Rank 4, he's the size of an ox.
  • Hell Hound: His very first evolution from regular dog is Demon Dog, and sure to get bigger.

    Urumi, Maroru and Suruga 

A trio of rat sisters born from Luciliano's experiments with Undead and regular animals. They serve as pets and fighters for Van's party at Morksi.


  • Extra-ore-dinary: Suruga is an Iron, later Dark Copper Rat and can turn her body into metal.
  • Making a Splash: Urumi is a Wet, later Death Snow Rat, capable of controlling water and ice.
  • Playing with Fire: Maroru is a Flame, later Hellfire Rat, and can become and breathe fire.
  • Rodents of Unusual Size: They were born as regular rats but now they're the size of large dogs.
  • Sibling Team: They were born on the same litter and always fight together.

    Mahne and Hof 

A pair of horses Vandalieu purchases to serve as carriage pullers for Sam, since his projected horses were too suspicious and unnatural-looking.


  • Cool Horse: From average horses to impressive Hell Horses.
  • Hellish Horse: Doesn't take long for both of them to evolve into Monsters, Hell Horses specifically.
  • Deer in the Headlights: Both of them felt that Van and his party were unnatural creatures, and were too terrified to even try to flee or fight back. As soon as they turn into monsters they calm down.

Alternative Title(s): The Death Mage Who Doesnt Want A Fourth Time Vandalieu

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