The ten main cast of the series.
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Leon and Friends
Leon Fou Bartfort
Leon Fou Bartfort
Voiced by: Yūsuke Kobayashi (Drama CD), Takeo Ōtsuka, Hikaru Akao (child) (anime) (JP), Jordan Dash Cruz (EN), Víctor Tabarez (LA SP)
Our "hero", the mob
- "It's the best feeling in the world! To use such power to completely crush guys who were talking big is so satisfying! Also, seeing you five pitiful souls thinking you could actually beat me is such a riot! I might be arrogant, but it's also true that you can't beat me! How's it feel to lose to someone you view as inferior, prince!?"
For Leon's Marie Route Side Story tropes, see here.
- Absurd Phobia: Leon may be brave and fearless on the battlefield but there is one thing that can reduce him to a shivering wreck: Ghosts. Even in his past life, Leon was deathly afraid of the paranormal that even ghost stories could scare the crap out of him. Leon even latches to Angelica like a little kid for a whole chapter when they were forced to explore a ghost ship. It even goes to the point that one of the reasons why Leon rejected Angelica's proposal to break their engagement is because he was so traumatized by their ghost adventure and he can't even sleep at home alone, wanting to be with her for the whole night. Meanwhile, Angelica finds this trait of his cute.
- Achievements in Ignorance: Leon pushing his later accomplishments on Brad, Greg and Chris in Volume 2 helps diffuse tensions with their families who hated him for disgracing them in the arena. They in turn "reward his selflessness" by writing recommendations which earn him yet another Disappointing Promotion. Angie thinks it was a deliberate ploy on his part, but he was completely ignorant of the grudges against him.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: A common reaction to the manga adaptation, is to note how attractive Leon is. He's repeatedly referred to as average-looking in the novels, contrasting the game's dateable cast. Although, Olivia does call him cute at one point. He's also drawn more attractively when he's charming Mylene.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Certainly not all (his problems finding a marriage are a major plot point), but it's not uncommon for his Love Interests, especially Deirdre, to giggle at his bad behaviors.
- Aloof Big Brother: Because of his lingering resentment of his past-life sister, he pretty much ignores Finley and doesn't get along with Jenna. Averted with regard to his little brother Colin.
- Anti-Hero: Can be a bit of a Jerkass and has a strong underhanded and vindictive streak, but has good intentions deep down.
- Arc Words: Luxion tells Leon when they first meet, that being called a coward is the greatest compliment one can receive on the battlefield. Leon thinks and brings this up multiple times to justify his gambits.
- Arms Dealer: Eventually uses spoils of conflict as starting resources to build an airship shipyard. Being the Pragmatic Hero that he is, Leon leverages it for maximum political advantage, and to prepare for future conflicts.
- Awesomeness by Analysis: Parodied with his "brilliant analysis" of his Wacky Marriage Proposal to the queen.
- Badass Bystander: Leon was originally this prior to stepping up as Angelica's representative for the duel due to his reputation as a successful adventurer at a young age. Incidentally, doing so ultimately serves as the reason he winds up in the middle of the resulting butterfly effect.
- Becoming the Mask: When Leon tries to act, he tends to fall into this. He feigns interest in tea ceremonies and then becomes obsessed with them. He feigns interest to the Queen to tease her but is surprised to find himself genuinely interested.
- Berserk Button: He has two buttons: harming his family or his Love Interests.
- Jilk threatening his family during their duel and forcing Jenna to plant a bomb on Arroganz draws out a moment of genuine fury from Leon, and as result, he gets a more severe beating than the other four princes.
- Rutart managed to press both of the buttons at the same time. He kidnapped Jenna and Finley while the capital was in chaos due to the attack of the Holy Kingdom of Rachel, even shooting the former's leg so they can't escape. Together with Zola and Merce they tortured Jenna who was shielding Finley with her own body even though she was wounded. When Leon managed to arrive at the scene, upon seeing both of his sisters in such a miserable state that he just snaps and delivered an Extreme Mêlée Revenge on Rutart. Later when Rutart was transformed into a monster, Leon was pondering whether or not to Mercy Kill him, Rutart taunts Leon that he is going to steal his girls. Leon empties a whole magazine on the idiot.
- Big Brother Instinct: One of Leon's best traits even though he will not admit it. Even though some of his siblings are annoying to him (Jenna, Finley and Marie), if they were harmed or threatened in some way, he just snaps and delivers a brutal vengeance that borderlines on There Is No Kill Like Overkill. In the case of Colin, he was the reason that Leon did not cut and run, as he didn't want his little brother to be exploited by Zola.
- Later he gets quite angry at Jilk for implying he would cheat on Marie.
- Bigger Stick: His possession of Luxion serves as this. Any situation that needs to be resolved through force will ultimately end up in his favor.
- "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: Invoked Trope. He prefers to call it The Power of Friendship! He offers his fellow poor noblemen free state-of-the-art airships, using the excuse of promoting his factory. Then he promises to cut them off from repairs and maintenance if they don't fight under his command, since they can't get them anywhere else due to the technology on them.
- Book Dumb: He feels this way compared to Livia. He's half-hearted about studying and coasts by with passing grades.
- Bottled Heroic Resolve: Gets inspired to have some prepared, after seeing Serge use combat stimulants. It grants him Super-Senses and a boost to speed and reaction time but leaves him requiring medical treatment afterwards.
- Break Them by Talking: Leon frequently deploys cutting remarks to good effect. A good example is when he fights the datable cast of the first game, brutally calling them out for their weaknesses - both physically and mentally:
- Greg tries to excuse his disadvantage due to Leon's armor being far more advanced, Leon points out that Greg intentionally fights with an outdated and mass-produced model when he's more than rich enough to use a much stronger armor. He then follows up saying that preparation is half the battle which Greg has neglected to do due to his ego as he points out how weak Greg is as a result. This leaves Greg foaming at the mouth as he pathetically tries to fight Leon's armor with his bare hands.
- When Chris tries to complain about how Leon lacks honor after Leon uses his drones, Leon points out how hypocritical that is when Chris was fine with a five-on-one match against Leon. After Leon catches and breaks Chris' sword, Chris goes into self-pity mode only for Leon to point out that he doesn't care at all.
- Leon was annoyed at Jilk's attempts to murder him but he truly is enraged when Jilk tried to threaten his family. He reveals that he recorded Jilk's words and threatens to release the recording to have Jilk disowned and damage Julius' reputation. This leaves Jilk a blabbing mess till Leon deals the final blow. In fact it's shown that Jilk was the one who was most hurt after the match, being covered in bandages while the others are mostly unscathed.
- While Leon can sympathize with Julius' issues with being the crown prince, he points out that Julius has had a far easier life than the average male noble since he was never in danger of being forced into a marriage with a far older woman, being told upfront he's not rich enough to talk to or that he's only a source of income for his wife and her lover/slaves. After Julius orders that this match won't end till one of them dies, Leon points out Julius is all too willing to use the perks of being the prince despite his stated hatred of being forced into the position.
- Bribe Backfire: He often pays hefty bribes when he wants to affect the Kingdom's politics, though mostly to take the heat off. This always gets him promoted, which he hates.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: He's capable of accomplishing pretty much anything if he actually puts his mind to it, but he usually lacks the motivation to do so. Even without trying too much, he's still getting above-average marks. He eventually grows to regret this attitude when his lack of preparation cause the Principality to invade and leaves him scrabbling to counter. Julius later thinks to himself that Leon would be The Ace if he was more ambitious, outshining himself and the other princes. This is after Leon comes to respect the five princes' capabilities.
- Brutal Honesty: Leon will NOT hold back on calling out entitled nobles. He's well-known for giving The Reason You Suck speeches. He will explain in excruciating detail on the nobility's failure to uphold the ideas of their adventurer ancestors, their cowardice, their double-standards, and their lack of basic common sense and decency. Surprisingly, these speeches often have the effect of driving some nobles to better themselves or anger them enough to do what is needed, if only to prove Leon wrong.
- Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: When fighting in his mecha, he's partial to weapons that aren't as traditionally heroic:
- In the arena, Luxion gives him a shovel instead of the sword he asked for. He sticks with it anyway and it works out fine.
- When he gets serious, he prefers a battle-axe.
- Catchphrase: Early in the story he tends to say some variant of "This world sucks!" or do a partial Title Drop.
- Celibate Hero: While Leon is an enthusiastic admirer of the female form, the second-class status of aristocratic husbands has left him reluctant to start anything romantic. Various personal issues (e.g., preferences, power dynamics, and social standing) further complicate the matter. The closest he usually gets with his love interests is Holding Hands. He doesn't get his First Kiss until Volume 7.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Leon starts to look like this in the later volumes in which he gets called out for by multiple characters.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Downplayed. Leon is savvy enough to know what's worth going out of his way to fix and what isn't, but when a serious problem does show up he'll inevitably stop to help, even as it boosts his notoriety when he wants to avoid exactly that. Ironically it's this aspect himself that makes him a competent ruler, and he hates it.
- Clueless Chick-Magnet: For someone who keeps calling himself a "Mob", Leon has actually managed to get the attention of a good number of women. Not that he's aware of it. In fact, he probably thinks only Angelica and Olivia like him, and that's only because they decide to confront him about his feelings. Marie notes that Leon also got the attention of girls in their past lives, but he was just as clueless as he was now.
- Averted later on in the series, where Leon starts being proud of going on dates with different women, which always gets him called the worst.
- Cool Big Bro: One of Leon's positive qualities. He may be a snarky Jerkass and a selfish bastard sometimes but when it comes to his siblings he would go into great lengths to protect and cherish them. This is the reason why his younger brother Colin treats him with Big Brother Worship, and Nicks respects and admires him, while Marie begs Olivia to take everything she has in exchange for him. One could also see his spoiling of Kyle by offering to let him ride Arroganz despite the taboo of doing so, as this.
- Cool Uncle: Unlike his relationship with Marie, which is love-hate relationship, Leon is more doting on Princess Erica, who happens to be his niece in his past life. The reason that he sided the Holfort Royalty and did not joined the Redgraves (other than the Queen Mylene) is because of her. This is also the reason why Leon blanches everytime someone suggest that he marry Erica.
- Combat Pragmatist: Leon takes Luxion's earlier comment of 'being called a coward on the battlefield is being the highest form of praise' to heart. He even stated that he would only fight if he knew he could win. He's not afraid to use underhanded tactics, and even gives several The Reason You Suck speeches in order to mentally and emotionally break his opponents. If he's got the technological advantage, he'll admit and use it. Only his initial reluctance to kill in battle held him back. After finally crossing the line during the second invasion of the Principality of Fannon, Leon is now seen as the Fiendish Knight of the Kingdom.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: After finishing the game for his little sister, he gets even with her by using the picture she sent her to their family to expose her. He admits then he could've done that instead of forcing himself to complete the game. But then we wouldn't have a story, would we?
- Crutch Character: He helps Olivia with her studies early on, with the benefit of his Past-Life Memories and knowledge of the game but she quickly eclipses him.
- Cycle of Revenge: Leon gets into one with the majority of the student body of the Academy, starting with his Zero-Approval Gambit to get expelled that backfired. Leon takes sadistic pleasure in seeing people who hate him suffer, so he wastes no opportunity to gamble against them and berate them, while the students in many cases outright assault him, at least the ones who don't fear the ruthless Duke Redgrave's retribution. There is no telling how bad this would have gotten without his alliance with the Redgraves protecting him.
- Backfires in a big way when he beats up the Offrey girl's demi-human Exclusive Servants for trashing his café, which earns him the hatred of the school's demi-humans and motivates some of them to plant letters in his room.
- Dare to Be Badass: Gives a speech to this effect alongside a Drill Sergeant Nasty routine, to get his fellow students to fight in a dire situation.
- Death Glare: He gives these from time to time. When he does it to Princess Hertrude, she mistakes it for lust.
- Defiant to the End: Even after being critically wounded by an advanced mechanical combat robot, held tightly in its grip from the waist down, think he gives into despair? Screw that. He instead utilizes his sword so that it launches the blade from the hilt into the droid's eye section as it assumed that its target was no threat after being in its grip, managing to defeat it.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Anytime he lists what he's looking for in a wife, the Buxom Beauty Standard is sure to come up multiple times.
- Descent into Addiction: After traumatic events in Alzer, Leon becomes addicted to the sleeping medication Luxion makes for him, concerning those around him.
- Dramatic Irony: At the temple, he donates a large amount of money to have his wish come true. Said wish being he hopes for a wife that would love him and not just use him. He says this when Angelica and Olivia are standing by his side and are genuinely in love with him.
- The Dreaded: By Volume 6, Leon's reputation starts to precede him.
- Dub Personality Change: The Seven Seas translation cranks Leon's Jerkass qualities up a notch and reduces his sarcastic wit. Leon was in his mid-twenties before dying, but in their translation, he acts more like a teenager.
- Even the Guys Want Him: According to Clarice in the fourth volume, Leon has earned some male admirers like this from his heroics.
- Every Man Has His Price: Leon is a firm believer in this, and uses it to try to affect noble politics (which backfires because the recipients are too appreciative), as well as paying a bribe to make sure he got sent to the field trip destination he wanted.
- However, it fails when Leon tries to buy out an entire shop's worth of Status Buff charms, but the seller refuses no matter how much Leon offers.
- Everyone Has Standards: As much of a Jerkass as Leon can be, and how ruthless he can be in a fight, he refuses to kill even when he has more than enough power to do so, being one of the very few moral scruples he simply will not cross. This actually gets him into no small amount of trouble because certain foes like the Black Knight and Earl Garrett come gunning for him after their initial losses thanks to his Technical Pacifist nature. In the end, Leon ends up crossing that line once the Principality make their second attack, and some of his foes are just too unforgivable to even hope to let live. He doesn't take this well, though even then there are some he kills without the same trouble, like Rutart.
- Everyone Loves Blondes: Most of his Love Interests are some form of blonde.
- Exact Words: Leon loves to play with this trope, but sometimes it tends to blow on his face.
- When about to duel the five dateable cast, Leon asks Luxion to prepare my best blade. So Luxion equips a giant shovel on Arroganz for the battle, calling it Leon's "special weapon".
- Leon always emphasizes that he really hates to gamble without being sure to win, but when he does, he didn't say that he would be gambling fairly.
- When he gave out Cool Airships to his classmates, he did state that he was giving them away for free. Unfortunately for them, although he didn't charge a single penny, his conditions are much more dangerous and steeper than what they bargained for.
- He orders Luxion to "unleash his attack" in the midst of his rage-fueled attempt to kill Marie. Luxion does, and knocks out Leon instead.
- This trope came back to haunt him on Nick's engagement. Leon said that he was good at failing the marriage talks so he devised a plan with Nicks to ruin it. It did fail in a sense of Dorothea became more interested with Nicks than ever. This earns Leon a Megaton Punch on the face.
- Exhausted Eye Bags: The manga tends to portray him with these in most scenes as a visual indication of how hard he works that cannot be regularly shown in a Light/Web Novel.
- Failure Is the Only Option: His dream of living a Slow Life Fantasy. Unfortunately, he's in an action-packed Shonen adventure in the world of an Otome Game.
- Famed In-Story: Before even entering the academy, he became the Kingdom's most accomplished adventurer in decades. His own actions turn this fame into widespread hatred and eventually, he becomes feared as the Fiendish Knight.
- While abroad in Alzer, Leon quickly earns fame and admiration in the eyes of the commoners there, who greatly appreciate their Smug Super nobles being humiliated.
- Farmboy: Due to his parents being poor nobles. He still helps out with it over the school break even after finding Luxion and clearing all of their debts.
- First-Person Smartass: He'll sometimes dish out petty insults and crack lame jokes when he's narrating.
- Fixing the Game: Loves betting on himself before cheating to win, and cheating at cards. He doesn't really need to do it since Luxion can produce infinite wealth, but victory is intoxicating.
- Functional Addict: Despite the intervention done by Luxion, Angie and Olivia to stop Leon from taking sleeping drugs, they failed to stop Leon from being dependent on it as he needs it to function normally. So much when his fiancées asked Cleare if his dosage was still the same, the answer they got was a curt refusal to answer from the normally cheerful A.I. on the order of Leon himself.
- The Gloves Come Off: When Luxion tells him that it's inefficient to fight while making sure not to kill, Leon admits that if things get bad enough, he will need to kill, but wants to avoid it up until then. When the Principality invades a second time and attacks the capitol after destroying Holfort's main fleet, with the goal of sinking the continent, Leon snipes dead a Principality officer who mocks him for not killing, proceeding to kill hundreds more with Arroganz and indirectly via Partner. This causes him to repeatedly Stress Vomit.
- Good is Not Nice: With Leon, it's positively jerkass. It's pretty much his standard procedure with opponents to Break Them by Talking, and if really mad, Kick Them While They Are Down.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Luxion reads that Leon is a hybrid New Human/Old Human with some of his DNA including the Old Human Japanese Genome. It's for this reason that Luxion didn't just self-destruct when Leon tried to claim it. It's currently unknown why this is the case.
- Hate at First Sight: Downplayed as Leon admits he felt annoyed the moment he saw Marie but he didn't hate her but admits the feeling is complex. This is because Marie's actually his younger sister from his past-life who had blackmailed him into playing the game which eventually killed him.
- Heel: During his duel with the Five Dateable Cast, Leon does not mince words in breaking down their character flaws. While he genuinely finds them insufferable, he plays up his own character flaws in the process. Leon does this to sabotage his own political standing and lose his responsibilities to a kingdom he has grown to hate. It has the opposite effect.
- Heroic Bastard: He and his siblings are technically this, as their mother was 'The Mistress' to their father.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: Leon will always think of himself as a Mob no matter the achievements he gets. Thinking that all his victories are due to Luxion despite the fact it was his determination, bravery and quick thinking that saved the day over and over again.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: After Leon's match with the princes, the vast majority of the school hates him for winning because of the bets they placed in favor of the princes. Some students state they lost all their money and went into debt as a result. Due to his various achievements, various nobles grow nervous about Leon's power to the point of teaming up with the Principality to kill him.
- Hollywood Silencer: Used when he's doing stealth operations. Potentially a Justified Trope, seeing as how they're made by Luxion, whose technology is far more advanced than modern-day earth.
- Hostile Show Takeover: Unwittingly becomes the new Love Interest for several of the game series' heroines, Disposable Fiances and
Designated Villainesses, displacing the official capture targets. - Hypocrisy Nod: Sometimes makes these when called out, when not responding with Sarcasm Mode.
- Hypocrite:
- Claims to hate gambling, but love winning, and encourages others to join his gambling ventures.
- As Luxion points out after he talks to Chris, despite him repeatedly criticizing the five princes for their inferiority complexes, he has one himself.
- He convinces Angelica that the best way to get revenge is to find her own happiness instead of wasting effort ruining other people. Except Leon himself has shown a rather vindictive streak to those who've wronged him, though they arguably deserve it.
- The eighth volume has a major example. Calling his father the worst after hearing he's been accused of having an affair, despite Leon's own interactions with Louise, which include kissing.
- Hypocritical Humor: In the fourth volume, when he criticizes Jean and Narcisse in his Inner Monologue, thinking they're Oblivious to Love.'"This insensitive fellow—good grief, I wouldn't care even if something irreversible happened because you didn't notice the other person's feelings even after they were appealing so blatantly like that toward you."
- I Am Not Left-Handed: Because Arroganz and Luxion are so powerful, Leon often does this to look more like an underdog, much to Luxion's vocal annoyance. Eventually takes it to the point of Wounded Gazelle Gambit.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Leon hates being a noble with every fiber of his being and just wanted to blend into the crowd during his time in Holfort Academy.
- Insecure Love Interest: The reason Leon never made a move on Olivia or Angelica was because he feels that he isn't worthy to be the partner of the future Saintess or a Duke's daughter even after getting confessed to. The girls actually notice this so they decide to corner him about it.
- In-Universe Catharsis: Leon relishes the chance to humiliate the Five Idiots in their duel, exploiting their weaknesses which cost him many times when he was playing the game. On top of that, he takes nearly all of the students' entire fortunes after they had belittled and gambled against him.
- In Volume 4: Leon gives a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to Pierre as payback for stealing his ship and tormenting Brad and Jean. The crowd cheering for him was icing on the cake.
- It's Not You, It's My Enemies: This is his attitude for most of volume 12 where he decides to break off his engagement to Olivia, Angelica, and Noelle in order for him to involve himself in a suicide mission to fight off against Arcadia, the new humans secret weapon. He even starts collecting Lost Items left and right as he posits that Luxion may not be enough to win the day anymore. He gets off this mindset when the three beat it into him that he's not alone.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- Sure Leon had an unfair advantage in the arena and bet huge on himself to goad most of the students to gamble more, but he didn't actually force any of them to put all their money (even taking out loans) against him.Leon: "Everyone, GAMBLE RESPONSIBLY!"
- His brutal dressing down of the Dateable Cast during the duel was very harsh, but almost every single point he made about their flaws was true as even some of them come to admit over time.
- Sure Leon had an unfair advantage in the arena and bet huge on himself to goad most of the students to gamble more, but he didn't actually force any of them to put all their money (even taking out loans) against him.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Generally gruff and disrespectful. When Leon is with anyone he doesn't like, he's usually taunting, dressing down, or insulting them, enjoying their suffering. But he'll always protect his friends and family and acts on his conscience as much as he might complain about having to do so.Clarice: You're actually a pretty nice guy underneath that twisted façade, aren't you?
- Katanas Are Just Better: Ends up using one for all his sword fights, due to Luxion making one for him as a Secret Test to see if he was really Japanese.
- Kicked Upstairs: This is what happens to Leon near the end of Volume 3. Leon asked for his reward to be demoted and surrendering his land as exchange for the Kingdom's guarantee of helping the 5 Idiots and Marie. The king decided at the last minute to "reward" him instead by promoting him to Earl so he will have to deal with the responsibilities that come with the rank as revenge for upstaging him during the war. Leon was not amused.
- By Volume 9 he's made a Duke, one of the three in the entirety of the Kingdom, and on par with the Redgraves in terms of power.
- In Volume 12 he becomes the first Archduke in Holfort, a title that has not existed since the previous Archduke of Fanoss seceded from the Kingdom.
- Kick Them While They Are Down: Has a habit of trampling defeated enemies, such as the leader of the Sky Pirates who attacked Partner, or the formerly-mustachioed Earl Garrett, after Leon first defeats the Principality of Fanoss.
- Laughing Mad: When Leon rampages, after having been bullied by several students, and getting justification to retaliate after Angie lets slip that the Queen is in danger.
- Likes Older Women: Regarding Queen Mylene. It's justified in that due to reincarnation, he's mentally closer to the same age as her. Inverted with Clarice and Deirdre, who are his senior students and develop feelings for him.
- Locked Out of the Loop: He died before learning the game he completed had become the first of a series. Thus he is taken by surprise when he finds out Hertrude had a little sister who was the Final Boss of the third game. Afterwards, Marie is able to cajole more money from him in exchange for her knowledge of the sequels.
- Long Game: Leon's Tranquil Fury takes this form, as vouched for by Marie, citing her past-life memories of Leon getting revenge on some bullies. This makes her deathly terrified of Leon and willing to do anything (even Cold-Blooded Torture) to avoid a fate like Pierre in his duel. Fortunately for her, he was playing up his anger at her for fun.
- Loophole Abuse: To keep Zola from stealing his hard-earned money from adventuring, he puts it towards renovating his family's territory, such as building a new harbor and roads, which she can't take with her. Furthermore, he takes advantage of the laws concerning adventurers: Whatever treasures he obtains while adventuring is legally his to keep (after giving a cut of it to the Adventurer's Guild) and he has no obligation to give Zola any of it, though he gives her a pittance just to piss her off.
- Martial Pacifist: Leon makes it clear he doesn't want to kill to Luxion's annoyance but he does state in a war the circumstances would be different. When the Principality invades in Volume 3, Leon was forced to kill a lot of them to protect the Kingdom.
- Misery Builds Character: Part of the reason Leon was so brutal towards the dateable cast in his match against them at Volume 1 was to teach them their flaws since they will be the ones running the kingdom in the future.
- Mistaken for Gay: What kicks off the story. Thanks to his little sister, his mom in the previous world thought that some Yaoi that was actually his sister's belonged to him, thus being forced to leave. It's why he played the otome game he would reincarnate in—To get his sister to tell the truth to their mother.
- My Country, Right or Wrong: Discussed Trope in Leon's negotiations with Princess Hertrude. He hates the Kingdom because of its treatment of men and poor nobles, but it's also where all of his friends and loved ones live.
- My Friends... and Zoidberg:
- Leon tends to think like this when it comes to Marie, and to a lesser extent, Noelle.
- In the manga, when Leon considers how he can't abandon the Kingdom because of his friends and family, his sisters are absent from the picture.
- My God, What Have I Done?: In Volume 2 after Olivia breaks down wondering if Leon only sees her as a pet, Leon realizes that he's been seeing Olivia as the protagonist and might have been ignoring who she really is as a result. He starts distancing himself from Olivia thinking he's been babying her as a result.
- My Significance Sense Is Tingling: During the first day of school, he immediately felt something off and looked directly at Marie, noting for some reason he felt an anger well up in him when he saw her.
- "No. Just… No" Reaction: When Angie tried to break up with Leon to protect him from her family and Leon refuses on the grounds that he needs her, one of Angie's arguments was to suggest he marry Erica but Leon immediately refuses for understandable reasons.
- No Hero to His Valet: How his second-life sisters see him. They see Leon as dense, immature, and hopeless, and are genuinely baffled that he has Love Interests.
- Oblivious to Love: The Irony for someone who hates dense protagonists in games is that he's also one. Leon won't realize that a girl likes him unless someone spells it out for him like what Olivia and Angie did. He also didn't realize Noelle had feelings for him when even the Five Idiots knew. Marie notes that Leon was just as bad in their previous lives.
- Older Than They Look: A slight case due to being reincarnated, he was at least in his early to mid-20s before being reborn as a 5-year-old.
- The Perils of Being the Best: Part of his fear of being promoted, mainly of mundane Feudal Overlord concerns, such as having to pay more to the crown, raise more troops for them, and be involved in political factions and clashes.
- Pet the Dog: He takes in Yumeria as a servant after seeing her being outcast by the other elves. And despite their mutual antagonism, he promises Kyle that she'll be well-treated and invites Kyle to visit her. Kyle is grateful enough that he warns Leon that Hertrude is planning something and later refuses to take part in his Frame-Up.
- Phrase Catcher: Being called the worst. Also, people responded to his actions with This Is Unforgivable!.
- Being suspected of being a sis-con, which given the various circumstances, one could hardly blame his accusers.
- The Plan: Frequently comes up with these, leaving the readers in the dark about them until after they've played out. Of course, things don't always follow his designs.
- Play-Along Prisoner: When he's imprisoned on trumped-up charges, he doesn't try to fight back or break out using Luxion. Instead, he bides his time until the Queen can get him released, and he knows his enemies won't kill him because they can't figure out how to use his Lost Items without him.
- Pragmatic Hero: He enjoys using unfair advantages, and breaking the spirits of those who dislike him is typically as much a goal of his plans as helping others. His main scruple is avoiding killing, but he realizes that's not always an option.
- Punched Across the Room: Gets this courtesy of Julius for seducing his mother.
- Rags to Riches: Singlehandedly got his poor family out of debt and continues to invest in his family's territory while also becoming financially independent.
- Rank Up: Gets his noble peerage raised repeatedly, for one or more of a dozen different reasons, much to his chagrin. For a while he makes plans to be demoted, before giving up on the idea.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Leon is a big fan of the Break Them by Talking tactic, but Prince Julius in particular gets a more scathing breakdown than any of the other nobles during their duel. After Julius stated that he never wanted to be born into royalty, Leon puts him down after pointing out that he's had it easy in comparison to the lower nobles, (including Leon) who had to beg, be degraded and be abused both physically and mentally, while looking for a wife. This actually makes several of the male audience more sympathetic towards Leon.
- Red Baron:
- After his first true battle, he's often referred to as The Fiendish/Scumbag Knight.
- Later on, he's also known as Holfort's Ultimate Weapon.
- Refuge in Audacity:
- Leon proposes to Queen Mylene as a joke, but then the more he starts thinking about it, the more he realizes Mylene is actually his ideal type of woman so he proposes a second time, this time dead serious.
- When he confronts King Roland about his promotion, by asking if it's because he made moves on his wife and beat up his son. In the same scene, he grabs Roland to keep him from escaping his wife's reprimands. Both of these acts would easily get even a noble killed.
- Reluctant Ruler: When Leon returns to Holfort from the Alzer Republic, he finds that Roland has promoted him to Marquess, prompting a brief scuffle. Then, Roland reveals that he persuaded his new subordinate Albergue into granting Leon territory in Alzer, with Marie, and the princes besides Julius, arranged to be Leon's landed vassals there. And to just spite Leon further, the King exempts the territory from paying taxes.
- Royal Favorite:
- Leon gains a reputation as The Queen's Favorite. Between his several promotions at a young age, and his many private conversations with Queen Mylene, it's not hard to see why. Rumors also refer to him as The Queen's Toy Boy.
- In the Alzer Republic, its ruler Albergue Sara Rault shows favoritism to Leon enough to crank up the resentment of his rival Great Houses since Leon's an interfering foreigner. Albergue even gives Leon free reign of his mansion, and his daughter's bed-chamber. This is due to Leon being an Identical Stranger to his dead son, and said noble resentment boils over into a plot to replace the Raults with Barriérre as Chairman.
- As a result of his great victories and many (unwanted) promotions, in Volume 11 it is rumored that Leon might be King Roland's favored illegitimate son, despite their very vocal objections.
- Rule of Three: Leon states that he's heard a saying that there will be at least two people in the world who look just like yourself. It turns out to be correct: Leon Sara Rault, and Liia Bartfort, both seemingly having the same personality as well.
- Running Gag
- His attempts to get demoted, or at least keep his rank where it is inevitably end up getting him promoted.
- His preference for large breasts throughout the franchise.Leon: Do you seriously think I only judge people by their bust size?
Luxion: Yes. - Leon gets Mistaken for Cheating with Marie, due to them spending time alone together to speak about reincarnation-related topics which they're keeping secret.
- Sadist: Leon is a downplayed example, driving his Cycle of Revenge with most of the Royal Academy. He particularly enjoys Marie's suffering. Though he draws the line at actually killing people.
- Sarcasm Mode: Tends to get into this when talking about himself, like saying that he never lies, or that he's a shy, pure, and kind boy.
- Serious Business: Tea, and tea parties. And brand new tea sets.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Leon's preferred gun for fighting on foot, is a shotgun he bought off an air-ship crewman, whose pellets he enhances with magic.
- Single Tear: In a comedic way, Leon sheds a tear of pity whenever Marie, Carla, and Kyle express their joy at simple things like food (to the point where they can use any type and the thickness of jam in a normal breakfast is a luxury) due to their Perpetual Poverty.
- Slasher Smile: Often makes these, described as his eyes and mouth making a crescent shape.
- Spanner in the Works: His decision to intervene with Angie's challenge towards Marie and defeating all five of her suitors winds up derailing several key events and plots as otherwise, events would have continued as they would in the game should Olivia had done so instead. Some of the changes are for the better and some for the worse.
- Likewise, his presence alone throws a huge one in Volume 4 when it comes to Lelia's plans for Noelle, as he winds up becoming not only her Love Interest but also the Guardian of the Sacred Tree sapling.
- Him obtaining Luxion turns out to be best for everyone, based on the Marie Route What If?: If Luxion and the Saintess Anne meet, it would cause an End of the World as We Know It due to their interests aligning: Total Destruction of the Holfort Kingdom and annihilation of the New Humans.
- Stepford Smiler: In the aftermath of the Principality's second invasion and everything he'd been through, Mylene chides him for keeping up a front when the dark circles under his eyes are obvious.
- Stress Vomit: Killing people tends to make him do this.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Expresses pity for Hertrude in Volume 3 and Serge in Volume 7 after seeing their fate.
- Tall Poppy Syndrome: Gets hit hard by this in the third volume, where after repeatedly failing to stay under the radar and pin his successes on the five princes, his number of political enemies reaches critical mass.
- Tea and Tea Culture: Quickly develops a passion for this, and considers it his only hobby. He becomes pretty good at brewing tea, though still not as good as Master.
- Team Dad: Eventually starts to look like this, especially with regard to Kyle. The five princes also end up making requests to him as if he was their father. Leon is mentally twice their age.
- Technical Pacifist: If you are his enemy Leon won't kill you if he has the situation under control, if not, you and hundreds of your companions will die for sure, but if don't press him enough he will just beat you and demoralize you badly with epics The Reason You Suck speeches at most.
- The Teetotaler: This seems to be based on leftover values from his previous life in Japan. In the Marie Route, he says he still didn't drink much in his previous life.
- These Hands Have Killed: Eventually starts to have insomnia and other post-traumatic stress symptoms from having killed someone he knew.
- Thicker Than Water: One of the main things keeping Leon from accepting Hertrude's We Can Rule Together offers is his connection to (the good part) of his second-life family.
- Think Nothing of It: Leon has a sense of responsibility and familial piety that lets him justify his good deeds as merely doing what's expected of him, and combined with his low self-esteem and thinking he could only succeed due to Luxion or others aid, leads to this.
- Too Dumb to Live: Leon grudgingly considers his death in his previous life to have been self-inflicted by volume 10: he was in a hurry to beat the game so that his parents would rescind their disownment of him for possession of his sister's yaoi porn, so played multiple all-nighters without a break, and then passed out on his feet at the wrong moment from exhaustion and broke his neck falling down the stairs outside his apartment.
- Tranquil Fury: Leon has a tendency of holding back, to avoid attracting too much attention or having to work too much. He breaks past this when angry enough, to terrifying results. Leon is at his most cold and calculating when like this.
- Trauma Button: Leaving Holfort Kingdom reveals a major one in a Volume 4 side story: He grew so used to being treated like a servant and abused by noblewomen for eleven plus years, that seeing women be regularly caring and helpful like in his old world, makes him cry spontaneously.
- Trick Bullet: His preferred weapons are guns that shoot rubber bullets or shells, magically enhanced to put enemies to sleep, or elemental effects.
- Troll: Leon has made it clear he absolutely enjoys messing with the people he hates or the people that hate him. That's his reasoning for why he wanted to win the air-bike competition in the second volume; as Luxion stated he really doesn't need the money but he wants to piss off the students that hate him by winning again.
- Uncle Pennybags: As greedy he may be, he's also generous to his friends and family. Thanks to all the money he gives to his family, they're able to renovate their estate and develop their territory to attract more settlers and trade. He also bought an Exclusive Servant for his older sister and gifts for Olivia's first meeting with Angelica.
- Unishment: Enjoys being scolded by Olivia and Mylene.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Leon is the first to admit he's not particularly skilled in combat but due to Luxion's massive technological edge, he's borderline untouchable. The Black Knight is the first opponent Leon struggles with despite having the Arroganz. And once the Black Knight gets his own Lost Technology armor, Leon is barely able to survive before Luxion is able to upgrade the Arroganz.
- Unsportsmanlike Gloating: Leon loves doing this, especially to the five princes who drove him to so much frustration playing the dating sim, and talked down to him so much before.
- Unstoppable Rage: After he hears that Marie made Angelica and Olivia bow to her for help, he tries to behead her even after learning that she's his past life's sister. It takes Luxion electrocuting him unconscious to put a stop to it.
- Unwanted Harem: After the events of Volume 2 and his further promotion, plenty of noblewomen want his hand in marriage. Leon is completely annoyed with not only how shallow they are, but their continued selfishness in their demands. Even with the two women he does love, he's uncomfortable by their affections as he thinks they're too good for him.
- Wall Pin of Love: Leon does this while pleading for Queen Mylene's help, making her blush and give in, before asking him to step back.
- We Do the Impossible: Exploited Trope. Leon uses his victories against the odds, as a key element of persuasion to get Reluctant Warrior allies to fight alongside him. Later on, Angie actually repeats the tactic, invoking Leon to rouse their ally's morale.
- What Does He See in Her?: How Leon reacts when hearing the datable cast gushing about Marie.
- Whoring: In-Universe, Luxion accuses Leon of doing this by avoiding challenging the Academy's dungeon more than necessary until he got an Amplifier Artifact charm, after witnessing him donate a huge amount of cash to a shrine that gave benefits in the game. Leon denies doing so, but then later admits to only learning the most useful magical spells, such as his bullet enhancing magic.
- Who Writes This Crap?!: About the otome game's setting that's become his reality being too dark and intricate for its genre. His biggest gripe however, is with the combat difficulty.
- World's Strongest Man: He's eventually talked about internationally as this.
- Would Not Hit a Girl: Despite giving his stepbrother Rutart an absolute beating for kidnapping and hurting Jenna and Finley in Volume 9, he admits he wouldn't do the same to his stepsister Merce and Zola, who had been just as responsible. His sister Finley was more than willing to do so in his place.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Leon getting promoted tends to hit him like this.
- Yuri Fan: Enjoys seeing Angie and Livia being close, much like Marie does with the boys of her Reverse Harem. Leon even gets a Nosebleed from Luxion's simulation of those two beginning an encounter, as well the All Just a Dream side story involving it.
- Zero-Approval Gambit: Leon wanted to be expelled from the Academy to free himself from marriage hunting and other noble responsibilities. Unfortunately for him, in trying to prevent his family from suffering retribution by securing the help of an already aggrieved-against-the-crown Duke Redgrave, he is instead knighted and promoted, in part to placate said Duke. In the aftermath, Leon revels in making those that hate him suffer more, which only makes the hatred grow.
Luxion
Luxion
Voiced by: Yusuke Shirai (Drama CD), Akira Ishida (anime) (JP), Jim Foronda (EN), Juan Carlos Román (LA SP)
Artificially Intelligent Servant
- "I will respect my master who has obtained my ability and wholeheartedly decides to be a shut-in. No ambitions, and selfish. An admirable human."
For Luxion's Marie Route Side Story tropes, see here.
- Animal Motifs: Designs his creations to look like swordfish. This may be for practical reasons, as he likes to ram them into things.
- Beam Spam: His main body can fire Homing Lasers like this.
- Benevolent A.I.: He may endlessly snark at his master and sometimes act against his wishes, but in the end, he is always working towards Leon's benefit.
- Berserk Button: Really doesn't like it when other people disparage his creations.
- Still living war machines, left over from the New Human factions he once fought, make him spout the AI equivalent of Angrish.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: Luxion was a paid item in the original otome game.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: How Luxion reacts when Ideal is surprised that his fierce argument with Leon didn't mean he was willing to betray him.
- Chameleon Camouflage: Uses this all the time, especially when gathering information. Due to this, it's the middle of the second volume before he first converses with anyone besides Leon.
- Chekhov's Skill: Luxion shows he is able to adjust his sphere's trajectory mid-air when Leon throws it at Loic, since it would have missed otherwise. Later, Luxion does the same thing when Leon is dueling Pierre who's wielding the stolen Arroganz, diverting Pierre's attacks away from an unarmored Leon.
- Combat Pragmatist: To the point Luxion takes the word "coward" as praise as he sees no value in giving the enemy any advantage at all.
- Cool Starship: His main body.
- Crazy-Prepared: When they first meet as enemies, Luxion has a shield that counteracts Leon's magic rifle. When Leon says that it's unfair, Luxion counters that it needs to always be prepared.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: For most of the first 7 novels, Luxion's old human technology is practically steamrolling every current new human magic technology. Arroganz will trash most enemy Armors, and Partner, Einhorn and Licorne are the top airships. And this is not including Luxion's main body ship.
- Cute Machines: Considered one by Olivia.
- Cuteness Proximity: When people besides Leon eventually see Luxion's drone that follows him around, they tend to react like this.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: As revealed in Volume 12's side story, he had no idea what he was supposed to do after he was constructed as he was meant to be an immigration ship. It was only after Leon found him that he decided that Leon was to be his master after finding out that Leon has old human DNA.
- Disproportionate Retribution. An Alzer patrol officer insults Luxion's creation, the Cool Airship Einhorn, during an inspection. Luxion later shoots down the officer's patrol ship, shoots his lifeboat too, and terrorizes him by bombarding the area he landed.
- Do-Anything Robot: More precisely, a make anything robot. This is because he has technology advanced enough to transmute rocks into gold if he wants.
- Does Not Like Magic: Describes deep-seated programming similar to instinct making him feel this way. As well, there is the fact that his creators and their entire civilization were wiped out by magic users.
- Dope Slap: Luxion sometimes uses electric shocks on Leon as a form of this.
- Drone Deployer: His main body, the Cool Airships he creates, and Arroganz, are each equipped with Attack Drones, and in the case of the former, robotic 'crew'. Also, Luxion manages a network of Surveillance Drones, which the sphere that follows Leon around is a variant of.
- Fake Defector: When Pierre wins the Einhorn as a result of a bet, Luxion claims as a result he is also loyal to Pierre. In truth, this is so Luxion can dig deeper into the affairs of the Alzer Republic and be in a position to undermine Pierre.
- Fantastic Racism: Despises the magic using New Humans(which encompasses the entire human cast) with a passion for destroying his creator's civilization. If Leon hadn't gotten control of him, he'd be trying to kill 'em all.
- Frame-Up: Frames Pierre by hijacking the stolen Einhorn and Arroganz, and imitating his and his henchmen's voices.
- The Gadfly: Best shown when he equips Leon's mech with a shovel during his 5-on-1 with the dateable cast, claiming that it was "Leon's special weapon."
- Gratuitous German: Luxion is fond of giving his creations German names, such as Arroganz (arrogance), Partner (partner), Schwert (sword) and Einhorn (unicorn). He specially named Leon's mech Arroganz as a Stealth Insult.
- Hologram: Can casually make these, as easily as a modern device can display 2D images.
- It Amused Me: His stated motivation in serving Leon. He did sit in a hangar for thousands of years, which Leon muses to have been a sad fate.
- Kill All Humans: Luxion hates all "New Humans" due to being made by the former humans and sees no issue with killing them all. The only reason Leon isn't a target is because Leon somehow has some "Old Human" DNA mixed in.
- Lightning Bruiser: Arroganz, the mech suit he creates for Leon, looks like a sluggish machine because of its large size compared to the other mech suits in the setting. However, it is far more advanced that even the mech suit that the royal family can commission.The duel between Leon and the 5 datable nobles shows the extreme disparity between their technologies by being faster than it looks, strong enough to crush blades with its bare hands, and tough enough to shug off planted explosives that would otherwise destroy a standard mech suit.
- Malicious Slander: After Leon throws his drone at Loic, he holds a grudge and gets revenge by exaggerating Leon's "sins" to others.
- Morality Chain: His repeated requests to go on a genocidal rampage suggest Leon being his master is what keeps him a Benevolent A.I.. Although, Luxion clearly shows consideration for other New Humans besides Leon, and goes against his wishes for their benefit multiple times.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: Considering that most of the problems are caused by the "New Humans", Luxion often suggests wiping them out them as soon as possible.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: In the elven fortuneteller's predictions, he's called the Demon Lord.
- Phlebotinum Breakdown: Enough distance and certain interferences can put Leon out of contact with him.
- The Remnant: Of Old Humanity. With his instinct programming him to violently hate all of the remnants of the civilization that destroyed said Precursors.
- Robotic Psychopath: Downplayed Trope, of the Heroic Comedic Sociopath variety. He's mostly all talk. The justification for this, is his Fantastic Racism against the New Humans who destroyed his creator's civilization, with all named characters being their descendants.
- Romantic Wingman: He sincerely tells Leon that he's good enough to be with Angie and Livia. When that fails, Luxion helps the girls corner him into an engagement ceremony.
- Sapient Ship: That was trapped in a hangar by his programming for millennia, with civilizations rising and falling, until Leon became his master.
- Servile Snarker: Just because Luxion works for a New Human doesn't mean he won't find excuses to talk smack to them.
- Shiny-Looking Spaceships: His ship's design is sleek and curvy.
- Shipper on Deck: Puts Leon through a somewhat sadistic Batman Gambit, to get Angelica and Olivia to accept Noelle and Leon being together.
- Sins of Our Fathers: Despises the New Humans with a passion and makes it clear he would try to kill 'em all if it wasn't for Leon, despite the fact that the crimes he despises them for(the destruction of the Old Humans) were committed by their ancestors millenia ago which most of them aren't even aware of.
- Smoke Out: Uses smoke to blend his main body in with the clouds when lending fire support.
- Snarky Non-Human Sidekick: Who thinks he's an Only Sane Man, but he's too much of a Robotic Psychopath for that.
- Soulless Shell: The drone he uses to talk to Leon becomes a glorified Siri when it loses contact with his main body.
- Starter Villain: Shares this title with Zola, who wanted to sell Leon, and Leon sought to use Luxion to escape that fate.
- Sufficiently Advanced Technology: His capabilities are often mistaken for magic, which he hates and corrects vigorously.
- Super-Senses: Allowing him to read sealed letters, medically scan others from a distance, and determine the authenticity of items magical and mundane.
- Swiss Bank Account: Due to Luxion's ability to transmute objects, including precious metals and gems, Leon basically has an unlimited bank account. Luxion has stated that his master need not worry about money ever again.
- Tough Love: Tries to get Leon to improve himself with this, mocking him for his flaws. Although he clearly enjoys messing with Leon for its own sake as well.
- Transmutation: Him being equipped with Sufficiently Advanced Technology to do this is in part what makes him so powerful. He has it because he was designed to transport War Refugees offworld.
- Tsundere: Leon accuses him of being this, which makes him bring up the fact that he's asexual. After a later conversation with Angelica, she decides Leon is right that Luxion isn't honest about his feelings.
- The Unmasking: In Volume 7, he finally reveals his main body to the world to heal a critically injured Noelle, and use his Wave-Motion Gun against the second game's Final Boss.
- Video Phone: His drones can serve as these, much to the distraction of the five princes.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: While they have their serious fights, this is ultimately his relationship to Leon.
- Volleying Insults: A common occurrence with Leon.
- Wave-Motion Gun: How his main body doles out enough firepower to sink floating islands. It was considered state-of-the-art in his time.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: He puts Leon, Olivia, and Angelica through quite a bit of suffering by arranging it to look like the two caught Leon cheating, both to secure the Sacred Tree sapling as a sample, and to resolve Leon and Noelle's hidden feelings for one another. Not that he doesn't get sadistic enjoyment out of it, after Leon threw his drone at Loic.
- With Friends Like These...: Leon and some others express this about his dynamic with Leon in the Alzer Republic.
Olivia
Olivia
Voiced by: Yumiri Hanamori (Drama CD), Kana Ichinose (anime) (JP), Jad Saxton (EN), Diana Castañeda (LA SP)
The Destined Saint
- "Perhaps you love Marie, your Highness the crown prince. But, but! Angelica loves you! After all, she has been watching this fight while looking pained the entire time! It may have been hard for her, but she kept watching with a sad expression while not looking away! You can't say that isn't love!"
For Olivia's Marie Route Side Story tropes, see here.
- Adventurer Archaeologist: Has shades of this. She is quite interested in the history of the world and how dungeons and stuff works.
- Affectionate Nickname: Livia.
- All-Loving Hero: Starts off like this, while constantly being bombarded with harsh reality, and tending to blame herself instead of others. Despite undergoing a Break the Cutie arc, and showing she doesn't like the five, Livia puts her nature as this to use using the Amplifier Artifact on the Royal Airship to stop the war, afterward continuing to be a counterpoint to Angie's more ruthless instincts.
- Always Someone Better: To Marie. They possess the same aptitude to be Saints, but Olivia is superior to her in every way including her Compelling Voice.
- Ambiguously Bi: By the end of volume 3 it becomes pretty clear that Olivia and Angelica have actively fallen in love with each other in addition to Leon, so the ambiguity is more on whether they were both biromantic all along or if it's a case of If It's You, It's Okay.
- And Your Little Dog, Too!: Since she's from a commoner family, and surrounded by nobles, bullies have a tendency of threatening her family and/or hometown in order to coerce her.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: She gives one to Leon during their heated exchange after he rescues her from being thrown off the ship in the second volume.
- The Archmage: Seems to be evolving into this in the later volumes, as a result of uninterrupted study and a desire to hold her own alongside Leon and Angie, able to take others into the Spirit World.
- Badass Bookworm: Justified, in that her main area of study is magic, which she has a natural-born talent for (being descended from the first Saintess). She only starts to show off her skill, once Leon and Angie are both in serious danger.
- Barrier Warrior: She manages to protect an airship by projecting a barrier, though doing so exhausts her. It stems from being the saint's descendant.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Briefly averted in Volume 2 when she tries to fight off Leon's attackers with just her bare hands and it goes badly for her.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: She falls for Leon because he helped her when everyone else either bullied her or ignored her.
- Betty and Veronica: The Betty, being a soft-spoken and naive Nice Girl.
- Break the Cutie: Starting in Volume 2, when the words of Earl Offrey's daughter convince her that Leon and Angie see her as nothing but a pet and that she's unable to return their favors. Hearing Brad, supposedly the most powerful magician in the Academy, compare her magic to a goddess, gives her back some self-confidence, and she resolves to use her magical talent to prove her worth in battle alongside Leon and Angie.
- Bully Magnet: Due to being a commoner surrounded by Royal Brat nobles, and associated with Leon (the most hated person in the Academy).
- Call-Back: Livia gives a number of these in the eighth volume, like reminiscing about being too excited to sleep before Leon's early tea parties, and embarrassing him by bringing up the cheesy things he said about Angie during their school trip.
- Character Development: Besides generally gaining confidence over time, she also develops a bold and mischievous streak.
- Commuting on a Bus: For the fourth and fifth volumes, to make way for the second game's cast.
- Compelling Voice: She has a supernatural ability to get people to listen to her and go along with her desires. It even works on machines and AI. It is this ability combined with the Royal Ship, Weiss, that the Final Boss can be defeated in the game, as she can pretty much cause every single combatant on the battlefield to stop fighting. Leon and Luxion note that had the Royal Ship not been destroyed in the final battle she'd very likely be assassinated because of how dangerous the combination is.
- Cute Bookworm: The original cute protagonist who is also quite the nerd too with Leon realizing she's smart enough to correct mistakes in textbooks.
- The Cutie: Very charming and sweet, but also acting like a coddled and naïve child. This charm combined with her general innocence, especially contrasting to the brattiness and meanness of the noble girls filling the Kingdom, is what makes her attract Leon, and originally the capture targets (this is imitated by Marie when interacting with them).
- Disk One Nuke: Due to her having a much easier time studying, together with Leon, instead of having the princes take up all of her time, she's able to use end-game magic years before she could in the game.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: After Earl Offrey's daughter convinces her that Leon and Angelica only see her as a pet, and she has a Heroic BSoD, this is the gist of what she tells Leon.
- Elemental Motifs: Blue eyes for water and innocence. Calm, gentle, and healing but can also be destructive and dangerous when needed as shown when she gets dangerous against the Principality.
- Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: When Leon tries to rebuff her love confession by stating she should get together with one of the five princes, she quickly shoots it down by listing their worse traits. She outright admits that she hates Prince Julius for making Angie cry.
- First Love: After considering her childhood admiration for someone from her home village, she ultimately decides that Leon was hers.
- Fish out of Water: A commoner and thus quite lost on noble social etiquette until Leon's sister gives her a few tips.
- The Gadfly: Spending enough time with Leon and Luxion sees her picking up this habit from them.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Blonde, with her innocence being a massive contrast to her environment.
- Healing Hands: She's able to heal others, which is a rare ability that very few people have in the world. It stems from her Secret Legacy of being a descendant of The first Saintess. Olivia is essentially a magic prodigy, but there are limits as to what she can heal.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: She starts to fall into this in the second volume as she wonders if she can truly be equals with Leon and Angelica.
- Homoerotic Subtext: Olivia is extremely close with Angelica as her first friend of the same gender, providing advice and aid complimenting each other's outfits when they have to dress up for a maid cafe for the school festival. It gets to the point where their Relationship Values prove to be sufficient to operate the royal flagship—a vessel explicitly activated by The Power of Love—at which point it really stops being subtext. Subsequent events, such as them kissing each other in volume 5 after a discussion of their relationships with each other and Leon, make it pretty clear their feelings for each other are more than platonic.
- Hidden Depths: While Olivia is a very sweet girl, she makes it clear that she doesn't like everyone. Pointing out she doesn't think highly of the dateable cast due to their personality flaws to Leon's delight.
- Hidden Disdain Reveal: She flat-out admits she hates Julius for his terrible treatment of Angie.
- I Am Not Pretty: She says something akin to this trope when Leon denies wanting her for her body, thinking that he wouldn't even look at her when he already has Angelica.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: To emphasize her gentle and innocent demeanor.
- Insecure Love Interest: Olivia cannot see herself as worthy of Leon because she is a commoner, thinking that Angelica is a better match than her.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Livia spends the early part of the series as The Cutie and against confrontation, but after being broken down by bullying, and then compared to a goddess for her magical talents, she resolves to use them to prove her worth. When seeing Angie and Leon both captured, with Leon about to be beaten to death, Livia decides to fight for the first time. Soon after, she shows off the power that all of her time studying ahead of her peers has granted her.
- Magic Missile Storm: To say she can make a storm of them is no exaggeration.
- Mind Rape: Mixing her compelling voice with the Royal Ship, Weiss essentially forces everyone to feel Olivia's feelings. Leon, Vandel, and Hertrude outright state how disturbing this power is as overrides their emotions and free will.
- The Mistress: Officially engaged to Leon to become this; since it's Angie that's engaged as the Legal Wife, she doesn't mind.
- Moment of Weakness: Screaming at Leon and accusing him of treating her like a pet after Stephanie breaks her. She regrets it immediately.
- Morality Chain: Her friendship helps calm Angie's fiery temper, and Olivia helped talk her out of trying to forcibly take Noelle to the Kingdom, to secure the benefits of the Sacred Tree sapling. She's also not afraid to scold Leon when he crosses a line.
- Nice Girl: One of the reasons Leon falls for her is how genuinely nice she is. Marie, on the other hand, dislikes this aspect of her.
- The Nicknamer: Dubs Luxion Lux, and Cleare Are-chan.
- Not So Above It All: Can behave just as foolishly as the Five Idiots, as displayed when she and Angelica make an Epic Fail of an attempt at seducing Leon. Only to have all the flaws in the plan pointed out by Noelle, who didn't even know that this was their second attempt at the same plan.
- One-Woman Army: Once she gets serious, her magic can turn the tide of entire battles, ultimately being what wins the war against the Principality, when it's amplified by the Royal Airship.
- Only One Name: Due to being a commoner. Likely inspired by the fact that only nobles had family names in pre-industrial Japan.
- Penny Among Diamonds: She is the lone commoner attending an academy that is otherwise full of children of noble backgrounds. Her being allowed to attend the academy is in fact the first step of a long-term plan of the Holfort Kingdom to educate the common people and dilute the power of the nobility. As such in her second year Olivia is dealing with newcomer commoner students.
- Personality Powers: Kind and naïve, and an expert in White Magic.
- Reluctant Fanservice Girl: In Volume 11, she's embarrassed to wear a bikini for the trip to the lake in Leon's family property, and tries to cover herself with a jacket.
- Satellite Character: Arguably falls into this after the third volume, almost never having a scene away from Angelica.
- Scholarship Student: She is one officially.
- Squishy Mage: As powerful as she is magically, she's not very strong physically, which is not helped by her sedentary life of mostly reading & writing.
- Spoiled Sweet: Downplayed, of the naïve and coddled variety. She mostly just acts this way with Leon, who indulges her (although, she did slap the Crown Prince in the otome game and Marie Route). It's part of her overall childish innocence.
- Suddenly Suitable Suitor: Deconstructed. In the otome game plot, her being revealed as a descendant of the original saintess, was to take her from being a commoner it'd be a scandal to marry, into being of higher status than her five suitors, equated to a demigod. The problem is that Leon, as a status-conscious noble much lower than the five, knows this, and combined with his inferiority complex, there are multiple hurdles between Livia and him.
- Supernatural Floating Hair: When preparing to travel into the Spirit World.
- The Teetotaler: Which saves her from being roofied by Aaron with the intention of raping her. Not that Cleare would have let it go that far.
- Took a Level in Badass: Leon notes when she gets serious about fighting in Volume 2, that she is much more powerful magic-wise than she should have been at that point in the game. Spending her time with Leon and Angie and not suffering through the normal Otome plot of courting the capture targets had allowed Olivia to study her passion for magic to her heart's content. This eventually leads to her using Holy magic without any Holy Relics.
- TV Genius: Subverted. While she is a prodigy who can correct her school textbooks, and that's how she ended up being a Scholarship Student, she isn't defined by it. The way her intelligence is portrayed is also more realistic, for instance, Livia being able to figure out that Marie is Leon's past-life sister on her own.
- The Unsmile: When really jealous, Olivia does a very unnerving smile.
- Weight Woe: Olivia is a bit self-conscious of her appearance and can be envious of the other students due to their figures.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: The fact she's dependent on the goodwill of nobles to survive at the Academy, is a reality that comes crashing down on her. Despite that, she sticks to her principles after recovering from a Heroic BSoD, and helps rein in Angie's temper.
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: After having a fight with Leon, accusing him of just seeing her as a pet. He starts calling her Olivia rather than Livia. She takes that as a sign he now hates her, where he feels like he has been doing more harm in helping her and is trying to distance himself from her.
Angelica Rapha Redgrave
Angelica Rapha Redgrave
Voiced by: Yurika Kubo (Drama CD), Fairouz Ai (anime) (JP), Kristen Mcguire (EN), Alexia Lamar (LA SP)
Lady of Red
- "There have been a lot of fools making light of me recently. Perhaps I should make an example of you. The only reason why you're still in this Academy, is because of me and Leon, and the little sympathy that we still had for you. But you, have laid a finger on Livia. This is the end of the line for you."
For Angelica's Marie Route Side Story tropes, see here.
- Adaptational Dye-Job: Colored panels from the manga give her hair a more reddish color compared to how the original light novel showed her to be blonde.
- Abhorrent Admirer: How Julius perceives her, due to his resentment of his royal status. He sees his engagement with her as an extension of his restrictive life as Crown Prince, which leads him to think Angie only sees his status and not who he really is, like many others. The problem is that he's psychologically projecting his beliefs onto her and refuses to believe her love for him was genuine.
- Affectionate Nickname: Olivia frequently refers to her as Angie.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg:
- Marie bets on Angelica being too prideful to beg her to help Leon, but she gets proven wrong, which leads to Marie quaking in terror over the reaction Leon will likely (and does) have to making Olivia and her kowtow to Marie in public.
- Begging Nicks to keep Leon out of a skirmish with Sky Pirates because of his mental trauma. This results in Leon's family tying him down to his own captain's chair while Nicks saves the day.
- Ambiguously Bi: By the end of volume 3 it becomes pretty clear that Olivia and Angelica have actively fallen in love with each other in addition to Leon, so the ambiguity is more on whether they were both biromantic all along or if it's a case of If It's You, It's Okay.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: She becomes good friends with Olivia due to Olivia consoling her after her engagement with Julius fell through.
- Berserk Button: As the unnamed earl's daughter can attest, do not threaten Olivia or Leon when Angelica is around, you will be lucky to just get away with a broken nose.
- Betty and Veronica: The Veronica to Olivia's Betty, being much more fiery-tempered, and passionate, with a certain degree of ruthlessness and pragmatism as a result of her noble upbringing.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: She's one of the most well-endowed and physically attractive members of the named female cast and her large breasts are mentioned at least once per volume.
- Cat Fight: Angelica has a tendency of arguing with Clarice and Deirdre over whose family Leon should marry into.
- Childhood Friends: Subverted Trope—Angie had friends from childhood come to the Academy with her as followers, which didn't keep them from abandoning her when she challenged Marie. A small side story in Volume 1 also shows her female followers kept her from visiting food stands and other activities, furthering the gap between her and Julius. Some of these female childhood friends try to frame her as being a Principality spy. Vince and Gilbert seem to have something brutal in mind for them after they were caught and exposed by Leon.
- Clingy Jealous Girl:
- Played With. While not as bad as Olivia, she seems to be one as well. Her high nobility upbringing makes her definition of cheating odd by modern standards, though. For example, when it's suspected that Leon could be unfaithful during his yearlong stay in Alzer, Angelica is more concerned that his mistress could be a manipulative Gold Digger or a noblewoman of too high a rank for the affair to be ignored rather than about the affair happening at all. However, when Olivia presses the point, Angelica reveals that her real fear is Leon abandoning her for another woman as Julius did, and knowing that noblemen in his position often cheat (but unaware that Leon doesn't have the same standards), she doesn't want to appear too jealous lest he will run away from her.
- Subverted Trope. Prince Julius is simultaneously running away from all his duties and responsibilities as heir, and essentially cheating on her with a woman who has four other boyfriends. From Leon's point of view, Angelica is the victim, not Marie.
- Played Straight however, whenever Clarice and Deirdre express their interest in Leon. Although this is partially due to their nobility ranks making any potential affair with Leon very politically relevant in Holfort.
- Subverted yet again later, when Angelica actually tells Leon to get engaged to Noelle instead of herself, for the strategic interests of their country.
- Color-Coded Characters: She's heavily associated with the color red. It’s the same color as her eyes and a good part of her wardrobe, and her last name is Redgrave.
- Commonality Connection: Despite her classism making her cold to Olivia at first, the two bond over their mutual admiration for Leon, who she knows from his fame as an adventurer.
- Commuting on a Bus: For the fourth and fifth volumes, to make way for the second game's cast.
- Compressed Hair: Her hair is shown to go past her waist when it isn't tied in a bun.
- Contralto of Strength: As expected of what would have been the game's villainess and the daughter of a powerful Duke family, she has a suitably deep voice in both Japanese and English.
- Death Glare: Angelica specializes in giving these. Deirdre finds it enjoyable.
- Designated Villain: Her original role in the game, as the one who would normally oppose Olivia for undermining her engagement to Julius. Leon later acknowledges that from an outside perspective, anyone would have gotten angry if put in her shoes. Likewise, many of the things she's accused of are not directly her fault. The people who harassed Marie and Olivia did so without her permission but used her as an excuse when confronted by others. Since some of those people were followers of hers as well, she had to take responsibility.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- A flaw caused by her hotheadedness. Exemplified by challenging Marie to a duel without thinking who would accept on her behalf which was all of the capture targets. In the original game, it results in her being banished and she only avoids it by Leon's interference.
- In the second volume, offering herself up as a hostage impulsively turns out to be this, since the Principality decides to just execute the other students instead of letting them go like she wanted. She unknowingly played right into their hands as part of a conspiracy to frame House Redgrave.
- Disposable Fiancé: Deconstructed Trope. Angelica's role in the Otome Game is a classic example. Leon points out, how she is a Designated Villain and how the game had Protagonist-Centered Morality. She never actually ordered Marie bullied like she was accused of, and is worried about the effect Julius' rash actions will have on his future rule, which he is indifferent to.
- Ear Ache: Grabs Leon by his ears when sufficiently angry with him.
- Elemental Eye Colors: She has red eyes, and has a strong affinity for fire magic.
- Elemental Motifs: Red eyes for fire. Her powers revolved around using fire magic, her fondness for the color red, passionate and warm but also representing jealousy, destructiveness, and rage (the latter shown more in the Marie Route).
- Evil Laugh: After Leon easily wins his first match, she lets one out when realizing Leon plans to take all the students' money by betting on himself. It's also the first time she's shown openly smiling."How can I not laugh at this? Bartfort is truly a terrible man!"
- Fallen Princess: She fits quite well, with her fall being her challenging Marie, and Julius breaking her engagement, after which she Took a Level in Kindness. It's Played With in two ways:
- Angelica's pre-fall habits came back to bite her, when a bully drives Olivia and her apart by bringing up the things she'd used to say about commoners, resulting in Angelica feeling immensely guilty, and Olivia feeling like she's nothing more than a pet to her.
- Despite Angelica herself going through the transformation, her noble house still retains a good deal of power. In fact, Angelica's father acts as a sort of Psycho Supporter, crushing the households of those who cross her and her friends.
- Fangirl: She's a subdued one for Leon before getting to know him, thanks to his fame from discovering a floating island and clearing its dungeon by himself. This earned her respect in part because her father is an accomplished adventurer, and Leon implying she's weak while dueling Greg adds to her Heroic Self-Deprecation.
- Flaw Exploitation: Marie plays into her Hair-Trigger Temper to trigger her duel challenge event more than a year before it was supposed to occur, to get Angelica out of her way. And it would have worked, if not for Leon's intervention.
- The Future Will Be Better: Leon coming to her defense in the duel with the Prince and his entourage was actually the best thing that could have happened to her. In the original game, she would have been stripped of her nobility, cast out as a commoner, and have a sad, forgotten end in an unhappy marriage. She then learns that the Prince had never been in love with her and is an idiot, which would have made her just as unhappy if she had married him. In the rematch duel, Angelica said that she was tired of the prince's antics and even felt sorry for Leon.
- Genre Savvy: She expects Leon to have knowledge that he logically shouldn't have from everyone else's perspective, due to him repeatedly sharing such knowledge he has from the game.
- Green-Eyed Epiphany: Downplayed Trope. In a side story showing Angie's point of view at their marriage shrine visit, she imagines playing matchmaker to relieve Leon's desperation for a wife, but when she starts imagining other women married to him, it makes her feel bad, to her own surprise.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: One of Angelica's flaws is her quick temper which nearly led to Marie disgracing her if not for Leon's actions. She is able to calm down her temper as the series continues.
- Hands-On Approach: Touches Livia wherever she wants, when teaching her horseback riding.
- Heel Realization: A happy consequence of Leon and Marie sending the Otome Game plot Off the Rails is that Angie slips out of her Designated Villain role early in the series. Leon choosing to be her champion (even if just to stick it to Marie and the Five Princes) and winning gives Angelica a much-needed chance to reflect on her actions and mend fences with Livia.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: After her relationship with Julius breaks down, her self-esteem drops and she thinks of herself as an evil woman.
- Homoerotic Subtext: Angelica is extremely close with Olivia as one of her friends she made herself instead of being forced upon by her family. They provide each other advice and aid, complimenting each other's outfits when they have to dress up for a maid cafe for the school festival. It gets to the point where their Relationship Values prove to be sufficient to operate the royal flagship—a vessel explicitly activated by The Power of Love—at which point it really stops being subtext. Subsequent events, such as them kissing each other in volume 5 after a discussion of their relationships with each other and Leon, make it pretty clear their feelings for each other are more than platonic.
- Hopeless Suitor: It's made abundantly clear that she genuinely did love Julius at first and saw their engagement as a Perfectly Arranged Marriage, not just because she would have become queen in the process. Unfortunately, Julius saw her as nothing more than another extension of the many restrictions placed on his life as a result of being born Crown Prince, which he hated and thus could barely give her the time of day, with it heavily hinting that their marriage would have been far from happy if it went through.
- If I Wanted You Dead...: Leon's sister points out that back when she was at her full authority that if she wanted to crush Marie she could have outright had her killed due to her family's connections. Leon recognizes that she wasn't nearly as bad as she seemed, which influenced his decision to act as her representative.
- I Hate Past Me: Deeply regrets her past beliefs on commoners and hates that it caused a rift between her and Olivia.
- Inter Class Friendship: As the daughter of a Duke, she is one step below Royalty. Her being friends with a commoner and a baron (Livia and Leon), is unusual, and it's shown clearly that before her fall, it'd have never happened.
- Lady in Red: Her preferred attire for parties seems to be a very provocative red dress.
- Long Hair Is Feminine: She has the longest hair of the main girls, fitting for the daughter of a duke.
- Love Hurts: Angelica genuinely loves Julius but is forced to see him openly flirting with Marie throughout Volume 1 before he openly states that he only loves Marie and cannot love her.
- Loving a Shadow: Part of Julius' issues with her at first is him believing she only loves him as Crown Prince of Holfort and doesn't know the real him, with her 'love' mainly being tied to her becoming the next queen rather than any genuine affections. This is actually shown to be true in some parts, as even her own father would attest.
- Made Out to Be a Jerkass: Anyone would get upset at the sight of their fiancée being with another girl and would want to protect their lover. Due to her temper, Marie's manipulations, and Julius' indifference toward her, she instead ends up getting people turned against her by looking like a foolish and jealous woman. Thankfully, Leon is able to see through it.
- Maid Corps: She brings one from her duke household with her when she stays at Leon's home, and tells them to stand down to let her share experiences with him and Livia. A good chunk of them consisted of vassal daughters, with a number of Angie's followers being drawn from them. This leaves the Duke's family short on help after Vince purges those vassals whose children double-crossed Angie on the luxury liner.
- Mage Marksman: In combat, she uses fire magic if she's without a weapon, but otherwise prefers guns as a first resort.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The political unrest in the Kingdom culminates in Duke Redgrave plotting to overthrow King Roland and trying to drag the now-Duke Leon into it (Leon personally hates Roland but is loyal to the royal family). Angie attempts to end her engagement to Leon to avoid dragging him into it, then after Leon persuades her that he loves her for herself and could give a damn about her title, she tells her father she won't help him make Leon a co-conspirator and is disinherited.
- Noble Bigot: A lot nicer than most other nobility but still looks down on commoners. She once said Olivia doesn't belong in the academy when they first meet but is fine with her staying as long as she stays in her corner. She does get better.
- Not So Above It All:
- Angelica tries to act polite and civil as a woman of her status but even she gets excited over the idea of finding treasure in a cave.
- Later gives the Five Idiots a run for their money when attempting to seduce Leon, alongside Olivia. Only to have all the flaws in the plan pointed out by Noelle, who didn't even know that this was their second attempt at the same plan.
- Personality Powers: She struggles with a Hair-Trigger Temper, and uses fire magic.
- Playing with Fire: She reveals her fire spells in the second volume when protecting Olivia.
- Prim and Proper Bun: Fitting with Angelica's original strict personality, her finally Letting Her Hair Down signifies that she Took a Level in Kindness.
- Proper Tights with a Skirt: In her school uniform, she always has her legs covered by tights (black in the anime, red in the novel).
- Rousing Speech: Gives one in the seventh volume, Invoking how Leon can seemingly do the impossible.
- Saying Too Much: Her accidentally revealing the incognito Queen's identity results in Leon going on a rampage, using her defence as justification.
- The Scapegoat: For many of the noble girls bullying Marie out of jealousy of the attention she gets from the princes, saying they were just following Angelica's instructions, which Julius believes.
- Second Love: She falls for Leon after getting over Julius.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: Unlike Livia, she's not one bit ashamed to wear a bikini during the trip to the lake at the end of Volume 11, and even tells the embarrassed Livia she should wear hers with pride.
- Sheltered Aristocrat: Has never been to a food stand, and Livia has to explain to her what earthworms are.
- Spoiled Sweet: Despite being the daughter of a duke, Angelica is very reasonable even willing to turn a blind eye to Olivia in Volume 1.
- Stalker with a Crush: Downplayed, Angelica develops a habit of eavesdropping on Leon.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Feels sorry for some of the defeated villains.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Angelica really calms down after befriending Leon and Olivia, unlike how cold she was in the first volume.
- Trauma Button: Due to Marie stealing Julius away, Angelica is very sensitive to the idea she might be cheated on again.
- Unishment: Her father punishes her for publicly kowtowing to Marie to beg for her help, by arranging Angie's marriage to Leon, with Livia to be his mistress.
- Vengeance Feels Empty: Leon convinces her of this, that it would at best end in Pyrrhic Victory, and that the best way to get even with Julius is to live happily without him. In the third volume, Julius is shocked by her smile when talking about Leon, since she had never smiled like that for him.
- Weakness Turns Her On: Angelica is quite surprised and happy when Leon, the feared Holfort's Ultimate Weapon, is actually afraid of ghosts. So much that he won't let go of her on the duration of their adventure in a ghost ship. Even after their adventure, Leon still latches to Angelica for the rest of the night due to trauma.
- What Does She See in Him?: Leon says this almost word for word during his Shut Up, Hannibal! rant to Julius in regards to Julius' affair. Leon notes that Angelica had tolerance beyond reason during their relationship, to the point where she likely would've even put up with Julius keeping Marie around as a second lover if he really wanted. So he felt that the fact that Julius treated her like dirt regardless made him unforgivable.
- When She Smiles: She’s already attractive, but become even more so when wearing a happy smile. When she laughs in genuine humor, such as when Leon rescues her from the Principality, she becomes adorable.
- Woman Scorned: Not only hurt but also insulted by Julius displaying his relationship with Marie in front of her. She tries to force them apart though despite Julius' beliefs she never resorts to bullying her.
- Women Are Wiser: She shows to be much more intelligent when it comes to politics, administration, networking, and finances than either her former fiancee Julius or her Second Love Leon, as a result of Mylene training her for the role of becoming the future queen before her Arranged Marriage with Julius fell through.
- You Have No Idea Who You're Dealing With: Tells this multiple times to Earl Offrey's daughter, the first time for having ordered her Exclusive Servants to assault the Queen of Holfort who was incognito, and the second time for underestimating her own and Leon's ability to retaliate against her.
Marie and her Reverse Harem
Marie Fou Lafan
Marie Fou Lafan
Voiced by: Atsumi Tanezaki (Drama CD), Ayane Sakura (anime) (JP), Sarah Wiedenheft (EN), Denisse Leguizamo (LA SP)
- "Hehe, this world really is the best. It's splendid that there are few dull boys like the ones in my previous world, and that this world rightly recognizes the rights of women."
For Marie's Marie Route Side Story tropes, see here.
- A-Cup Angst: One trait she dislikes about Olivia and Angelica is how both are much more well-endowed than her. The fact that she was actually rather busty in her previous life doesn't help.
- Adaptational Villainy: The manga adaptation does this moderately to Marie compared to the Light Novels. Additional Inner Monologue lines are given to make her more of a Hate Sink, such as being excited to receive a slave. Some sympathy-earning moments, such as her having to explain to the princes that she cannot afford a dress, are cut as well.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Repeatedly to Leon, which he seems to enjoy making her do.
- Always Someone Better: By the end of Volume 3 she has no choice but to admit that Olivia is this to her. She technically meets all the qualifications to be a Saint between Healing Hands and having a Secret Legacy, which is why the Holy Relics recognize her. However, both of her ties are objectively weaker than Olivia and she doesn't have the courage nor the Compelling Voice Olivia does, meaning that when it came to facing down the Final Boss she was ultimately unable to succeed.
- Author Appeal: Inverted: she was created as part of author Yomu Mishima's ongoing hatred of the Little Sister Heroine archetype, best exemplified by Ceres in his earlier series Seventh. Marie is written with several traits that otaku commonly dislike in women, and yet to the author's frustration, she's the franchise's most popular character.
- Barrier Warrior: She can project a magical barrier to fend off monsters. Can also make smaller ones to stop bullets.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Gets all the capture targets to fall madly in love with her to the point that they give up their inheritance to be with her after Leon defeats them. Which forces her to basically take care of them by herself.
- Berserk Button: Due to her Money Fetish and Perpetual Poverty, nothing sets off her button other than spending her money without permission and spending it on useless junk. That's why when she discovered Jilk bought an "antique" tea set without asking her approval, she did a rolling sobat on his face before lecturing him harshly.
- Big Brother Worship: Deep, deep, deep down she absolutely idolized her past life brother, so much so that she never really got over her reliance on him even after she died and was reincarnated. She was even willing to give up the five datable cast, the Holy Relics, and everything else she had to Olivia in exchange for him once she learned he had been reincarnated as Leon.
- Big Eater: Leon wonders where she fits it all.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Marie starts out spending most of her time impersonating Olivia's personality, to charm and wrap the five dateable cast around her little finger, while her Inner Monologue and occasional smirking to herself show her true colors. Eventually, Marie develops and drops the façade during a Heroic BSoD, due to nearly being burned at the stake for being a fake saint, but her grip on the five's hearts is too tight for them to mind. She also Took a Level in Kindness after reconciling with her past-life brother Leon.
- Bratty Half-Pint: She looks like an adorable child. She's actually an utter bitch when you hear her thoughts. As her What If? side story reveals, her body is small because she inadvertently sacrificed her future growth just to tap into her potential for Healing Magic.
- Breakout Character: The author held a poll to determine which character to write a What If? side story about, and much to the author's surprise, Marie won overwhelmingly. Thus she became Deuteragonist of Marie Route.
- Broken Ace: Marie was attractive and a Straight-A student in her past life (and is implied to be one in her current life), but her life came crashing down the moment her older brother died, which showed her the bitter reality of how much she had been relying on him.
- Burn the Witch!: Very nearly meets this fate, after admitting to not being the real Saint after she fails to stop the Principality's second invasion with Frampton's fleet, while the princes were preoccupied rescuing Leon. Leon convinces the crown to rescue her because he needs her magical power.
- Butt-Monkey: Thanks to being an antagonist early on, Marie ends up on the receiving end of karmic justice repeatedly to utterly ruin every plan she attempted to make; even when she "wins", like having the five capture targets utterly obsessed with her, they end up causing trouble for her too. This winds down once her Freudian Excuse comes into play and Maria herself is given enough focus to get her Character Development, turning her almost into a Cosmic Plaything instead.
- Cat Fight: Subverted. The hair-pulling fights she gets into with Lelia are not pretty.
- Character Development: Marie's Bitch in Sheep's Clothing tendencies slowly tones down due to the constant stress of dealing with the five capture targets and Perpetual Poverty, and finally becomes a pretty likable character shortly after she and Leon find out about their past life's connection as siblings.
- Cool Big Sis: One of her best traits that is also similar to her past life brother Leon. It garnered her the admiration and respect of the following people:
- Kyle, who sees her as a worthy master to serve despite being snarky. He is even comfortable enough to show his true personality without fearing any repercussions. He even comically begged to work under Leon so he, Carla and Marie would not be thrown out and suffer under poverty.
- Carla looks up to her for being the only one to accept her after the Sky Pirate Incident (despite having ulterior motives at first), that is why she is very loyal to Marie and serves as the Number Two especially when dealing with 5 datable cast.
- Noelle looks up to her as the caring sister that she wants to have. Make sense since her own family is emotionally abusive to her, that is probably the first time someone genuinely cares for her wellbeing and supports her wholeheartedly.
- Loic also see her as one in addition to falling in love, calling Marie "milady" as an Affectionate Nickname for snapping him out of his suicidal tendencies after he lost his crest.
- The Corrupter: Inserting herself into the narrative to get all of Olivia's perks as the main character resulted in her completely derailing the development of the Five Dateable Cast, due to her only telling them what they wanted to hear and not actually helping them grow as people. She's thus stuck with a harem of five Money Dumb idiots constantly trying to prove their love to her.
- Create Your Own Hero: Leon would've been content to simply live out his days as a "mob character", had Marie not hijacked Olivia's position in the story and caused Angelica's early dismissal by Julius. Because he was there with a grudge for the capture targets, Leon gets involved, and as a result Marie accidentally sets up his own Character Development and the solution to unscrewing everything she utterly, royally screws up herself.
- Cute Bruiser: Prefers to fight using magically enhanced punches and kicks. Stems from her (second life's) rough childhood.
- The Cynic: Being let down by most people over two separate lives made her into this.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the otome isekai protagonist that hijacks a story to their own happiness. Everything Marie does is an attempt to exploit her knowledge of the game world she's in — except not only is she not an avid player to know everything, but she's everything the antagonists of such stories usually would be: vain, self-centered, and looking out only for herself. The wheels of fate also keep turning despite her actions, which nearly screws over everyone for her recklessness.
- Didn't See That Coming: Not only did Leon basically throw all of her game savvinesses to the curb by simply existing, but the five capture targets she pines after are anything but the smartest. Thanks to not playing the game thoroughly enough to understand exactly how they tick like Leon did, she doesn't realize how obsessed they are with their honor and one-upping Leon, which quite literally costs her all of the money she manages to make. Repeatedly.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Her biggest flaw is she never fully considers her actions and only thinks in the short term. Her actions almost destroy the Kingdom, forcing Leon to save the day despite the fact she technically knows more about the setting due to knowing about the various sequels to the game. Albeit, this only happened because she was Locked Out of the Loop.
- Had shades of this in her past life too, where she decided to taunt her older brother by sending a selfie of her and some friends relaxing at a tropical resort using money she took from their parents by claiming it was for a certification course. She didn't expect her brother, who was mad at her for blackmailing him to play the game in exchange for clearing up the misunderstanding of her yaoi that got him kicked out of the house, to get payback by sending the selfie to their parents to reveal her deception.
- Does Not Know Her Own Strength: Marie's slap to Julius left him on his knees and unable to walk.
- Domestic Abuse: The victim of it in her previous life. Her boyfriend at the time got violent with her and it directly resulted in her death. She's also able to recognize other victims of it.
- Dude Magnet: It's repeatedly thought by Leon that, considering her track record in both lives, Marie somehow puts out a signal that attracts men who are no good.
- Eating the Eye Candy: After two of her Reverse Harem become virtually nudists, this keeps her from too seriously cracking down on them.
- Even Evil Has Standards: While Leon's rival, she never expected someone as high of authority as Angie to bow her head in public when she made the request. Even then, she's outright appalled by how fast the other students are to turn on people they once followed and respected, realizing that followers are Fair Weather Friends at best.
- Excellent Judge of Character: From two or three decades of cumulative hardship, she's learned to read people really well, and fast. The most notable example, is being able to accurately determine the nature of Loic and Noelle's abusive relationship.
- Her track record with this isn't flawless: Misjudging that Angie would be too prideful to prostrate herself to save Leon. Marie didn't spend enough time with Angie to realize she was in love with him.
- Femme Fatale: How she's perceived In-Universe, an easy misunderstanding considering how quickly she gained the affections of the five dateable cast. Among the nobility of the Kingdom, she is known as The Man-eater/Witch, and more than a few people have expressed that they are legitimately worried that Marie will seduce Leon like she did the five.
- Freudian Excuse: Since she was reborn, not only did her family neglect and abuse her emotionally and verbally (it's implied they were physically abusive as well), but they've also saddled her with the entirety of their debt to where she struggles to afford new clothes. This isn't even getting into her previous life, where her bullying and exploitation of her brother led to their parents kicking her out of the house, multiple failed relationships, one of the would-be suitors saddling her with his debts, a daughter she ended up having taken away from her by said parents without a choice in the matter due to being deemed unfit as a mother, and her eventual murder by Domestic Abuse. Beneath the pragmatic and selfish attempts to get ahead in life for her own gain is a broken individual forced to be pragmatic to even hope to get the chance to live again.
- Friends Are Chosen, Family Aren't: Has a rough relationship with her (otome game world) family, so she's closer to virtually anyone she gets along with in the story than them.
- Gold Digger: Part of her reason for going after the five datable cast. She thought she would never have to worry about money again with them.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Likes to knock back some booze when she's relaxing and enjoying herself.
- Hard Work Hardly Works: It took her several years of training in secret to refine her Healing Hands and other White Magic and it came at a price, but compared to Olivia who has The Gift and a Compelling Voice, she just can't compete.
- Hate at First Sight: The moment she sees Leon, she gets irritated as if looking at her dead older brother.
- Healing Hands: Studied long and hard to be able to do this, in order to fulfill the game protagonist's role. Unfortunately, she's just not as good at it as Olivia, which prevents her from healing Jilk in time for the next air bike race after he was beaten up in his first one like Olivia did in the game.
- Hero's Muse: The five princes talk about her like this during their Rivals Team Up moments with Leon, which greatly irritates him.
- Hidden Depths: Marie will never gamble and believes that people should take control of their finances due to her own past experiences. She's also a very talented cook, homemaker, and survivalist.
- Hijacked Destiny: Tries to do this to Olivia, becoming the game's protagonist. Backfires spectacularly due to her not having all of Olivia's magic abilities like she thought she did, and not having finished the game. She ends up nearly burnt at the stake for being a false saint, and Olivia halts the Final Battle how she was supposed to in the game. Although, the last of the three Final Boss is talked down by Marie, so the results are mixed.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: She made a big deal about assuring Julius that she "loved him for who he was" and not his status, expecting he'd carry on being the crown prince regardless. Julius ends up losing his right to the throne and has to work for a living, but it's okay because she loves him for who he really is, right Marie?
- Hostile Show Takeover: Essentially did this to Olivia, becoming the game's protagonist, as fast as her second scene, successfully shooing Olivia away from her destined events. As it turns out, it couldn't have worked out better for Olivia.
- Hypocritical Humor: After Leon won the Air Bike race, Jilk agreed to his promises to do whatever he requests. Kyle suggests he is going to tie him upside-down naked. Leon calls him out on that but then backtracks when he realizes he could make a lot of money from such an event. This leads to Marie asking if he would really go that far for money, which Leon immediately calls her out on.
- I Was Quite a Looker: She was well-endowed in her past life, which contributed to her being a Spoiled Brat, and let her work at a hostess club.
- Kneel Before Zod: When Angelica and Olivia ask for her help as Saintess to free Leon from his unjust imprisonment, she promises to do so only if they both kowtow to her in public, thinking Angelica would be too prideful to. When they actually do it, Marie has an Oh, Crap! moment realizing this will earn Leon's Unstoppable Rage (which it does), and the five princes take turns attempting to free him.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Her attempts to disrupt the system and usurp Olivia's position as the heroine ends up backfiring heavily on her, never mind her exploitation of everyone around her, and to some degree, it's lingering karma from how much she exploited her brother in their past life. The rest of her Freudian Excuse, however, doesn't fit into this, as that's just life utterly trying its damnedest to break her.
- Locked Out of the Loop: The entire time, because she was only able to make it halfway through the game and watch the rest as pictures, she didn't realize that only Olivia's special Compelling Voice could defeat the Final Boss. If she'd have known that, she wouldn't have replaced Olivia or become a false saint.
- Long-Lost Relative: In a past life, she was the younger sister of the man now reincarnated as Leon Fou Bartfort. Before they realized this, Leon and Marie each saw in the other traits of their respective former sibling, causing them to dislike each other on a personal level without understanding why.
- Money Fetish: Receiving money makes her very happy, due to her past.
- My Greatest Failure: Eventually sees her having caused Leon's death in their past-life as this.
- Never My Fault: Played With. In Marie's Inner Monologue, she constantly blames her past life brother for everything, at least at first. She gradually comes to the realization that he was actually the only person to genuinely look out for and care for her from her past life. The hatred was mostly driven by Leon's resemblance to her previous life brother combined with his antagonism towards her.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
- As revealed in her What If? side story, her plan to usurp the protagonist role ends up benefiting Olivia in the long run as usurping the protagonist's role actually allowed her to study to her heart's content, causing her skill in magic to improve at a faster rate than her game counterpart. It also kept Olivia from getting possessed by the vengeful soul of the First Saintess that was residing in the Saint's Bracelet.
- Also in the main story, Maria's schemes end up making Oliva and Angelica, who in the game were bitter love rivals, into becoming close friends. Very close.
- By taking the Five Idiots for herself, Marie keeps Livia from interacting with them romantically. This lets Livia also see just what faults each of them had (Julius betrayed Angie, Jilk's rotten, Brad's a narcissist, Greg's a meathead, and Chris is too needy) and causes her to double down on her feelings towards Leon, the only supportive male she knew (he helped her improve her studies and magic and helped her and Angie be best friends (which helps Duke Redgrave have Livia as Leon's mistress while Angie's his proper fiancée).
- Oh, Crap!: Marie is verryyy careful to avert this, especially when she discovered Leon is her own brother, but there are times she can't:
- She's sweating bullets when an unimpressed Queen Mylene visits her and the Dateable Fives host club and demands to meet with her.
- Marie was paralyzed and shivering in terror when realizing that Leon will go into an Unstoppable Rage when he finds out she made Angie and Olivia prostrate themselves, which she didn't think they'd go through with.
- When Pierre stole their airship and Arrogance in an unfair duel, Marie was terrified more than ever as she knew how Leon would go as far in taking revenge that she is ready to perform Cold-Blooded Torture to save her skin in the ensuing carnage.
- This happens again when Marie reported to Leon that Aaron (one of the capture targets) turned into a woman and won't come back. Luckily she wasn't in the receiving end but Cleare on the hand...
- Older Than They Look: She's technically the same age as most of the cast she attends school with, but she looks far younger due to her diminutive size. Additionally, after hearing her full story in Marie Route, Leon suspects her past-life self was in her late-thirties or forties.
- Out of Focus: In the eighth volume.
- Parenting the Husband: In a nutshell, this is Marie's relationship with the five princes after they've been disinherited: trying and usually failing to curb their bad behavior (in particular, their spending).
- Parents Know Their Children: Despite not seeing her child for a very long time, upon the reveal by Princess Erica that she is her child in the old world, a normally skeptic Marie suddenly shed Tears of Joy and hugged her without even doubting the truth.
- Perpetual Poverty: Marie's is used as a Running Gag after her Reverse Harem of princes gets disinherited since the five keep on spending it all on gifts to impress her. Her prideful family also presses their gambling debts onto her.
- Pet the Dog:
- Towards Kyle. She treated him well enough that, unlike his previous masters, he actually wants to stay with her. This despite how annoying Marie finds his Servile Snarker and Brutal Honesty tendencies.
- Again towards Carla, giving her acceptance after Carla's parents disowned her, and the rest of the academy ostracized her, for being The Mole for Sky Pirates. Despite Marie's initial motivation being to irritate Leon by making Carla her follower, Carla is truly grateful and develops Undying Loyalty as a result.
- Marie also takes a liking to Noelle in Alzer, letting her live in her mansion, as well as doing everything she can to protect Noelle from her Stalker with a Crush Loic and her Shipper with an Agenda sister Lelia. The latter of whom becomes somewhat of a rival to Marie, over it.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Through magically enhanced punches and kicks.
- Power at a Price: Her gaining Healing Hands came at a price. It cost her all of her body's potential to grow, meaning she'll be stuck at her current body size forever.
- Power Stereotype Flip: She's the opposite of what one would expect from a girl with Healing Hands and Barrier Warrior magic.
- Pretender Diss: Marie repeatedly has these for Leon, mostly in her Inner Monologue, voicing it aloud during the Elven Ruins expedition. She feels taunted by Leon resembling her past-life brother so much, reminding her of her sweet and coddled formative years she can never have again.
- Punched Across the Room: Dishes this out when she's finally had enough of the five plundering her savings.
- Quit Your Whining: Her reaction to seeing Leon depressed.
- Reverse Harem: She managed to snag all five of the games dateable cast into one exceedingly fast. What comes after, is her true struggle.
- The Rival: Collectively serves as this to Leon with the five princes, although they each gradually team up with him against outside foes, ending up as permanent allies after Marie discovers she was Leon's past-life-sibling.
- Romantic Wingwoman: Serves as this for Noelle after becoming friends with her, fending off her Stalker with a Crush and contriving date opportunities with the man she's interested in. This puts Marie into conflict with Noelle's Horrible Judge of Character sister Lelia.
- Roundhouse Kick: Tends to do these when gravely offended. She uses Magic Enhancement to make them uncannily strong.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: She uses one when going dungeon crawling with only Kyle for support in Volume 2.
- Silly Rabbit, Romance Is for Kids!: Her boyfriend abandoning her and her child in the past life gave her this viewpoint.
- Slouch of Villainy: At the end of Volume 2 when she's recognized as the Saint and lounging in the Temple.
- The Social Expert: Fitting for someone who can seduce five people within a month, Marie is an Excellent Judge of Character, and multiple times she wins battles through dialogue.
- Spanner in the Works: Leon interfering with her replacing Olivia in the game's story winds up turning the situation with this for several parties, ultimately causing the plot line of the game to speed up drastically along with other changes.
- Spoiled Brat: Wants to live the decadent lives of the datable cast. When she finds them disowned, and they decide to go dungeon hunting to make up for it, depriving her of the luxury she sought, she turns into a Stepford Smiler to hide her pain while still manipulating them.
- When her backstory is explored, it turns out both of her lives ended up being a Trauma Conga Line, and she decided to live happily no matter what it takes by the time she enters the Academy. Although, before everything went bad for her, she did in fact grow up being spoiled by Leon as his younger sister.
- Stepford Smiler: When the five dateable cast loses access to their families' funding, she becomes this for a while in order to keep manipulating them with her Olivia impression, hiding her internal devastation.
- Struggling Single Mother: Her relationship with the five comes off as this at times, as she constantly has to secure finances for them and curb their spending habits. She's even reduced to cooking and cleaning for them as they refuse to do it for themselves.
- In her past life she tried to take care of her daughter but ultimately had to turn over custody to her parents because they stated she couldn't support her.
- Surrounded by Idiots: She doesn't consider the Dateable Five to be very bright, since they're easy to exploit for her own gain. It gets worse when they're disinherited by their families and now she has to take care of them.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Marie's sympathy for Hertrude going through her Despair Event Horizon, giving a Then Let Me Be Evil speech on her behalf, is what defeats the Final Boss. She later encourages Julius to stage an attack on her to force Holfort Kingdom to soften the harsh treaty imposed on Fanoss.
- Talking the Monster to Death: Being practiced in reading and manipulating people, manages to do this multiple times:
- From Marie's perspective, she was doing this to Angelica by triggering the duel challenge, more than a year before it was supposed to happen in the game, exploiting her Hair-Trigger Temper. It would have been a success, if not for Leon.
- When Princess Hertrude makes one of the Final Boss attack everyone after being betrayed by her homeland, and her little sister dying, Marie successfully comforts her into standing down, since they both know what it's like to lose a beloved sibling.
- In the Alzer Republic, Marie not only talks Loic out of his attempted Suicide by Cop against Julius, but earns his friendship and respect, with a Do Not Go Gentle speech ending his Death Seeker mindset.
- Taught by Experience: Living two rough lives, having suffered bad relationships, and having to take drastic steps to survive, has made her an Excellent Judge of Character.
- Team Mom: During her stay in the Alzer Republic, she is essentially babysitting the five, keeping the house and finances in order, and providing moral support for Noelle. Mind you, she's still in a relationship with all of the datable casts so it makes things awkward for Noelle, who is implied to have accidentally walked in on them in the act.
- There Is Another: Another reincarnator like Leon, with a very different mindset about the game's plot.
- Trapped by Gambling Debts: In both her original and reincarnated lives, serving as motivation for her Gold Digger seduction of the five capture targets:
- In her old life, her ex-boyfriend used her money to gamble, and stuck the resulting debts onto her.
- In the Otome world, Marie's family, despite being a Viscount House, are poor due to a combination of her parents' gambling and her older sister's spending habits (revealed in the Marie Route). As a result, Marie's family pushes their debts onto her.
- Trauma Conga Line: In both lives:
- Due to being disowned by her parents in her previous life, then getting into a series of bad relationships, where she had her own money stolen by a gambling addict ex-boyfriend, had a crappy wedding with her ex-husband, and ended up dying due to Domestic Abuse from another terrible boyfriend. Additionally, she lost custody of her daughter to her parents and resorted to working as a "night-time entertainer", along the way.
- In her Otome world life, she grew up with gambling-addicted Impoverished Patrician parents, who would only give her hand-me-down clothes and barely fed her, driving her to hunting and foraging to take care of herself. And then pressing their gambling debts onto her after she enters the Academy.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: To put it lightly. By taking over Olivia's position with false claims and advancing the event flags of the storyline well before anyone was even remotely close to ready, Marie effectively turned the entire kingdom's political landscape into hellfire and crippled their nation's capability to even hope to fight back against the Principality, never mind not even being ready for the Final Boss. And without Olivia's true power as the Saint, they can't ever hope to beat said final boss. The entire rest of the first game's storyline is dealing with the absolute clusterfuck of a fallout her actions caused.
- Was It Really Worth It?: Marie succeeded in forming her Reverse Harem using her knowledge of the game to get it much faster than should have been possible. Then she's stuck babysitting them, and they constantly make her life worse in their attempts to please her.
- Wham Line: "They're here at last. I've waited ten years for these princes".
- White Magician Girl: Subverted, she's a healing specialist and White Mage, but her behavior is the opposite: A cynical and manipulative Cute Bruiser.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Marie's attempt to change the system by inserting herself into the protagonist's role based on her knowledge of the game from her past life specifically backfires due to two reasons.
- The first is because she never actually completed the game herself, she had incomplete knowledge of why Olivia specifically had the ability to defeat the Final Boss and while she could replicate her other abilities she couldn't do the same for her Compelling Voice and couldn't stop the war as a result.
- The second is that the Royal Ship requires True Love to activate it, which she simply doesn't have for any of the capture targets, as she sees them as a means to an end. This would have led to a Bad End had Leon, Olivia, and Angelica not been there to activate it.
- Yaoi Fangirl: Is excited by the closeness between Julius and Jilk. She hid some of this material in Leon's room in their previous life, which her mom found and blamed Leon for having, which caused him to move out, while she stayed quiet.
The Five Datable Cast
Five Datable Cast in General
The five datable heroes of the original game. Each of them has values that in an normal Otome game would be valued, but in this series it has consequences.For the Cast's Marie Route Side Story tropes, see here.
Tropes that apply to all of them.
- All-Star Cast: In-Universe, they had a lineup of voice actors like this in the game. Said cast saying the player's name as a reward for 100% Completion, was what drove Leon's little sister to make him complete it.
- All Take and No Give: The givers to Maria's taker. Not that they care, of course.
- Aristocrat Team: The heirs of some of Holfort Kingdom's most prestigious and wealthy noble households.
- Battle Harem: For Marie, and originally for Olivia in the otome game. Leon saw them as pitiable meat shields when playing, and their personalities interfered with their battle performance. As the series progresses, this proves to be the one thing they can be counted on for.
- The Beautiful Elite: Leon's First-Person Perspective is tinged with jealousy of them being this.
- The Champion: A Deconstruction of romanticized heroic knights. They will do any task to prove themselves to their Love Interest, no matter who or what odds they have to go against, or how much it violates common sense. Despite all of their spoiled and idiotic antics, they're still ultimately brave heroes.
- Color-Coded Characters: Due to originally being fictional characters, all five have a color connected to them. Brad is purple, Greg is red, Chris is blue, Jilk is green and Julius is black. Sometimes, Leon will refer to them by their hair colors, much to their annoyance.
- Curtains Match the Windows: All of them have their eyes and hair color as the same as their color motifs.
- Devoted to You: Marie managed to charm all of them so thoroughly that they simply cannot see themselves with anyone else. When their affection was measured with the Royal Ship, each of them nearly had 100 points showcasing that every one of them was utterly in love with her. Even learning that her own affection for them was barely in the double digits, they still remain loyal to her and pledge they will work hard to make her love them to Marie's annoyance.
- Disinherited Child: They lose the support of their families for breaking their prior engagements and causing a political disaster, though their humiliating loss in the arena didn't help either. By Volume 3 however, most of them are steadily getting back into their families' good graces through their heroic deeds and earning back their lost status only to lose it all again by attacking the Temple's officials after some of them tried to poison Marie. As Leon points out, stopping the assassination was reasonable, but their Roaring Rampage of Revenge was not.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: They repeatedly waste money on Grand Romantic Gestures for Marie (such as building a giant statue of her or covering an entire house in flowers), and when this only infuriates her, they think it's because their gifts weren't expensive enough.
- Debt Detester: The five become annoyed as Leon made appeals to their families to become reinstated as heirs, due to him giving them the credit for his deeds.
- Everyone Has Standards: After Marie forces Olivia and Angelica to kneel before her in public and beg for her to get Leon released, they stop it from going too far and do everything in their power to help, even seeking assistance from their estranged families.
- Famous Ancestor: They are each descended from the Five Adventurers who founded Holfort Kingdom; whose names were their family names.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Originally the five besides Julius and Jilk didn't particular like each other and only hung around because they each love Marie. But after being disinherited by their families, they started to work together with Leon as a common foe, becoming friends.
- Foreign Exchange Student: They are sent along with Leon and Marie to attend the Alzer Republic Academy as exchange students, partly as punishment for wasting an entire year's worth of living expenses but also to keep them from being caught up in the post-war situation as both themselves and Marie are seen as potential targets. Each of them manages to fit in relatively well given they are already fluent in the native language as well, so they don't have many problems fitting in. Incidentally, they would be this in the otome game series as well if one has a completed save for the first game.
- Friendly Rivalry: Their competition to be Marie's favorite.
- Heroic Lineage: Their aforementioned Famous Ancestors were five of the greatest adventurers in the Kingdom's history who discovered and helped secure the continent. They are each thrilled at the prospect of adventuring and Dungeon Crawling, which usually means cash they can waste celebrating.
- Hidden Depths: Despite all of their Love Makes You Dumb issues, they still retain their extensive education, and as long as it doesn't involve their romance, can provide useful political advice.
- Homage: Them being a team of five warriors each with a main color theme, fighting For Great Justice, is a homage to Super Sentai, which is highlighted by Leon's habit of calling them by their colors.
- In-Series Nickname: In most any scene told from Leon or Marie's First-Person Perspective, they are referred to as The Five Idiots or "the idiot brigade". Individually, they're known as:
- Julius, the Idiot Prince.
- Jilk, the Black Hearted.
- Chris, the Swordsman/Showoff.
- Brad, the Narcissist.
- Greg, the Musclehead.
- Love Makes You Dumb: None of them are stupid by the fact that as influential nobles they have received an extensive education. But when love comes into the picture, all of that goes out the window, and a lot of the things they've done while acting in that interest have them fall into this category.
- Love Ruins the Realm: Likewise, because of their infatuation with their Love Interest Marie, they've ultimately ended up disowned whether as a consequence of their actions or by choice. This unintentionally caused a huge power shift as the factions who supported them became unsettled and other households began making moves to overthrow them.
- Magikarp Power: While they're at first shown struggling against foes Leon can easily dispatch, he notes that, due to the RPG Elements of the dating sim, he knew they would have been much tougher to beat after a year or two of combat experience. Indeed, after clearing the events of the first dating sim, Leon judges their capabilities as superhuman while Dungeon Crawling together.
- Meal Ticket: What Marie thinks of them. She never had any intention of getting romantic with them, only wanting to use their statuses to get an easy life.
- The Millstone: Outside of adventuring, they're completely hopeless without any servants to take care of them, making life even more difficult for Marie.
- Money Dumb: All five were raised as spoiled rich kids and therefore have no idea how to manage their money. Nor do they realize that constantly spending what little money they have to impress Marie or to defeat Leon, is not helping with their basic needs such as food and living expenses. Marie nearly had a stroke when they built a shoddy armor from the parts of their destroyed ones, with an unbelievable price-tag of 500,000 dia.
- One True Love: How they see Marie. It's noted that many of them are in positions high enough that they could still go through with their Arranged Marriage and keep Marie as a mistress, but they simply cannot bring themselves to do that. No one else can compare, so they don't bother with even trying to maintain the illusion of going through with Arranged Marriage or other lovers.
- Out of Focus: In the eighth volume.
- Overrated and Underleveled: Leon's complaints about their performance as game characters point to their backstories not holding up: Julius is noted to have top marks in combat tests, Chris to be a Master Swordsman, Greg to be a veteran adventurer, etc. In their first Dungeon Crawling scene, they struggle with a group of foes that Leon could easily eviscerate by himself.
- Pride: Being the eldest sons of some of the kingdom's most important families, they all have inflated egos of themselves that Leon absolutely stomped into the ground during their match.
- Pathetically Weak: Leon stomped all five with virtually little effort in their first duel against him. Since Marie had initiated the duel a year and a half too soon in the game, they had no chance to level up and were no match for Leon. The rematch went even worse as they had haphazardly constructed a new Armor from the broken pieces of their old ones. They don't start improving until much later when they start to throw away their pride and take Leon as inspiration.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Start to look like this after they each take up professions suiting their passions, bringing out their inner quirks.
- Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: The biggest issue with all of them is that they have no sense when it comes to managing money due to being wealthy. Note, they could actually earn money through adventuring but they would spend whatever they earned right away, so Marie actively has to hide whatever money she gets so they won't starve as they will ultimately spend it on gifts to try and impress her.
- Rivals Team Up: Multiple situations encourage them to work with Leon, which usually leads to Character Development.
- Sexy Man, Instant Harem: All five of them are so incredibly popular with women that anytime they walk anywhere there is usually a group of girls following them.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Often, when working alongside Leon.
- Thinks Like a Romance Novel: They're all hopeless romantics completely in love with Marie, and it makes them incredibly stupid.
- True Companions: Their dynamic amongst each other after Leon unites them in rivalry against him.
- What the Hell, Hero?: They each give Leon one of these when they learn how he got a certain group of allies to fight for him with "friendship".
- Worthy Opponent: After Leon defeated them in Volume 1, they all wanted revenge. But in Volume 2, Greg, Brad, and Chris start to respect Leon for his strength and look up to him while still desiring to defeat him.
Julius Rapha Holfort
Julius Rapha Holfort
Voiced by: Ryōta Ōsaka (Drama CD) , Kenichi Suzumura (anime) (JP), Ricco Fajardo (EN), Carlos Reynoso (LA SP)
- "They're forcing a life of royalty on me! No one is looking at my true self! I never wanted to be born into the life of royalty! Marie is the only one who's considered my feelings!"
For Julius's Marie Route Side Story tropes, see here.
- Altar Diplomacy: He was originally betrothed to Angelica, which he called off to be with Marie. He was almost set up with Hertrude as a peace offering before he pretended to attack her to break it off.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Both a giver and a receiver in the same event, specifically his duel with Leon. He asks Leon how it must feel to be so arrogant because of having a superior machine. Of course, Leon responds that it feels good to be able to be arrogant because of his superior machine since they can't beat him anyway. Leon then follows it up by asking Julius what it feels like to be beaten by somebody he saw as inferior to him, to which Julius responds by attacking Leon again in rage.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Julius hated being the Crown Prince and wanted a life outside the throne. He ends up getting that wish after being disinherited and quickly discovers that several privileges he took for granted went with it.
- Brain Bleach: Julius really hates it when Leon is trying to flirt with his mother Queen Mylene. It got to a point that he just begs Leon that if wants to make moves on his mother, just don't do it in front of him.
- The Chains of Commanding: Julius resents his status as the heir to the throne, seeing it as a burden as he never gets to choose his future in life. He even turns this resentment towards Angelica, his fiancée.
- Character Development: He steadily grows as a character after his duel with Leon from apologizing to Angelica to eventually learning the value of hard work and finding enjoyment in simple work like being a meat griller.
- Defrosting Ice King: The Marie's Academy Life side story shows that he was harsh and antisocial at first like this as part of his game arc.
- Didn't Think This Through: Julius attempts to purchase disguises for himself and Jilk to sneak out of the royal palace... by adding the disguises to the royal palace's budget. Queen Mylene can't decide whether the attempt itself or the stupidity of the plan is more disappointing.
- Dumbass Has a Point: About Angelica Loving a Shadow. She spent her whole life being prepared for an arranged marriage and becoming Queen one day, so her identity is tied up in the concept of being with Julius rather than having naturally fallen for him. Even Angelica's own father points this out to her...
- Entitled Bastard: Despite calling out Angelica for only loving him for his status, he sure didn't hesitate to ask her to borrow the military fleet to battle the Principality... several months after he publicly humiliated her. Angelica, who has long gotten over her feelings for Julius at this point, pointedly states that she doesn't have the authority to give anyone a command. Julius takes this another way.Julius: ...Do you hate me for betraying your feelings? That's why you won't lend me your strength, right?
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Julius did himself no favors by rejecting Angelica the way he did. While his distaste for the throne is understandable, he takes that resentment out on Angelica and just dismisses her feelings out of hand, in front of a massive audience without a shred of sympathy. Even if he was right, it was no excuse for him to treat Angelica so coldly, and it goes beyond the pale for several characters.
- Horrible Judge of Character: He believes Angelica is a Gold Digger who tries to cling to him because of his princely status and Maria to be a sweet girl who truly understands him. He's got it completely backward.
- Humble Pie: Julius, after being kicked out by Marie alongside the other capture targets for pilfering half her savings, blows most of his cash celebrating on the first day. Upon realizing he's almost broke, Julius is shocked to discover that all four of the others are more successful on their own than him. He runs away to wallow on a bench, homeless, only to finally get his hands dirty working for a kebab stand, and winds up winning the challenge Marie offered to the five of them because of the perspective he gains.
- Hypocrite:
- During his duel with Leon, Julius breaks out into a Motive Rant about how much he resents his lot in life, which is fair on its own. But then he tries to coerce Leon into Throwing the Fight by declaring a Duel to the Death, knowing full well that Leon would face even more severe consequences for killing the Prince.
- For all his talk about Angelica never understanding him, it's implied that he never made an attempt to understand or even relate to her either, just wallowing in his self-pity until he meets Marie.
- He tells his mother to stay away from Leon, calling him a greedy coward. She throws both accusations back at him after he (well, Marie) charged exorbitant prices for his School Festival café and broke his own promise to stay away from Marie after losing against Leon.
- In Love with Love: He's completely obsessed with his love for Marie to the point of caring for nothing else.
- It's All About Me: Leon's Shut Up, Hannibal! response to Julius' breakdown sees him calling out Julius on prioritizing his own well-being over the Kingdom and even Angelica's feelings.
- Prior to the duel, it was stated that Julius even demanded that Angelica take on no lovers of her own all the while he's carrying on an affair with Marie.
- I Was Just Passing Through: He just 'happens' to keep running into the rest of the reverse harem despite the terms of his duel stipulating he would break ties with Marie after he had lost.
- Kick the Dog: His complete and utter dismissal of Angelica's feelings for him, going as far as publicly rebuffing them during the duel against Leon and going through with having her deposed and humiliated in the game's original plotline was nothing short of cruel. He's lucky she decided to take Leon's advice of getting revenge by simply becoming happy rather than becoming a Woman Scorned.
- Knightly Sword and Shield: His preferred weapons, although, unlike Chris, he's not averse to using guns.
- Legacy Character: Essentially assumes the Masked Knight superhero identity from his father without his permission by stealing his costume and gear, to get around being forbidden from fighting due to his status. He discovered a secret passage leading to it as a child.
- Like Father, Like Son: His major flaws (minus the womanizing) are very similar to his father, being that he's a self-centered man who constantly threatens his own kingdom with his own irresponsible actions and treats the woman he's betrothed to like an afterthought. Unlike his father, he does learn to grow out of it.
- Like Father, Unlike Son: Unlike his father who is The Casanova, he has Single-Target Sexuality towards Marie and Marie alone.
- Like Parent, Like Spouse: Part of the reason Julius falls in Love at First Punch is because the only other woman who'd ever slapped him… was his mother. Olivia/Marie's lines during that encounter… are also scolding him just like his mother does.
- Love at First Punch: In the otome game the protagonist slaps Julius which causes him to fall for her. In the story, Marie takes Olivia's place.
- Modest Royalty: After Character Development kicks in, Julius starts taking pride in hard work. Definitely averted at first though, despite his protests.
- Money Dumb: Shown when he's forced to live by himself, when he falls flat on his face out the gates, while the other four are fine on their own. The experience helped him to grow and be less than this.
- Never My Fault: At first, he refused to own up to his poor treatment of Angelica and generally irresponsible (not to mention hypocritical) actions, either blaming Angelica, Leon, or his own family for his behavior. Being served Humble Pie has him finally working to fix himself.
- Not Helping Your Case: He comes to hate Angelica because he claims she never saw "the real him" and only cared about him being the prince. Angelica proves she did legitimately love Julius, but at no point did he ever try and explain how he really felt about his role as the prince and just assumed she was after his status.
- One-Note Cook: He becomes quite good at grilling skewers but they're the only food he ever makes.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: After being ordered to stay safe by his parents, Julius steals his father's armor and mask to get around this and fight. Everyone can tell it's Julius ... except the other dateable cast.
- Prince Charmless: After falling for Marie, his stupidity and naivete become painfully obvious to the point Marie, Olivia, and Angelica are annoyed by him.
- Psychological Projection: Due to his Rebel Prince tendencies, he believes his engagement with Angelica is an extension of his responsibilities, and she doesn't truly love him for him, but for his status. As a result, he refuse to acknowledge that she genuinely loved him.
- Rebel Prince: His defining trait. He hates responsibility and sees his engagement with Angelica as an extension of it. He is somewhat of a hypocrite however, both use that same authority to essentially command Leon to lose their duel, as well as having no sense of financial restraint. He does get better.
- Julius fully defies his parents, who want him to evacuate instead of fight, stealing his father's Mini-Mecha to join the Final Battle in a Paper-Thin Disguise.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: After the boys spend her savings for the umpteenth time during the Alzer Republic arc, Marie kicks them out of the house for the remainder of the season and tells them to compete to earn money and that the one who brings her back the most at the end of summer will receive her favor. Julius wins by accident because he actually brings her money: like the others, he wrongly inferred that she meant "buy me presents with the money you earn", but he couldn't decide what present to buy so he just gave her the cash.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Julius takes up cooking as a profession as part of his Character Development. Besides adventuring as a pastime.
- Say My Name: Screams that he'll never forgive Leon, after he uses Julius as bait to lure a hundred monsters into an ambush.
- Sensual Spandex: Whenever Julius uses his father's Masked Knight regalia to fight in disguise, due to being kept out of the fight to protect the dynasty. This gets him called a pervert, since it was designed by Roland.
- Shout-Out: In the anime, Julius's armor creates energy wings (that is absent on the light novel and manga), similar to the Destiny Gundam whose pilot is voiced by Julius's voice actor Kenichi Suzumura.
- Shut Up, Kirk!: His "The Reason You Suck" Speech towards Angelica was in responce to Oliva's Kirk Summation.
- Sore Loser: Per the terms of the duel, Julius was meant to cut off ties with Marie since he lost to Leon. Julius continued to ignore the agreement all the while claiming that just because he continues to hang around the harem, doesn't mean he's engaging with them.
- Too Much Information: Leon flirting with Mylene pissed Julius off at first but after a while he just asked Leon to at the very least not do it in front of him .
- Trademark Favorite Food: His favorite food are common meat skewers which he uses as proof that Angelica doesn't know him. Marie used this to her advantage by asking him to a skewer stand which made him think she was his destiny.
- Warrior Prince: Julius is one of the most talented warriors in the kingdom, and goes adventuring for fun. His parents try to keep him out of major battles, not that he lets that stop him.
- What Does She See in Him?: Says this to his mother about Leon.
Jilk Fia Marmoria
Jilk Fia Marmoria
Voiced by: Tatsumaru Tachibana (Drama CD), Kosuke Toriumi (anime) (JP), Ian Sinclair (EN), Gustavo Reyes (LA SP)
- "Your life ended the moment you went against his Highness."
- Adopt-a-Servant: Adopted to serve as Julius' aid in his role as Crown Prince. After Julius and Jilk are disinherited, he keeps his Undying Loyalty to him.
- Aerith and Bob: Compared to the others in the main cast whose names are rather normal, Jilk really stands out.
- And Your Little Dog, Too!: Jilk attempts to scare Leon off by threatening his family in the middle of this match. This simply pisses Leon off even more.
- Badass Biker: The best airbike pilot in the Academy, which ties into an Otome Game event where Olivia was supposed to heal him after he was beaten up in a race. The skill also becomes useful later on, when driving the hostages rescued from Pierre's henchmen to the arena, allowing Leon to stop delaying and finish the duel.
- Bandage Mummy: The manga and anime adaptation has Jilk be this after losing his duel to Leon, as Laser-Guided Karma.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: He's noted to be the quietest of the group, but also the most dangerous. It should be noted that out of all the other datable cast he's the only one who attempted to take measures that could potentially kill Leon during their duel if his armor was any less durable.
- Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Jilk does this to Pierre's crooked merchant associate, when he tries to threaten his hostage Carla, after his goons are taken out.
- The Butler Did It: Jilk maintains a public persona as a straight-forward servant who doesn't stand out, while committing crimes in the shadows to advance his goals. Leon thinks this aspect of his character is cliché.
- Cold Sniper: Sniper rifles are his preferred weapon both in Mini-Mecha and on foot, fitting his characterization as being quiet and ruthless.
- Combat Pragmatist: An even more brutal one than Leon, using military grade bullets and even attempting to use a bomb to kill Leon to protect his and Julius' honor.
- "Dear John" Letter: He broke off his Arranged Marriage via letter, specifically because as he fell in love with Marie he felt more reluctant to be around Clarice. He couldn't bring himself to tell her in person.
- Demolitions Expert: He's noted for being talented when it comes to explosives.
- Green and Mean: His hair and Color Motif are green, and is the most underhanded of the Dateable Cast seen as early as the duel against Leon where he resorted to sabotage, attempted murder and then threatening his family when it didn't work.
- Hidden Depths:
- When Leon asked for advice to the 5 datable cast for dating tips, Jilk was the only one who gave a normal advice that Leon was quite surprised as he was expecting that no one among the 5 will give a sane answer.
- While every dirty trick on the book is a go for Jilk, stalking is where he draws the line. He explained to Leon that one of the reasons that he left Clarice is that he was quite uncomfortable that Clarice is keeping track of his movements (He got a very expensive airbike in a store on the same day he just stared at it for a bit with no one in sight) because of her intense love for him.
- Legacy of Service: His family have been servants to the Holfort Dynasty since the Kingdom's founding. This image of a servant is something Jilk is happy to play up, to his own advantage.
- Lethal Chef: His tea and snacks are noted to be bad.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: His hair goes down to his waist.
- Meaningful Name: Since R and L are the same letter in romaji, Jilk can also be translated as Jirk, as in Jerk.
- The Reliable One: Despite Leon's annoyance of Jilk, among the 5 idiots, he was Leon's go to when something complicated needs to be done and Leon isn't available at the time. A good example of that is when Leon gave him the responsibility of negotiating with the other nations so they will not attack the kingdom of Holfort... in the same vein how will Leon will do it.
- Stepford Smiler: Leon states that Jilk likes to hide his emotions behind a smile, the issue is as a result he refuses to do anything he doesn't like causing issues with Clarice in Volume 2 because he knows he messed up.
- Tea and Tea Culture: Has this as a hobby, and spares no expense on it, to Marie's horror. To add insult to injury, he's not very good at it either.
- Threat Backfire: Jilk learns why it's bad to threaten people's families, when he is recorded doing so, and it's held as blackmail material over him. He'd lose all of his honor and social standing if it were revealed.
- Token Evil Teammate: Downplayed. He seems to have played a role of Pscyho Supporter for Julius in the game. Jilk was trained in espionage to help him serve Julius. The other four cast tire of the trouble this gets him into in their daily lives, but his talents prove very useful during conflict.
- Touché: Leon suggests he is the best person to set up an ambush for monsters, drawing a complaint, until Leon cites the fact he forced Leon's sister to plant a bomb in his mech, which Jilk admits he can't respond to.
- Undying Loyalty: He is incredibly loyal to Julius, his best friend and foster brother, even attempting to sabotage Leon's armor and make threats to protect Julius' reputation.
- Unishment: Leon notices he seems oddly happy to be punished by Marie, and he earns her ire more than the others combined.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Gets these a lot from Leon, for quite justifiable reasons. The other four cast get in on this later as well.
- Yes-Man: Jilk is so loyal to Julius that he will automatically praise his friend for even having an idea regardless if it's actually intelligent.
Chris Fia Arclight
Chris Fia Arclight
Voiced by: Shoumaru Zouza (Drama CD), Koji Yusa (anime) (JP), Aaron Dismuke (EN), Fernando Rivas (LA SP)
- "Not once have I considered my swordsmanship good... I've been training for my whole life, and yet my father said I have no talent at all."
- Crippling Overspecialization: Chris has only focused on swordsmanship to the point of completely ignoring any other weaponry. Leon is able to toy with Chris with his drones. He finally starts to realize the flaw of his mindset in Volume 2.
- Hard Work Hardly Works: Downplayed. While Chris couldn't compete with Leon due to Leon's armor being a Lost Item, but Chris intentionally limited himself by only focused on his swordsmanship at the price of any long-ranged weaponry. This weakness cost Leon many times in the otome game.
- Hero-Worshipper: Shows shades of this after being defeated by Leon, admiring his courage and skill, and blushing when praised by him.Chris: "Is it possible for me to become like you, Bartfort?"
- Hypocrite: When Chris calls out Leon's use of drones as a lack of chivalry, Leon only points out Chris was fine with a very advantageous 5 vs 1 match despite how unfair such a match would be. There's also the fact his teammate Brad had used that same type of weapon earlier against Leon.
- Ice Queen: Leon states Chris was very stoic and incredibly hard to romance as a result.
- Kindness Button: Being recognized, such as Leon telling him he has amazing luck, breaks through his stoic exterior.
- Logical Weakness: Chris' only weapons are swords and thoughts of life as a knight means his armor has no long-ranged weapons which Leon took full advantage of in their match.
- Master Swordsman: He's noted to just be a step below his father in terms of skill.
- Not So Stoic: When begging Leon for help saving the rest of the students held hostage by the Principality on the luxury liner.
- Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: His mindset on using only a sword, automatically makes him target practice against those with long-range projectile weapons. His ideals on chivalry and fair play have no chance on the battlefield, and are useless against foes who are pragmatic and can cheat... like Leon.
- Please Put Some Clothes On: Gets this after he takes up the habit of wearing a loincloth after getting involved with Street Performer.
- Single Tear: Chris cries a single tear after Leon mocks Chris' self-pity after being easily defeated.
- Stoic Spectacles: Chris is stated by Leon to be the most annoying to romance and the least likely to show emotions. Chris wearing glasses only furthers the image.
- Street Performer: Eventually takes up this profession upon being temporarily kicked out by Marie.
- Unwanted Harem: In contrast to Brad, Chris is really annoyed by all the girls who flock around him. He'd much rather spend time with Marie. Or Leon.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: From the fifth volume onwards.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Living up to his father's strict standards is what leads Chris to seek attention through skill.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Chris calls out Leon for being unfair and lacking chivalry for using Arroganz's drones. Leon simply points out that there were no rules against using projectile weapons and long-range attacks. And that didn't stop Brad from using his Armor's magic drones either. Being over-reliant on using swords only painted a bullseye on Chris.
- Worthy Opponent: After being defeated by him, starts to see Leon as his goal to better himself towards, while still a rival.
- Wrecked Weapon: Leon has a habit of shattering Chris' sword during mech duels.
Brad Fou Field
Brad Fou Field
Voiced by: Koudai Sakai (Drama CD), Shinnosuke Tachibana (anime) (JP), Justin Briner (EN), Ignacio Pineda (LA SP)
- "You don't get it! The main character is supposed to be slow to appear."
- Animal Lover: After becoming a Stage Magician, he's usually shown being affectionate to his rabbit and pigeon.
- Boisterous Weakling: He's the weakest of the five but is a narcissist that overestimates his strength. Leon states Brad would constantly be the first to fight the enemy only to be beaten right away.
- Butt-Monkey: He suffers the most at the hands of foes amongst the five princes. Based on what Leon said happened in the game's combat scenarios, this seems to be his destiny.
- The Dandy: His archetype. Eventually makes it work for him by becoming a Stage Magician.
- The Fighting Narcissist: Brad's armor is heavily decorated, to the point Luxion said it was interfering with the weaponry. Brad also spent plenty of time bragging about how powerful and expensive it was and was instantly angered when Leon mocked it.
- Flying Weapon: Uses magic to remotely control spears like Attack Drones from his mech.
- Hidden Depths: Despite his ego, Volume 2 reveals he is all too aware of being the weakest of the five and is working hard behind the scenes to fix it. Leon is a bit taken back when he learns about this side of Brad.
- I Can Still Fight!: After being beaten nearly to death by Pierre and his thugs, tries and fails to prevent Carla's kidnapping by Pierre's merchant associates, nearly dying in the process.
- Inferiority Superiority Complex: Leon suggests that Brad has a complex over being a Squishy Wizard due to the kingdom caring so much about physical strength. Volume 2 reveals this to be true.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Leon's hatred for him stems from being this in the game, as a Squishy Wizard who charges into close-combat, leading to many Game Over screens.
- Like a God to Me: Says this about Marie due to her rare gift of Healing Hands, while being healed by Livia, which helps restore Livia's self-confidence.
- Proud Beauty: Makes proclamations about this, saying he's the most beautiful of the five. In the drama CD, he even mentions keeping lewd pictures of himself on his person at all times.
- Squishy Wizard: He's noted to be very well-versed in magic, but he's the weakest in melee of the five. However, he later starts taking his sword training seriously, working towards becoming a Magic Knight.
- Stage Magician: Becomes one after being temporarily thrown out by Marie. He carries the animals he uses in tricks around with him.
- This Is a Drill: Brad's armor's weapons are noticeably drill like, having a drill-like spear as well as drill drones at the back.
- The Worf Effect: In Volume 4, he tries to settle things peacefully with Pierre's entourage when they try to beat him down to incite a war, despite him surpassing them in both physical and magical prowess as the kingdom places martial prowess in a high place due to being founded by Adventurers whereas the Republic doesn't. However, because of the Sacred Tree's blessing Pierre is able to shut down his magic and trap him, which leaves him unable to fight back. He ends up being beaten to an inch of his life as a result and becomes too injured to help later on as well.
Greg Fou Seburg
Greg Fou Seburg
Voiced by: Tatsuya Fuji (Drama CD), Nobuyuki Hiyama (anime) (JP), Clifford Chapin (EN), Erick Padilla (LA SP)
- "I couldn't do anything. I act all high and mighty, but I can't do anything without my retainers. Was I... just a pretentious brat?"
- Break Out the Museum Piece: Compared to the others, his armor is specifically an outdated and mass-produced one because he doesn't put as much value in his equipment as he does his own skill. Leon calls him out on it after Greg protested that Leon had the more advanced mech.
- Break the Haughty: In Volume 2 after freezing when Sky Pirates attack then seeing Leon take care of them single handily, he realizes how arrogant he was and revises his opinion of Leon.
- Curtains Match the Window: He has red eyes and hair.
- Deer in the Headlights: Trying to take on Sky Pirates in their Mini-Mecha with only his spear leaves him like this, and changing his attitude.
- Dumb Muscle: He's the strongest and most athletic of the five, but not very bright.
- Fatal Flaw: In addition to being called a meathead, Greg's arrogance over his physical skills is a glaring weakness as he refused to use anything but an outdated, mass-produced Armor. As a result, when he calls out Leon for having an advanced Armor, Leon shoots him down, stating that it was Greg's own fault to look down at him and use an obsolete model.
- Fiery Redhead: Red hair and is the most aggressive and hotheaded of the main cast.
- Full-Frontal Assault: Fights like this after taking up bodybuilding, much to Jilk's irritation.
- Hunk: Especially after he becomes body-building obsessed in the fifth volume.
- Hypocrite: He tries calling out Leon for only being strong because of the more advanced Armor Arroganz. Leon shoots back by saying 'duh' and points out that Greg was intentionally using an outdated, mass-produced model. He further points out to Greg that preparation is key to winning battles and Greg is just being arrogant about his skills and not the quality of his equipment.
- Jerk Jock: Greg's quite arrogant and ill-mannered to everyone around him including Julius. He's also quite obsessed with his personal strength and wears a uniform with short sleeves that only adds to the image.
- Lovable Jock: Thanks to two too many Break the Haughty moments, he shows a caring attitude.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When he helps Marie translate, and do research in an Alzer library, to help get revenge on Pierre.
- Please Put Some Clothes On: Gets this due to becoming a quasi-nudist after taking up bodybuilding. Even in battle.
- A Real Man Is a Killer: Downplayed as Greg never goes as far as murder but Greg's household places great value in physical strength and actual combat experience. Greg hates anyone that uses communication to fix problems instead of violence.
- Red Is Violent: Has a red color scheme and is the most tempermental and violent of the dateable cast.
- Sore Loser: After Leon easily defeats Greg's armor, Greg refused to give, even attempting to fight Leon's armor with scrap metal despite the fact he had no chance.
- Spell My Name With An S: Seburg or Seberg?
- Stripperific: His combat outfits in the Manga adaptation are a male example, fitting with his liking to display his muscles. Although, he was just described with short sleeves at this point in the novels.
- Took a Level in Badass: Leon compliments Greg for vastly improving during their rematch. Unfortunately, the duel is Cut Short because Greg's Mini-Mecha was poorly fixed and about to explode.
- Took a Level in Kindness: After his Break the Haughty realization, Greg tones down his mean behavior and actually looks up to Leon now.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Chicken breasts, to help with his body-building.
- The Upper Crass: The others are initially surprised he can act so cantankerous around the Crown Prince; he acts more like a delinquent than an heir to a noble house. Before he settles down.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: From the fifth volume onwards.
- Willfully Weak: Greg is so arrogant over his skill and personal strength that he intentionally uses an outdated mass-production frame to show off his strength.
