Benno

Benno (ベンノ Benno) is a character that appears in the Ascendance of a Bookworm series. He is a merchant who takes young Myne and Lutz under his wing to help them become merchants themselves, also to profit from Myne's inventions as much as he can. Myne considers him the Gutenberg of plant paper.

His younger sister Corinna is Otto's wife. He has an unnamed younger sister (older than Corrina) who married and lives in another city.

His height is average, he has milk-tea colored hair and dark-red eyes.

Benno took over the operation of the Gilberta Company, abandoning his dream to protect his family and the store, shortly after his father was killed by bandits. With his mother bedridden with grief and Benno who had recently reached adulthood at the time; the state of the company went into turmoil, leading to the majority of lehange (darua) declining their contract renewal. Among those that remained, Mark assisted Benno in rebuilding the store, becoming his trusted right-hand man. He highly dislikes Gustav due to his attempts to: marry his mother shortly after she became a widow, marry his daughters to Benno shortly after Liz's death, and marry his sons to either of Benno's two younger sisters, leading one of them to flee to another city. Benno interpreted the guildmaster's actions as insensitive and attempts to take over the company.

Benno seems cold and menacing at first glance. However, he shows concern for things he cares about, such as Myne's health, giving her three small gold coins for information on rinsham, which is enough to buy a magic tool used to restrain the Devouring.

As the company is passed down to women in the family, he intends for Corinna and Otto to take over eventually.

He takes Lutz on as a leherl (dapla) while acting as a guardian/cosigner for Myne. After attending a pound cake tasting event hosted by Freida, Benno felt the need to compete and decides to open an Italian restaurant with the help of Myne. . Myne feels he is stretching himself thin by going into various business outside of his expertise despite being the main cause of his headaches. His workload is further increasing when Aub Ehrenfest announces his plan to spread plant paper production as a government-backed business.

With the increase of printed goods from the Rozemyne workshop, Benno founded the Plantin Company to exclusively sell those goods and leaves the Gilberta Company to Otto and Corinna.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 2 When confronted with the prospect of making products for royalty, Benno is surprisingly unperturbed. His reasoning is that it doesn't really differ in practical terms anyway how high a noble's rank is, since any laynoble from the lowest of duchies could still crush them like a bug anyway, so failure was never an option when dealing with nobles in the first place, regardless of their rank.

Upon returning home after the meeting he has a talk with Lutz regarding the impending nullification of their old magic contracts. Benno had noticed that despite the flawless smile on Rozemyne's face, her hands in her lap were shacking and he worries about her mental state with yet another connection to her old life cut off.

The exchange also reminds Benno of the time when his fiancé Liz was afflicted by the Devouring and eventually succumbed to it. Her screams of agony during attacks will never leave him.


 * His Japanese voice actor, Takehito Koyasu, voices Dio Brando from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.
 * Benno's dream was to become a world-influential merchant.