Shikikoza

Shikikoza (シキコーザ Shikikooza) was a mednoble, assigned to protect Myne with Damuel during the trombe extermination.

Due to his mana capacity being far lower than that of even weak mednobles, he has an inferiority complex and likes to take his frustration out on those of lower rank than himself. Furthermore his mother Gloria also greatly disrespects commoners, making his abuse of them even worse.

When Myne, one of the hated commoners, has a much bigger mana capacity and is granted blue robes thus in his mind lowering his former position as a blue priest even more, it plays directly into his complexes, instilling a deep hatred for her in him.

Shikikoza was born into a mednoble family, but had a far too low mana capacity to be accepted into the regular family. His father gave his mother three choices: Marry him off to a laynoble family, make him a family servant or send him to the temple. Since Gloria was aquainted with the High Priest she decided on sending him to the temple, where her contacts secured her son some advantages over most other blue priests.

When the civil war led to a mana shortage, Gloria managed to convince her husband to take Shikikoza back into the family and subsequently he was sent to the Royal Academy, after which he joined the Knight's Order.

During a standard trombe extermination mission Shikikoza and the layknight Damuel are assigned to guard the Blue Shrine Maiden and keep her safe, so she can perform the healing ritual once the feyplant is destroyed. The High Priest gives specific instructions that not a single hair on the girl shall come to harm.

While the High Priest and other Knights are fighting the trombe, Shikikoza uses his position to bully both Myne and Damuel. He pulls on Myne's hair and kicks her in the stomach, before transforming his magical wand into a knife and threatening to gauge out her eyes.

When the girl in fear and desperation reaches out toward the Head Priest, he ends up cutting her hand. Where the blood falls on the bare earth, new trombe sprouts come out of the ground and quickly entanble Myne. Damuel immediately begins to apply the God of Darknesses blessing to his own weapon to try to free the girl, but without success. Shikikoza retreats to a save distance and tries to apply a blessing to his weapon himself, but takes even longer than Damuel.

Eventually the High Priest and the other knights defeat the trombe that have grown around Myne and Damuel gets rid of the last few vines binding her. Shikikoza took so long to apply the darkness blessing to his knife, that by the time he finished, the other knights had already defeated the feyplants.

When the Commander and the High Priest question him, he just states that he has no need to defend himself, since the shrine maiden is a mere commoner.

Ferdinand reminds Shikikoza that the commander has ordered him to guard Myne and that the Head Priest himself gave the explicit order that not a single hair on her can be harmed. Furthermore Myne's elevation to a blue shrine maiden was approved by the archduke himself and thus calling here a mere commoner is tantamount to speaking out against Lord Ehrenfest himself. Disobeying the orders of archnobles as a mere mednoble and speaking out against the archduke in such a blatant fashion are all severe crimes.

Under normal circumstances Shikikoza would have been publicly executed and even his family was in danger of being killed alongside him, but since Sylvester felt it served his plans for the girl better to keep this incident out of public knowledge, he offered Shikikoza's father a deal. If he and his wife signed a magic contract that they would never interact with Myne again, he would let them get off with a stiff fine and their son would be executed behind closed doors and officially reported as having died honorably in the line of duty. Viscount Dahldolf agreed to the generous offer and ordered his wife to do the same.


 * The Japanese version of his name is "Shikikōza", which spelled backwards means "Small-Fry Knight" (雑魚騎士, zako kishi). The English translator was going to change to a different name in English with a similar meaning for localization, but the author requested a name that sounds similar to the original because of the anime.