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 Main and Lutz under his wing to help them become merchants themselves. Myne considers him to be 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.

Appearance
He has medium length, light colored hair.

History
Benno took over the operation of the Gilberta Company 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 lehanges declining to renew their contracts. Among those that remained, Mark, assisted Benno in rebuilding the company, becoming his trusted right hand man.

He highly dislikes Gustaf due to his attempts to: marry his mother shortly after she became a widow, marry his daughter to Benno shortly after Liz's death, and marry his son to either of Benno's two younger sister, leading one of them to flee to another city. Benno interpreted the guildmaster's actions as insensitive and attempts to take over the company.

Personality
Benno seems cold and menacing at first glance. However, he shows concern for things he cares about, such as Main's health, giving her 3 small gold coins for information on the simple shampoo, which is enough to buy a magic tool used to restrain the Devouring.

Story
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 while acting as a guardian/cosigner for Main. After attending a pound cake testing event hosted by Freida, Benno felt the need to compete and decides to open an Italian restaurant with the help of Main. Main feels he's stretching himself thin by going into various business outside of his expertise despite being the main(oof) cause of his headaches. His workload is further compounded when the archduke of Ehrenfest announces his plan to make plant paper production a government backed business.

Trivia

 * His Japanese voice actor, Takehito Koyasu, voices Dio Brando from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.