Aetheus de Reye Opuram

“*How can I trust you?*”
—Aetheus de Reye Opuram

**Aetheus de Reye Opuram**, also known as **Ash Ray**, is one of the main protagonists of Opuram Militia. He was a formidable politician and heir to the throne of the Opuram Empire. After being framed for treason by Serliana, he attempts to fake his death, but instead actually dies, assassinated by a mysterious maid. He is brought back to life by an even more mysterious entity and is forced to take on a new identity as a regular commoner.

## Biography

Because Aetheus was the firstborn of Emperor Eleniscus, he was declared Crown Prince and taught how to rule, growing up as a much blessed and beloved child. Accordingly, he grew up privileged and sheltered for the most part; protected from the harsh realities of the world all his life. Though he is usually very good at saying the right things to the right people, when it comes to interacting with commoners, he often comes off as condescending and callous without meaning to.Aetheus, however, was not the son of the Empress, but rather a low-ranking consort, so, after conceiving a son, the Empress requested that Emperor Eleniscus transfer the status of the Crown Prince to her own son, Fabio. The Emperor refused, preferring to uphold traditions instead succumbing to status and political pressures. The Empress, coveting the position of Empress Dowager (the mother of the Emperor and the only person who can outrank the Emperor in social status), plotted to depose the Crown Prince. However, after being caught by the Emperor and punished, the Empress’s rage extended to her husband as well. Due to the untimely death of the emperor, Serliana used this opportunity to frame Aetheus. The Empress then took over the government, installing her own son as a puppet Emperor and becoming the Empress Dowager. Aetheus is soon to be executed for treason, so to save himself, he gives up his identity as royalty, fakes his death but unexpectedly ends up at Hot Topic.

## Appearance

   Originally, Aetheus had long silver hair that he usually wore in a tight bun and blood-red eyes, both of which are dominant traits of the imperial family. Tall and slender, Aetheus was known for being a rare and elegant beauty, charming both men and women alike. However, due to him constantly skipping combat lessons as a child, his physique is rather weak. Following his father’s assassination, Aetheus cut his hair and underwent a complicated spell to mask his identity. Now, those who look at him will get a vague impression that he is good-looking, but later will find themselves unable to clearly remember his face beyond his hair and eye color (both now black).

## Personality

As the Crown Prince, Aetheus was a kind and charismatic leader to the public and a competent politician to the nation’s nobility. Charming, manipulative, and shrewd, Aetheus could navigate the rocky political terrain of his nation with ease, strengthening his relationship with powerful allies and viciously cutting down his political opponents whenever he saw an opportunity to do so. Behind closed doors, however, he was known to have engaged frequently in shameless affairs and scandals. His flirtatious nature along with his disregard for race and social status in his private life resulted in a sizable harem, filled with noble and commoner concubines of all genders and races. Though, after repeated warnings from his father, Aetheus agreed to refrain from making any in his harem an official consort, for fear of political backlash and/or discord within the harem.

Despite being adept at charming both political and romantic partners to his side, Aetheus’s tendency to prioritize people based on their perceived value to himself and the Opuram Empire made it difficult for him to form real bonds with those around him. Self-absorbed and naive prior to his father’s assasination, Aetheus was shocked when those he believed to be friends quickly abandoned him during his darkest times. These betrayals caused him to close off his heart, and Aetheus now maintains a careful guard between him and his remaining allies, paranoid that he could be deserted at any point. However, Aetheus revered his father. Upon learning of his death, he not only blamed the murderer, Serliana, but also himself for not being able to stop the assassination from happening. Furthermore, even as a commoner with supposedly no connection to the previous emperor, Ash still feels duty-bound to defend his father whenever anyone speaks ill of him, unable to tolerate any criticism towards the previous Emperor whatsoever.

As a rookie in the Opuram military, the newly christened Ash Ray keeps an amiable and charming facade while continually suppressing his inner desires for trust and friendship, instead focusing his efforts on recruiting potential allies to help him plot his revenge against those who wronged him. He gets along extremely well with those of noble origin, but struggles to appeal to commoners, as his naive and sheltered attitude prevents him from fully understanding many of their situations. This slowly begins to change as he meets the other members of his squad and journeys with them on various missions throughout the empire that gradually open his eyes to the rest of the world.

## Relationships

Aetheus seeks to take back the throne, which was rightfully his, and avenge his father's untimely death. He would also like to rebuild his harem.

### Len (Concubine)

Aetheus’s oldest concubine, Len is fiercely loyal to the fallen prince and remained by his side even after he lost his royal status. Prior to his father’s death, Aetheus loved Len deeply and had, at one point, even considered making him a consort (before he realized the major political consequences this would have had). Before leaving the military, Aetheus sent Len to serve Fabio and Serliana as a spy.

### Eleniscus de Reye Opuram (Late Emperor, Father)

As a child, Aetheus practically worshipped his father as a sort of god-hero, believing the Emperor to be the ultimate authority to walk the earth, superior to all the immaterial gods that those of other nations believed in. Though his expectations dimmed somewhat as he grew older (and wiser to the ways of politicians and PR experts), Aetheus never stopped seeing his father as a flawless role model and was absolutely heartbroken when he received news of his death.

## Skill and Abilities

* **Politician** - Despite his youth, Aetheus proved himself as a formidable political opponent to allies and foes alike following his introduction to society at the age of fifteen. He has been trained since childhood to evaluate people based on their usefulness to himself and the Empire and use them for his own political purposes. He is skilled at persuading and deceiving others in order to manipulate the situation to his advantage. As such, he has few real relationships left when he loses his royal status and becomes a commoner.
	+ **Diplomatic SmileTM** - Due to his upbringing, Aetheus is capable of forcing a smile at any time, regardless of personal injury or emotional distress he may be experiencing.
	+ **Silver Tongue** - Aetheus prefers to talk his way out of sticky situations, and has often done so when he caused problems and angered his father as a child. Recently, he has found this ability rather handy as well.
	+ **Shady Bitch** - During his time as Crown Prince, Aetheus was unrelenting in the pursuit of his political goals. To achieve such things, he often partook in less-than-legal activity, so long as it was something that didn't conflict with Aetheus' own morals and would still benefit his father in the end.
* **Patriotic Nerd** - His extreme loyalty to the Opuram Empire has given Aetheus an almost encyclopedic knowledge of useless trivia about the Empire.
* **Hedonist** - Aetheus has a high level of expertise in all subjects related to sexual intercourse. This skill is officially supposed to be a secret, but it is very badly kept.
	+ **Stress-Relief Seduction** - This is self-explanatory, but also not. The author, however, will not be going into more detail.
	+ **Shameless** - Very little can make Aetheus feel shame. While Crown Prince, he only really kept up decorum for the sake of his family, and the endless rumors about him only fueled his own imagination with more shameless things to do. Now, as a commoner, Ash is liberated in a way that may be somewhat offensive to the delicate sensibilities of the society he lives in.
* **Divorcee** - Aetheus achieved the status of divorcee at age 19.
* **Lyre** - Aetheus can play the lyre.
* **Half-Drowned Poet** - Aetheus can ad-lib terrible poetry on the fly,

## Trivia

* Flirting with people and engaging in sexual intercourse is Aetheus’ main form of stress relief. While he was the crown prince, Aetheus would always find comfort in his harem whenever something particularly distressing occurred to him. (NOTE: Although Aetheus was technically the master of his harem and therefore legally allowed to do whatever he wanted with his concubines, the importance of consent was drilled into him from a young age by someone very close to him. Aetheus has never engaged in non-consensual sexual intercourse.)
	+ Due to his strict and rather repressed upbringing as the crown prince, Aetheus prefers to completely disregard all social restraints in his private life, valuing beauty above all else when inviting others to join his harem.
	+ For this reason, members of his harem would often speak to Aetheus informally and call him by his given name in private.
		- As his oldest and most talented concubine, Len also had permission to do so as well, but never quite got used to it due to the way he views Aetheus as an unquestionable savior.
		- After he was abandoned, Aetheus grew insecure and began to demand the use of his proper title once more.
* Aetheus came up with his fake identity and decided to join the military while he was staying at the motel near the Hot Topic he ended up at (since, understandably, he was not really able to sleep that night).
* Although Aetheus usually speaks with a formal register, he is familiar with the speech patterns of commoners because of Len and other commoner concubines in his harem. He has developed a habit of suddenly using crude language when he is agitated.
* While he was still the crown prince, Aetheus would usually wear clothes in the style of Eastern royalty (Tang dynasty) as is expected of members of the Imperial Family in the Opuram Empire. There were, however, some exceptions to this rule.
	+ Inside the private quarters of his own home, Aetheus would wear whatever he liked, which could range from Western commoner clothing or the elaborate *hanfu* usually worn by the capital’s most decorated prostitutes. (Some eunuchs even claim to have once spotted him wearing the robes of his own concubines; however, such rumors were never verified.)
	+ When he was younger, he would also dress in commoner’s clothing to sneak out of his palace and roam the city incognito. After being discovered and punished by his father in his early teens, Aetheus never dared to do so again; however, he still kept the clothes to wear during his leisure time.

* Power, family, and pleasure: Aetheus lives and breathes for the Opuram Empire, his parents, and beautiful people—in that order.