Recuria Lofilardo

* Story
* Manga
* Anime

Head Priestess **Recuria Lofilardo** (レクリア・ローフィラルド *Rekuria Rōfirarudo*) is a powerful hieromancer of the Geldwood Church based in the Kingdom of Nyanild. She ultimately places her loyalty in Shagrua Lugrid over Geldwood when Shagrua defects, consequently earning the ire of Geldwood's upper echelon.

## Appearance

Recuria is a young woman with pinned-back light-hued hair and a long lock that frames the left side of her face. She wears the religious robes of a Geldwood priestess.

## Personality

Despite Recuria's magical mastery and respected status within the Church, Recuria appears to be comfortable in a 'supporting role' before the vanquishing of Corpse God, during which she serves faithfully as Shagrua Lugrid's reliable right hand both on and off the battlefield. However, following Shagrua's exile, Recuria appears to become a 'different person;' instead, her cleverness, courage, and determination shine as she demonstrates her leadership capacity, rallying allies while knowing she risks Geldwood's wrath.

Her care for her comrades, skill, and grit is exemplified during her combat with Lord Domdaal, in which she protects her fallen allies with a force field as the last person standing while concurrently managing to put up an offensive front. Proving ferocious in the face of Geldwood's injustices, Recuria has become a formidable, proactive leader whom many in Geldwood's upper echelons fear as a legitimate threat.

## Chronology

### Background

In years before the Corpse God encounter. Recuria serves the Geldwood Church as a faithful, powerful hieromancer whose mastery of select holy arts will earn her a position as a Head Priestess within the institution. Her skill is such that she frequently accompanies Sir Shagrua Lugrid—a renowned knight belonging to one of the Church's main subjugation units—on his more dangerous missions, for she provides him invaluable assistance on the battlefield. These experiences not only witness Recuria dabbling in a fresh magical territory outside of Geldwood's arts, but also allow Recuria and Shagrua to grow close enough for mutual romantic interest to spark, though neither acts on this interest.

During these years, the Corpse God—a peerless necromancer actively hostile to Geldwood—continues to amass power in his ever-expanding labyrinth of the Undead.

### The Corpse God Encounter

The Corpse God's vendetta against the Church, necromancer status, and dark power render Corpse God a potential world-ending disaster in the eyes of Geldwood, so the Church plots a massive operation to vanquish the Corpse God once and for all. When the day of execution arrives, Recuria and Shagrua are among the obvious participants on account of their power; however, if Shagura does join the initial invasion, he is not present when the subjugation units first reach the Corpse God deep within the labyrinth.

These units attack Corpse God as best they can without Shagrua while Recuria and her priestess support them via spells, healing, and weapon fortifications. Although their strategy is initially defensive, it becomes increasingly, desperately offensive since the units only manage to incur damage without inflicting it in kind on Corpse God. In this manner, the units manage to hold out until Shagrua arrives to challenge Corpse God personally; when he does, Recuria assures the two priests beside her, one of whom maintains a support spell, that Shagrua will succeed.

Toward the end of Shagrua and Corpse God's battle, after Corpse God's true form has been exposed, Corpse God unleashes an array of spells with strange patterns via a massive amount of magic. Shagrua immediately charges forward to thwart the unfamiliar spell, and Recuria promptly steps forward to assist him magically. A blinding flash of light engulfs the cavern; when it clears, the Corpse God is nowhere to be seen.

In the aftermath, while the injured are being treated, Recuria and her priestesses receive word from the Church's observation unit via a remote speech spell that all traces of the Corpse God's soul have vanished from their world. Recuria seeks out Shagrua to find him somberly contemplating the shattered, splattered remains of Corpse God's true form and, upon approaching him, asks what the matter is. Shagrua admits he fears he did not complete his task, explaining that the spell felt like teleportation when it activated—and, though he saw Corpse God's soul vanish with his Evil Eye, the disappearance felt too abrupt. Recuria informs him of the news the Church's observation unit relays and insists that Shagrua saved the world.

Shagrua remains unconvinced. Recuria joins him in searching the Corpse God's library-*cum*-laboratory and has a firsthand seat to Shagrua's doubt concomitantly deepening, which makes little sense to her since, from her perspective, the majority of Corpse God's books are blank. Upon Recuria and Shagrua's return to a Geldwood cathedral in the Kingdom of Nyanild, Shagrua holes himself inside the cathedral library for the next several days. Worried over how little rest he seeks during this time, Recuria eventually enters the library to inquire into his activities directly. Shagrua admits that he has been struggling to find information while investigating the Corpse God and asks if she knows what country the 'disaster' hailed from.

Recuria dutifully recounts what she knows: that Corpse God was the second-highest-ranked necromancer and the fourth-most-capable sorcerer for an empire that fell a century prior, an empire Shagrua immediately deduces must be the one from the Abandoned (formerly Byandy) Peninsula. When Recuria jokes that his dark circles and pallor give him the look of someone possessed, Shagrua pauses; then, he decides, "Let's make that the story:" a story in which Shagrua has died, the Corpse God having switched their souls at the moment before Shagrua's blade struck. A story in which the Church was unaware that they welcomed back the Corpse God, who possessed and still possesses Shagrua's body.

Chilled, Recuria protests that such soul-switching is impossible. Shagrua replies that Corpse God 'must have' discovered a way, only to relent and tell her the truth: the Corpse God had a journal in which—using ink only those with the Evil Eye can see—he wrote numerous essays exposing the corruption of the Geldwood Church; in reading that journal, and in spending the past several days conducting research to verify the essays' truth and locating hidden vaults, Shagrua can no longer devote himself to the Geldwood faith.

Shagrua casts a sleeping spell on Recuria. At the same time, she fights it; he requests that she act unaware of the institution's underbelly and that she impart the story he has fabricated so that she will not be branded a traitor alongside him. He catches her when she faints, seats her in a chair, and then leaves the Kingdom of Nyanild for good, thrashing a number of the Church's highest-ranking leaders and taking with him several pieces of evidence for good measure.

When Recuria wakes, she commits to the story as requested: Shagrua's corpse, she says, is possessed by the Corpse God. Nevertheless, as news of Shagrua's defection spreads throughout the Church—but not to Nyanild's populace—so too do rumors that speculate on what *really* happened. There is a wild fiction for every truthful rumor (e.g., of the officials' thrashing), but all ultimately lead to the same conclusion: Shagrua must be vanquished. For all that, most priest soldiers and clergymen consider Shagrua a hero, and the most pious followers and manipulative higher-ups successfully rebrand Shagrua as 'Calamity' from 'Calamity Crusher.'

Meanwhile, ever since the moment she awoke post-faint, Recuria acts as Shagrua's successor and a worthy leader in her own right. Seeking out like-minded comrades and 'bewildered' clergymen, she gathers allies and rallies them under a metaphorical banner different from Geldwood's own. Her winning over the hearts of the people does not escape the notice of the Church's upper echelons nor those echelons' resentment, and soon enough, said echelons order Recuria to investigate the borderlands between Nyanild and Byandy Peninsula and root out Shagrua "in pursuit of bringing [him] to justice."

Though Recuria suspects this mission is a trap, she selects approximately ten trustworthy allies to accompany her to the borderlands. In an abandoned village, one hundred soldiers ambush Recuria's group and their leader Lord Domdaal, a Nyanild aristocrat and Geldwood enforcer. With no opportunity to properly counteract, Recuria's subordinates are swiftly wounded and fall one by one until only Recuria remains; Recuria erects a force field with holy runes to protect her allies while she kneels in front of Lord Domdaal and defiantly demands to know about whose authority Domdaal is acting.

Domdaal instead focuses on the 'why' of the ambush: although Recuria's recent efforts have won Recuria additional achievements, the Church's upper echelons cannot have someone who distrusts them—and who was 'too close' to Shagrua—wielding as much influence as she does. He complains that Recuria ought to have remained a 'weapon' just like Shagrua was pre-enlightenment: a weapon that does not question, who lacks both the knowledge and chivalrous spirit that Recuria has since acquired.

Recuria objects to Domdaal dismissing Shagrua as a 'weapon', but Domdaal's amendment that Shagrua is a monstrous 'divine enemy' serves to incense her further—both for Domdaal daring to claim to speak the words of God and for the accusation. Though at her limit, she manages to stand by magically fortifying her legs; she uses that boost of physical strength to launch herself at Domdaal, pouring all her remaining magic into the tip of the stick that she plunges into the exposed skin of his neck.

The ensuing blast blows away Domdaal's helmet and propels Domdaal into several of his soldiers, who are subsequently pinned between him and the wall of an abandoned house. Again, Recuria collapses to her knees—but she immediately readies what remnants of magic she possesses to knock the remaining army unconscious like Domdaal, hopefully. Domdaal, to her dismay, stands, tosses aside the unconscious soldiers, and retrieves his giant battle-axe. As he approaches Recuria, he declares he will tell everyone the Corpse God-as-Shagrua killed her while she was pursuing him.

Domdaal swings the axe. Recuria holds her hand over her heart in a bid to convert her life force into a final magical attack, but in the next second, a muddy stream of water gushes from the sky to sweep through the abandoned village, carrying away houses from their foundations and Domdaal's hundred soldiers off the mountain and into the valley below. Recuria's force field holds, protecting Recuria's allies. Recuria, her allies, and Domdaal are the only ones left in the village.

Or so they think. A disembodied voice demands that Domdaal refrains from disparaging the voice's friend Corpse God, then explains to Recuria that it was planning on staying out of the fight until it heard Domdaal slander its good friend's name. Furthermore, the voice says it has business with Recuria, whom it has been looking for. As the voice compliments her abilities and credits her with victory, Domdaal swings his axe and howls for the speaker to show itself.

The speaker appears behind him: a beautiful androgynous human boy with facial tattoos, though Recuria can tell at a glance via his aura that he has deviated from ordinary humans. The 'youth' calls for Domdaal to die as he steps away toward Recuria, and so Domdaal does: a black pit manifests mid-air. It causes Domdaal's organs to shoot out of Domdaal's body, killing the Lord instantly.

Recuria remains on guard as the boy approaches her. Still, he says not to worry since 'Pani' told him not to "mess up any innocent third parties"—though he supposes any soldiers who survived the fall into the valley might find themselves eaten by "Radiall's pet" regardless. Cautiously, Recuria introduces herself with her full name and asks for the boy's own. The boy introduces himself as Shula Zoozolozo Cramplamp Lampton, an ally of Pani, the alchemist sent to be Recuria's 'special envoy'—but he adds he is probably better known as Utsurojuza, the former third-ranking Imperial Court Sorcerer of Byandy Empire.

## Abilities

Recuria is a master of Geldwood's holy arts branch covering physical healing, fortifying weapons, and revitalization. Although her power befits the status of Head Priestess, her mastery of technique and skill makes her top of the class within the Church. She has moreover dabbled in the fresh magical territory, such as tactics for tackling 'divine enemies' through her experience accompanying Shagrua's dangerous missions.

About conceptualizing the amount of power Recuria possesses and her handle over her magic, it may be noted that Shagrua's immediate reaction to realizing Romelka Rimelka 'is' an entire forest is to conclude Romelka's "handle on magic must be on par" with Recuria's own.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 *Dead Mount Death Play* (Manga): Volume 4, Episode 4.
2. ↑ *Dead Mount Death Play* (Manga): Volume 1, Chapter 1.
3. ↑ *Dead Mount Death Play* (Manga): Volume 1, Library bonus comic.
4. ↑ *Dead Mount Death Play* (Manga): Volume 1, Episode 1.
5. ↑ *Dead Mount Death Play* (Manga): Volume 2, Episode 2.