Darkness

**Dustiness Ford Lalatina** (ダスティネス・フォード・ララティーナ), usually known as **Darkness** (ダクネス), is one of the three main female protagonists of the *KonoSuba* series. She is a crusader with masochistic tendencies who joins Kazuma's party.

## Appearance

Darkness is a 5'6" tall young woman with graceful features and alabaster skin. She is well-endowed and also has light blue eyes and straight, long blonde hair, usually kept in a ponytail tied with a braid and red hair clips secured on both sides of her bangs. According to Kazuma, she is "drop-dead gorgeous".

She is usually seen using a yellow and black sleeveless dress with silver trimmings, black chainmail, and a silver armor composed of metal greaves, sabatons, tasset, shoulder plate on her left side, wing-like cloth perched upon her right shoulder and a cuirass with a red bow.

## Personality

As a crusader, Darkness initially presents herself with an aura of pride and nobility, preaching about her duty to shield others from harm. She speaks in a very serious tone of voice and often comes off as very mature.

However, her true character is that of a masochistic pervert. While she does want to protect others, her masochistic urges are what ultimately drive her to commit many of her “heroic” acts. Masochism is far from her only deviant sexual inclination; she also demonstrates submission (a running gag being her responding to Kazuma’s sharp insults by reeling back in pleasure), wet and messy fetishism, and exhibitionism. Throughout the story, she becomes progressively more open about her true intentions, to the point where she blatantly reveals her reason for becoming a crusader was in hopes of being sexually tortured by the Devil King, and that her ideal husband is an abusive alcoholic who would force her to sell her body for money.

But while she enjoys abuse, there are a few instances where Darkness can become genuinely uncomfortable. Despite her strength and stamina, Darkness’s swordplay is utterly incompetent and she often misses targets directly in front of her, causing her to be embarrassed. One of the only types of humiliation Darkness is not okay with is being made fun of by her real name: Lalatina. Darkness becomes very uncomfortable when Kazuma sexually prepositions her, though she ultimately consents to the encounter.

Though her masochism is her most prominent trait, Darkness is a very kind and caring individual and can often be seen as the most courageous member of the party, never hesitating to put herself in harm’s way (though most of the time, she has ulterior motives). Being a devout Eris cultist, she has a strong distaste for demons and has pledged herself to protect those around her. Additionally, while she is more than willing to put herself in harm's way to satisfy her urges, she refuses to allow others to be harmed, as seen when she showed genuine anger at Beldia after he killed several adventurers, and when she rebuked Kazuma for verbally abusing Aqua.

Due in part to her consistently poor swordsmanship, Darkness shows extreme, almost childlike excitement when met with opponents she's able to hit.

## History

*For Darkness' history, see her History tab.*

## Abilities

Like Megumin, Darkness suffers from being too specialized. As a Crusader, the class with the highest defense stats, Darkness has a incredibly high resistance, being able to serve as her party's tank and *"meat shield"* well enough, however she has no offensive abilities. She also learned many skills focused in defense and resistance.

**Stats:** Darkness has high **Strength**, being able to fight against several guards without being stopped, easily breaking Beldia's armor when he was almost defeated, and protect Kazuma from being smashed by the Kowloon Hydra. Darkness also has high **HP**, Darkness has a large reservoir of vitality needed to fight on the front lines for an extended period. Her HP is so vast that even while Kazuma used Drain Touch, a technique that typically stuns or even incapacitates targets, on her for an extended period she was still strong enough to easily overpower him.

**Physical Resistance**: Resistance again physical damage. Darkness can withstand melee attacks, functioning as the traditional "meat shield" role for the most part. Where this is exacerbated, however, is in how durable she truly is, able to withstand attacks from high-level creatures such as the Hydra and a Zombie Dragon. This skill also affects both weapons and clothes.

**Magic Resistance**: Prevent magic from taking effect. Because of this ability, Darkness was able to survive even Megumin's Explosion Magic. This skill also affects both weapons and clothes.

**Debuff Resistance (All Types)**: Darkness got all separate skills for all the different status ailments.

**Decoy**: Attracts the attention of monsters.

**Side Slash**: A full powered horizontal slice.

## Weakness

**Low Accuracy**: Although Darkness has high physical stats, she is very clumsy, being unable to hit even sitting targets, unless it happens by accident. Because her high strength would allow her defeat any enemy in a single hit, she refused to learn any skill that could improve her Accuracy, like the **Two-Handed Sword** skill, duo to her masochism. It is a recurring gag that she cannot hit anything.

## Equipment

 **Adamantite Armor**: After defeating Vanir, Darkness also started to use armor made with a bit of adamantite, the strongest metal existing in that world.

**Pitch-Black Full Body Armor**: In the final fight against the Devil King, Darkness used a armor full of magical power for the Crusader Class only, brought by Kazuma. However it was a cursed armor that drives the user berserk during fights, although it can be easily removed at will.

**Slavery Collar**: A sacred treasure Darkness obtained by underhanded means, it forces the user to obey their master orders, forcing the user to do something painful for them (but not actual pain) as punishment for their disobedience (in Darkness' case, acting and talking in a cute way). As a sacred treasure, it can't be removed using Steal or similar skills.

## Trivia

* Darkness' birthday is on April 6th.
* In the Web Novel, Darkness says she can't hit any target due to her low Dexterity stat.
* It is even speculated by Kazuma that she may possess the toughest body in the kingdom.
* Darkness likes to secretly try on Megumin's outfits.
* Technically, Darkness is divorced from Alderp.

## References

1. ↑ KonoSuba Light Novel Volume 1, Chapter 2
2. ↑ KonoSuba Light Novel Volume 1, Chapter 1
3. ↑ KonoSuba Light Novel Volume 3, Chapter 3
4. ↑ Television Anime Season 1, Episode 9
5. ↑ KonoSuba Light Novel Anthology "Detour" Volume 3, Story 2
6. ↑ Light Novel Volume 6, Chapter 1
7. ↑ KonoSuba Light Novel Volume 7, Chapter 1
8. ↑ KonoSuba Light Novel Volume 7, Epilogue 1