Kuger Clan

The Kuger Clan was the family in charge of the foster care facility Guardian.

As one of the five privileged clans of Ceres, and the one with the longest pedigree, they were allowed to have a surname and continue their lineage, passing the control of Guardian down from generation to generation. The current head of the clan, and watcher of Guardian is Judd Kuger (ジァド・クーガ , Jado Kūga) and the heir is his son, Manon Sol Kuger ( マノン・ソール・クーガ, Manon Sōru Kūga).

They saw it as their duty to protect the precious female assets of Ceres, and raise their children, but despite being public servants of a public company, the Kuger clan never showed their faces outside of Guardian.

There were strict rules for the members of the clan with regards to their behaviour and etiquette. Especially when it came to women who were the scarce and precious resource, the men had to behave in a dignified manner. There were to be no unsanctioned trysts, everything had to be done by the book.

> *The men of this family must follow the letter of the law and deport themselves as gentlemen.*
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## **Judd Kuger**

Tall middle-aged man with a moustache, Judd Kuger was the most powerful man in Ceres, and a loyal servant of Tanagura. He is the current Chairman of Guardian, a position he had taken up as a young man. Him and his family have been the public servants overseeing Guardian for generations, which lead to a sense of entitlement and stagnation in the family.

Judd’s personal aspiration was to make Guardian into an old money asset, but he knew the likelihood of that happening was minimal.

> *I guess when you spend your whole life soaking in a warm bathtub, the tongue gets loose and the spine goes soggy after a while.*
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## **Manon Sol Kuger**

Manon Sol was a 20 year old, with slender frame and chiseled features typical of his lineage. He had never stepped foot outside of Guardian, and he radiated the pallid cleanliness of someone who has never been to the slums.

At some point, Manon was heralded as one of the brightest minds Guardian had ever birthed, but it turned out that the breadth of his knowledge lacked any depth. Manon had few opportunities to apply his book-learning in the real world and as a result, he lacked wisdom necessary to live up to the tasks expected of him. Instead, raised in the gilded bird cage, the only things that developed were his pride and arrogance. As someone who was used to getting anything he wanted, he was prone to tantrums whenever he didn’t get his way.

Even as an adult, Manon enjoyed spending his free time playing video games in Guardian’s recreation rooms.

> *You are merely Judd Kuger's son. In this world, that is all you are.*
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## The Kuger's and Katze

When Katze, who himself was sold as furniture, inherited the job of the commercial representative for Tanagura, the shock to the Kuger clan was immeasurable. Back when Katze was still one of their charges, a young prodigious talent, Judd had real hopes that some exceptions could be made to keep him in Guardian. Perhaps even use him to keep the intellectual inbreeding at bay. But when he was instead chosen to be installed as furniture in Eos, the man grieved from the bottom of his heart at the loss of such talent.

So seeing Katze now, in front of him, after everything he’d been through, as the representative of Tanagura itself, Judd couldn’t help but feel amazement and admiration and rejoice at Katze’s success as if it were his own.

On the flipside, when Manon found out Katze used to be furniture, despite not really even knowing what that meant, he couldn’t get over the indignation that elicited in him. That a man who was brought up in Guardian and then sold as a slave to Tanagura, now looked down on them, wielding power he couldn’t even comprehend, sickened him. It was inconceivable to him that the patriarch of the Kuger clan should bow and scrape to one such as him. This attitude was the product of his ignorant pride which imagined that any visitor to Guardian should shrink before the greatness of the Kuger name.

> *I'm up shit creek if what passes for common sense in Guardian starts making sense elsewhere.*
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Unlike Manon, Judd understood the ways of the world and who truly held power in their transactions. But he failed to impart this wisdom on his heir, which caused great trouble for him. In the attempt to get his son to understand more about the job they were doing, Judd had him sit in on a meeting with Katze in which Manon embarrassed them both and endangered the future of the clan as Guardian’s watchers.

## Manon and Kirie

Kirie and Manon used to be block mates in Guardian for 3 years, but the 3 year age difference and the fact that Manon was the boss’ son and had his own group of friends meant that they didn’t cross paths. When Kirie started visiting Guardian under the guise of a kind benefactor, Manon didn’t even remember him. Undeterred, Kirie kept coming back and slowly but surely got under Manon’s skin, until eventually they started sleeping together. Kirie used his sexual wiles on Manon in order to obtain privileges and information about Guardian. He also knew how to play into the heir's overinflated sense of pride.

Due to Manon’s shielded upbringing and lack of street smarts, he was an easy target for Kirie. To the experienced manipulator such as him, it was easy to figure out what does and doesn’t work on Manon. Manon seemed to have some sexual experience already, but nothing compared to what Kirie had to offer, and within just two months of meeting each other, Kirie had him wrapped around his finger. Manon wasn’t entirely oblivious to this dynamic, but even knowing that, he couldn’t bring himself to stop the arrangement. This led him to say and do things he normally would never dream of doing.

## Spoilers

The following section contains spoilers for volumes 4 and 5!

Kirie managed to get Manon, who was ignorant of the back-door business his own family was involved with, to take him to the restricted areas of Guardian. This move wasn’t entirely selfless as Manon, still seething with hatred and rage over the way Katze had treated him (as well as Kirie’s profound interest in him), wanted to find a way to one-up him. Once he found out from Kirie that Katze was also a black market broker, he hoped that knowing Guardian’s secrets would give him an advantage. Manon knew of the sub-level basements of Guardian, but he never thought much of them until Kirie connected them to Katze. He used his position as Judd Kuger’s son and heir to gain access to these secret labs. Overwhelmed by what he saw there, Manon lost his mind on the spot.
In the aftermath, it was up to Judd Kuger to try to salvage the situation, but it was evident to everyone that this was no mistake, rather the result of years of mismanagement. Judd offered his apologies, but it left Tanagura wondering if it wasn’t time for a change in Guardian’s leadership.