Ryan Dylard

### Occupations

Politician-in-training, leading a campaign to eradicate Demons, head proctor of the 134th Kaipa Promised Land Entrance Exam

### Status

Alive

**Ryan Dylard** is the son of Kaipa's president and the head proctor of the 134th Kaipa Promised Land Entrance Exam. He is also an activist for solving the Demon problem that plagues the United Nations.

## Appearance

Ryan is six feet, two inches tall and weighs around 210 pounds. He is noted to have a healthy build. He has red hair and dark brown eyes. His skin is extremely pale and almost fully white. He usually wears a business suit, an undershirt, a tie and dress shoes whenever he appears in public. He has three different sets of colors for his clothing. When wearing a white-colored suit, he wears a black undershirt, purple tie and purple dress shoes. When wearing a purple-colored suit, he wears a white undershirt, black tie and black dress shoes. When wearing a black-colored suit, he wears a purple undershirt, white tie and white dress shoes. He is wearing his purple suit and corresponding attire when proctoring the 134th Kaipa Promised Land Entrance Exam. Outside of public appearances, it is not known what Ryan typically wears.

## Personality

Being raised under a President of Kaipa, Ryan is a highly political and semi-sophisticated individual. Although he acts casually during certain times, such as informally sitting, Ryan has a preference for luxury. He has a taste for fancy foods and heavily prefers eating in artistic environments. Ryan mostly shows his unprofessional behavior when around his close group of friends, going so far as to kiss them on the lips to show his affection. However, Ryan always asks if they are okay with him doing so beforehand, and he does not expect for any of his affection to be returned. He also shows a deep care for one member of his family, his younger brother, enough to prioritize supporting his brother over his governmental duties.

When partaking in politics, Ryan acts professional and always pays attention on how best to manipulate his audiences into accepting his views. He is also very blunt with his politics, deciding not to sugarcoat anything he considers of utmost importance. Ryan's main concern with the world are the Demons invading it. A majority of his actions are devoted towards emphasizing the threats that the Demons pose, whether it be through his own speeches or the speeches of other people. He knows the fear this instills in people and is fine with manipulating people's fear for his own military agenda. He also shows more interest in this threat than in his other duties, such as managing Kaipa's entrance exam for the Promised Land. During the exam, he and his friend's main plan for enduring the job was to try and discover if any of the examinees or staff were Demons. This puts him into conflict with other people who try to downplay this threat, such as his father. Interestingly, he believes that anyone who fears the threat of Demons is unworthy of entering the Promised Land.

Even without his other ambitions, Ryan cared very little about managing Kaipa's Promised Land Entrance Exam and considered the Promised Land unimportant to the future of the world compared to the world's other issues. Though, people who are interested in revealing the truth of the Promised Land to the world seem to catch Ryan's attention, as he writes down Mack's name into a list of people and researches him after hearing him declare his intention.

Ryan notably does not believe in luck and dislikes when other people attribute events to luck.

## Relationships

### Ryan's Father

Ryan and his father are not on good terms with each other. Throughout his life, Ryan's father forcefully raised him up to eventually become someone he considered of worth. He mainly did this by forcing him to partake in political meetings and forcing other governmental responsibilities onto him, such as proctoring an entrance exam for the Promised Land. He also does not approve of what Ryan wants, as he heavily disapproved of Ryan's wishes to spread awareness about the Demon threat plaguing the world. And, despite knowing the truth of the Promised Land, Ryan's father does not trust Ryan enough to reveal this truth to him. As a result, Ryan heavily dislikes his father and often acts against his father's wishes.

### Carl Dylard

Ryan cares a good deal about his younger brother Carl. When his family was kidnapped by Promised Liberation, the only concern on Ryan's mind was how terrified Carl was. Also, when forced to proctor an entrance exam for the Promised Land by his father, Ryan prioritizes seeing Carl's concert over his duties.

### Venn Trauner

Venn is one of Ryan's close friends and someone who Ryan shows romantic affection towards. Ryan trusts in Venn enough to have them take over his spot as head proctor for one of Kaipa's Promised Land entrance exams so that he can watch his brother's concert. Venn, likewise, is loyal enough to Ryan to volunteer to see Carl's concert in-person when Ryan is forbidden from leaving the exam's facility by his father. Both show a common interest in Demons, as they both were interested in seeing if anyone from the exam's staff or any of the examinees were Demons in hiding. He sometimes calls Venn "sugarstar" as a nickname.

### Umoga Loinfield

Due to his performance and tendency to attempt to block others from passing the Promised Land Entrance Exam, Ryan is highly interested in Umoga and hoped that he would be successful in his goal. After Umoga was tricked by Chris's group during the exam's second portion, Ryan was in disbelief that Umoga was stupid enough to fall for their trick.

### Mack Mendoza

After Mack declared his ambition to reveal the truth of the Promised Land during the Promised Land Entrance Exam, Ryan took an interest towards Mack and researched him. However, he soon determined that Mack was nobody of note and that he would very likely not succeed in passing the exam. Mack, on the other hand, completely fears Ryan due to Ryan boldly declaring his belief that a Demon would disrupt the exam.

## Powers and Intelligence

* **Athleticism:** Ryan is fast enough as a runner to match Olympic participants and is noted to have great grip strength, being able to hold onto a ledge for thirty minutes straight. However, his is categorized as middle-class in raw physical strength.
* **Political Influence:** Due to being taught by his father, who served as Kaipa's President, Ryan is well-versed in politics and is noted to be one of the greatest manipulators of the country. His preference in politics is being blunt and honest, which sometimes causes detractors to believe he is causing distrust within the United Nations. However, this also gives Ryan the ability to instill fear within the people and trick them into feeling a sense of empowerment and purpose, which helps propel his agenda. He is also noted to be charming enough to garner himself a loyal group of friends. Notably, his father trusted him enough to run the 134th Kaipa Promised Land Entrance Exam, an exam that is considered very important to the world. However, he is not important enough politically to know what the truth of the Promised Land is.
* **Intelligence:** Ryan is noted to be one of the most intelligent people on the planet due to his expertise in social manipulation. He can assess situations quickly and is good with teamwork. Despite these skills, he is incapable of formulating complex military strategies and often relies on prior information for his planning.

## History

### Before the Entrance Exam:

Many times during his childhood, starting at the age of five, Ryan was forced to go to Miles Megacity, to research the city and to attend numerous business meetings there by his father. At some point during his visits to Miles Megacity, he became friends with a worker at Kaipa's Tax Revenue Center, Venn Trauner.

At the age of 14, he and his family were kidnapped by terrorists from Promised Liberation while on a shopping trip. They were saved by the military before they could be used to bribe Kaipa into joining their cause. Ryan's father scolded him for not being more stern during distress while Ryan only thought of how scared Carl was during the incident.

Before the start of the 134th Kaipa Promised Land Entrance Exam, Ryan's father instated him as the head proctor of the exam as a learning experience. Around a week before the start of the exam, Ryan requested for his friend Venn to take his place in proctoring the exam so that he could visit his brother Carl at his concert. Venn, having vacation days left to use, agreed to take over for Ryan, which made Ryan very grateful.

### The 134th Kaipa Promised Land Entrance Exam:

#### Entering the Facility:

Once a majority of the examinees had entered the facility and taken their seats in a large gymnasium, Ryan entered and gave a speech to all of the examinees. For an hour, he explained many rules about the exam, such as the exam consisting of seven separate twelve-hour portions, how examinees could access meals, and that injury was not allowed during the exam. In the middle of his speech, he bluntly promised that at the examinees would encounter at least one Demon during the exam, which greatly frightened a majority of the examinees. This caused many examinees to leave out of fear, and Ryan noted silently that they were unworthy of entering into the Promised Land. At the end of his speech, he informed the remaining examinees that they were allowed to study their textbooks from anywhere within the facility and that their next exam would start in twelve hours.

#### The First Test:

At the beginning of the first test, Ryan moved towards a private area where he could overlook the facility through monitors. He was soon called by his father, who had heard of Ryan's controversial promise about Demons attacking during the exam. Ryan assured that he knew what he was doing as he had plans to utilize the people's fear to bolster a military campaign against the Demons. Although his father was assured, Ryan was still threatened by his father not to abandon his duty as the exam's head proctor to go to his brother Carl's concert instead, as he would ensure the concert was cancelled otherwise. Ryan begrudgingly agreed to remain as the head proctor in spite of not believing the exam was important. After his call finished, his friend Venn called afterwards, and Venn offered to go to Carl's concert in Ryan's stead. Ryan told Venn that they would still be needed as Ryan's replacement for the exam since he still wanted to catch his brother's concert on a livestream. Both also promised to try and find Demons that might partake in the exam.

During his watch of the exam, Ryan took notice of a giant who blocked several examinees from getting into the exit locker and passing the first portion of the exam. He also watched as the giant retreated into the locker and shut the locker with fast-drying cement glue when the other examinees grouped up against the giant. When Venn called again to inform Ryan that they were on his way to the exam, Ryan heard as a Demon crisis broke out in Venn's location, Miles Megacity. Ryan told Venn to remain safe as he began to watch news footage of the city. He watched as the city's police dealt with a double monocle-wielding Demon that attacked a street near the Kaipa Tax Revenue Center. However, he realized that this attack was just a diversion and switched over to another reported incident that the police were tackling. Two other Demons, one with a silver flute and one with beetle skin armor, was kidnapping the mayor and were held at gunpoint by two officers. Ryan witnessed as a helicopter arrived to pick the two Demons up. He also watched as a sniper shot the flute-wielding Demon dead, as the beetle skinned Demon blew up police back-up with a bazooka and as the beetle skinned Demon failed to jump towards the helicopter and fell to his death. After he witnessed the helicopter escaping from the city and being blown up by a missile afterward, he checked back in with the double-monocle Demon who was escaping from the police in the sewers.

He saw as a Gold-Ranked Demon, Magos Kartas, captured the Demon by cutting both of his arms off with cards. Later, he heard that Magos's captive was recaptured by the police while Magos escaped. Venn called back to inform Ryan that they were fine, but that they would also have to remain in Miles Megacity for another day because of the incident.

#### The Second Test:

During the second test, he noticed Jason Block easily passing through each of the test's obstacles within the first thirty-five minutes, causing Ryan to research who Jason was. He also took notice of the giant again after he took control of the test, preventing other examinees from crossing obstacles without his permission. Later, once he heard of Mack's ambition to reveal the secrets of the Promised Land to the outside world, Ryan put Mack in a list alongside Chris Meedlemeyer. Before he researched who Mack was, he intervened in a memorial speech to fallen police officers in Miles Megacity by suggesting for the police chief, Agel Compton, to follow up on Ryan's recent speech at the exam. He listened to the police chief's memorial speech and watched with satisfaction as Agel invigorated the crowd into taking action against the Demon threat.

He believed that Mack wasn't particularly important from his research and believed that Mack was not likely to pass the exam. He was disappointed when the giant, Umoga, was tricked by Chris Meedlemeyer's followers into grabbing a rope, as it guaranteed that Umoga would not be able to hold back the other examinees from passing and end the exam early. For the rest of the test, Ryan ignored the rest of the participants and instead focused on recent news from the Demon incident in Miles Megacity, learning of an interrogation from the double monocle Demon and of the mayor's suicide.

## Trivia

* Ryan is the third character in Armistice who has their thoughts read in the story.
* According to Ryan's biography:
	+ He can't decide if his favorite color is purple, black or white.
	+ His favorite food is top-grade pepperoni pizza from his personal chefs.