Shagrua Lugrid

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Sir **Shagrua Edith Lugrid** (シャグルア・エディス・ルグリッド *Shagurua Edisu Ruguriddo*) the **Calamity Crusher** (災厄潰し *Saiyaku Tsubushi*) is a former knight of the Geldwood church's subjugation unit who possesses the Evil Eye.

## Appearance

Shagrua has bluish-grey hair, shadow green eyes, and both ears pierced with green studs. When in combat, he wears a blue surcoat or robe over a suit of grey armor.

## Personality

Although Shagrua is put on a pedestal for his 'good' deeds as the Calamity Crusher, he throws himself into battle neither primarily out of heroism or chivalry; instead, he primarily fights to drown out the hateful cacophony of the spirits that haunt him. The result is a vicious self-perpetuating cycle: by fighting, he drowns out the spirits' jeers—yet in killing, he creates more spirits that join the chorus cursing his name.

Primary self-serving motivation notwithstanding, Shagrua is not devoid of noble or good intent. When he fights the Corpse God, he does so out of a sincere belief that the Corpse God will spread 'terrible disaster' across the world if left to his own devices—a belief he holds for some time even after doubting the Corpse God's 'wickedness'. Concepts of 'goodness' and 'wickedness' encourage his commitment to the Geldwood faith, particularly the perception of the Evil Eye as 'wicked'—'wickedness' from which the Geldwood Church offers him salvation. At the same time, he simultaneously overlooks and *cannot* overlook how the Church burned his home village for years; despite the spirits constantly reminding him of the deed, and his lack of love for the Church, he nonetheless devotes himself to the faith for the salvation and respite battle offers him. Later on, he will admit to Recuria that he probably should have severed ties with the Church when he learned they burned his village.

Shagrua's sense of right and wrong and justice and injustices further his bleak but driven personality. He fights the Corpse God out of a sincere belief Corpse God may bring disaster to the world, but his later wish that the Corpse God is alive and doing well again suggests he does not fit the mold of a hero. It further speaks to his level-headed ability to think things through; more open-minded then at first glance, Shagrua is aware that 'good' and 'evil' are not always black and white.

## Chronology

### History

When he is three years old, Shagrua is first discovered to possess the Evil Eye. He is the first "true possessor" to emerge in a long time, and his homeland and home village—deeply superstitious and fearful of the supernatural—is deeply entrenched in rumors which portend great misfortune concurrent with Evil Eye holders.

As a result, the villagers resolve to exile his parents as punishment for birthing a 'cursed child'. Upon hearing a rumor that his organs can be sold for an immortality elixir, they change their mind and leak his home's location to marauding bandits. On the day originally planned for the exile, these bandits invade Shagrua's home and slaughter his entire family.

Shagrua does not learn this until he is already a holy soldier of the Geldwood church and granted salvation. Geldwood later burned both the bandits and his fellow villagers to death. This knowledge does not come from Geldwood, which endeavored to keep him ignorant of the deeds; instead, he is told as much by the spirits of the bandits, villagers, and church soldiers caught in the crossfire who continue to haunt him and curse his name. That Geldwood is responsible for burning down his village troubles Shagrua for years to come.

To drown out the spirits' jeers, Shagrua chooses to fight and throws himself into various battlefields' front lines, as the "driving member" of Geldwood's subjugation unit. From heretical cults and criminal syndicates to dragons and other monsters, more and more of his victims' spirits come to haunt him until they mingle with and drown out the voices of those from his past.

Over the years, his exploits earned him the admiration of many as a hero and the title "Calamity Crusher." One of his most renowned deeds is his slaying of Pirawizzo many years before the story's start: Pirawizzo the 'King-Killer' or 'Late Emperor Killer', a dragon that had at the time put the kingdom of Nyanild in a crisis.

### The Corpse God Encounter

Eventually, Geldwood's long-standing vendetta against the Corpse God—an undead necromancer without peer—reaches a day of reckoning: a subjugation unit and other Geldwood forces invade the Corpse God's undead labyrinth to vanquish Corpse God once and for all. These forces suffer damage during the initial assault yet fail to inflict damage on the Corpse God in kind, but hold out until Shagrua finally joins the fray.

Once Shagrua reaches the battleground, he discovers the Corpse God is—like him—also haunted by the countless souls of his victims. During their battle, he shatters one of the Corpse God's armored plates, revealing its true form: a human brain in a jar suspended by chains.

Where Shagrua condemns the Corpse God's monstrosity, the Corpse God opines they are alike in that they both take lives "for fun," each playing the role of the Grim Reaper. Declaring that their game has ended, he fills the air with magic spells comprised of patterns Shagrua neither recognizes nor trusts—spells at which Shagrua charges to thwart whatever plan the Corpse God is enacting.

A second before Shagrua's sword reaches him, the Corpse God vanishes in a flash of bright light—and so too, all the spirits haunting Shagrua, re-purposed as magic for the Corpse God's final, exceptionally powerful spell.

In the aftermath, Shagrua confides to Recuria Lofilardo that he is afraid he did not "complete his task." The Corpse God's spell felt like teleportation magic, and though Shagrua *did* see his soul with his Evil Eye, his disappearance felt suspiciously sudden. At this, the priestess informs him that Geldwood's observation unit cannot detect any traces of the Corpse God's soul, which she takes as proof that Shagrua saved the world.

Shagrua remains unconvinced, already nurturing a seed of doubt from the Corpse God's forcible exorcism of his spirits. The doubt within him only grows as he and the priestess examine the books in the Corpse God's laboratory, most of which are written in ink visible only to the Evil Eye and otherwise appear blank in the priestess' eyes.

One such book is the Corpse God's journal, which contains entries dating back to his time with his found family. The evident care he held for the children under his watch causes Shagrua to question whether the Corpse God was as irredeemably evil as he thought, and, with the question burning at the back of his mind, he scrutinizes the other specially-inked books with greater urgency.

Some of the tomes contain essays on Geldwood's "underbelly"—the "other face" of the institution to which many Geldwood followers remain ignorant. These hidden truths, coupled with the journal, irreversibly shake Shagrua's devotion to the Geldwood faith for good. Over the next few days, Shagrua holes himself up in the Geldwood cathedral's library and tirelessly researches the essay's claims to verify their truth. The effort alone in discovering the research room's hidden vault is backbreaking.

When Recuria visits him in the library, Shagrua explains that he has been looking into the Corpse God and asks if she knows from which country the Corpse God hailed. The Head Priestess dutifully recounts what she knows: that the Corpse God was a royal necromancer of an empire that, over one hundred years ago, collapsed within the span of a year.

Shagrua, his voice distant, realizes she must be talking about the Byandy Peninsula—also known as the 'Abandoned Peninsula'. When she urges him to rest, joking that he looks like 'someone possessed', he falls silent for a time. Then, as if steeling himself, he decides to make 'that' his 'story': that the Corpse God used teleportation magic to switch his and Shagrua's souls, effectively killing Shagrua and taking over his body.

Filled with trepidation, Recuria reminds him that switching a body and soul with a still-living being is impossible (or incredibly dangerous), to which Shagrua agrees: necromancers' possession is limited to dolls and corpses. However, he wants the priestess to tell Geldwood that the Corpse God "surpassed that hurdle."

As she is still confused, and as Shagrua is fond of her, he confesses his break with the Geldwood faith and his investigation of Geldwood's corruption - which he is sure she knows nothing about. As he casts a sleeping spell on her, he requests she continues feigning ignorance to that end and tells the Church the Corpse God has possessed him (thus ensuring her safety among the church).

Once Recuria falls asleep, Shagrua leaves the library carrying evidence proving Geldwood's corruption. Acting in the name of the Corpse God, he seeks out and assaults multiple high-ranking Church members—further ensuring that the rumors of the Calamity Crusher's demise and possession will spread throughout the land.

With the Church's holy soldiers searching high and low for him, Shagrua leaves the Kingdom of Nyanild and heads west for the Abandoned Peninsula,. The land is said to have been cursed after the fall of the empire, home to fearsome roaming ghosts and monsters, and Shagrua resolves to cast these spirits out as atonement for "the sins he'd committed against the Corpse God" and make the land habitable for people once more. While he does not know whether the Corpse God is "good or bad," he hopes that the Corpse God's soul is somehow alive and somewhere still alive and well.

### Journey to Byandy Peninsula

Shagrua crosses the mountain range bordering Nyanild and the Abandoned Peninsula without much trouble; however, it becomes clear the mountains act akin to a force field when, as soon as he crosses the threshold into the Peninsula, he is besieged by demons, ghouls, and hives of unfamiliar flesh-eating insects.

He has more hostile encounters with monsters over the next several days' worth of marching toward the far end of the peninsula. Still, the frequency of such encounters decreases the closer he draws to the capital, which surprises him, as he had expected it to become more dangerous.

One night, still a fair distance away from the capital, Shagrua pitches a tent on sandy ground and reads a report on the Abandoned Peninsula which he had taken from Geldwood before setting off on his journey for the fallen Byandy Empire. He continues to ponder the last several days' events and the strange drop in the number of spirits while he uses magic to start a fire, heats up food, and keeps an uneventful watch for spirits and demons while he eats.

When Shagrua reaches for sand with which he can snuff out the fire and sees grass, he is alarmed to find that the surrounding barren desert has been transformed into a rich green forest—one so dense and deep that the newfound overhead foliage nearly blocks out the starlight completely.

Seeds as large as human heads barrel at high speed toward Shagrua from the forest's depths; via magic, Shagrua splits one of his burning firelogs mid-air into whizzing fire arrows, neutralizing the seeds one at a time. The surrounding trees have immediately been closing in on Shagrua, roots writhing, and he uses his Evil Eye to pinpoint the 'soul' controlling them; once he does, he sends the massive compound spell Hellfire Python scorching through the forest to burn away the trees surrounding the soul in question.

Shagrua, himself surrounded by a protective sphere of wind spirits, is about to set off after the spell when the voice of a young girl calls out from the direction of the 'soul'. The girl acknowledges the skill needed to employ such a spell. Still, she observes that Shagrua used a Geldwood religion martial art when he stomped to make the firewood float, meaning that he is likely a Geldwood spy whom she ought to attack outright; however, as she doubts she could beat him, she suggests they each return to whence they came.

The suggestion is not warmly received, as Shagrua has no place to which he can return, and the girl hurriedly emphasizes her initial intention had not been to kill him—she simply heard that a stranger was approaching the capital and decided to scare him back home. Having decided not to give up after all, she transmogrifies the bark of the still-standing trees into ice that can withstand the spell's lava.

This display of magic is on an incomparably higher level than the previous attack, and so Shagrua unsheathes his sword; the girl's local accent, in theory, affiliates her with the Byandy empire, and her hostility is still hostility no matter the lack of killing intent. A new surge of unfamiliar energy stops him in his tracks, belying a strange woman—Easlies Swordfrail—wearing a beast's skull who steps out of the forest and calls for Romelka to cease hostilities.

Romelka, still unseen from within her tree, asks Easlies if she knows Shagrua; Easlies smoothly identifies Shagrua as the Geldwood group's treasured asset Calamity Crusher. That he treated Romelka—once the imperial court's seventh-highest sorcerer—as a child does not surprise her, since he is the one who defeated the "fourth-most-capable necromancer" Corpse God. That he is a 'disgraced' follower furthermore matters not to her, and she either does not hear or chooses to ignore Shagrua's eschewing of the follower label.

In the next moment, "hundreds of thousands" of monster corpses burst out of the forest. Shagrua, now at the mercy of magical trees and zombie soldiers alike, is stunned by the truth that the woman is a necromancer—and by the possibility she just might be more powerful than the Corpse God.

Shagrua soon finally recalls Easlies' name from "less than savory" tales he read in the empire's books. Easlies acknowledges the tales are true and commands her corpse army to converge upon him. However, Shagrua can cut down the front lines with his magic-imbued sword; the army melds in on itself and attacks like a wave, a muddy stream of death able to counter his different spells by using resistant corpses as shields. And though Shagrua is not afraid, one thought makes him hesitate: the thought that perhaps he *should* be cut down here.

Until this point, Shagrau has regretted killing the Corpse God but has not thought the deed itself wrong, believing his foe would have gone on to threaten the world if not stopped there. Now, though, he finds himself doubting even that. His contemplation of ending the 'vicious cycle' leads to a memory of his friends in the Church, and the realization that if he is killed here, the mob of corpses will pursue his friends next.

In the next moment, the corpse beast's razor-sharp claws send Shagrua flying. He changes his trajectory to leap at Easlies; she seizes him with her chain and pierces his armor with the heel of her palm. Minutes after the fierce fight, Shagrua loses consciousness. He regains it long enough to take responsibility for the Corpse God's death and is relieved when Easlies says she shall not massacre his friends. Forcing himself into a more upright position, he adds that Corpse God was not evil—the real evil was Geldwood—and that Corpse God had written "Teacher, I'm sorry" in a hurry at the end of his diary.

Unable to catch his breath, Shagrua passes out again. Easlies instructs Romelka to douse him with panacea tree sap so that he may recover his physical strength. They ultimately bring him to a building in the ruined capital of the Byandy Empire.

When Shagrua wakes up, he is in a simple bed in a crumbling building. Romelka—visible as a branch peeking through the dilapidated roof and walls—says she was speaking to Easlies on the beach and will return posthaste. Shagrua processes the fact he appears to be a prisoner of war in the minutes it takes for Easlies to arrive; when she does, she asks how he is feeling. She explains that his lack of pain results from Romelka treating his wounds, so he thanks Romelka with a bow of his head and Easlies for healing him.

Easlies observes he is still nonetheless wary, which Shagrua cannot deny; he admits he is conflicted and recalls rumors that Easlies filled the peninsula with undead armies to trick other countries into believing Byandy Empire was alive and well—among many other tales. Romelka objects such rumors are preposterous lies, whereas Easlies does not care; Easlies claims she saved Shagrua on a whim, remarking that if he has developed a crush on her, she shall toss him away in three days' time.

Shagrua denies he would declare love for someone he has just met before murmuring his heart may already belong to another, to which Easlies wryly calls him a "straitlaced, sweet little boy." A voice from high above agrees—a voice that alarms Shagrua's very soul, one familiar to his memory. The voice continues that it sensed a nostalgic soul in the empire's capital; the moment Shagrua finally recognizes that 'telepathic voice', the speaker swoops down and reveals himself as Pirawizzo, the Poisonous Dragon of Destruction Shagrua killed in years past.

## References

1. ↑ Full name revealed in *Dead Mount Death Play* (Manga): Volume 1, Episode 1.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 *Dead Mount Death Play* (Manga): Volume 4, Episode 4.
3. ↑ *Dead Mount Death Play* (Manga): Volume 1, Episode 1.
4. ↑ *Dead Mount Death Play* (Manga): Volume 2, Episode 2.
5. ↑ *Dead Mount Death Play* (Manga): Volume 3, Episode 3.