John

**John** (ジョン, *Jon*), also rarely known by his full name "**John O Guardian**" (ジョン・O・ガーディアン, *Jon O Gādian*), is one of the protagonists of The Vampire Dies in No Time and its anime adaptation. He is a male armadillo and a familiar of Draluc. He understands human language, but is unable to speak it. As only Draluc can understand him, John uses gestures and signs to communicate with others, in addition to his trademark language only composed of the syllabic sounds and vocally similar variants of "nyu" (ニュー, *Nyū*) when he is young and "nu" (ヌー, *Nū*) when he reached adulthood.

## Appearance

John is a 3-banded armadillo that is about the same size as a soccer ball. He has white fluffy fur in his front and orange super-protective armor at the back that he can curl into a ball to protect himself or to launch himself to hit others.

Because of his cute appearance, he is instantaneously popular and has been treated as a mascot. He is extremely loved to an extent that when Draluc and Ronaldo misunderstood his situation and believed that he got kidnapped, everyone in Shin-Yokohama instantly volunteered and joined forces to search for him.

## Personality

John is kind-hearted and fiercely loyal to his friends. He's always worried about his owner, and will become upset and even run away from home if Draluc ignores him. He also has a sweet tooth. John is the best boy.

## Plot

When he was a baby, John was separated from his family due to a vampire mosquito. Grandfather found him when he was injured, and gave him to Draluc, who began looking after him. Then one day, John, who was on his way to find some ingredients for Draluc, found some other armadillos that were attacked by another vampire mosquito, so he tried saving them. He almost faltered until Draluc temporarily died against the vampire mosquito, prompting John the courage to trounce the vampire mosquito. He was heralded as a hero among the armadillos, so Draluc decided that it was best to leave John behind with his own kind.

The following day, the other armadillos told John that Draluc and the rest of the vampires had departed from the villa, which saddened John. John decided to search for the castle in Romania by using the photo of the castle as a guide. On his way, John was helped by lots of people, but could not find the castle. Just when he was about the give up, John realized that Draluc might be living nearby when he heard some people, who got the photo, discussing about rumors about vampires.

On his way to find the castle, John finally saw Draluc, who was attacked by an ostrich vampire. John risked himself to rescue Draluc, defeating the ostrich vampire. Draluc finally realized John being with him had always been the better decision, and let John become his familiar by drinking his blood.

Some time after John returned to Draluc, Draluc and Draus visited the Hill of Armadillos with John, where they found John’s parents, whom Draluc promised to look after John. Since then, both John and Draluc still maintain a strong bond with the armadillos of that hill in South America.

## Abilities

John has gained immortality after officially becoming Draluc's familiar.

## Etymology

* John may be named after the character "Jonathan Harker" from Bram Stoker's *Draluca*.

## Trivia

* John's real name is "**John O Guardian**" (ジョン・O・ガーディアン, *Jon O Gādian*).
	+ Originally, as placeholder, John was given the name "**Jokerball-Tamao-Marusuke-OrichalcumZ-Guardian**" (ジョーカーボールたまおマルスケオリハルコンZガーディアン). The name John was created by taking the first two and last characters from that name.
		- His placeholder name a combination of the names that Draluc's relatives tried to give John; *"*Marusuke" (丸助) by Draus; "Orichalcum Z" (オリハルコン*Z*)" by The Progenitor; "Tamao" (玉夫) by one of Draluc's cousins; Jokerball" (ジョーカーボール) by another one of Draluc's cousins; and "Guardian" (ガーディアン) by Gorgona.
* John's birthday, July 1, is the date that he first met Draluc.
* John's favorite food are pancakes and fried chicken.
* John dislikes whole Chinese cabbage ("It's scary" according to him; Back in chapter 13, it was a vampirized Chinese cabbage who sucked his blood and boosted the power of the vegetable vampires).
* A running gag involves Draluc using John as "John Guard" (living shield) or a ball to protect himself from dangers, resulting in John getting hurt or affected.
* John is the only armadillo that can score 4:6 in a video game with Draluc.
* John is 180 years old via Twitter.
* John has a habit of chewing on fluttery clothings since he was younger, presumably reacting to the smells of food.
* Draluc and John often play hide-and-seek, bowling, TRPG, spiritism, giant constructor, treasure hunt, creative cooking, and so on.
* Nowadays, familiars are usually contracted to be equal, and a master can unilaterally terminate their relationship with a familiar, but Draluc and John have a contract that doesn't allow this.
* Draluc uses moisturizing cream for John's shell.
* John is even more pampered now than when he used to live in the castle with Draluc alone.