Jien

Jien is cheerful, relaxed and strikingly informal for someone with considerable authority. He smiles through dangerous situations, jokes during serious meetings and speaks his mind even when doing so irritates more disciplined people around him.

His laid-back behavior can cross into naïveté. Jien is capable of trusting people too easily and does not always anticipate hostility, even when circumstances should encourage greater caution.

As captain, however, he is perceptive about people. Jien values potential that conventional standards can overlook and accepts the eccentricities of the Iron Fangs rather than demanding that every member conform to one personality or fighting style. He believes the guild's strength comes from members capable of enduring hardship without breaking.

Jien is a powerful mage whose mana reserves are described by a magical assessment as comparable to a pool. His magical specialty, Dark Clouds, allows him to generate and manipulate black clouds for offensive and supportive applications.

Stabbing Rain turns those clouds into numerous spear-like projectiles that can be directed at opponents. His magic gives him substantial ranged offensive power and complements an already formidable physical fighting style.

Jien is also an expert hand-to-hand combatant with exceptional strength and mobility. He can leap enormous distances, create significant impact when landing and launch opponents with his punches and kicks. He is confident enough in his physical combat ability to confront monsters as dangerous as dragons.

Jien meets Kinato after both are captured by criminals posing as adventurers. The encounter changes Kinato's life when Jien witnesses how Seitai Magic can be adapted to an emergency involving a dragon and decides that the young practitioner belongs in an adventurer guild.

He subsequently brings Kinato and Linae toward the Iron Fangs and supports Kinato's attempt to qualify professionally. Rather than protecting Kinato from every challenge, Jien allows other guild members to test whether the newcomer has the resilience required to survive adventuring.

Jien's wider importance extends beyond the Iron Fangs through his membership in the Council of Twelve and his previous history with the Seraph Wings. Later conflicts increasingly draw on that past and on the political relationships between guilds, communities and powerful mages.

Kinato becomes one of Jien's recruits after Jien witnesses the potential of Seitai Magic. He gives Kinato an opportunity that conventional assessments might never have offered him.

Linae accompanies Kinato into the Iron Fangs and becomes part of the guild under Jien's leadership.

Kaminagi is an Iron Fangs member whose unusual personality Jien accepts as part of the guild. He trusts Kaminagi's resilience and assigns her to test Kinato during his introduction to the group.

Olgen serves as Jien's vice-captain and provides a more forceful presence within the Iron Fangs, often contrasting with Jien's relaxed behavior.

Talius is Jien's apprentice and another adventurer whose potential Jien has helped develop.