Meld Loggins

Meld Loggins (メルド・ロギンス) was the Knight Commander of the Heiligh Kingdom. He was task to oversee the training the summoned heroes and prepare them for the upcoming war between the demons. After his death, the position of the Knight Commander was succeeded by Kuzeli Reil.

Appearance
Meld was a well-built middle-aged man with short spiky brown hair and a short beard. He also had a small scar on the left side of his chin.

Meld's combat attire consisted of a suit of armor with a red cape and a large sword mounted on his back. When not on active duty, Meld wore a blue v-neck long-sleeved shirt, a brown vest, a pair of brown pants with a black belt, ad a pair of dark-brown leather boots.

Personality
"I definitely won’t let you kids die!"

- Light Volume - Volume 04

Meld was a brave, charismatic and a very level-headed person. He was not fond of formalities and likes casual interactions, which earned him the respect of all the students and residents throughout the kingdom. As time passes, Meld became conflicted over his duties and the well-being of the summoned heroes. This causes him to avoid teaching them how to kill their enemies, something he blamed himself for not teaching them sooner. He was also apologetic towards Hajime for being unable to save him during the incident in the Great Orcus Labyrinth.

Background
Meld was chosen to be the instructor for the summoned heroes. He began by explaining to them about the status plates and what each of the values it displayed meant. He was especially impressed with the stats of Kouki and Aiko due to the rarity of their jobs. Meld, as well as other instructors from the kingdom, trained the students for two weeks before they began their trip to the Great Orcus Labyrinth to prepare them for battle.

As they journeyed deeper in the Labyrinth, then came across a large Glanz Crystal on the 20th floor. Daisuke Hiyama attempted to retrieve the crystal in order to impress his classmate Kaori Shirasaki, which caused everyone to be transported in the 65th floor where they got surrounded by giant monster known as the behemoth, as well as an army of skeletons called Traum Soldiers. Kouki wanted to fight, but Meld argued that they should focus on escaping. Meld's knights and the students were unable to escape due to the having divided their forces, but Hajime Nagumo explained to Meld about his idea to hold off the behemoth by suspending it with his transmutation ability, while giving Kouki the time to clear a path with his strongest attack. After seeing how confident Hajime was in his plan, Meld agreed to Hajime's plan and promised to protect him. After holding off the behemoth for as long as possible, Hajime attempted to reunite with his classmates while they provided cover for his retreat. Unfortunately, a fire spell had hit Hajime that caused him to fall to the bottom of the abyss in the labyrinth, and was presumed to be dead. Kaori was so hysterical that she wanted to go after him, but she was knocked out by Meld so that they could escape.

After Hajime's apparent death, Meld wanted to interrogate the students in order to find out which of them cast the spell that hit him, but was prohibited from doing so by King Eliheid S. B. Heiligh and Pope Ishtar Langbard. Meld continued to train the students that weren't afraid to continue fighting after Hajime's death. They eventually made it back to the 65th floor and were successful in killing behemoth.

After the remaining students reached the 70th floor of the Labyrinth, Meld took them out to celebrate with a night of drinking at his favourite bar in Horaud. Despite them drinking non-alcoholic beverages, Kouki and his friends became drunk from it and caused them to become extremely rowdy to the point where Meld had to evacuate the rest of the students from the bar due to Kouki unleashing his magical attacks in a drunken stupor.

As the students continued training in the labyrinth, Meld and the others knights were no longer escorting them since they were not survive the monsters that resided in the lower levels, and instead spent their time guarding the teleportation circle the connected the 30th floor to the 70th floor. When the students arrived at the 90th floor, they were ambushed by the demon Cattleya and a small army of monster that were under her control. She had managed to push them back to the 89th floor and forced them to hide in one of its room. The students had Kousuke Endou warn Meld about the demon due to his vocation of "Assassin" making it impossible for him to be detected by labyrinth's monsters. Kousuke managed to reach Meld on the 70th floor and warned him. Meld could not fight due to the vast difference in power between him and the monsters, and only managed to give Kousuke vials of healing potions for them. Meld also begrudgingly told Kousuke to prioritize Kouki's safety above the other students since his vocation of "Hero" made him humanity's best chance against the demons.

Just then, Cattleya and several monsters arrived on the 70th floor in her search for the heroes. Meld ordered Kousuke to escape to the 30th floor and destroy the teleportation circle from the other side while he and the other knights held off the monsters. Cattleya's monsters killed all the knights except Meld and took him prisoner. She finally found the rest of the heroes on the 89th floor and offered them the chance to live if they pledged their loyalty to the demons, with the exception of Kouki due to him being too dangerous to live. Kouki immediately rejected Cattleya's offer and charged in to attack, but stopped after one of her monsters was using a severely wounded Meld as a shield. Kouki was then knocked out by a monster and Cattleya once again presented her offer to the students. As they were debating with each other on whether or not to accept it, Meld interjected and told them that they should do whatever they needed to due to survive, and also apologized that they were forcibly dragged into his world's war.

Meld was prepared to kill Cattleya by using the magical gem "Loyalty’s Promise" to create an explosion at the cost of his life, but failed when one of the demon's monsters managed to absorb the energy from the gem before it could explode. Cattleya then stabbed Meld and tossed him aside, but not before revealing how impressed she was with Meld's resolve. Cattleya was eventually killed by Hajime Nagumo, much to everyone's shock, after returning to the labyrinth to rescue Kaori.

Kouki was upset with the fact that Hajime mercilessly killed her after she was defeated and no longer a threat. He tried to argue his case, but Hajime demonstrated that he would not hesitate to kill his enemies by threatening to kill Kouki if he continued to get in his way. Meld managed to recover after Hajime had his companion Shea give him a vile of ambrosia that healed him of his wounds that would have normally killed someone. He overheard Kouki arguing and apologized to him for failing to teach him and the other students that they needed to be prepared to kill in times of war. Meld then apologized to Hajime for failing to protect him during their first time in the labyrinth, to which Hajime awkwardly accepted. Hajime then escorted Meld and the students out of the labyrinth and took off soon after with Kaori (at her insistence).

Soon after Hajime rescued the heroes, Meld began to notice that many of the palace officials were acting very strangely. Meld wished to investigate the strange phenomenon, but was once again forbad to take any action by the king. He expressed his concerns with Vice-Commander Jose Rancaid while having a clandestine meeting at the palace cemetery. Jose tried to ease Meld's concerns, but the recent events had caused him to be full of doubts and concerns. Meld returned to the palace after talking with Jose. He began to grow paranoid and suddenly almost attacked Kouske as he was approached by him. Kousuke explained that he came out of the bathroom after forced to eat spoiled food due to missing out on dinner, to which Meld just kindly told him to go back to his room.

After Meld arrived at his quarters, he tried to get a better grasp of the situation and decided to write a letter to Hajime in order to request his aid. It was then that Daisuke approached Meld and claimed that he wanted some advice. Meld invited him to talk, but was stopped when he heard Jose call for him outside his room. As soon as Meld opened the door, Jose, who appeared to be under the same influence that had affected to others, immediately attacked him with his sword. Meld was able hold him off, but was caught off guard after he was almost stabbed in the back by Daisuke. Meld managed to push both of them back with a spell and was able to charge Daisuke, but was stopped when more knights rushed in to attack him.

Despite being outnumbered, Meld managed to overpower the knights and knocked them out. He implored Daisuke to surrender, but was shocked to see that the knights had gotten back out almost immediately after they were knocked out. Furthermore, several more knights arrived until Meld was completely surrounded. Meld decided to escape by jumping out of the window in order to warn the palace of Daisuke's betrayal. Meld attempted to conjure a powerful spell in order to keep his pursuers at bay, but stopped after his instincts told him that something was wrong.

He suddenly came face-to face with a mysterious woman, who was prepared to kill him. Having fully comprehended how dire the situation was for him, Meld briefly prayed to humanity's god Ehit, to which the woman replied by stating that his death was in fact what his god desired, much to Meld's shock. As the woman prepared to kill Meld, his last thoughts were asking Hajime to stop the woman since she was his enemy.

Meld death's had been covered up for several days until the demons invaded the kingdom. It was eventually discovered that one of the students, Eri Nakamura, had sided with demons and the reason why many within the palace had acted strange was because their bodies were being controlled by her necromancy magic after she killed them. She was using the bodies of the royal knights to ambush the other students and was prepared to kill them in in order to make them part of her undead army.

Daisuke later revealed his treachery after mortally wounding Kaori in order for Eri to make her his puppet. This enraged Kouki and was prepared to kill them, but stopped after Eri used Meld's body as a shield. Kouki was then forced to fight him, but ultimately could not bring himself to attack his mentor and was rendered helpless due to Eri poisoning him with a kiss before he began his attack. Hajime showed up soon after and began attacking Eri's knights. As Meld was forced to attack as well, he mustered up the last bit of his soul to ask Hajime to finish him for good. Hajime obliged Meld's final request and destroyed his body with a shotgun blast. Meld died while smiling.

Meld's position was eventually succeeded by Kuzeli Reil. A monument was erected after the demon's invasion that had the names of all those who died during the attack, including Meld's. Hajime would visit it and leave a flower as a token of remembrance and to honor him.

Relationships

 * Eliheid S. B. Heiligh - The king of the Heiligh Kingdom. Meld was loyal to his king until his death and wouldn't let others speak ill of him. Eilheid likewise respected Meld and would usually listen to his concerns. There were times, however, when Eliheld would also reject Meld's concerns due to someone else's orders (such as Ishtar). While Meld would obey his king's orders, he would go behind his back if he felt that there was something going on that he couldn't ignore.
 * Jose Rancaid - Jose was Meld's Vice-Captain. As his right-hand man, Jose did his best to support Meld, but would offer a different opinion from Meld's at times. This was not due to Jose showing his disrespect for Meld, but rather to offer alternate viewpoints and contradict any potential flaws in his commander's reasoning. Meld liked to push his administrative duties onto Jose.
 * Hero Party - Meld was put in change of training the summoned heroes and watching over them until they were ready. In turn, all of them came to respect Meld for looking after them. Over time, Meld started caring for them and felt conflicted about getting them involved in their war. This lead him to avoid teaching them the most important lesson about war: they would need to be ready to kill their enemies when the time comes. To them, Meld was the man who worried himself sick almost even more than Liliana S. B. Heiligh. He was thinking of Hajime and the Hero Party who were summoned. In terms of pure sword skill, until the very end. Even the "Hero" Kouki Amanogawa wasn’t a match for him. He was a man who was authentically the kingdom’s strongest. For the party, Meld was like a big brother. He was reliable, and when he was at their side, they could feel really assured. For them who didn’t know left from right after getting summoned, he was their heart’s support. Not just Kouki, Shizuku Yaegashi too wondered whether she can match him in pure sword skill even now (After Story). They wanted him to see, just how strong they have become.
 * Aiko Hatayama - As fellow instructors, both wished for to look after and the survival of the teenagers under their care. Aiko was a bit jealous toward Meld due to her students relying on him more than her. However, as a summoned one, she also respected him on the same level as other members of the Hero Party.
 * Kouki Amanogawa - Meld pays special attention to Kouki due to the latter's vocation of "Hero". However, he also finds Kouki's recklessness to be a pain to deal with, such as when Kouki wanted to fight along side him against the behemoth instead of retreating. He would begrudgingly prioritize his safety over the safety of the other students. After the fight against Cattleya in the Great Orcus Labyrinth, Meld apologizes for not teaching Kouki that he would have to be ready to kill his enemies when the time came, a mistake that almost cost Kouki and the others their lives because Kouki failed to bring himself to kill the demon when he had the chance. After his death by Noint and became Eri's undead puppet, Kouki was forced to fight against the undead Meld but once again failed to bring himself to kill Meld, getting defeated.
 * Kousuke Endou - Kousuke looked up to Meld immensely, and was deeply saddened by his death. He kept blaming himself for it, due to him being the last person to have seen him alive. Kousuke learned much from Meld, such as the importance of making hard choices when faced with unreasonable situations, and the weight of resolve it took to make them, as well as the nobility of self-sacrifice. Of everyone in the Hero Party, Meld considered Kousuke to be the most abnormal and mysterious, but also considered him to be the most dependable, and was eager to see his full potential unleashed.
 * Hajime Nagumo - Meld was one of the few people that Hajime respected since being summoned to Tortus. Hajime was his killer when Meld was Eri's undead puppet. While Meld didn't think much of Hajime do to his non-combat Job and weak stats, he became impressed when Hajime came up with a plan to hold back the behemoth, even telling the other students they were only alive thanks to Hajime. Meld felt guilty for failing to protect Hajime from the behemoth in the Great Orcus Labyrinth. This made him more protective of the rest of the Hero Party, not wanting to let another student die under his watch. He likewise wanted to learn whether his fall was really an accident by questioning the rest of the students, but was forbidden by the Pope and his King. When he later learns that Hajime had not only survived, but also saved his life when Cattleya attacked the students, Meld thanks him while also apologizing for falling him before. Meld comes to have a immense amount of respect for Hajime, enough that he planned to ask for him to protect the kingdom when the knights and nobles started to behave abnormally. Meld's last thought before his death is wishing for Hajime to defeat Noint. When Hajime sees Eri turned Meld into her undead puppet, Hajime silently sympathizes. Just as Meld's mind temporarily return, Hajime accepts his request to destroy the former's corpse, shortly before Meld smiles and permanently dies peacefully. Following his funeral, Hajime pays a visit to Meld's grave and left a flower for him as his token of gratitude and remembrance. Hajime respects Meld as a splendid man without any equal, in comparison. Whether it be in spirit, personality, or strength.

Powers & Abilities

 * -|Physical Abilities =
 * Master Swordsman - Meld was considered the strongest knight and best swordsman in the Heiligh Kingdom before his death. Both Kouki and Shizuku acknowledged that Meld is superior to them in pure sword-play skills, despite their superior stats. Even after his death and having grown stronger, they still wonder whether or not they could match him in swordsmanship. Meld describes himself as someone who has more experience fighting people than monsters. Which allows him to hold his own when fighting Daisuke and a few undead knights while trying to avoid killing them. Gahard D Hoelscher, the emperor of the Hoelscher Empire, considered Meld to be one of the greatest warriors in all of Tortus.
 * Master Tactician - As the Commander of the Knights of the Heligh Kingdom, Meld is a veteran master tactician. Well-versed in various military tactics, which he taught to the Kouki and the other members of his party during their excursion to the Orcus Labyrinth. He is extremely clever and insightful, with incredible an intuition and instincts. As he is the only one to doubt that the reason behind Hajime's fall into the Abyss is more than just a carelessly misfired fireball spell, as most had believed. Meld is also convinced that the Hollowness Symptoms displayed by most of the Heiligh Kingdom's Knights and Nobility are a sign of immense danger and thus he continued to investigate, in secret. His fears were later confirmed as they had been murdered by Daisuke Hiyama and Eri Nakamura, in order to be reanimated into undead pawns that they would used to betray and kill their classmates in a death trap. As well as to secretly set up a giant magic circle in the nearby hills of the Heiligh Kingdom, in order for Fried Bagwa to teleport his entire armies of demons and monsters directly into their Kingdom with Spatial Magic to invade and destroy them.


 * -|Magical Abilities =
 * Expert Magic User - Meld was an experienced caster and knew how to use different mid-level spells to aid him both offensively and defensively.


 * -|Combat Styles & Techniques =
 * Heiligh Kingdom Knight Sword Art - The sword techniques of the Heiligh Kingdom Knights. Meld Loggins, who was the best swordsman in the Heiligh Kingdom, taught these to Kouki Amanogawa. These techniques are best suited in conjunction with a western sword or a broadsword and involve heavy sweeping attacks and protective stances to shield multiple people.
 * Rotation Blade - A technique where the sword that was swung horizontally with one hand would be handed over to the other hand behind the back and then it would slash horizontally again from exactly the same direction. The slash would reach to all directions like a whirlwind.
 * Fortress Ring - A protection technique which involves the user rotating his sword. The rotation instantly produces a roaring gale that looks like a giant round shield if it was seen from the side, which is very effective at defending allies from ranged attacks.


 * -|Skills =
 * Sword Mastery - A skill that increases the user's proficiency in the art of sword-wielding.
 * Wind Magic Affinity - It allows the user to use wind magic at a capable rate.


 * -|Spells/Attacks =
 * Hallowed Ground - It creates an impenetrable barrier that can't be broken by normal means, but does have some limitations. It separates a particular area from other areas and not people from people, so enemies within the AOE would not be pushed away. It also consumes a lot of mana and can only be used for a minute. "Grant thine protection to your beloved children, O God! Reject all malice and let this be a holy ground that denies thine enemies passage! Hallowed Ground"
 * Bone-Crusher - A spell that wraps the caster's weapon with mana, and strengthens their attack. "Pulverize, shatter, decimate— Bonecrusher!”
 * Blitz Hammer - It summons a ball of compressed wind with tremendous force. “Heed my call, O wind— Blitz Hammer!”
 * Wind Wall - It summons a barrier of wind.

Meld's stats as per "Volume 1"
 * -|Stats =


 * -|Weapons & Equipment =
 * Sword - Meld's primary weapon in the form of a western great sword.
 * Loyalty’s Promise - A magical gem that creates a powerful explosion at the cost of the caster’s life. Every powerful individual within the kingdom was granted one of these gems.

Quotes

 * (To the Hero Party): "Ngh... You kids... think only about how you’re going to survive! Do whatever it takes to stay alive! I’m sorry... for dragging you all into our war... The more time I spent with you all... the more I came to regret relying on you to solve our problems... so please, live to make it home... Don’t worry about us... From the start... this was our fight to fight!"

Trivia

 * Meld was single.
 * In the Anime, Meld does not have a scar on his left chin.