Ryutarou Sakagami

Ryutarou Sakagami is a major character from the "Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest" series.

He is one of the students from Japan who got involved in the Summoning Incident, and ended up in Tortus along with his other classmates. He is the childhood friend of Kouki Amanogawa, Shizuku Yaegashi & Kaori Shirasaki; and was part of Kouki's party during the training in Great Orcus Labyrinth. He is also the boyfriend of Suzu Taniguchi.

After both Eri's betrayal and Hiyama's death, Ryutarou (along with Kouki, Shizuku and Suzu) traveled with Hajime Nagumo and his companions to clear the last remaining Great Labyrinths to kill Ehit for selfishly summoning them as his pawns.

Appearance
Ryutarou has a physique is like a bear and he stands tall at about 190 cm. He has short trimmed hair and a gaze that appears both cheerful and stern.

Personality
"I wanna get strong enough to protect my friends at least. I don’t ever wanna be helplessly forced to watch my friends die ever again."

- Ryutarou to Hajime Nagumo Ryutarou is your typical energetic muscle-brained person. He values hard work and tends be rash in his actions. While he's not as dense as Kouki, Ryutarou is still pretty slow when it comes to understanding women feelings.

He is extremely loyal to his friends, especially Kouki. He is always the first to stand by his best friend side whenever he decides to do something, no matter how crazy it was. This makes him the opposite of Shizuku, who always tries to get Kouki to think before he decides to do something reckless, but will still support him. He will also be the first to defend his friends, both verbally and physically. After the demon invasion on the Heiligh Kingdom, Ryutarou resolves to get stronger so he wouldn't have to see another friend get killed before his eyes. After Hajime murdered Hiyama and saved Kaori, he is even willing to beg Hajime to help them conquer a labyrinth, something Hajime had never seen him do, showing he values his friends over his pride as he doesn't condemned Hajime as he will never forgive the traitor, Hiyama for his betrayal unlike Kouki. Following Hiyama's death and Eri's defection, He developed great respects for Hajime for saving his life twice and was impressed with him being able to survive his fall into the depths of the Orcus Dungeon. He shown his gratitude as he thanked Hajime after reviving Kaori. Unlike Kouki who is dense, Ryutarou has no qualms of letting Shizuku and Kaori be in romance with Hajime as his blessing for him due to Ryutarou already relationship with Suzu. When tested his newly enhanced gauntlets, Ryutarou's respects for Hajime had suddenly increased even further when witnessing his gauntlets' new powers. Unlike Kouki, he doesn't has a lust for his childhoods friends (Kaori and Shizuku) or Hajime's lovers (Yue, Tio and Shea) when he is already in a romance with Suzu.

Ryutarou admires military soldiers and views Gunnery Sgt. Hartman from "" as his idol. When seeing Hajime training the Haulia Tribe, he considers Hajime as a pupil of Sergeant Hartman. He hold in great amazement of Hajime's Artifacts are similar to the military army's firearms, weapons, vehicles and technologies which are similar from Ryutarou's favorite action movies. He loves military training and begged Hajime to train him and has a touching momentum strong enough to allow Hajime to train him.

As revealed in the Frost Cavern of Schnee, Ryutarou has always felt bothered that he's always been something of a side character compared to Kouki and Hajime. While he never showed it, he's always been jealous that all the girls once liked Kouki, and later Hajime, even though he also helped them as well. Ryutarou has no jealousy toward Hajime for earning the love of beautiful girls including his childhood friends (Kaori and Shizuku) whom Ryutarou readily gave them as his blessings due to his already relationship with Suzu unlike Kouki. Ryuutarou is extremely selfless as he refused to allow his own desires to control him and hurt others for self satisfication, despite his jealousy towards Kouki, he did not bear any resentment and ill will towards the latter and had even originally intended to remain behind in Tortus to support Kouki to help him defeat Ehit despite Hajime offering him and his other classmates to return back home early. even the Schnee Labyrinth doppleganger trial could not detect enough negative qualities in Ryuutarou to used against him. Despite his muscle brained personality, Ryutarou is also smart and wise enough to completely resist the temptation of his doppleganger trial allowing him to defeat it and obtain "Age of Gods" magic unlike Kouki.

Weapons & Equipment

 * Twin Gauntlets - Ryutarou's primary weapons. Originally from the Heiligh Kingdom, they had the power to produce shockwaves when used for combat. They were later enhanced by Hajime after clearing the Haltina Labyrinth in the Sea of Trees. They could oscillate at a very high frequency, thus multiplying their destructive power. Thy were also enchanted with Ancient Magic to perform a variety of attacks. The following are the abilities enchanted in the gauntlets by Hajime.
 * Death Fist - Uses spatial magic to bypasses an enemy’s defenses and destroys their internal organs.
 * Hammerfist - Uses gravity magic to amplify the gauntlet's punches weight and attack power tenfold.
 * Enhanced Mana Shockwaves - Launches shockwaves of mana from the gauntlets to attack enemies from a distance.
 * Demonic Gauntlets - A new pair of gauntlets that were made by Hajime after Ryutarou's first pair had been destroyed by Ehit. They were enchanted with multiple skills that included "Diamond Skin", "Lightning Field" and "Shock Conversion". They could also morph into different forms.
 * Demonic Steel Fist - Giant Slayer - A relatively simple move where Ryutarou concentrated all of his mana into his gauntlets and used that to exponentially boost the power of his punches.
 * Thunderclap Blows - An attack that combined Lighting Field with Ryutarou's innate ability to make his blows penetrate armor.
 * Metamorph Fist - Armor Penetrator - The gauntlet transforms into a lance and becomes extremely hot, capable of melting anything it came into contact with.
 * Aerodynamic-Enchanted Boots - They allow Ryutarou to walk mid-air.
 * Treasure Trove - A ring-shaped Artifact that has a small 1 centimeter ruby set in its center. The ruby was actually an artificially created dimensional space where things could be stored. It has the size around a house’s storage.
 * Skyboard - A surfboard that lets the user surf through the sky. They wrapped the user in a spatial magic barrier to cut down air resistance and used gravity magic to emulate flight. Their average cruising speed was around 200km/h, though those with larger mana pools could accelerate them to 300km/h. However, they took a lot of mana to operate.

Physical Abilities

 * Enhanced Physical Abilities  - After being summoned to Tortus as one of Ehit's so-called "heroes", Ryutarou was blessed with superhuman physical abilities, excelling in terms of physical strength and durability. His abilities has inferiority to Hajime and his companions.
 * Enhanced Strength - Ryutarou's strongest blessing lies in his raw strength. He is physically one of the strongest among the heroes, only losing to Kouki, and later Hajime in an easy defeat if he challenges him. Through the use of magic, Ryutarou can increase his strength even further.
 * Enhanced Durability - Ryutarou gained superhuman durability and stamina after being summoned to Tortus. He can take a lot of punishment from his enemies and could still keep fighting. After completing the final trail of the Frost Cavern of Schnee, even through Ryutarou suffered a great deal of damaged fighting his copy, he still had the strength to walk around and carry Suzu before needing some first aid.
 * Expert Hand-to-Hand Combatant - Ryutarou is a highly capable brawler, knowing how to make use of his great size and strength to overpower his opponents. He has spent years practicing karate and had becomes adept at various fighting techniques. After being granted several close combat oriented skills and superhuman abilities as one of Ehit's heroes, Ryutaro honed his fighting skills further through extensive training, became one of the strongest members of the Hero's party, being able to defeat all the powerful monsters in the first 89 floors of the Great Orcus Labyrinth. In the Haltina Labyrinth, while transformed into an Ogre and deprived of his gauntlets, Ryutaro was able to fight on pair with another Ogre using a Karate based Martial Arts for a certain period of time, a considerable feat as the monsters of the Haltina Labyrinth are far more powerful and dangerous than the ones he had fought before despite suffering serious injuries in the process. In the Frost Cavern of Schnee, Ryutarou could make full use of his gauntlets upgraded abilities to fight a giant Frost Turtle alongside Shizuku, distracting it long enough for Kouki to use Divine Wrath, fight and defeat his designated Frost Golem that is four times his size while enduring random laser attacks with his Diamond Skin. More impressively, Ryutarou was able to defeat his own copy in hand to hand combat. Upon gaining the metamorphosis magic, Ryutaro was shown to be creative enough to create his own unique brand of spells that greatly enhanced his hand-to-hand close combat techniques.

Skills

 * Close Quarters Combat Proficiency
 * Body Strengthening - A skill to use magic to strengthen the body.
 * Partial Strengthening - A skill to precisely focus Body Strengthening to a certain part of the body.
 * Focused Strengthening - A skill to concentrate Body Strengthening to a fixed point of the body.
 * Penetrating Strikes - A skill to breach an enemy's physical defences.
 * Supersonic Step - High speed movement.
 * Explosive Supersonic Step
 * Physical Resistance - Increases physical resistance and recovery rate. Also reduces impact.
 * Diamond Skin - It coats the users body in a hardened shell of mana, which increases the users defenses and protects them from all attacks to a certain degree. The hardened shell of mana has of a diamond patterned structure, hence the name.
 * All Elemental Resistance - An increased resistance to all elements.
 * Metamorphosis Magic - One of the "Ancient Magics" originating from the "Age of God", which allows a user to remake the form of a normal being and reform them into a different form. Normally it's used to remake a normal organism and turn it into a monster, or even manipulate the magic stone of a monster and remake them. But the true power of this magic is the ability to 'interfere with any organic material'. Meaning not only animals, but it's also possible to remake plants or intelligent beings, and reform their structure as needed. Even byproducts of organic material, like paper or food, can also be manipulated by this magic. The magic stone which gets created during the process is just a byproduct of the process.
 * Language Comprehension - A base skill granted to all those who got summoned. It gives the user the ability to understand any language and be proficient in it.

Spells/Attacks
Ancient Magic Spells
 * Herculean Might - A spell that envelops the user in body strengthening magic, thus strengthening their physical attributes, attack power and defensive capabilities. "Grant unto your servant the strength to shake the earth— Herculean Might!"
 * Transformation - A metamorphosis spell where the user would ingest a mana crystal taken from a monster, which would then temporarily imbue their body with the properties of that monster.
 * Ogre - It enhances the user's physical strength. It also grants them the ogre's special magic "Impact Manipulator." "Come, my steel demon—Transformation - Ogre."
 * Werewolf - It greatly increases the user;'s speed, but falls short in raw power compared to the 'Ogre'. Furthermore, using a mana crystal from a werewolf king grants the user "Foresight", "Perception Enhancement", "Flash Step", "No Tempo" and "Acceleration." "Come, my hunter of the abyss! Werewolf Prime."
 * Treant - It grants the user the special magic "Photoabsorption", which allows them to absorb any and all light magic and convert it into mana. "Come forth, my light-devouring tree of the abyss—Transformation - Treant."
 * Fusion Transformation - A metamorphosis magic spell that combines the best traits of the caster's two strongest transformations without either of their drawbacks. However, the caster can not maintain that form for more than 40 seconds; otherwise they would lose their humanity and transform into an actual monster.
 * Wereogre - It combines the speed of a werewolf with the strength of an ogre.

Stats
Note :-
 * The base stats given above aren't Ryutarou's current stats, as the last time the author provided stats for him in the Web Novel was before the Haltina's Labyrinth trial.

Quotes

 * (To Hajime Nagumo) "Please, Nagumo. I want to at least be able to protect myself and my friends."
 * (To Suzu Taniguchi) "I’ve always thought I could never beat those two. And I’ve always been scared of losing to them. I never wanted to challenge them cause I was afraid losing would prove it. Prove that I’m just a worthless sidekick. That’s the kind of shit my fake told me."
 * (To Eri Nakamura after she ignored Suzu): Eri, you bitch! You can't just-"
 * (To Alva): " You fucking bastard! You call this an invitation?! You took our friends hostage! Let them go right now!"

Etymology

 * The name "Ryutarou" means "dragon" (龍), "big, thick" (太) and "son" (郎).

Trivia

 * Ryo Shirakome based Ryutarou off of Colonel William Stuart from .
 * Before being summoned to Tortus, Ryutarou's dream was to become a police officer.
 * In the Anime, Ryutarou has a scar on the left side of his chin.