Liberators

"Struggle until the very end."

- The Liberators' motto

The "Liberators" was an organization in Tortus which existed during the events of the spin-off "Arifureta Zero" series.

Their goal was to kill Ehit, and put an end to his influence over Tortus. Although most of them died after the final battle with the exception of Miledi Reisen, they created the seven trials to test anyone who was worthy enough to inherit their legacy and reward them with their Ancient Magic should they pass the tests.

Structure
At their peak, the Liberators comprised around 3,000 members, who were scattered around Tortus in small hidden settlements. They were split into the following three categories:

The first category were the Fighters. It was the least populated of the three groups and comprised of approximately 400 members. It consisted of all members of the Liberators with sufficient fighting strength. Their primary goal was to protect their hidden basses, rescue people who’d been branded as heretics, and recruit allies. They travelled all across the world, usually in small teams.

The second category were the Villagers. Comprised of approximately 1000 members, it consisted of those who had no fighting ability or were too injured to fight. Most of them were civilians who’d been persecuted by the church, or children who were too young to fight.

The third category was the Support Team. It was the most populated of the three groups and comprised of approximately 1600 members. They took care of the villagers, relayed information to the various bases the Liberators had, and helped with discovering and developing new bases. There were also a few spies in the support team who lived in large cities across the continent and kept an eye on world events. Some posed as merchants while others pretended to be adventurers. Some had more mundane covers, like doctor, butler, or farmer. They simply lived their day-to-day lives and gathered what information they could. As a result, they were in no danger, but the information they gathered was quite useful, such as rumors, major events within cities, the prices of goods, and the flow of people in those cities.

History
The organization was created by Belta Lievre, who after her close encounter with death because of learning about the tRuth Orcus of the world and its god, went into hiding and started to gather comrades that wished to fight the world itself after having suffered from it. Over the next decade, Belta and the other founders of the Liberators had managed to recruit many more comrades, and had established a vast network of cells in various locations. During the early years of their existence, they discovered a sunken ship from the age of the gods at the bottom of the ocean, and commandeered it as their HQ. Once it was fixed, they hid their base at the bottom of Ur Lake, and named their ship "Lac Elain".

Throughout the Liberaors' existence, members within various cells had been captured by the Holy Church and painfully interrogated before being executed. Even so, the church never learned of their existence. While on a solo undercover mission to rescue many of these captured members of Liberators that were held prisoner by the Reisen family in the Grandort Empire, Belta was killed after her identity was discovered. However, her mantle of leadership was taken up by Miledi Reisen, who soon continued the work of gathering comrades in secret to fight against the gods.

Over four years after the Belta's death, the Liberators official revealed themselves to the world when they defeated many of the church's templar knights in Andika. This caused the church to view them as a serious threat, and had focused much of their efforts into destroying them.

After the Liberators had successfully gathered all seven of the Ancient Magic users, they enacted their grand ambition of taking on the gods of Tortus, which they called "Operation Revolution Tolls", and launched an attack against the Holy Church's Main Cathedral. Despite having initially succeeded in wiping out most of the Holy Church's forces, as well as destroying theircathedral, they were ultimately forced to retreat when Ehit retaliated by summoning an army of apostles to attack them.

Following the Liberators's retreat, Ehit's apostles used their hypnosis magic "Charm" to compel the people of Tortus to hunt down and kill the Liberators, knowing that their compassion would prevent them from killing any innocent lives, regardless of their mental state. This resulted in the deaths of almost every member within the organization, and overtime, the hypnosis would have eventually compelled the people of Tortus to fight each other, and ultimately bring an end to civilization.

In order to prevent that outcome, Miledi made a deal with Ehit: The seven Ancient Magic users would spend seven years time to create seven Labyrinths around the world, where they would each be secluded for the rest of their lives, but they could pass on each of their magics to those people, who in the future, might want to renew their fight against the unfair world. In return, Ehit agreed to end the world-wide hypnosis, in the hopes of coming across a new pawn to play with in the future.

To wait for that one chance to fight back and save the world; Miledi had her soul transferred from her physical body to a golem, after she was publicly executed as part of her deal with Ehit, and would wait until an opportunity to destroy the Liberators' ultimate enemy would arrive.

Legacy
Although the Liberators failed in their mission, the surviving members would go on to live in peace, with some of them even having families of their own that would carry on for many years to come.

Thousands of years after their defeat, when the heroes of Earth were summoned to Tortus by Ehit, the Liberators were regarded as "Mavericks" who betrayed their god.

Their goal and desire to kill and liberate Tortus from Ehit's twisted amusement was then eventually passed down to Hajime Nagumo, and despite him having no intention to saving their world, he non-the-less fulfilled their long cherished wish and killed Ehit.

After Ehit's death, the Liberators' story was slightly altered by Hajime and the leaders of Tortus in order to maintain public order and faith. This was done by making it seem that "Ehit" was an evil and malignant God that had taken up the name of the "True" God Ehit in order to bring about calamity and thus a separate deity from the God that people of Tortus worshiped. Effectively allowing the governments of Tortus to make it out that the "Seven Liberators of the True God Ehit" had realized the "False God" was not the true Ehit and set out to defeat him as "Ehit's True Followers".

Leaders

 * Belta Lievre (Founder)
 * Miledi Reisen (Leader)
 * Badd Virtus (Vice-leader and Captain of HQ's Frst Combat Unit)
 * Salus Gaistrih (Acting Manager)
 * Brad Lumond (Leader of the Prantz Branch)
 * Howzer Almeda (Leader of the Angriff Branch)
 * Rigan Nelson (Leader of the Esperado Branch)
 * Adel Lackman (Leader of the Dustool Branch)
 * Madame Jacqueline (Leader of the Mord Branch)
 * Nadia Piscott (Leader of the Shandra Branch)
 * Eevee Mercride (Leader of the Velnika Branch)

Ancient Magic Users

 * Oscar Orcus
 * Naiz Gruen Caliente
 * Meiru Melusine
 * Vandre Schnee
 * Lyutillis Haltina
 * Laus Barn

Other Members

 * Cloris Gaistrih (Acting Manager's Aide)
 * Marshal Diamond (Combat Commander)
 * Mikaela Eifield (Vice-Commander)
 * Tim Rocket (Captain of the Messenger Corps)
 * Tony Owen
 * Abe Morgan
 * Shushu Corthea
 * Leonard Avan (Captain of the Esperado Branch's second combat unit)
 * Arsel Blare
 * Jinx Renka (Esperado Branch’s Spy Chief)
 * Henriette Lodge
 * Solas Benji
 * Odio Straff
 * Lonely Wolf
 * Ruth Orcus
 * Corrin
 * Moorin
 * Susha Liv Doumibral
 * Yunfa Liv Doumibral
 * Melissa
 * Shirley Nelson
 * Snowbell (Captain of the Expeditionary Squad)
 * Ben
 * Jinglebell
 * Kiara Wanda
 * Vera Wanda
 * Marcus Wanda
 * Kipson (Captain of the Guard for the Crimson Desert Base)
 * Bakara Bart
 * Sharm Barn
 * Reinheit Ashe
 * Davy Consman
 * Holly Nelson
 * James Sont
 * Forest Dyron

Trivia

 * The name of the Liberators' undersea base "Lac Elain" may be based on the name "'" that has been used by several individuals in the ' folklore. In particular, it may be based on "Elaine of Benoic", who is the wife of, and the mother of . Her husband dies of grief when his enemy attacks his land, and Elaine goes to attend to him. She sets the infant Lancelot down, and he is taken by the , who raises him. Furthermore, Lancelot later becomes the object of affection for two women who are named Elaine: "", who magically tricks Lancelot into sleeping with her and gives birth to their son , and "", who dies of a broken heart due to Lancelot not reciprocating her feelings for him.