Raphtalia (Web Novel)

Raphtalia (ラフタリア) is a main character in the web novel series The Rising of the Shield Hero.

Appearance
Raphtalia has undergone some significant changes throughout her adventure. When Raphtalia is first introduced, she has long, unmanaged hair and a dirty cloth gown. After being purchased by Naofumi, he cut her hair to an acceptable length, gave her a bath, and bought her a much more suitable set of clothes to go adventure in. As a Tanuki demi-human, Raphtalia is shown to have fluffy dog-like ears and an averagely sized bushy tail. After several weeks of traveling with Naofumi, Raphtalia's body inexplicably changes and she now gives of the appearance of young adult. In her adult form, Raphtalia begins to wear clothing much for fitting for a warrior which consists of a hide breastplate, skirt, lace-up boots, and a pair of gloves. Raphtalia also switched from a small knife to a full-sized sword during this time.

Personality
Initially, Raphtalia is very timid, sickly, and fearful as a result of her status as a slave as well as the destruction of her village. After the encounter with the two-headed dog monster, she overcomes her trauma from her parent's death at the hands of the Cerberus and acknowledges Naofumi as a hero in her own mind. The current Raphtalia is focused on efficiency, in both combat, training, and money expenditures, she is extremely devoted to Naofumi and harbors feelings for him which the other party remains oblivious to.

Background
Until the age of 10, Raphtalia lived in a small coastal village outside of Melromarc, where everyone lived in harmony until the first wave of calamity attacked. During the attack of the first wave, Raphtalia and her parents fled their home but considering they had only the sea to provide them safety Raphtalia's parents made the ultimate sacrifice. Her parents pushed her off a nearby cliff as the wave approached them, and she watched as her parents were engulfed by it. Raphtalia would survive the fall and went back to find her parents, but they were no longer and shortly after doing so a group of slave traders showed up in her village, where she was captured and sold to several different people before ending up in a slave dealers tent in Melromarc. Alone and sickly she was picked up by a slave merchant and put up for sale in the capital of Melromarc. Years Raphtalia was at the slave traders for a few months until she was purchased by Naofumi Iwatani where her life would be changed forever.

The Rising of the Shield Hero
Naofumi decided to use a slave as his weapon for fighting monsters, so he chose Raphtalia, a demi-human who was weak and ill and initially only armed with a kitchen knife. Under the effect of rage, he raised her, helping her to grow and overcome her trauma but viewed her simply as a little slave. After the second wave, Motoyasu decided to fight with Naofumi to acquire Raphtalia and caused the removal of the slavery mark, but Raphtalia chose to stay with Naofumi, not because she was his slave but because she was his friend. This broke the first effect of the rage curse in Naofumi. Now they both view themselves as respective savior. Raphtalia later decided to regain the slavery mark as her party symbol.

Raphtalia is the first cursed slave of Naofumi Iwatani. She was terrified of her new master but slowly began to develop trust and eventually romantic feelings for him. Demi-humans age as they level. She generally uses a sword and illusion (Light and Dark) magic but began to be able to use a wider variety of magic types after her Class Up. She was able to study magic under the tutelage of the Melromarc's Court Magician and later went with Elrasla Ragnarok to study and become a master of Hengen Musou. Raphtalia is the most important person to Naofumi and is considered his right hand. She is from a subspecies of Tanuki with a unique lineage that comes from a certain hidden village within a secluded country in the east, however, she was born in a town which is now Rock Valley when her parents ran away from the village to elope. When she was growing up, Sadeena acted as her family's guardian but was away when the first wave appeared and destroyed the village she was born in.

The Reprise of the Spear Hero
Information to be added later on.

Legacy
As the Hero of the Hammer, she saved the world. Considered the right arm of the Hero of the Shield, she was always with him. As his first wife, she weds him, and they had children. Right now, much of Rock Valley’s royalty carries her blood. But she never had a moment of rest with the Hero of the Shield’s female relations. She often appears as the main character of many literary pieces of adventure.

Magic

 * Fast Light: Produces a bright illumination that reveals hidden monsters. It can also be used to blind enemies momentarily to escape.
 * Illusion: Magic that creates an illusion of Raphtalia to confuse her opponents.
 * Hide ・Mirage: "description here."
 * Al Hide Mirage: "description here."
 * Al Anti-Shining: "description here."
 * All Trick Mirage: Reverses the caster's and the opponent's appearance.

Skills

 * Illusion Sword: Used with Raphtalia's magic sword. It creates the illusion of the blade of a sword used to attack the enemy. This blade does not damage its target physically but causes mental damage associated with the supposed strike of the sword.
 * Ying Yang Blade: A technique where she fires the energy released by a defeated enemy and converts it into an attack.
 * Eight Trigrams Heaven's Sword: "description here."
 * Illusionary Blade: "description here."

Hengen Musou
Later on in her adventures, Raphtalia learned the Hengen Musou style of fighting, and since that point, has becoming considerably more powerful.

Rapier Style

 * Circle: The wielder twirls his or her rapier in a full circle, and the blade makes a high shriek as it passes through the air. All projectiles fired at the wielder are mowed down.
 * First Stroke: "description here."
 * Bagua Karma Blade:
 * Bagua Karma Blade Second Stroke: "description here."
 * Third Stroke: "description here."

Seven Star Hammer Skills

 * Thor Hammer: "description here."

God Slayer

 * Raphtalia has the power to attack gods.: The price of this power, her defense stat is 0, so she has to work with Naofumi during God-Slaying duties.

Relationships
Initially, she was scared of Naofumi, because of his demeanor and her experience with previous slave owners. After learning who he was and his cause of fighting the wave, she decide to give her all for it. Their relationship have become quite close, Naofumi is constantly thinking of what would make Raphtalia happy. Though Naofumi considers himself a father figure to Raphtalia, she has developed romantic feelings for him and is constantly trying to get him to notice those feelings. She is constantly let down by his personality, though she understand the reason for it and rarely steps in to stop him. It was because of Raphtalia, Naofumi seriously considered his reasons to fight the waves. She stood by him, even after the rigged duel to free her. After the party exchange, Raphtalia consider Nafoimi to be the only one with reasonable heroic deed, but Naofumi reminded her of heroes being humans and their mistakes are inevitable. He also asked her of his flaws to remind her that heroes are more human, which she begins to list, much too his dismay.
 * -|Heroes=
 * Naofumi Iwatani

Motoyasu though of Naofumi forcing Raphtalia to be his slave and took it upon himself to free her. He challenged Naofumi to a rigged duel and set her free from slave crest. He expected a warm hug from her, but was only rebuked by her with a slap for coming too his own conclusion and left with Naofumi. Though she doesn't hate Motoyasu quite as much as Filo does, she doesn't really care for him either. They were once forced to partner together as a training exercise and by the end of it, Raphtalia had lost a fair amount of respect for him. She stopped calling him with honorifics or respect. Despite his stupidity, even Motoyasu was able to see Raphtalia's feelings for Naofumi and asked him of his progress with her, only to be angered by the latter's denseness.
 * Motoyasu Kitamura

She rebuked for his poor co-ordination with his subordinates, as this may lead to any dead which did happens.
 * Ren Amaki

During the party exchange, Raphtalia was fed up with Itsuki trying to show off, by holding back and lying about his true potential which almost let them to dead frequently.
 * Itsuki Kawasumi

Though there hasn't been any extended dialogue between Raphtalia and Filo, she does still care about Filo as sort of a younger sister and always looks out for her. Both of them tries to get Naofumi's attention and often act as love rivals.
 * -|Seven Star Heroes=
 * Filo

They quickly get along, after learning each other's similar condition of love life. They promise each other to help other to reach their goals. Both of them became the pupil of or learning Hengen Musou technique.
 * Rishia Ivyred

Raphtalia sees Sadeena as a reliable person.
 * -|Other Heroes=
 * Sadeena

Raphtalia was under the governorship of Eclair's father. They view each other in good light. Eclair thought her in dept about swordsmanship. In Wn, Raphtalia left Naofumi in Eclair's care worrying he might do something to damage his own reputation.
 * Eclair Seaetto

Raphtalia considers Elhart a very kind man and a bit of a mentor, as he was the first person to instruct her on basics of proper sword usage. He was worried of her condition at first but amazed at her being in good condition with Naofumi.
 * -|Companions=
 * Erhard (Weapon Shop Owner)

It was her action that lead Raphtalia to Naofumi, though not specific. And Raphtalia is grateful for it. She also saved the queen from the rebel led by Malty in an attempt to kill the queen.
 * Mirellia Q Melromarc (Queen)

Trivia

 * It is implied that at one point in the web novel she was planned on being royalty of Qtenlo as in the Light novel. This was likely cut due to the author rushing the web novel, in order to shift their attention to the Light novel.