Queen's Shadow

The Queen's Shadow is a supporting character of The Rising of the Shield Hero. They are one of the main shadows who is loyal to Queen Mirellia and is in charge of protecting Melty.

Appearance
The queen's shadow gender is unknown and is able to use magic to appear exactly like Queen Mirellia. In his disguise as a noblewomen Naofumi determined him to be in her early 20's with purple hair. They are also capable to copying and mimicking the appearances and voices of other characters.

Personality
The Queen's Shadow is quite serious and professional. They follows the orders they was given as intended. However, in a side story, the Queen's Shadow was depicted as having some fondness for Melty. They are shown to joke often when in conversations with other characters like Naofumi. When they are not having serious conversations.

Abilities
As a shadow, the Queen's shadow is highly skilled at both concealment and disguises. They are able to use magic to change their appearance, regardless of the desired gender. They also capable of several forms of magic which can be used for deception or weaken opponents.

After Q'ten Lo became an ally, this shadow received special training which improved her stealth and infiltration skills. They also received a level 100 limit break ceremony but is behind people like Keel in terms of stats.

Magic
The shadow can use dark magic mainly uses magic that control and direct the attention of its targets, in addition it can also use some magic to lower the stats of its enemies.


 * Unnamed Illusion Magic

The shadow is able to transform into vastly different appearances at will. In one case they were able to transform into Sadeena in an instant.
 * Hide Behind「ハイド・ビバインド Haido Bebaindo」

The spell creates an illusion that redirects the target's attention elsewhere. It can also be used to create a decoy made of darkness that allows the user to attack while enemies direct their attacks at the decoy.


 * Blood Drain「ブラッドドレイン Buraddo Dorein」

The user drains the blood of an enemy and then condenses it into a sphere.


 * Blood Rain「ブラッドレイン Buraddo Rein」

The user infuses the blood drawn with the Blood Drain spell with dark magic and then causes the blood to rain across the area dealing damage and lowering enemies' defense.

Background
The Queen's shadow is a member of Melromarc's shadows - a secret organization which serves the royal family. They are similar to a "secret service" and may be used as bodyguards, assassins, escorts, messengers and spies. The Queen's Shadow had forsaken his name in order to become part of this organization.

As Melty was sent back to Melromarc to repair the relation between King Aultcray and Naofumi, the "Queen's Shadow" was sent to look after her during that time. They watched from the shadows as Melty met Naofumi and they journeyed to Melromarc.

Volume 3
Naofumi found Melty playing with filolials and brought her back to Melromarc, however the Queen Shadow was present for the whole scene and was just hiding in the background. Leaving from talking with the King after the third wave, Naofumi is met by the Queen's Shadow who was dressed as a noblewoman and was escorting Melty. In contrast to everyone else, the Queen's Shadow thanked Naofumi for his work.

Later on, when Naofumi was framed for kidnapping Melty and had the other heroes chasing him, the Queen's Shadow helped Naofumi escape. They convinces Naofumi to go to meet the Queen instead of leaving to Siltvelt.

Volume 20
With Melty becoming Queen on Melromarc, the Queen's shadow continued to work as her hidden bodyguard. When Lurolona Village was sent back in time, Melty and the Queen's shadow were included in the transfer. Apparently the Raphs were aware of her existence but kept it a secret after some negotiating. Since last time Naofumi had talked to her, they had been training with shadows from Q'ten Lo and had become even more skilled. The shadow's skills at infiltration and espionage became essential since it allowed Naofumi to negotiate with Mamoru and learn about the enemy nation of Piensa.

Volume 22
The shadow plays a more prominent role in volume 22 than in previous volumes. The shadow shows up wounded along side its partner which is a member of the Raph species. They reveal that they were found and ambushed and were both terribly wounded by Piensa's new weapons which are unable to be healed via normal means. For when one tries to heal the wounds they get deeper and cause blood to spill from the wounds. The Shield hero gets rid of their unhealable wounds using 0 territory. After the shadow has recovered a little from the wounds Naofumi brings them out leveling. His reasoning is to allow them to get stronger and be able to fight back if it comes to that. The shadow then brings up a rumor that had been apparently circulating around via the villagers. That Naofumi was leveling people up to be his lovers. To which Naofumi adamantly denies and gets angry about. To which he plans to ask all the villagers about later. After this Naofumi responds saying they don't even know the shadows name or which gender the Shadow is. The shadow declines to reveal this information which leads to Naofumi just continuing to call them Shadow. This does cause the Shadow to lament that being called by there title makes them think they understood how Melty felt when Naofumi kept calling her Second Princess.

Mirellia Q Melromarc
Mirellia is the true monarch of Melromarc which her shadow recognizes. The shadow is completely loyal to Mirellia and will follow her commands.

Melty Q Melromarc
Is Melty's personal shadow and bodyguard. Who watches to keep her safe.

Naofumi Iwatani
The two met when Shadow helped Naofumi and his group escape after the battle with the other heroes over Melty's alleged kidnapping. After that, they met again on several other occasions, mainly to exchange information. In each of those encounters, Naofumi recognized Shadow from the rest of the shadows only by the particular way of speaking about her.

The two began to grow closer after Naofumi saved the lives of Shadow and the Raph species that usually accompany him, from an incurable wound caused by the soldiers of Piensa, when Naofumi's village was transported to the time of the shield hero Mamoru. Shadow tends to exasperate Naofumi mainly because of the teasing attitude they often takes towards him and their belief that if Naofumi takes someone to level up it is because he wants to make them his lover. Even with all of the above, Naofumi considers Shadow a very useful asset due to his information gathering abilities, and is very grateful for all the help they have given him and the rest of his teammates.

Trivia

 * The Queen's Shadow is distinguished by her speech. In the light novel his accent pronounces "s" like a "z". In the anime, they ends their sentences with "I daresay".
 * While it is difficult to tell the shadow's gender, Naofumi uses masculine pronouns to describe the shadow in the light novels. However in the anime they are depicted as feminine.