Rio Karasuki

"Words of gratitude are not enough for the greatest kindness you have bestowed upon my unworthy self. If ever a danger shall befall upon the spirit folk, I vow to assist you as your sworn friend — with my entire being."

- Rio's verbal pledge to Spirit Folk's elder

Rio (リオ) is an orphaned child that lived in the slums of the Beltram Kingdom capital and the reincarnation of Amakawa Haruto, who died due to an unfortunate accident in Japan. His most striking feature is his black hair which is extremely rare among the population and his androgynous looks which were a combination of his features from his previous and current life making him the most distinguishable amongst the orphans. He has sworn to take revenge on his mother’s murderer but his fate changed drastically after he awakened to his previous life’s memories as Amakawa Haruto. Their personalities merged into one with Haruto and Rio sharing control over the body and mind.

Afterward in a sudden turn of event, he got dragged into a kidnapping incident where he somehow saved the kidnapped princess, and as a reward, he was allowed to enroll in the Beltram Kingdom Royal Institute, only to get himself involved in their political disputes, Later, due to a false accusation, he became a fugitive before graduation and was forced to escape the country.

He travels far east to his parents' motherland where he tried to find his roots and settle his inner turmoil. Later on, he returns to the west with a new identity by using his previous life's name Haruto Amakawa (アマカワ ハルト), aiming to take his revenge over his parents enemies.

Appearance
As Rio, he had an appearance reminiscint of his previous life, with black eyes and black hair, a slender yet firm build. There's a bunch of old scars on his body from the times he lived in the slums, but they faded along the years.

As his second persona Haruto, he has grey asymmetrical hair that's longer on the right side of his face, a sharp face, strong and serious eyes, he oozes a calm and collected air around him, sometimes feeling dangerous but also somehow gives a feeling of warmth and security.

Background
Rio was born to two immigrant parents that migrated to the Beltram kingdom from far east in the Yagumo region. His father Zen, was an adventurer that died around the time of Rio's birth, making the latter having only faint memories of the former; he was then raised alone by his mother Ayame. Though their black hair often gave them trouble, her mother's positivity, gentleness and love enabled him to grow up peacefully, until his mother was murdered by Lucius. Rio at the time had just reached the age of five and was thrown into the slums, losing everything he had, he swore to take revenge on the man that took it all from him. He managed to survive and endure life in the slums, until 2 years later. During one faithful morning, Rio got his previous life's memories back, coincidentally on the same day of the big event that would end his life in the slums.

Story
Rio has lived a portion of his life in Beltram as an orphan in the slums. Since awakening to Haruto's memories, things have only gotten harder. As a beneficiary of the King of Beltram, Rio was educated in the royal academy despite a lack of peerage.

After the false accusation of attempted murder of Flora Beltram, Rio left for Yagumo, the region his parents emigrated from. With Latifa, his failed assassin, he ventured into Seirei no Tami, the land of the Spirit Folk. Latifa was later revealed to be an elder's great-granddaughter, and as a reward for saving Latifa, Rio asked to learn spirit arts. He then gets introduced to the high level spirit dryad who told him that he's contracted to an upper class spirit. In no time, Rio grew into the strongest spirit arts' user in the village. Shortly after, Reiss attacks the village using the wyverns he brought. Before they caused any more turmoil Rio killed the black wyvern, the rest of its subordinates fleeing. The dwarves subsequently crafted an armor set from its leather. Before he left the village, the elders give him a reward; Slydora, a Time-Space Chache; Dominic, a weapon and set of armor, also a large number of medicines.

After leaving, he continued his journey to Yagumo. He traveled from village to village seeking information on his parents till he came across an elder that knew who he was. This woman claimed to be his father's mother but refused to discuss his parents because she was not in the right position to reveal the truth behind Rio's parents. Rio lived much like any other villager under his grandmother's care while aiding the village in hunting and farming.

He was approached by a vassal of the Karasuki Kingdom and then informed of the situation involving his parents. His mother Ayame was a former second princess of the kingdom and his father Zen was a rising star warrior charged as her guard. The Karasuki Kingdom had a long history of conflict against the Rokuren Kingdom, and one time, the latter sent a ceasefire proposal to Karasuki. A celebration gathering from both sides was held in the royal capital of Karasuki. The ceasefire agreement passed nicely, and later the prince was supposed to go back to his home country without any incident. But in the evening of that day, someone kidnapped Ayame. The culprit was the assistant of the Rokuren Kingdom’s prince, who belonged to an opposing side to the ceasefire agreement. Zen, who was secretly protecting Ayame from the back, managed to capture that person. Though some circumstances were omitted, having been trained to commit suicide with an unknown ability, that person was dead. The next day, while the Karasuki side asked for an explanation for this matter, the Rokuren prince was angry, with reason that his assistant was brutally murdered. Despite the fact that their opponent is the one who instigated all of this, due the sudden death of the culprit, Karasuki decided to treat this case with caution. But the Rokuren prince pressed on even more and made a fuss of himself going all the way to the enemy kingdom only to be betrayed like that. The negotiations of both kingdoms were going down the drain, just like that, the situation almost forced the breaking of the ceasefire agreement. The Rokuren prince proposed a way to fix the ceasefire agreement: the execution of Zen, who personally killed his assistant, and a demand for Ayame. Hamura, as king, pretended to accept the Rokuren prince's demands and secretly attempted to attack the Rokuren kingdom – with a scale which couldn’t be sniffed out by Rokuren and the opposing domestic nobles – picking only the most elite amongst the samurai organisation’s fighters to dispatch them without being found out. The Karasuki Kingdom successfully defeated the Rokuren Kingdom, making them a vassal state, but they made a blunder by deceiving their citizens.

After staying for a while in Karasuki, he decided to leave and return to the Spirit Folks, meeting Sara and other others. They were shocked, seeing Rio become more mature than before. He then met up with Latifa and having bathed together, told her that he's returning to the Stralh region to meet his benefactor, being warned by Latifa to be careful.

Rio later went to the Beltram kingdom and in his journey, reunites again with Miharu who was dragged to this world in the heroes' summoning, along with Aki and Masato. He saves them from the slave traders and brings them to the Spirit Folk. They accepted Miharu's group and made a welcome party. Shortly after Rio's contracted spirit has awakened and slept beside him (naked), it had made Miharu shocked. Rio in panic explained the situation.

Martial Arts
Haruto was taught «Ancient Martial Arts» and «Swordsmanship» by his grandfather in his previous life. Later as Rio, he further trains his swordsmanship excelling beyond even royal guards as just a child in Beltram.

Magical Abilities

 * Magic (fake; gained by mimicking the principle of the magic since he never succeeded in the Contract Ceremony)
 * Magic (White/All-rounder Type)
 * Spirit Arts (Rio has a natural affinity for the arts preceding the West's magic arts. This prevent him from fulfilling Contract Ceremonies. Spirit Arts are more versatile.)

Intelligence
In his previous life, Haruto was already university student before he died. Combined with Rio's knowledge of the new world, Rio is considered multilingual, being able to properly speak Japanese from his past life as Haruto and 3 different languages from the new world: the Stralh tounge, Yagumo and Spirit language. Although initially illiterate at first, Rio quickly learned and surpassed his peers in the academy.

Wealth
Rio is filthy rich, he still has some mystic coins from the rewards of saving Flora from kidnapping, a big amount of Monster materials and magic stones from the monsters he defeated in his journey, inside his storage. He has several bases and mansions spread in several countries, and still has tons of items and recipes he learned in the Spirit Folk village like Soap, Liquor, or Potions that if he sell the recipes, he can live a free life just from the recipe of one item. For comparison, annual income of a lower class nobles are only 40 Gold coins.

Jack Of All Trade
He demonstrated versatile of skills throughout the story.


 * Hunting: He possess proficient knowledge, skill, and experience that allows him to hunt prey more proficiently than normal hunters.
 * Farming: In his past life, he helped his grandparent on the farm during his time in the countryside. After his stay at the spirit village, his skill and knowledge grew further on farming as it uses spirit art.
 * Poker Face: He is an expert at hiding his own emotion and expression making him very difficult for others to perceive his thoughts.
 * Carpentry: During his stay at the spirit village, he learned the skill of carpentry to the level of receiving praises.
 * Cooking: Rio retains an average knowledge of Chinese, Western and Italian cuisine from his previous life. He is also taught Tea brewing by Celia.
 * Heavy Drinker: He can handle strong alcohol greater than a average dwarf without getting drunk.
 * Medicine Concocting: Currently, he can concoct simple things like soap and such.
 * Noble Etiquette: Combing his knowledge on manners and greetings from his previous life and his learning of etiquette during his time at Bertram Royal Academy, his ways of conduct became so flawless that everyone thought of him as a noble even though he claimed himself as a commoner.
 * Engineering: He can construct machinery such as water wheels.
 * Magic Tool Crafting: He can creating magic/ spirit tools that can change hair colors and simple detection barriers.
 * Knowledge on Magic Formation: Rio is exposed to the knowledge of magic formation during his time at the Bertram Royal Academy working as Celia's assistant and his knowledge expanded while at the spirit village.

Trivia

 * He is more of Rio with Haruto's memories in LN, while in WN he is Haruto with Rio's memories.
 * The trivia above cannot be considered true. He is not just Haruto, and he is not just Rio either. He is both at the same time, he accepts both names as his own.
 * His favorite food is omelette