Stark

Spiky red hair growing from black roots tops Stark, whose eyes are a bright orange. He typically wears a sleeveless black collared shirt with white fastenings, loose black trousers, boots, a white waist sash, and bandages wound around his arms, switching to a black turtleneck in the cold. Outdoors he adds a red coat with cream lapels and cuffs plus fingerless gloves, and straps a huge double-headed axe of gray and silver across his back. A silver bracelet from Fern, a gift for his eighteenth birthday, sits on his wrist, and a large scar marks his forehead, left by Eisen lashing out in fear.

Warm and charismatic, Stark wins people over easily; older folk dote on him, children flock to him as a role model, and he repays that affection by readily putting himself in danger to shield them. Frieren places such trust in him that she leaves her life in his hands, and Sein sums him up as a good-hearted kid. For all his years of grueling training, though, he is at heart a coward, dreading monsters and fighting down the urge to run, a weakness he despises; his hands shake before battle just as his master Eisen's once did. When the stakes are dire he summons the nerve to fight regardless, even at the risk of his life. Next to the composed Fern he comes across as boyish and a little irresponsible, prone to crude remarks and to staying up late sipping juice when she is not watching, then apologizing meekly the moment she scolds him.

Years under Eisen of the Hero Party have honed Stark's body far past human norms, lending him sharp combat instincts and the toughness to shrug off blows that would kill seasoned fighters. Eisen drilled into him that his true gift is resilience and rapid recovery; Stark reasons that as long as he can rise again, he has not lost. His strength is staggering enough to fell a Solar Dragon with a single axe stroke to the skull, and his durability lets him endure dragon bites, even having his head chewed on, with little harm. He keeps fighting while bleeding from many wounds, once unleashing a powerful technique despite a hole punched through his abdomen, and his quick reflexes let him twist so that lethal strikes catch less vital spots. His pain tolerance runs so high that he survived a poisoned arrow that would have killed any other party member from a mere graze.

Trained primarily with the axe, Stark also learned the sword in his warrior village, picking up the Orden family's sword technique from Lord Orden. His signature move is Lightning Strike, in which he abandons defense, raises his axe overhead, and brings it down so fast that it throws off a towering beam of light able to cleave through stone and even gouge a cliffside. Against the Demon General Revolte he displays Cleaving Light, severing an arm before carving upward through the foe's body.