Wehrlos

In the present Wehrlos cuts a vagabond's figure: a brown cloak over dark brown trousers, his arms wrapped in bandages and his feet bare, prompting Frieren to liken him to someone risen from the gutter. He is short, as dwarves are, with lengthy gray hair and a heavy beard. Back when he fought as the hero Rasen, his gear was plated armor crowned by a crested, nose-guarded helm. At the ball he turns out in black plate beneath a sweeping black cloak; a barred visor on his crested helmet hides his eyes and nose while his beard pushes out below, a belt with a square buckle draws in his waist, and under the armor hangs a short garment whose front panel falls past the belt.

Guarded but kindhearted, Wehrlos tries to save a hurt cat and offers Kreis an apology once Sein joins the kill list. Fame strikes him as pointless, and the smashing and forgetting of his statues and portraits leaves him untroubled. To settle his nerves he keeps repeating that suffering is ordinary for a warrior, though Kreis believes what he truly hunts for is an honorable death. His recall is remarkable, dredging Frieren up from an aged assassination roster and recounting a decades-old struggle for power, yet he guards his history closely and warns Wolf off from probing it.

More than eighty years back, Rasen became a leading figure in the Empire's push to retake its lands and was given the title Hero of the Far North once he had won back a third of its ground from the demons. While the Hero Party traveled, he met Himmel and traded blows with his fellow dwarf Eisen, picking up much from him, and afterward he stood against the Greater Demon Rivale. After the Demon King fell, the Empire let his name slip away, torching and toppling his monuments, and through the chaos of the imperial succession he lived as a Shadow Warrior and saw many commanders fall.

He resurfaces during the Foundation Festival, when the nun Lore is doling out soup and tells him of the order to kill the Great Mage Serie, news he carries to the vendor Gazelle before sitting in on the final planning session. Told that the palace's old flooded escape tunnel is unusable, he swims its length himself and reports to Clematis, where the two settle on slipping him inside through it. He soon comes back holding a dying cat; Sein heals it, the pair talk, and Sein hurries off after sensing Frieren. Once Wolf reveals that Sein serves Frieren's party, Wehrlos finds Kreis and warns that the order has marked Sein as a fresh target. When the ball finally arrives, he slips in by that snowmelt-choked route, armors up with Kreis's aid, then senses the mage Falsch nearby, shears off the man's arm, and sets his spear at the throat with a promise that a second move costs him his head.