Belsio

Belsio appears as an older man who works the land in the mining town of Xenotime. He is drawn as a plain, ordinary figure in his 2003 anime adaptation, in keeping with his quiet life as a farmer rather than any striking design.

What sets Belsio apart is his refusal to pin the town's recovery on the Philosopher's Stone. While everyone else in Xenotime scrambles after riches, he stays unmoved, wary of what the Stone would cost. He is loyal to old friends, principled about how prosperity ought to be earned, and willing to shelter strangers even when he cannot be sure they are being honest with him.

Long ago Belsio watched the wealthy landowner Mugear coax his friend Nash Tringham into aiding his research, not long after Nash had come back from Central swearing never to return. When newborns in the town began sickening and dying, among them Elisa, who was saved only by Tim Marcoh, Belsio confronted Nash; wracked with guilt, Nash vowed to make things right and then vanished for good. Years later Belsio takes in the Elric brothers after they are branded impostors by Nash's sons, Russell and Fletcher, who had stolen their identities to carry on their father's work.

He looks on quietly as the boys keep breaking into Mugear's mansion, and once he realizes the impostors are actually Nash's children, he lays out the whole story, helping Edward piece together what is really happening. After Mugear's death he offers the Tringham brothers a place on his farm, where their plant-based alchemy can be turned toward raising honest crops and easing Xenotime's poverty.