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mobage_manual
Introduction:
Welcome to Recommending Characters! In this section of the blog, I’ll be making an overview of a certain character from one of the franchises I’m into once every two weeks, as well as highlighting their best and most important moments in canon, in hopes that it’ll make the readers interested both in the character and in the game itself!
Today it’s time to finally introduce the second Mahoyaku character in this series, as well as the most voted character on August’s poll: Nero! Though not as much as Faust, Nero is also one of the characters I like the most in this game, being from Eastern Country (my favorite country), so I’m very glad I got to write for him (and on his birthday month, too!). If you keep up with the game’s development, you’ll probably know that Mahoyaku has just finished with the second part of its Main Story, after a year and a half in distribution, so I also really wanted to write something for one of its characters in commemoration.
Owner of a restaurant in Eastern Country, Nero’s wishes for a peaceful life after a more than complicated past were interrupted when summoned as a Sage’s wizard after one of the most disastrous Great Calamities attacks in wizard history. Nonetheless, despite his reluctance to teamwork, he’s always more than willing to prepare meals for the people living in the Wizard Manor, with the exception of a certain Northern wizard he might already be familiar with… But I won’t spoil anything more yet, so let’s dive into his profile overview!
Profile and general overview:
“Well, I don’t feel like doing this... but, it’s okay. I’ll do it, Sage.”
As stated before, Nero is a wizard from Eastern Country, same as Faust’s which I already described in his entry. He was born on September 8th, making him a Virgo, and he’s 1,78m tall, placing him at the same height as Owen and Rustica, the three of them often being dubbed 178cm group (or 178組/178gumi, in Japanese) because of this. His voice actor is Noriaki Sugiyama, whose other work in mobages includes characters like Grim (Twisted Wonderland). Regarding his magic abilities, his magic tool is a set of cutlery he presumably stole, and he’s especially good at intricate work with his magic, though he prefers not using it for cooking. Other details in the Sage’s manual include once again his love of cooking, but also his struggles with becoming attached to others…
… Which is a pivotal point in his past as a Northern wizard in Bradley’s bandit gang, rising up in the ranks until he was only second to him. However, this was accompanied by Nero constantly worrying about Bradley’s reckless nature, constantly getting himself into life-and-death situations, which always worried him, considering leaving the gang each time one of those incidents happened until Bradley convinced him to stay. However, he once failed to convince him, and instead left the gang by selling Bradley and the others out, prompted by Figaro and the twins. After that, he laid low in Eastern Country, opening up the shop he’s known for, leaving Bradley in the dark about what truly happened that night, even now that they’ve been forced to work together again as fellow Sage’s wizards. This past is slowly revealed by some relevant stories, so let’s go into that next!
Stories:
Location Story and Affection Story:
Each one of the wizards has their own smaller, focus stories in a certain location important to them (Location Stories), and an interview with the Sage in which they talk a bit about their motivations and their pasts as they’re prompted to answer (Affection Stories).
In Nero’s case, his Location Story takes place during a trip to an area in Eastern Country near his restaurant – the City of Rain – in which a strange incident has turned the water of the local river into gold. Its sub-episodes also provide most of the information we know about life and the rules and management of Eastern Country, which makes it a good point of reference. On the other hand, Nero’s Affection Story, titled Between the Spaces of a Wavering Existence, is one of the heaviest in the game, showing Nero’s vulnerable side after being reluctant to truly get close to any of the other wizards, as well as the Sage, because of all the secret he’s been keeping and bearing with. I won’t say anything more, but I highly recommend this story to better understand Nero as a character, even over other, longer event stories. However, I won’t neglect them just because of that – so let’s see what they have to offer next!
Event Highlights
Campeggio of the Sleepless Night
(also known as ‘Campeggio’ or ‘Summer 2021’)
“Nero laughed, but it felt like his voice was mixed with emotions. His gaze looked bitter, and yet somewhat nostalgic.
Bradley and Nero are another pair that seems to have a complicated relationship, akin to a thread with many, many tangled knots.
And untangling all these complicated knots is not an easy thing to accomplish.”
Nero got the unfortunate fate of not having proper focus on an event in almost 2 years of the game’s lifespan, but in the summer of 2021 we were blessed with this event announced on a livestream that featured almost the entire Eastern Country as SSRs! With Bradley having been lost for days after a fight with a magical beast, some of the Sage’s Wizards set on a journey to find him, with Nero being more worried than usual as this situation seems familiar to the ones he’s lived in the past…
Fantasia of the Silver-Biding House of Eggs
(also known as ‘East Fantasia’)
“His expression no longer looks like the sky before the rain, nor is he wearing the same face as he did as he gazed into the pond that night.
Maybe when the silver egg hatched, it also broke the wounded layer of hard shell enclosing Nero’s heart.”
This event is Nero’s first real banner (he was in East Etude’s banner, but anyone could argue the focus of that event falls on Faust) in a permanent event, so of course, it had to be included in this list! This one follows the Eastern and Northern wizards as they’re tasked with confronting a magical beast that has appeared at a place called ‘The House of Silver Eggs’, famous for their silverware. Because of Nero’s personality and troubles retold in his Affection Story, it’s hard to include aspects of him that actually move forward his development, but this event achieved that by showing plenty of new sides to him, which is why I find it a good read!
Sea Rover Squama
(also known as ‘April Fools 2023’)
“I don’t want that borin’ obedience crap from you, Nero. Just ‘cause you apologize don’t mean things will just go back to how they were for ya. If yer havin’ such bad thoughts, then answer me this one question.
Do you REALLY want to go back?”
Although April’s Fools events in other franchises are usually small or irrelevant comedic events to play pranks on the players, Mahoyaku stands out for creating an elaborate AU with a story every year, and this was no exception – Even though the contents of it can’t be taken at face value, I feel like this event shows in more detail how Nero might have acted like when he was still a member of the bandits, but before getting close to Bradley, which is something that has been explored in other, canon stories, but never in such a broad perspective. This is also probably the second best AU Mahoyaku has created for April’s Fools, so I’d say I recommend reading this event as a whole!
Other stories:
For more on Nero’s complicated emotions: East Etude. Once again, he wasn’t actually the focus of the event, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get any relevant scenes – the ones at the beginning specifically say a lot!
Fun-facts:
Most of Mahoyaku’s characters have a few certain theorized literary origins in regards to their names, however, Nero is one of the few characters whose name origin remains ambiguous, with a few sources being considered but none of them actually matching him much.
This might turn out to not be real as I don’t have access to the supposed source (1st Anniv Book), but some scrapped Great Calamity wounds ideas included Nero’s which would have been turning body fluids into wine or similar.
Closing thoughts:
While I know a handful of people who love Nero and have him as their favorite characters (which is likely the reason why many people voted for him!), I’ve also been told by some people that they had trouble understanding him, so I hope this entry can give everyone who is interested on him some pointers to completely get his character – in the end, it comes down to someone who is simply looking for a stable role to fulfill in life, in a world full of people who are always changing.
If you have read the calendar in the blog’s pinned entry, you’ll know that next entry of Recommending Characters will come earlier than usual due to being about a character that was suggested in the “other characters” section of the latest poll, and thus also making the next entry slightly different, so please look forward to it even if it doesn’t tackle the usual fandoms!
Credits:
Summer 2021's quote taken from yumemory's translation.
East Fantasia's quote taken from healingbonds' translation.
April Fools 2023's quote taken from Promise of Wizard's miraheze wiki.
