Hell Difficulty Tutorial 2 characters

Also known as Nat

Appears from the start

The book's first-person narrator: a detached, calculating young man with heterochromia (one grey eye, one brown) who has survived two lethal 'tutorial' floors on the hardest 'Hell' difficulty. He starts the third floor at level 75, built as a fragile 'glass cannon' with almost everything invested in mana, and treats growing stronger and understanding the system as his priorities. Quietly attached to the scattered survivors he means to reunite, he holds most people at arm's length behind rigid emotional control.

Also known as Izzy

Appears from the start

Sophie's much younger sister, around ten, who reappears at Nathaniel's side at the start of the third floor and stays his near-constant companion. A fire-based fighter whose emotions were repeatedly altered by Sophie during earlier events, she is oddly blunt about violence yet unusually perceptive of others' feelings, and openly devoted both to her sister and to Nathaniel, whom she needles and tries to draw out of his isolation.

First appears in chapter 4

Nathaniel's old friend from Earth and his closest, most trusted ally, back in contact over the survivors' message board early in the floor. Calm, quietly persuasive, and able to read people with unsettling ease, she vouches for his memory and character when he doubts them, and is the rare person he opens up to.

First appears in chapter 14

Isabella's older sister and a skilled manipulator of minds and emotions, first seen this floor from a distance, anxious for the sister she has been separated from and forced to trust to Nathaniel's protection. She secretly tampered with Nathaniel's mind during the group's first days, and the unresolved question of what she did, and whether she regrets it, keeps their relationship tense even as she owes him her sister's life.

First appears in chapter 24

A diligent young survivor who fights with controllable projectiles and a gravity-well skill, reunited with the group alongside Lily. Earnest and eager to grow stronger, he becomes one of Nathaniel's training partners. He privately carries guilt and resentment tangled up with the death of their mutual friend Kevin on the first floor.

First appears in chapter 23

The group's gentle primary healer, reunited with Nathaniel partway through the floor still missing the arm she sacrificed to restore his own at the end of the second floor. Kind and easily overwhelmed but quietly determined, she is slowly regrowing the limb and grows visibly fond of Nathaniel, who feels he owes her a great debt.

First appears in chapter 38

A calm, capable fighter formerly attached to Sophie's subgroup, who works with mana-formed armor and shifting weapons. Steady and effective, she rejoins the reunited survivors near the great wall and keeps a wary distance from Nathaniel.

First appears in chapter 14

Teenage twin brothers, near-impossible to tell apart, linked by a private telepathic connection they use to relay messages and coordinate the scattered group. Cautious and self-interested, they keep a transactional distance from Nathaniel while proving invaluable as scouts and go-betweens; Aaron is the first of the two given his own point of view.

First appears in chapter 17

The group's telepathic corgi, who turns up alone on the third floor after being separated from Lily, having gathered a band of frightened natives who feed him as a protective 'divine beast.' He fights with mana tentacles, communicates in single telepathic words, and is measurably stronger than when the group last saw him.

First appears in chapter 7

One of three survivors who transferred up from the easier 'Hard' difficulty, rescued by Nathaniel partly for the sake of his water-creating skill on a floor plagued by scarcity. Sharp, cautious and quietly self-serving, he quickly reads Nathaniel's transactional motives and negotiates his own value, keeping their alliance strictly a matter of mutual use.

First appears in chapter 7

One of the three survivors who transferred up from 'Hard' difficulty, the least combat-capable of them, who disables monsters' skills and mana before loosing weak, inaccurate mana-arrows from a bow. Quick to resent Nathaniel's mockery, she sticks close to her two companions and pulls her weight where she can.

First appears in chapter 7

The third of the survivors who moved up from 'Hard' difficulty, an amateurish fighter who makes crude, unstable ice spears. Physically outmatched by the floor's dangers, he attaches himself to the group's protection and mostly keeps his head down.

First appears in chapter 38

A former Earth policeman and one-time camp leader with a long, complicated history with Nathaniel, now a trusted ally who anchors the group's logistics and cooking. He rejoins the reunited survivors near the great wall alongside Maya and Dennis, a steady, physically tough fighter whose body-strengthening skill lets him take blows that would fell the others.

Also known as Vic

First appears in chapter 10

Nathaniel's older sister, seen only in childhood flashbacks and named here for the first time. Composed, studious and protective, she is one of the two people (with their mother) Nathaniel counts as truly his own, and the source of small human habits he still keeps.

First appears in chapter 46

A presence tied to the powerful defensive item the ancient, near-omnipotent being Lissandra gave Nathaniel at the end of the second floor. It regrows from his own severed hand into a small, breathing, flesh-and-bone form that speaks by vibrating its surface, greets him familiarly, and answers to her name.

First appears in chapter 97

The guildmaster of one of the fourth floor's five major guilds, a deceptively unremarkable-looking man of very high, unreadable level. Arrogant and cruel, he forces his way into the group's home, mocks and belittles them, and conscripts them as expendable support for a dangerous expedition, taking a particular condescending interest in Nathaniel and in Lily's healing gift.

First appears in chapter 99

The guildmaster of a second major fourth-floor guild, brought in to co-lead the expedition to the old capital. Calmer, more professional and more perceptive than her counterpart Elydor, she keeps her people disciplined and is quietly, warily suspicious of Nathaniel from their first meeting.