Hell Difficulty Tutorial characters

Also known as Nat

Appears from the start

The book's first-person narrator, a detached young man with heterochromia (one grey eye, one brown) who is pulled from an ordinary bus commute into a lethal fantasy 'tutorial.' Calculating, near-expressionless and quick to act when others freeze, he is the first passenger to fight back and the first to open a personal status window, which brands his run with the label Difficulty: Hell. He treats survival as the only priority and keeps most people at arm's length.

Appears from the start

An old friend of Nathaniel's from Earth, blonde and calm, with a complicated shared history the story only hints at. Aboard the same transported bus, she quickly attaches herself to him as the one person she can rely on and becomes his closest and most trusted ally.

Appears from the start

A guarded, athletic passenger fiercely protective of her much younger sister, with whom she boards the transported bus. Amid the chaos of the crossing she trades a wary look of mutual understanding with Nathaniel, and something in her manner suggests she already recognizes him.

Also known as Izzy

First appears in chapter 7

Sophie's much younger sister, around ten years old, shy and easily frightened. She is first named when the scouting party debates whether she is safe to bring along, and stays behind at the bus while the others go ahead. Deeply attached to Sophie and rarely out of her sight, she is the youngest of the transported passengers.

First appears in chapter 6

A calm, authoritative passenger who reveals a concealed handgun during the first monster attack and takes charge of organizing the survivors. Level-headed and physically capable, handling his weapon and the frightened group with a practiced ease that suggests a law-enforcement background, he leads the early scouting parties. He and Nathaniel size each other up as wary near-equals, the start of an uneasy partnership.

First appears in chapter 6

A tall, broad-shouldered, athletic passenger who volunteers for the first scouting trip into the forest, citing a countryside upbringing. He shakes hands firmly with the other men as if testing them and fixes Nathaniel with a pointed, hostile stare he does not explain.

First appears in chapter 19

A small sandy-colored corgi transported along with the passengers, belonging to an older woman in the group. He is first noticed among the survivors as the camp finds its footing, an unexpected scrap of ordinary life carried into a very dangerous place.

First appears in chapter 21

A thin, bespectacled fifteen-year-old passenger, nervous and withdrawn at first, part of the loose circle of younger survivors around Kevin and Lily. He becomes one of Nathaniel's early training partners and works harder than anyone to grow stronger, wielding a mind-based skill that moves objects.

First appears in chapter 21

A petite, shy seventeen-year-old passenger with her black hair in a ponytail, part of the younger survivors' circle. Gentle and easily overwhelmed, she becomes the group's indispensable healer, mending wounds at growing cost to herself. She develops a quiet fondness for Nathaniel and compares his watchful, aloof manner to her pet cat back home.

First appears in chapter 21

An energetic, joking eighteen-year-old passenger with messy brown hair, the most outgoing of the younger survivors. He dreams of earning a 'hero' class and throws himself cheerfully into fights, though his skills are still clumsy. He nicknames Nathaniel 'the wolf slayer' and becomes a reliable, if reckless, member of Nathaniel's small hunting group.

First appears in chapter 22

A wealthy, expensively dressed passenger around a decade older than Nathaniel, accustomed to money solving his problems. He approaches Nathaniel with an offer of one million dollars for personal protection, and is mocked and refused - a man whose old-world status buys him nothing in a place that only counts strength.

First appears in chapter 25

A fit, dark-skinned passenger who describes herself as a certified personal trainer, armed with a spear. Calm and physically capable, she joins the water-run group and drifts into Sophie's subgroup, proving steady and effective when the fighting reaches her.

First appears in chapter 25

A large, powerfully built passenger with a strong, hard-to-place accent, armed with a heavy mace. He joins the water run and settles into Sophie's subgroup, a dependable presence in the front line.

First appears in chapter 51

Teenage twin brothers, around seventeen, blond and athletic, near-impossible to tell apart even by their identical mana signatures. Placed in Hadwin's care and then loaned to Nathaniel's group, they can pass warnings to each other through a thin, hard-to-detect mental link, which makes them useful as scouts and relays between separated groups.

First appears in chapter 64

A wealthy, handsome and charismatic young noble the group meets in the city, publicly charming and widely liked. In private, out of earshot, he drops the act: he claims to recognize Nathaniel as fundamentally similar to himself, calculating and willing to step over anyone, and quietly threatens to kill him, all while smiling for onlookers.

First appears in chapter 68

A tall, gray-haired older noblewoman who displays no readable level or class at all, arriving at Emeric's manor after his sudden disappearance. She announces that she has bought Nathaniel outright and warns him that a lie to her means death. Everything about her - the household's deference, the unreadable status, the absolute self-assurance - marks her as a power of an entirely different order.

First appears in chapter 70

The Master's red-haired personal attendant, roughly twenty years old, with unusual patterned yellow eyes and an unreadable level. Playful, blunt and chatty, she is also extremely dangerous, knocking Nathaniel out on a whim. She becomes his handler, paymaster and reluctant friend, insisting he drop false politeness and taking to calling him 'Nat.'