"Noppera-bo"

Noppera-bo’s real name is unknown, and even his true face cannot be recognized because the skin covering his entire head has been stripped away.

The skin and soft tissue around his ears and nose are also missing, giving him a disturbing, faceless appearance that earned him the nickname “Noppera-bo.”

He is biologically male.

Due to the extensive mutilation, his age and original features are extremely difficult to determine.

Noppera-bo is said to have massacred seven Ainu and stolen the gold they had secretly accumulated.

This gold had been gathered by the Ainu as a hidden war fund to resist the ethnic Japanese who were encroaching on their lands.

After stealing the gold, he hid it and fled.

He was eventually captured by the police near Lake Shikotsu and then sent to Abashiri Prison.

The authorities believed he alone knew the hidden gold’s location.

Because of this, he became the target of harsh interrogation and cruel treatment inside the prison.

Inside Abashiri Prison, Noppera-bo was locked away in Cell 24, a high-security cell for dangerous inmates.

Seeking to extract the location of the gold, one of the prison guards severed a tendon in one of his legs, limiting his mobility and preventing him from moving or escaping easily.

Unable to act freely himself, he began to rely on other prisoners.

He formed a long-term escape and information network using their bodies as living messages.

To communicate the location of the hidden gold to allies outside the prison, Noppera-bo started tattooing the bodies of fellow inmates.

These tattoos were not simple maps but fragments of a single, larger encoded design.

He promised the prisoners, “Anyone who successfully escapes will receive half of the gold.”

This tempting offer encouraged numerous inmates to attempt daring prison breaks.

However, the tattoo design was deliberately divided into many pieces, each on a different convict’s skin.

The code can only be deciphered when all the tattooed skins are collected, flayed, and stitched together, forming one complete “tattooed human-skin” map.

Because of this, any escaped tattooed prisoner is ultimately destined to be hunted and killed.

Their role is essentially to become a piece of the final map, not to share in the gold.

To most prisoners, Noppera-bo described a large but vaguely defined fortune.

Only to Toshizō Hijikata, whose goal aligned with his own, did he reveal the true scale of the treasure.

He told Hijikata that the actual hoard was twenty thousand kan in weight.

This is roughly 75 tons of gold, estimated around 800 billion yen at 2015 values.

Hijikata, analyzing the routes taken after the raid on the Ainu gold, deduced that Noppera-bo and his comrades had likely been part of a group of Far Eastern Russian partisans.

This suggested that Noppera-bo was not just a thief, but also politically and militarily involved with anti-state or revolutionary movements.

Noppera-bo entrusted the gold to someone referred to as “Kotaru’s Kochohen Asuko,” which is revealed to mean Asirpa in Otaru.

This cryptic naming directly ties him to Asirpa, making her the key to uncovering the gold’s true location.

Kiroranke tells Saichi Sugimoto and his companions that Noppera-bo is actually Asirpa’s biological father, Wilk.

This revelation, if true, means Noppera-bo is not only the mastermind of the tattoo plan but also central to Asirpa’s personal history.

To confirm this, Sugimoto’s group heads for Abashiri Prison.

At the same time, Inkarmat’s fortune-telling indicates that Noppera-bo is not Wilk, but the result gradually shifts as they approach Abashiri, until the probability becomes roughly fifty-fifty.

Ultimately, it is confirmed that Noppera-bo is indeed Wilk.

This confirmation adds tragic weight to his actions and to Asirpa’s involvement with the gold.

The warden of Abashiri Prison, Inudou, considered Noppera-bo an asset of immense strategic value.

To secure Noppera-bo and eliminate all rivals for the gold, he even prepared a decoy “fake Noppera-bo” as bait.

This ruse was meant to mislead and trap the various factions converging on Abashiri in search of the gold map.

The real Noppera-bo was kept hidden and heavily guarded as the true prize.

During the assault on Abashiri Prison, chaos erupts as multiple forces clash over Noppera-bo and the tattooed skins.

In the midst of this battle, the real Noppera-bo is fatally shot, with bullets striking his head and other vital areas.

He dies before he can reveal everything directly and clearly to Asirpa and Sugimoto.

His death leaves behind an incomplete legacy of clues, codes, and conflicting stories about the gold.

After the assault, his body is recovered by the Seventh Division of the Imperial Japanese Army.

Saichi Sugimoto and Inkarmat, who are both severely wounded, are also taken by the same unit, setting the stage for the next phase of the struggle over the gold and Noppera-bo’s secrets.