Krai Andrey

Krai Andrey is around 20 years old, living in the imperial capital as an explorer known as a hunter.

He is officially one of only three certified Level 8 hunters in the capital and bears the grandiose title “Thousand Transformations.”

Outwardly, he is a plain black-haired, average-height young man who leads the party “Strange Grief” and serves as the master of the rising clan **“First Step.”

On paper, he is regarded as one of the most outstanding young hunters in the empire, credited with raising a monstrously powerful party through the so-called “Thousand Trials.”

In reality, he is a near-powerless “normal person” whose reputation has snowballed out of control.

His actual combat talents are so low that he is frequently described as weaker than an ordinary citizen.

He earned 10th place in the “This Light Novel Is Amazing!” 2025 Male Character rankings, highlighting his popularity among readers despite—or rather, because of—his massive gap between image and reality.

Voice actors: Kensho Ono (older Krai) and Konami Fujimura (childhood Krai).

Name: Krai Andrey

Gender: Male

Age: 20 (approximate, inferred from the story)

Occupation: Hunter (Explorer), Party Leader, Clan Master

Hunter Rank: Certified Level 8

Title (Nickname): “Thousand Transformations”

Party: “Strange Grief” (leader)

Clan: “First Step” (master)

Personality Keywords: Extremely pessimistic about himself, lazy, non-confrontational (in theory), shameless when needed, weirdly good at looking cool at the worst times

“Thousand Transformations”

Krai’s official epithet “Thousand Transformations” is interpreted by the public as:

“His schemes are so profound and demonic that no one can see through his methods.”

People believe he possesses:

Overwhelming information-gathering and analytical ability.

Prediction accuracy comparable to future sight.

A perfect 100% success rate on requests and commissions.

From the outside, he looks like a mastermind tactician handling everything from the shadows.

In truth, most of the perfect results are due to his party’s insane competence and a long chain of coincidences.

“Thousand Trials”

Krai is also associated with the phrase “Thousand Trials.”

This refers to the brutal, life-threatening incidents that keep happening to his allies whenever they work under his direction.

To others, it looks like:

He precisely gauges the line between life and death.

He deliberately pushes comrades to their limits for growth.

He is a merciless but genius trainer of elites.

To Krai himself:

He thinks, “I’m just incredibly unlucky.”

He has zero intention of testing anyone.

All these “trials” are, in his mind, nothing but terrible accidents that somehow work out.

Krai grew up in the imperial capital with a group of talented childhood friends.

As kids, they dreamed of becoming Level 10 hunters, the absolute pinnacle of strength, and formed the party “Strange Grief.”

Once they started actual adventuring, Krai quickly realized a brutal truth:

His childhood friends were all prodigies who bloomed rapidly.

He, by comparison, had “no talent at all,” in his own words.

He feared that, if he stayed in the front lines, he would only drag them down and eventually get them killed.

Out of responsibility, he tried to retire from the party.

However, his friends simply refused to listen.

Instead of letting him quit, they said, “If you don’t have a role, then be the leader,” and forced the leader position onto him.

Later, to find someone who could replace him as a frontline member, he helped found a clan, which became **“First Step.”

His role as a “founder” naturally led to him being named clan master, again without him truly intending it.

His high Level 8 certification is largely a result of how the system works:

A portion of the achievements of a party or clan is automatically attributed to the leader.

Since Strange Grief and First Step rack up incredible feats, Krai’s official record looks godlike even though he rarely does the actual dangerous work himself.

Krai sees himself as utterly incompetent and behaves accordingly.

He is fundamentally lazy, risk-averse, and extremely eager to avoid all trouble and responsibility.

Core traits include:

Low self-esteem: He genuinely believes he is useless as a hunter.

Avoidance: He tries not to accept any requests personally and attempts to offload everything onto others, especially his clan members.

Run-first mentality: When faced with a problem, his first instinct is to run away or escape.

Last resort: groveling: If cornered, his final move is a full prostration, begging for mercy rather than fighting.

Despite this, he does have a basic moral line:

He does not want others to die because of him.

When he feels someone’s life is at risk due to his actions, he will reluctantly move himself and take some responsibility.

He claims to have no pride, and in many ways that is true.

However, he still secretly wants to look cool in front of others and tries to act hard-boiled when the mood strikes—usually making misunderstandings even worse.

He spends much of his time in a self-imposed retirement fantasy, hiding in the master’s office under the pretext of “clan management,” polishing his collection of artifacts and dreaming of peaceful, retired days.

His catchphrases include:

“I feel like I’m going to puke.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s right.” (a noncommittal, empty agreement he uses to slide through conversations)

Raw Ability: Essentially None

As a hunter, Krai is almost comically weak.

His combat ability is roughly equal to that of an ordinary person, perhaps even below average.

First impressions from others are always along the lines of “he looks weak” and “he has no presence or vigor.”

There is no hidden aura of power; he simply seems unimpressive.

One self-aware cursed tool that analyzes a host’s stats evaluates Krai as:

Strength: E-

Endurance: E-

Magic Power: E-

Growth Potential: E-

Motivation: 0

Overall Score: 3 points

The artifact promptly declares him “not worth possessing” and goes back to sleep, which is about as brutal an assessment as it gets.

Mana-Material Absorption: “A Sieve”

In this world, a hunter’s strength is directly tied to how effectively they can absorb mana material, the essence that boosts power.

Krai’s absorption rate is so bad that he describes himself as a “sieve”—everything just flows through with almost no gain.

Paradoxically, this terrible absorption grants one big advantage:

He can withstand extremely high-density magical environments that would make others seriously ill.

Places like “Lost Lodging” (a legendary treasure hall) or Yggdra-type high-density areas barely affect him at all.

Where top-level hunters would suffer from mana intoxication, Krai remains oddly fine, simply because his body refuses to take in power in the first place.

Temperament

He is relatively gentle and does not enjoy conflict, at least in theory.

In practice, several things undermine this:

His party members are ferocious monsters in combat.

Krai himself has a mysterious knack for unconsciously provoking and annoying people with his words.

So even his “peaceful nature” doesn’t help much in keeping the world calm around him.

Artifact Enthusiast

Krai has no talent for magic, so he became a magic tool and artifact maniac instead.

He collects and buys a vast variety of artifacts, most of them powerful or rare.

His hobby is enabled by:

Sitri Smart, a merchant-type ally who provides him with massive financial backing (and to whom he owes huge debts).

His own obsession with having tools that can substitute for the magic he cannot use.

Despite his low overall skills, he has real, nontrivial technique in handling artifacts.

One early example shows him using a magic sword called the “Purgatory Sword”:

He only taps it lightly with his foot instead of grasping the hilt.

This tiny touch is enough to make it blaze with flames in a dramatic yet controlled way.

He manages to create a flashy spectacle without harming anyone nearby.

This is not something just anyone can do.

Powerful artifacts are normally extremely difficult to operate safely, and the Purgatory Sword is strong enough that relying on it alone can carry someone to a fairly high level.

Being able to activate it precisely on first contact, without even holding the handle, is, in itself, impressive.

Still, even this talent is more “solidly above average” than truly legendary.

Most of Krai’s achievements are less about skill and more about using a ridiculous number of high-end tools all at once.

“Absolute Defense”

Krai’s most famous rumored ability is “Absolute Defense.”

According to public belief, he can repel every attack, making him nearly unassailable.

Reality:

His “Absolute Defense” is achieved by wearing more than a dozen barrier-creating artifact rings at the same time.

Each ring is an expensive treasure that generates a protection field when supplied with magic.

This setup requires two key resources:

Enormous financial power from Sitri Smart, who buys or funds these expensive artifacts.

Colossal magic power for charging them, supplied mainly by Lucia Rogier.

Each of these barrier artifacts has terrible energy efficiency:

It takes enough magic to exhaust a top-class mage just to fully charge a single piece.

Even a noble-born spirit-human (a race naturally gifted in magic) would be winded after charging just over ten of them.

Lucia, however, is responsible for charging dozens, even hundreds of Krai’s artifacts.

Even Liz Smart, a thief rather than a dedicated mage, can charge up to three of them before collapsing, which alone is already far beyond normal.

Lucia’s capacity, compared to ordinary mages or even spirit-humans, is dozens of times greater, but only because she has been forced into a brutal training routine of:

1. Charge Krai’s artifacts until she is completely drained.

2. Recover using Sitri-branded potions.

3. Repeat this day after day.

Thus, Krai’s “Absolute Defense” is less about him being strong and more about:

Standing at the center of a logistical empire of money and magic.

Wearing so many top-tier barrier tools that he becomes a walking fortress by accident.

To observers who don’t know any of this, it simply appears as if:

No attack can reach him.

He must have some unimaginable defensive ability.

The Power to “Attract” Trouble

Krai’s one unique “special ability” is not listed on any official status sheet:

He pulls in trouble.

Examples include:

All lightning strikes in the vicinity seem to home in on Krai, including Lucia Rogier’s lightning magic.

Whenever he leaves the imperial capital, attacks that should be impossible under normal conditions seem to target him.

When he digs a hot spring, underground dwellers emerge from beneath the earth.

He encounters the legendary treasure hall “Lost Lodging” not once, but twice, even though encountering it even once is considered a miracle.

This pattern is so well known among the members of Strange Grief that it influences their behavior:

Luke Sykol and Liz Smart, who love fighting strong enemies, are eager to tag along with Krai because they know danger will find him.

Sitri Smart, who craves rare items, wants to stick close to Krai because his misfortune draws in rare dungeons and artifacts.

Krai himself is fully aware that his luck is “bad” in terms of getting dragged into trouble.

He is paranoid enough that he prefers having bodyguards just to step outside the clan house.

Luck That Is Somehow “Good” in the End

Paradoxically, Krai’s misfortune often produces miraculous positive outcomes:

He gets lost in a treasure hall and accidentally finds a person who needed rescuing.

He proposes, “Let’s go on a picnic! Just in case, go fully armed,” and while they are out, an ultra-difficult treasure hall manifests right in front of them, something practically unheard of.

During an expedition, their unit is swallowed by a treasure hall, but in the chaos, they expose and eliminate a hidden traitor.

He almost activates a catastrophic weapon by mistake, but the fallout leads to a criminal organization being framed and destroyed, winning the favor of the nation.

In most of these scenarios:

Krai himself does not understand what is happening.

His own careless actions often escalate the crisis.

The resolution is mostly thanks to his party’s prowess and sheer coincidence.

However, because everything somehow wraps up neatly, outsiders believe:

He is a peerless strategist who engineers outcomes from the shadows.

He can see the future or at least has prophetic insight.

He is extremely secretive, never explaining his true intentions.

From his allies’ perspective, missions assigned by Krai consistently become insane, irregular disasters:

Even Tino Shade, who worships him almost religiously, complains that “Master is always pushing us to the absolute brink” and wishes he would stop being so “Spartan.”

Within the clan, Krai giving you a job is equivalent to: “If you make one wrong move, you die.”

Yet, for reasons no one can fully explain:

Situations almost never become truly, absolutely hopeless.

And if they do, a member of Strange Grief just happens to show up for some arbitrary reason and turns things around.

All of these coincidences feed back into the myth that Krai:

Controls everything in the palm of his hand.

Is a genius leader who orchestrates growth through carefully tuned hardship.

The author even frames it as a sort of question to the reader:

“Is this, in its own twisted way, one ideal form of leadership?”

Why Everyone Thinks He Is a Monster

Krai goes out of his way to tell people he is weak and useless.

However, his circumstances and behavior cause the exact opposite impression:

Factors fueling the misunderstanding include:

His Level 8 rank, which already places him among elite hunters.

His association with Strange Grief, a party of monsters whose exploits sound like fiction.

His role as clan master of First Step, one of the top clans in the capital.

The perfect success rate of requests taken under his name or leadership.

His calm attitude under pressure, which is actually just numbness from constant exposure to disasters.

His vague, ambiguous way of speaking, because he rarely understands the specifics of the situation, which others interpret as deliberate mystique.

His actual skill with artifacts, which looks like confident mastery to those who don’t know his weak stats.

He is often seen:

Standing amid chaos, looking oddly unbothered.

Saying cryptic-sounding lines because he doesn’t fully grasp the danger.

Using complex artifacts correctly on the first try as if it were no big deal.

To people with incomplete information, this all screams:

“Terrifying genius with unfathomable insight.”

To Krai, it’s just:

“I’m confused, scared, and surviving on luck and my friends.”

After becoming the clan master of First Step, Krai stopped personally exploring treasure halls.

He uses clan administration as the perfect excuse to avoid frontline work.

His current lifestyle revolves around:

Hiding in the master’s office, rarely leaving the clan house if he can avoid it.

Polishing and admiring his collection of artifacts, which he has amassed through Sitri’s financial power and countless dangerous adventures he never wanted.

Visiting sweet shops and enjoying desserts, indulging in a lazy, low-effort routine.

Fantasizing about a true retirement, where he can finally be free from danger, responsibility, and misunderstandings.

Despite all this, the world continues to view him as:

A living legend among young hunters.

A symbolic leader whose “strategies” produce the strongest party in the empire.

A man whose “Thousand Transformations” and “Thousand Trials” define an entire generation of adventurers.