Luka



Luka (ルカ) is the main protagonist of the game. He is a boy of undetermined age (although Alice mentions that he’s younger than 21), and he hails from Ilias Village. He is the current wielder of Angel Halo, a sword with the power to seal monsters. He’s lighthearted but gullible which tends to get on Alice’s nerves. He believes in coexistence with man and monster, and wants to see a world where they can live together peacefully.

According to Lilith, he is Heinrich’s descendant. Heinrich is also said to have wielded the Angel Halo, which suggests that Heinrich was also pacifistic and had the same beliefs as Luka did.

He also has angelic powers, which awaken when he’s threatened in his sleep. In addition, he bears his mother’s Keepsake Ring, which Alice and Tamamo sense something faint from it; it has been proven that even Alice cannot sense angels as evident when she could not detect what type of creature Promestein was. Luka also has abnormal regeneration abilities, proven through Meditation and the fact that he recovered from Granberia’s Vaporizing Rebellion Sword attack in merely a night instead of a month according to Alice; it is even said that Meditation was utilized by a fallen angel. These factors suggests that Luka is also born of an angel.

Luka’s most defining character traits are his optimism, naivety and lack of intelligence, usually having Alice and others explain every single detail to him. However, Luka has bursts of insightful moments, showing he isn’t completely ignorant to the ways the world around him works, as when he persuaded Alice to give up her ideals of sacrifice and her trauma, using Alice’s words as well as his experience in traveling the world with her to justify his point.

Even though he is usually meek and easy-going, witnessing injustice, especially in the form of strong ones oppressing the weak, it ignites an extreme and sometimes destructive anger in him, which also makes him dangerous since in his travels he quickly gains power far beyond that of a regular human. For instance, he single-handedly defeated the entire armies, leaders, and champions of the insects and plants of Plansect Village with no signs of tiring not only after the plants betrayed him but decided to continue a pointless war, when he nearly strangles an Ilias Kreuz soldier for stealing the Garuda Egg at the Bird God Shrine, or when he threatened and attempts to kill Lazarus in Ilias Kreuz Base in Gold Port after Lazarus insults and berates Luka’s father.

However, like all humans, Luka becomes submissive when the monster manages to make him ejaculate and proceeds to rape him: this phenomenon is referred at some points of the game as Critical Ecstasy. In almost all the rape scenes, the monster at least once claims Luka as the “far most pathetic” compared to other men she had raped.

In the past, Luka was a troubled individual; he and his mother were foreigners from Ilias Village and were constantly mistreated. Eventually, his mother died due to an illness, but before she died, she told him not to hold hatred against the village or his father and he would grow into a fine hero one day.

His father, Marcellus, was one of the founders of Ilias Kreuz, an organization that terrorizes monsters under Ilias’ name. As thus, Luka believed that Marcellus became a crazed terrorist and Luka chose to die as a martyr rather than lose his way. Alice tells him that the actions of the father do not extend to the child.

Reliving the Past
Luka was born from a woman and a man, much like any other human. Not much is known from his early childhood, only that his parents moved to Ilias Village. This village, in the south of Ilias, was a very "conservative" place. Strangers weren't welcomed that well. And Luka and his family got to know that.

Luka's father was named Marcellus and was a hero. But not any hero. He was the leader of the extremists of Ilias Kreuz. He was led to this by the fact that the woman he loved was killed by monsters on a quest to destroy the Monster Lord, a quest he participated in like many heroes before him and after him. Luka's ideals are mostly directly led from his father being an extremist. His father was eventually killed by the monsters he killed himself. Or so, it was said.

Luka loved his mother way more than he loved his father. One could say he loved his mother as much as that he hated his father. A sweet woman, she tried to live with her death husband and the animosity of the villagers. She always tried to keep Luka on the right path and turn him into a real hero. This, too, is a great pillar on which his ideals are built. But then, one day, his mother had a disease. This disease, it was deadly. It had to be treated, so Luka went out to get some medicine and to pray for his mother. But the hostile villagers didn't want to give him any, so his mother died. But just before she died, she begged Luka to not feel angered by this and to always follow the path of the true hero.

Soon after, another deadly plague spread through the village, killing off most of the inhabitants. This led to an increase in immigration. And all those newcomers made the people depend on them. The hostility towards newcomers faded away, just like the stench of newcomers on Luka. In one swipe, he had become one of the senior members of the village.

The March to Iliasburg
Luka has been happily living in Ilias Village for a while now. He is somewhere between 15 and 20 and training daily, because he has a dream. A dream about coexistence. And he finally is able to get the baptism of Ilias that day. An once-in-a-lifetime chance to get blessed by the goddess that very day. He had trained and waited for it for a long time. But on that very day, something unfortunates happens. A Slime Girl attacks the village, making mayhem break out. Not many monsters attack Ilias Village, for it's heavily guarded. But instead of letting the guards take care of it, Luka charges towards the menace, ignoring his sweet neighbour Betty.

He finally beats the Slime Girl in a very uncontrolled fight, which actually even should get to be called a fight. Even so, he had beaten a monster. And for him that had been a very special occasion. Happy as he was by that, he walked into the forest, wanting to enjoy the great feeling of victory, but, of course, also to enjoy the nature. And while he is walking through the forest, a huge impact shakes the forest and his eardrums. Startled by it, he goes to find out what could make such a sound. And it turns out to be a monster girl. Luka has a mind-blowing dilemma in front of him. Take care of the monster girl that lies there unconscious and have a chance on missing his baptism, or just go away from the forest to get baptized. Luka's soft heart leads him to his choice. He is going to take care of that strange-looking monster girl.

While being questioned by the monster girl, Luka tells about his one big dream. The dream of coexistence. He is laughed at by the monster girl, which hurts his feelings and makes him act childish. After this questioning, the monster girl lets Luka go, but it already is too late. When Luka arrives at the temple, Ilias won't come down for him, practically denying him his baptism. Luka is shooed away by the priest and he returns to home, looking so bad even a traveler takes pity on him. But in his house, there is a surprise waiting for him. The strange monster girl, who soon reveals herself to be called Alice. She tells Luka that he is interesting for believing in coexistence and that she will follow him on his journey, which is made possible by her words. He can't seem to understand her motivations for doing so, but he accepts her following him, knowing he couldn't possibly stop her.

After saying farewell to everybody, Luka leaves the village where his mother died and where he grew up. Outside of the village, he meets up with Alice again. But he soon finds out that Alice really won't help him in fights, as she said before. When fighting against the Slug Girl Luka can't seem to find Alice any longer. As if she disappeared. And she has. So Luka is left to his own devices. He can't hurt the slug with his sword, so he gets jittery, looking for things with which he can. Then, he shows a rare display of his real intelligence by taking out some salt and throwing it all out at the slug. This makes his enemy flee, effectively ending the fight in his advantage.

Alice appears again, noting that Luka made a big mistake during the fight. Luka doesn't know what that mistake could be, but Alice apparently has a hard time coping with it. Luka threw away all the salt, so she doesn't see how he is going to season her food the right way any longer. But her worries aren't correct, as Luka shows her when they set up camp. He seasons her food in a way she enjoys it, even without the salt. This makes her actually hand out a compliment for once, but the compliment is immediately followed by an insult. She calls his swordplay horrible, even though Luka states that he has learned it from combining techniques learned to him by travelers, in exchange for a house to call their own for the duration of their stay. To improve his chances, Alice learns Luka Demon Decapitation. Luka is, and he will continue to be, grossed out by the cruel story behind it. But beggars can't be choosers, Luka learns the skill and it will turn out to be a nice ally.

On his way to Iliasburg, nothing much happened, until he runs into a gigantic plant in the middle of the road. He has a choice whether to yank it or not. Yanking it makes Luka fight the plant and Alice commenting on that he really is but a barbarian behind his mask of coexistence. Not yanking it will result in missing the fight.

Finally, when the sun goes to sleep, Luka sees Iliasburg, a big, imposing village, in front of him. Thinking that Iliasburg might be even worse in its anti-monster sentiment, he asks Alice if she can look like a human, which she can. So after she morphed herself into the body of a human, they set foot in the village. Walking through it, Luka notices something. It's quiet. Not much of the business that normally would define the streets. And the reason behind that appears in front of him. It's a very strong monster fighting with soldiers, while there are already a ton of soldier lying beaten below her. Even Luka, who hasn't left Ilias Village even once in his life, recognizes the sword and the monster. Granberia of the Four Heavenly Knights is trying, nay, taking over the village. She easily beats down two of the three soldiers and sends the third running.

Alice
Although they are traveling partners, Alice and Luka bump heads together when it comes to many different things. Alice likes to insult Luka and call him an idiot while Luka thoughtfully criticizes her about how she’s a glutton or how childish she is for playing in the snow. Alice has been known to have sexual contact with Luka for his semen, and although it is against Ilias’s beliefs to give semen to a monster, Luka tends to weakly protest about Alice performing sexual services. Deep down, Luka cares about Alice and doesn’t wish to fight her.

Ilias
Ilias acts as Luka’s guide throughout the game whenever he is defeated and the player asks for an evaluation, or in certain storyline events. At the beginning of Chapter 1, Ilias teaches Luka (and indirectly, the player) how to fight. Her subsequent appearances involve telling Luka in his dreams to “defeat the Monster Lord”.

While Luka’s initial faith in Ilias is somewhat strong, he does many actions against Ilias’s will (most notably his dreams of coexistence between man and monster), which accumulate and ultimately lead to the relationship between Ilias and Luka being severed at the end of Chapter 2. In addition, the fact that he can see fairies is proof that his faith in her is actually very poor, or at least was already wavering by the time he entered the Forest of Spirits.

During the first two chapters, Luka gradually starts to break all of Ilias’s commandments (or at least all of the four commandments that are mentioned), by starting to neglect his prayers, letting Alice rape him several times, and eventually rebelling and pointing his sword against her. In spite of this, she keeps up her benevolent façade until he explicitly denies her, refuses to finish off the Monster Lord, and deems her the true obstacle of coexistence.

At the end of Chapter 2, Ilias reveals that she believed Luka could change her beliefs of humanity’s faults, being her “first failed creations”, but it’s quite clear she was wrong about him after he rebelled.

Amira
The “unfortunate lamia” who claims to be infatuated with Luka after he supposedly chases away Granberia in Iliasburg. When the two first meet, Luka is annoyed at her appearance and attempts to kill her, only to be stopped by Alice. Despite her unusual appearance or blatant lies, she provides very helpful information to Luka and Alice, and assists them directly in Chapter 2.

Trivia

 * Luka trying to become a martyr was foreshadowed when he was annoyed with Granberia’s pity, monologuing that he would rather have died instead.
 * Oddly enough, many monsters throughout the series have commented on Luka’s genes being of high quality, and how desirable his genes were. This is further proven when Alice and a few monsters, when they taste Luka’s semen, describe it to have a unique taste they could get used to. This could be a foreshadowing of his hidden lineage.
 * Whenever throughout the game Luka fights alongside or against a human, he utterly overpowers them, even in the earlier stages of his journey.
 * Whether coincidental or not, Luka is often depicted as having a similar hair color to Alma Elma, a similarity which becomes much more apparent in Chapter 2.
 * In all the images with Luka using an elemental attack, the Iron Sword is in place of the Angel Halo. This is likely due to the Angel Halo’s grotesque, deterring appearance, or a homage to the RPG cliché of always showing the same weapon on the character’s sprite.
 * Luka is suggested to be between 15 and 20 years old given that his mother died 10 years before, Alice states he is younger than her (21), and how he is depicted in the flashbacks. The baptism for heroes is also a coming of age ceremony. Despite actual age or appearance, Luka is of the age to be considered an adult in his society.