Stark ｢シュタルク,Shutaruku?｣ is a human Warrior. After his village was attacked by Demons, he fled and became Eisen's apprentice. At Eisen's instruction, he joined Frieren's party as their vanguard.
Stark has a charismatic and kind personality, resulting in him being well-liked among the communities he frequents. He is often doted on by older villagers and is popular with kids, sometimes serving as a mentor or role model for them. Stark, in turn, holds a lot of compassion for them and is willing to risk his life to protect them from threats. Frieren trusts him, as she has willingly puts her life into his hands ever since she recruited him as a vanguard.[1] He has been described by individuals, such as Sein, to be a good kid with a good heart.
Stark's cowardly nature.
Despite being incredibly hard-working and training as a warrior for years under Eisen, Stark is also a coward who is terrified of monsters and tends to have thoughts about fleeing from difficult battles, a quality he himself despises. His hands tend to tremble with fear before a battle, similar to his own master. However, when faced with perilous situations, he is capable of mustering up the courage to fight, even at the cost of his own life. When he was a child, his older brother Stoltz noted that he showed great concentration when he trained, a trait that holds true to the present.
Compared to the much more mature Fern, Stark can be somewhat childish and irresponsible. He occasionally makes crude references, and he also has a tendency to stay up late and drink juice at night when Fern is not around to monitor him, which leads to him apologizing profusely and feebly once Fern begins to scold him for doing so.
Appearance[]
Stark has spiky, red hair with black roots alongside orange eyes. He typically wears a black, sleeveless collared shirt with white fastenings, baggy black pants, black boots, a white sash around his waist, and bandages wrapped around his arms. In colder climates, he wears a black turtleneck sweater. While outside, he wears a red coat with cream-colored lapels and cuffs and black fingerless gloves, and he straps his weapon—a large, double-headed gray-and-silver axe—to his back with a crossbody strap. On his wrist, he wears a silver bracelet that he received as an eighteenth-birthday gift from Fern.
He has a large scar on his forehead that he got from Eisen striking him out of fear. Wirbel comments that Stark has a solid figure when he borrows him to be a vanguard.
Abilities[]
Trained by Eisen of the Hero Party, Stark's body is conditioned far beyond that of an ordinary human. That training, together with his travels alongside Frieren and Fern, sharpened his combat instincts and gave him the ability to withstand blows that would kill most humans, even seasoned warriors. Eisen's harsh training also taught him that his greatest strength is resilience and quick recovery from physical punishment. Stark fights with the belief that if he can get back up, he has not truly lost.
Superhuman strength: Stark can strike with immense force, as shown when he killed a Solar Dragon with a single axe blow to the head.
Superhuman durability: Stark's body is able to withstand many attacks, including dragon bites. He even had his head gnawed on by a dragon, yet was left virtually unharmed.[2] Stark also resisted Linie's axe, which could not cut deep into his body.
High resilience: Stark refuses to stay down and remains in fighting condition even while bleeding from multiple wounds, as seen in the battle against Linie. Even after an attack pierced his body and left a hole in his stomach, Stark was still able to execute a powerful technique.[3] With treatment from Methode, he recovered enough to do push-ups within a few days.[4] When Stark was pierced by multiple swords, he stayed combat-ready[5] and recovered quickly because no vital area was hit.[6]
Quick reflexes: Stark's reflexes often save him by letting him shift so that potentially fatal blows land on less vital areas.[7]
High pain tolerance: Stark is able to endure various types of injuries with little visible signs of pain. He also survived a poisoned arrow long enough to receive treatment. According to Sein, a mere graze from this arrow would have killed any other member of Frieren's Party.[8]
Axe proficiency: Trained by Eisen, Stark is highly skilled with an axe.
Superhuman speed
Superhuman agility
Techniques[]
Stark uses Lightning Strike on Linie.
Lightning Strike ｢閃天撃,Sentengeki?｣: Stark forgoes defense and raises his axe above his head. He brings the axe down extremely quickly, creating a beam of light that stretches into the sky and cleaves whatever it touches. The strike has a large range of destruction and can even cut into a cliffside. Like the name suggests, the strike is so fast that it is quicker than the sound of the destruction it leaves in its wake.[note 1]
Lightning Strike ｢光天斬,Kōtenzan?｣: In his battle against Revolte, Stark severs the Demon General's arm with a swift and precise strike. He then follows up with a devastating Lightning Strike, delivering an upward swing of his axe that slashes Revolte's body.[note 1]
7th in the second popularity contest with 587,392 votes, where multiple votes per character were counted.
In this same contest, Stark ranked 5th when counting only unique votes (one vote per character per person).
Notes[]
↑ 1.01.1The technique Lightning Strike ｢閃天撃,Sentengeki?｣ was first introduced in Chapter 20 as a downward strike. In contrast, in Chapter 76, Lightning Strike ｢光天斬,Kōtenzan?｣ is performed as an upward strike. Although their execution and Japanese names differ, both are localized under the same name.
