Hassam Crown

"Hassam Crown"

- dismissing the humanity of the lower class.

About
Hassam Crown was a first-class citizen of the magic nation of Zeth and a member of the prestigious Crown noble family. He was the son of the country's Secretary of Finance Zulki Crown and the former fiance of Emi Alphone.

Hassam derived a great deal of pleasure from watching the suffering of the lower class, and frequently bet on the slave pit fights in Radon Alphone's arena. At some point, he grew bored of simply watching second-class citizens getting killed, and decided to begin hunting them himself for fun. Taking on the name "Saberknight", he would disguise himself in armor and prowl the lower class districts of Zeth, butchering any second-class citizens that amused him. As the security forces of Zeth favored first-class citizens over second-class ones, his crimes were almost never reported and the few times they were were simply written off as hunting accidents and excused. Over time, he would begin taking Emi with him on these hunts as dates, and would allow her to pick which citizens he would kill.

During the events of Rance VI, Hassam was challenged and defeated by the Green Corps, a division of the resistance group Ice Flame led by Rance. However, he managed to escape with his life thanks to an interference from the Zeth security forces resulting in Rance and his allies getting arrested. His escape was only temporary, however, as he was soon caught by Punisher Mito and imprisoned for his crimes, though he was able to use his family's name to send himself to the Zeth Women's Prison and continue living comfortably, evading almost any punishment for his crimes in the process. His imprisonment humiliated Emi, however, who called off their marriage. When the Green Corps stormed the Women's Prison, Hassam attempted to avenge his previous defeat, but was beaten relatively easily. Following this loss, he was killed by the Pentagon member Kinggeorge Abare during the organization's raid on the prison to save one of its 8 Knights Elizabeth Lacock. He was later resurrected as a zombie alongside his father by Papaya Server in order to battle Ice Flame, where he was once again defeated.

Personality and Appearance
Hassam was a tall man with a rather shifty appearance, sporting sunken in eyes, a crooked nose, and a demented smirk. Like all members of the Crown family, he had red hair, which he kept tied back in a ponytail. When acting as Saberknight, he wore terrifying-looking armor with a screaming face engraved onto it.

A cruel and sadistic young man, Hassam lacked any sort of empathy for second-class citizens, and considered them to be little more than walking piles of garbage. As a result of this, he had no problem with brutally murdering dozens of them at a time for his own amusement without even a second thought. He was not completely heartless, however, and genuinely seemed to be devoted to his fiance Emi, who would take advantage of this devotion in order to get him to do things for her.

Hassam seemed to be on good terms with his father Zulki, who was an equally cruel and contemptible person. Zulki supported his son's murderous behavior, ensuring anyone who questioned it that second-class citizens were deserving of slaughter.

As a member of the Crown family, Hassam was actually the cousin of Zeth's Flame General Saias Crown. While the two never meet in-game, Saias' vocal distaste of the nobility and his attempts at distancing himself from his family name suggests that they were not close.

Abilities
Compared to the otherwise inactive and unimpressive nobility of Zeth, Hassam was a formidable warrior who was skilled with a sword. He possessed an above average Level Cap of 31 and was very close to reaching it at the time of his death. Additionally, the armor he wore when acting as Saberknight was magically enchanted, giving him a great amount of physical and magical resistance that allowed him to shrug off most attacks. While the majority of the people he slaughtered were defenseless innocents, Hassam was perfectly capable of holding his own in actual combat, and was responsible for murdering every single member of Ice Flame's Black Corps, with the exception of Prima Hononoman, on his own. When facing the Green Corps, he was capable of putting up a difficult fight completely unaided, despite the group containing strong warriors such as Rance and Kaoru Quincy Kagura, further proving his skill. During his second encounter with the group, however, he quickly proved himself to be outmatched by its improved strength and greater numbers and lost relatively easily.

As a first-class citizen of Zeth, Hassam also had to have passed the magic exam, meaning he had some amount of skill in the Magic Arts. Despite this, as he lacked any magic-related skills, he was much more notable as a warrior than as a mage.

Trivia

 * Hassam is the only rapier-wielder in the series known to possess a Sword Combat skill rather than a Short Sword Combat one.
 * Hassam bears a strong resemblance to Seiichirō Kitano, the main protagonist of the manga Angel Densetsu. Whether this is merely a coincidence or not is unknown.