Arios Theoman

"Arios Theoman, challenging Rance over the fate of humanity."

- Wicked King Rance, who's leading humanity to ruin. I, the Hero Arios, will punish you.

About
Arios Theoman was the last known Guardian Hero of the World until LP0004, when he turned 20 and lost his status as the Hero. He's a dedicated warrior and swordsman that fights for what is right.

He travelled all over the continent trying to help people with many righteous quests, but Rance always managed to solve problems right before him. At some point he met Rance and upon meeting his character, thought of him as an evil person, attacking him and becoming his rival. Rance has hated him since.

Personality and Appearance
Befitting a hero, Arios possesses a strong sense of justice, being very righteous but also compassionate. His compassion is incredible even when compared to other heroes, as his refusal to kill Miki Kurusu when given the chance shows that he was willing to go against his duty of slaying the Demon King in order to protect an innocent girl. Even following the loss of his powers, Arios' continued attempts at trying to protect the weak and innocent show that this selflessness was genuine rather than simply an obligation due to being the Hero.

Despite his great strength and many heroic attributes, he is very naive and easily distracted, spending the majority of his time as Hero of the world doing minor side quests rather than accomplishing more important goals. As a result, Rance ended up resolving most of the world's conflicts before he even knew about them or was given the chance to be relevant in them.

Due to the natural charisma bestowed upon him as the Hero, Arios was very popular with women and had several girlfriends all across the world. He seems to have lost this quality after losing his Hero status, instead living with his male childhood friend in his hometown. Whether this is meant to suggest that Arios is attracted to men is unknown.

He's terrified of bees, the only thing he's never tried to challenge is a Bee monster girl, they inspire great fear in him.

Abilities
As the Hero of the System, Arios was an incredibly powerful warrior. He had a cap of 99 and a Sword Combat Lv2 skill. As a Level 2, he possesses a special move known as Falcon Slash, which produces a red shockwave from his sword to attack several enemies at once. During his time in the Leazas Liberation Army, he used this move to defeat a large group of Helman Knights, who are well known for individually being strong enough to be a challenge to face even for a high level party. His incredible strength and fighting prowess has been recognized even by mighty figures like Miracle Tou.

He was an adept enough fighter to battle the extremely powerful and talented Rance to a draw, with Rance sustaining severe injuries while he himself remained mostly unharmed.

Even when compared to previous Heroes, Arios' individual strength was incredible, being able to fight against two Dark Lords and Kentarou Ogawa in a 1v3 encounter, and still come out victorious, an absolutely impressive feat that would usually have given him a legendary status, if said feat had been more known.

However, both of these major victories seem to have been largely due to the great amount of powers bestowed to him by the Hero System as, following the loss of them, his individual skill greatly dropped. While he made several attempts at training himself to remain strong even when not the Hero, they proved unsuccessful and he largely retired from adventuring.

Personal history
GI0999 - Arios is born in a town from the Free Cities Alliance.

GI1012 - Arios turns 13, a girl names Cola appears, she introduces herself as the Hero's guide, and tells him that he is the Guardian Hero of the World.

GI1014 - Arios (15) begins Heroic training under Cola's supervision.

GI1015 - When Arios (16) is in the local forest, his village is destroyed by monsters, he sets out to explore the land with Cola. He takes up a few quests, such as catching bandits, finding plants and saving a cursed church. Terrasse (16) becomes his girlfriend.

LP0001 - Arios (17) teams up with Yulang to find and rescue a noble girl from slave traders in Leazas, when they get there, they find she's already been sold to a certain loud and perverted man. At the request of Maris, he slays the beasts in Leazas Castle. He is asked to find Hikari, but he does side-quests first and Rance beats him to it. He is asked to defeat the four witches of Kathtom, but while doing side-quests in the town, Rance beats him to it. Lilina (17) becomes his girlfriend.

LP0002 - Arios (18) joins milli's division of the Leazas Liberation Army, but Rance has already taken most of the attention and he gets separated from his unit. Cola is kidnapped, he rescues her. He battles mutants in the Free City of Gaya, but the floating isle of Ylapu falls on them, everything is destroyed but Arios survives. He joins the Zeth December Revolution and meets Urza. He obtains the Sword of Heroes, Escude. Cider (18) becomes his girlfriend.

LP0003 - Arios (19) feels more Heroic now that he owns the Escude Sword. He encounters Rance while defending the Free Cities from Buhard, and challenges him to a duel. The duel ends in a draw with Rance badly injured. Cola tries to make the world more chaotic, Arios stops her. He invades the AL Church Headquarters after hearing that the Demon King Little Princess was taking refuge there. He beats Demon Satella, Demon La Hawzel and Kentarou. He comes across the sleeping Miki, raises his blade and then stop himself, he cannot bring himself to kill a young girl, even if she is the Demon King. Elizabeth (16) becomes his girlfriend.

LP0004 - Arios turns 20 and loses all of his Heroic powers. Cola abandons him. He tries to help people again but fails miserably, ending up as a homeless bum with his great deeds forgotten.

LP0005 - Arios (21) decides to train even harder so he can help people even without his Heroic powers, he heads to the mountains to begin an intensive training course.

LP0006 - Arios (22) tried to help people again after his training and fails splendidly. He loses motivation and returns to his town village to live peacefully with his childhood friend.

Kichikuou Rance (what IF LP0003)
After venturing into the Kalar forest, he was captured by kalars and used as breeding stock for over a year.

When Rance is captured too, Rance manages to convince Pastel Kalar that sex isn't bad and to release all the captive men. Arios thanks Rance and leaves. In the normal ending of the game, Arios returns as the hero to fight Rance as Rance is leading the world to ruin.

Trivia

 * He is largely a parody of Adol Christin, the main protagonist of the Ys series of video games, though he more broadly parodies most traditional RPG protagonists.
 * He makes a brief appearance in Rance 03 only in text since during battles with helman, he could be heard in the background fighting, but he was never shown himself.
 * Among the characters Milacle Tou proposed for being part of her 12 Knights group, he is notably the only one that Rance did not give a reason for turning down, simply saying "This one's no good.". The fact that Rance refused to give a reason for rejecting him and yet still remembered him despite forgetting several other of the men featured on the list suggests that Rance continues to hold a strong grudge against him even after several years.
 * For as long as he had his hero powers, he was a very solid rival for Rance. They were only indirect allies during the 7th Helman-Leazas war and that was before they formally met each other. it is unknown if either one knew this though.
 * Besides his appearance in Kichikuou Rance, he has only made very small cameos throughout the series, with all of his major interactions with Rance and Kentarou happening during the unseen "missing year".
 * He has a few things in common with Bird, Both are more traditionally heroic warriors with many girlfriends who serve as rivals to Rance. However, while Rance genuinely despises Arios, he considers Bird to be little more than a joke. Additionally, while both are presented as Rance's opposite in terms of character, Bird is revealed to be much more similar to Rance than he initially appears to be.