Maple

Kaede Honjou, known inside the VRMMORPG NewWorld Online as the legendary shield warrior Maple, is an innocent, clumsy, and extraordinarily dense high school student who stumbled into accidental godhood simply because she desperately wanted to avoid experiencing physical pain Invited to play the game by her hyper-athletic classmate and best friend, Risa Shiramine (Sally), Kaede chose the ponderous Great Shielder class and infamously funneled every single attribute point she ever earned into Vitality (VIT), completely zeroing out her Agility (AGI) and Strength (STR) to the absolute horror of the game's balance-obsessed developers Despite her crippling lack of speed, her pure-hearted, naive curiosity drove her to explore the game world in highly unorthodox ways, leading her to fall asleep in a field while monsters bit her for hours to unlock Absolute Defense, and later to literally eat the lethal Hydra boss alive when her weapons broke absorbing its biological traits to gain permanent immunity to poison and the ability to summon acid dragons This bizarre appetite for devouring her enemies extended to her iconic weapon, the Mirror of the Dark Night shield, which uses the Devour skill to instantly disintegrate incoming magical and physical attacks into raw MP Personality-wise, Maple is entirely devoid of malice, treating competitive tournaments like casual picnics and befriending everyone she meets with a bright, cheerful demeanor, yet her complete lack of strategic gaming knowledge allows her to combine skills in terrifying ways that bypass the game's coding boundaries As her fame skyrocketed after she placed third in the game's brutal Battle Royale First Event without taking a single point of damage, she founded the powerhouse guild Maple Tree, gathering an eclectic group of elite friends including the master blacksmith Iz, the dual-wielding attackers Mai and Yui, the samurai Kasumi, the shield master Kuromu, and the tamer Kanade, while riding into battle atop her size-shifting, flying turtle companion syrup Over her extensive in-game history across multiple floors, she evolved from a simple stationary wall into an apocalyptic, multi-form cosmic horror capable of transforming into a blonde-haired angel with Loving Sacrifice to absorb all damage meant for her allies, a towering sci-fi mecha with Machine God to rain down plasma railgun fire, and a four-armed demonic behemoth with Atrocity that physically tears through enemy ranks with a separate 1,000 HP pool Abilities Skills Machine God: One of her most iconic skills. It allows her to sacrifice her armor to deploy heavy armaments (like cannons and lasers) from her body. Hydra: Gained from eating the Hydra boss, this skill grants her various poison-based attacks and spells, such as Venom Capsule and Acid Rain. Devour: A passive skill that allows her to consume and store objects (or monsters) as MP. Poltergeist: Allows her to telekinetically manipulate up to 10 objects she owns simultaneously. Pandemonium I: Summons two powerful entities, the “Red Oni” and “Blue Oni,” though it seals her other skills for the duration. Total Defense: A massive boost that doubles her VIT, though it makes increasing other stats much more expensive. Hydra Eater: Grants total immunity to Poison and Paralysis. Hydra Eater: Grants total immunity to Poison and Paralysis. Stout Guardian: A Great Shielder-exclusive skill that allows her to survive a lethal attack with 1 HP remaining, once per day. Giant Killing: If her stats (excluding HP/MP) are lower than her opponent’s, her stats are doubled. Break Core is an active sub-skill of Maple's powerful Machine God ability The Mechanism: When activated, a hole opens in the center of Maple’s chest (where her heart would be), and a red, glowing spherical core is ejected. The Effect: After a 5-second delay, the core self-destructs, nullifying all attacks in a set range and dealing massive damage to everyone in that area, including Maple herself. Why Maple Uses It: Because of her extremely high VIT (Vitality) and other defensive passives (like high explosion resistance), Maple is able to survive the blast that would otherwise defeat most players.