Elsa Granhiert

Elsa Granhiert (エルザ・グランヒルテ) was an assassin working together with Meili Portroute for a mysterious organization until her death at the hands of Garfiel Tinsel. She was the main antagonist of Arc 1 and one of the primary antagonists of Arc 4.

She perished getting her body utterly destroyed by Garfiel and getting engulfed by an incoming fire explosion, reducing her to ash.

Appearance
Elsa had long black hair tied into one tail on the left side along with drooping eyes, giving her a gentle aura. She wore a black dress and wielded bent black kukri knives from the northern lands.

Personality
Elsa was a battle maniac, not even hesitating to injure herself if she could fight strong opponents, which was helped by her abnormal healing rate. This was also shown through her persistence. Due to her blessing, she claimed to be a vampire, though she didn't drink blood, nor did she receive any ill effects when under the sun. Her favorite things were seeing colorful bowels and touching warm looking internal organs. Within combat, she enjoyed cleaving through the abdominal region with the intent of tearing the target's bowels out.

Perhaps Elsa's defining trait was the arousal she garnered from gutting people and toying with their steaming entrails. Upon facing worthy opponents, Elsa would express excitement at the prospect of gutting them, pondering on random variables such as what color her opponents' entrails would be. After disembowelling Natsuki Subaru, she barraged him with a flurry of questions related to the pain he was feeling as he lay dying on the floor of the loothouse, conveying that she received sadistic arousal from the pain others felt due to her actions. Her warped sense of arousal didn't end with her opponents, as Elsa also felt masochistic ecstasy whenever she was wounded by others, such as when Subaru kicked her in the loothouse. She didn't feel any remorse towards those she gutted, even if they were children or the elderly.

Elsa also enjoyed knitting cotton dolls, especially after a good kill, and mentioned to have over 10 years of experience. Although it wasn't mentioned, she presumably destroyed them later.

History
Abandoned as a child, Elsa grew up on the streets of the Holy Kingdom of Gusteko,, the northernmost of the world's four great nations that was known for its freezing weather and spiritualism. She stole from and hurt people in order to survive, although her way of life didn't allow for any happiness or sense of fulfilment. One day, while stealing from a store in a blizzard, the owner of the shop caught Elsa and tried to have his way with her. Without hesitation, Elsa grasped a shard of glass from a bottle of Granhiert and slit her assailant's belly open. The warmth of the man's entrails made Elsa forget the coldness that enveloped her life, and for the first time she felt truly alive. As a result, she developed a gruesome fetish for gutting people and fighting with her life on the line against opponents doing the same. She earned recognition as the "Bowel Hunter," who was feared across the world for her gruesome fetish. After being experimented on, she gained regenerative capabilities that allowed her to fight recklessly.

Eventually, she was approached by a Black Dragon who introduced herself as a mysterious figure known only as Mother, and after morphing into a small girl with gold-coloured hair and scarlet-red eyes, recognised Elsa as one of her daughters.

As an assassin, Elsa was one sent after Meili, who was currently living with the Demon Beasts as a feral child in a forest. As instructed, she killed all the Demon Beasts and brought the child back. At that time, Meili was in a state where she couldn't speak, so her manner of speech and such was greatly influenced by Elsa. Elsa found a partner in the young teenage girl Meili Portroute, who had the power to control Demon Beasts. Elsa and Meili became as close as sisters overtime.

At one point, the Bowel Hunter was tasked with killing an important figure from the Sacred Empire of Vollachia, a meritocratic nation located to the far south of the Holy Kingdom of Gusteko. Although she was able to kill her target, she was confronted by Vollachia's Blue Lightning, who was acting as the person's bodyguard. Barely escaping with her life, the event would be forever engraved in Elsa's memory.

Abilities
Skilled Assassin: Elsa was an infamous assassin, who was highly talented at manipulating and using blades techniques to overwhelm her opponents. On top of that, she possessed super strength, incredible agility and could regenerate wounds thanks to being a "curse doll" making her a force to be reckoned with. She has been a seasoned assassin for a long time, and has fought numerous other skilled opponents. She possesses a keen intuition that helps her out in combat such as knowing her opponents position despite her sense being interfered with. Every technique she witnesses in battle doesn't work on her a second time as she will already have thought up a counter.

Blessing (祝福): Elsa referred to her immortality as a blessing, though it is officially called Curse Doll (呪い人形). It is a curse which involves the user carving a curse mark that includes the information of the target they want to kill on someone, and upon activation, the person with the curse mark gains immortality, but as a cost, they lose their sense of self and can't do anything else but kill the target and they die when the target is killed. Also, there seems to be a limit to the immortality. However, there's supposedly a way to cast the curse without the person losing their sense of self, which is what happened to Elsa, though repeatedly dying turned her into a curse doll. People who become curse dolls are mistakenly referred to as vampires due to a curse doll once drinking blood in an attempt to die.

Equipment: Elsa wielded ornate short blades and throwing needles which she used in combat. In addition, she wore a dark feathered magic cloak that could block magic attacks, however only a single time as the cloak was destroyed afterward. Another drawback was that it only worked against spells intended to harm her physically, thus indirect magic Shamak bypassed it. It was imbued with a yang magic buff based on the theory established by Roswaal K Mathers. Lastly, Elsa had two secret weapons which were specialized blades she only ever used against special opponents whom she aimed to kill rather just seeing their guts.
 * White Blade: A thick kukri with a surprisingly large amount of mass specialized for crushing bone. When swung strange heavy pressure emits from it. The bladed portion can extend a string of blades not dissimilar from a snake sword for mid range attacks.
 * Black Blade: Looks similar to her standard knives but has distinctive serrated edged that gives it an appearance of animal teeth. Created for goring opponents rather than ripping them.

Trivia

 * In her web novel character introduction, Elsa was stated to have a Divine Protection, though this was likely an oversight as the author confirmed she doesn't have one.
 * According to the author, Elsa's birthday is April 29, a play on death and meat. April is the 4th month and four (四), has the same pronunciation as death (死), while two (二) and nine (九) are pronounced "ni" and "ku", the same as meat (肉).
 * Elsa was actually really weak against magic attacks. So weak, she didn't want to risk running into Subaru's Shamack, when he used it.
 * Tappei hinted at the possibility that Roswaal gave Elsa her magic cape, in order for her to corner Emilia more easily.
 * According to the author, Elsa arranged the characters she wanted to kill, as follows: Emilia > Subaru > Petra > Ram > Rem > Frederica > Otto >> Garfiel >>> Roswaal
 * She got her surname Granhiert from a bottle of brandy she used to kill the man who tried to violate her.