Vandel Him Zenden

Vandel Him Zenden (バンデル・ヒム・ゼンデン) was the strongest warrior in The Principality, earning himself the title of The Black Knight.

Appearance
Vandel is a large, muscular older man with a powerful aura. He has a noticeably huge scar on top of his bald head. Unlike other Principality's knights, who usually wear military uniforms or knights' clothing, Vandel often dons plate armor, signifying his readiness for combat at any time.

Personality
Vandel is an austere man with a rigidly stern outlook. As a veteran of countless battles, he has little patience for trifle or flattery and speaks in blunt, straight-to-the-point manners. His intimidating appearance, strength, and reputation make Vandel a fearsome figure. Even his allies generally perceive him as an unfriendly, hard-to-approach person. Nonetheless, he still maintains a soft spot for the two princesses, Hertrude and Hertrauda.

Being a warrior to the core, Vandel is utterly fearless and eager to engage in combat even when he is already at an advanced age. He openly disdains any notion that prevents him from being active on the frontline. When Earl Garrett carefully explained why Vandel was excluded from a combat mission, the Black Knight grumpily gave him a fierce response, frightening the Earl.

Underneath, Vandel is a man consumed by vengeance. The death of his wife and daughter before his very eyes has driven the old knight's hatred of the Holfort Kingdom to the breaking point. Vandel is single-minded to avenge his family and has opposed any efforts to make peace with the Kingdom. His thirst for revenge is so intense that he turns against Hertrude and Hertrauda's pro-peace parents and is willing to use the Magic Armor Piece at the cost of slowly killing him.

Original Game Story: Otome Game
Vandel appeared in the original game as an antagonist. Leon claims that Vandel was a broken character as well as the main reason for the game's difficulty suddenly spiking.

Background
During one of the Holfort Kingdom's past invasions of The Principality, Vandel's wife and daughter were killed. Since then he has seen the Kingdom as absolute evil and refuses to make any kind of peace with them.

Volume 2
Vandel sorties with his squadron when he knows that Princess Hertrude has been captured by Leon. The squadron on their way to rescue Hertrude, destroys the drones which had been deployed by Luxion. Leon had quite a difficult fight with Vandel, with Leon escaping a death blow just by a few inches and Vandel would have won if not due to his carelessness. When he saw the rest over monsters, which had been agitated and were gonna attack indiscriminately, he told Leon to give the Magic Flute to the princess, so that she could keep the monsters in control. Leon hearing this replied that he was not going to do that as he could not trust her and had Luxion destroy the rest of the monsters, telling Vandel that the kingdom also had some few aces up their sleeves.

Volume 3
*Information will be added soon later.*

Relationships
*Information will be added soon later.*
 * Hertrude & Hertrauda (Princesses)

Leon is a young knight of the Holfort Kingdom and Vandel's greatest foe. He was the first known person who defeated the legendary Black Knight on the battlefield. Vandle subsequently developed a grudge against Leon for this humiliation. Nonetheless, the old Knight also grudgingly respects Leon for his talent and potential.
 * Leon Fou Bartfort

In return, Leon ranks Vandel among his most terrifying enemies. Even after the war, he often used the Black Knight as the gold standard for measuring his opponents' pilot skills.

Abilities & Gears
Vandel is dreadfully regarded as the Principality of Fanoss's strongest knight and one of Leon's most dangerous adversaries. He is estimated by Luxion to be superior even to Finn, the Empire's strongest knight, in sheer combat skills. Vandel is nearly unstoppable on the battlefield when equipped with customized armor and a special Adamantis sword. As a testament to his combat prowess, Vandel has defeated countless knights and sunk over a hundred ships throughout the conflicts with the Kingdom. Even Chris's father, the Sword Saint, is no match for the Black Knight. While Leon had defeated Vandel twice, much of his victories were attributed to the superior armor and Luxion's support; Vandel would have come out on top if both fought on equal ground.

Adamantis Sword
Vandel's armor wielded a special adamantis sword capable of cutting into Arroganz. After Vandel's defeat, the sword was taken by Leon and handed over to the Holfort Kingdom Treasury. He later reclaimed it, but it was destroyed during his final fight with Leon.



Vandel's Armor
Vandel's personal armor which he had used to fight and sink numerous ships of the kingdom and kill many as well. Even though the armor is technologically better than the kingdom's armors, it still pales in comparison to Arroganz.



Unnamed Eye Armor Piece
Vandel equipped the armor piece before the war. It, along with his armor was destroyed by Leon.

Trivia

 * Vandel deems the pirate extermination good training and does not consider them a serious threat.
 * Before the final war between the Kingdom and the Principality, Vandel had not appeared on the battlefield for many years. Many people in the Kingdom believed he might have died from old age.
 * Because of Vandel's legendary status, the higher-ups of the Principality fear that losing him will demoralize the entire nation and are hesitant to send the Black Knight into combat,  much to Vandel's frustration.