Weapons Master
An older gentlemen hired by Rose to help train Roland.
He was born in Bueiro Sutan as the sole son of a rich merchant. His family was killed when he was eight by a rival merchant. He alone survived by hiding in the family's safe room. While the rival merchant took everything, his father had arranged a secure fund held by the bank. In case anything happened to him, that fund would bequeath to first his wife, and then his son. The money was enough to start his own business and, ostensibly, rebuild the family legacy. Or he could choose vengeance.
He chose vengeance.
He used every last scrap of cash to put himself through the most prestigious fighting school in all of the Sutan province, perhaps in all of the world. He quickly took to it, specializing in unarmed and polearm combat. While he was better at unarmed combat, it was his skill in polearms that propelled him to fame.
The art itself had almost been lost, polearms having largely been supplanted by lances in most wide-scale battles. While gravtech swords kept the sword style alive, especially among the Royals, polearms had been long been deemed an inferior weapon. Scouring old books, Sora Yeng rebuilt the art, and then used it to defeat every single champion of the day, all who specialized in the sword art.
While polearms are great at distance, they are usually ineffective if the opponent can close in. Sora, however, would simply drop his weapon, disarm, and then incapacitate his opponent using his unarmed skills. His opponents had no advantage. They couldn't deal with him at range, but if they got too close, they'd find themselves suddenly too close, and quickly would loose the match.
It was about this time that he met Rose. She had sought him out after she'd learned of his fighting prowess but, perhaps more importantly, after she'd learned of his history.
She challenged him to a duel and he, seeing what appeared to be a young inexperienced, well-dressed woman, turned her down. But he was young and prideful, and she used that to spur him. He continued to turn her down until she sweetened the pot: if she won, he would owe her a lifetime of service. If he won, she would use her considerable resources to help him exact his revenge on what was now one of the greatest merchant families in the city.
He agreed, and she beat him handidly. It wasn't even close. She even gave him two more tries, and not once did he come close to touching her. She was simply too fast, with too much grace. Even after closing, his unarmed combat style would simply grab air.
Having lost his one chance at vengeance would have put him into despair. But Rose flipped it on his head by planning the demise of the richest merchant family of the city, with him as her center piece. Where she had first won his sense of duty, this had won a lifetime of loyalty.
After his revenge had been satiated (and a more suitable merchant family in control, one beholden to Rose), he found himself with nothing left. He had no money, no purpose, no family. It was only then that he began to realize just how stupid he'd been. If he'd have used the money to rebuild, he could have had an even better revenge: seeing the family put out on the street. Even if it took longer, that was only a good thing— loosing one's sole purpose in life by completing it had become the worst imaginable possibility. His depression became suicidal at this point.
The only thing that kept him from taking his life was Rose, who preemptively forbade it. And so his sense of honor, duty, and loyalty forced him to stay alive. Instead, she seeded him money to start his own training center, one that would specialize in training Royals: The Sutan Arts Academy. While he only accepted it out of duty, over time it became a home to him. Yes, Royals were always an arrogant, prickly bunch, but he took satisfaction in seeing them learn and grow (even if some of them would eventually go on to kill each other).
Over time he began to age, as these things tend to go. Rose did not, though she disappeared from the political scene, and became scarce. She would see him occasionally, tie up loose ends and (he suspected) continue to embed herself deeply into the society economic and political system, even if from a distance. She never aged and he never asked. He only took comfort from the fact the only person to ever beat him was clearly an immortal.
Years went by. His compound became famous and highly sought after. It grew, and he began delegating to others until he found himself mostly in an administrative role... and then eventually as little more than a figurehead. Without purpose, that deep depression began to consume him again as he felt himself pushed out by the younger generation. He never said anything, never showed it. To the students and even the teachers he was a fixture, an icon. But he'd stopped teaching others and his loneliness and regret would visit him at night. In his darkest hours, he would wonder if Rose had forgotten him; he would wonder if he could end it.
Then she showed up again. She had a new project, a boy who needed training, clearly someone special. She said that this would be the most important thing he'd ever do in his life. And this time she asked. She wouldn't force him, not that she'd ever needed to. For unspoken in her request was another truth: it would be his last purpose in life.
He heartily agreed.
"The foundation given to a Royal is obvious. They are trained from a young age, given personal tutors, layered with high expectations, and spared no expense. When they arrive at the academy, I could always anticipate their knowledge, their forms, their attitudes. Roland had none of that. Where they would study and train, he played in the woods and had adventures. While they strengthened their social contacts, he invested in a single friend. It was with this foundation that he survived something they never could have."