Ouyang Varen: Combat References, Stories & Token

Name: Ouyang Varen　Weapon: Lance　Squad Role: Assault, Breakthrough

Specialty: Renowned for his skill with the lance, favoring a steady fighting style with a particular strength in defensive counters—often the squad's reliable frontline. Deeply knowledgeable about Barroth's behavior and weaknesses, and exceptionally experienced against monsters of its kind.

Joining the Guild: Recommended into the Guild by fellow member Raya. His very first task after joining was escorting a supply convoy—when the group was ambushed by a monster mid-journey and the formation was thrown into chaos, he immediately braced his lance and held firm, blocking the monster's frontal charge without faltering. Afterward, he only remarked, "Just doing my part." This battle earned him the Guild's full trust and recognition as a reliable new member.

Assessment: Never wavers in the face of danger, calm in transitioning between offense and defense, dependable in defensive counters. Steady and grounded by nature, his judgment and warnings at critical moments often earn his teammates' trust—well-coordinated, and someone worth relying on.

At the squad's campsite, Ouyang Varen is always the one quietly taking care of the little things.

While everyone gathers around the campfire to talk, he often listens along while maintaining his lance and casually checking his teammates' gear. He keeps track of everyone's condition in his mind—whose armor has a tear, whose step is heavier than it was yesterday. He never points it out directly, but by the next day, he usually already has a replacement part or extra supplies ready.

What truly earned him his teammates' respect, though, is his performance in the hunt. When a monster charges in, he's always the first to brace his lance and absorb the impact, steadily deflecting its momentum before striking back through an opening—holding the line for the squad and creating openings for the offense. He tends to stand at the very front—when things get critical, one thrust from his lance is enough to put everyone's mind at ease.

A small bird named Chirpy has always stayed by Ouyang Varen's side.

The two met quite by accident. Back when he was still standing guard in his hometown, he would often stand motionless for hours on end. One day, a small bird mistook him for a poplar tree and his hair for a cozy nest, landing squarely on top of it. He didn't disturb it. This misunderstanding repeated itself two or three times, and instead of shooing the bird away, he started carrying a small handful of grain with him, feeding it whenever it landed. Little by little, the bird came to accept him.

Later, when he left his hometown, Chirpy flew away from the desert along with him, and the two have stayed together ever since. Nowadays, during hunts, the bird often circles above the squad scouting ahead, letting out sharp cries to warn him the moment it spots a monster or shifting quicksand—more than once saving the whole squad from an ambush. While camping, it still loves to nestle into his hair to rest; occasionally it acts up and steals the cloth he uses to clean his lance, prompting nothing more than an exasperated sigh from him as he takes it back—yet he never stops feeding and caring for it. His teammates say this bird is probably the one who understands him best—Ouyang Varen is a man of few words, but with Chirpy around, that hard-to-notice ease in him becomes plain to see.

Around his neck, Ouyang Varen always wears a dragon fang—a tooth from a Barroth, taken from the hometown he can never return to.

His hometown lay on the desert's edge, once a vital crossroads for merchant caravans—an oasis, a town, travelers passing through, everything as it should be. Then, one day, everything changed: deep within the desert, a black sludge began seeping up from the ground for reasons unknown—thick, foul-smelling, and prone to hardening when heated. At first, no one paid it any mind, until the sludge surged out in massive quantities, turning the oasis into a swamp. A migrating herd of Barroth passing through got trapped in the black sludge and, tormented by it, went rampaging toward the town. The defense corps fought desperately to hold them back, but it wasn't enough—the town was destroyed in a short span of time, and his home was designated a forbidden zone that no one was allowed to set foot in again.

On the day of the evacuation, he picked up this Barroth fang from the ruins and has worn it ever since, never once taking it off. No one could say for certain what that black sludge really was or where it came from—it was precisely to find that answer that he left the defense corps and became an adventurer. Since then, he has traveled far and wide with his Guild, taking note of and collecting samples whenever he comes across traces of the black sludge, asking around among well-traveled people he meets along the way. Every monster he slays that's connected to the sludge feels like one step closer to the truth. This fang reminds him: his hometown still lies buried beneath that black sludge, waiting for him to uncover the truth and bring it back to what it once was.