Fran

Fran is the deuteragonist of Reincarnated as a Sword and a famed powerful adventurer known as Black Lightning Princess (黒雷姫).

Personality
Fran is normally stoic and expressionless, but she also displays great amounts of enthusiasm for activities such as eating (especially when curry is involved) and fighting strong opponents. Anyone who insults her teacher, his curry or mocks her for being a Black Cat will face her wrath.

Fran is overall a caring and kind person, and her warm heart gained her many invaluable friends and comrades ranging from merchants, sailors, nobles, royals, and adventurers despite her unsocial and verbally reticent nature.

Fran is also shown to be quite humble, as she almost never flaunts her fame and influence through her personality. Although, her fame as the legendary Black Lightning Princess is something she took pride in for being able to prove that her tribe, the Black Cats, which were looked upon as inferior in social status for being weak, could give rise to someone as famous and as powerful as her. In a sense, she redeemed the pride and honor of her fellow tribe. Her multiple unsurpassed achievements and power were also a result of her mental fortitude, self-discipline, and conviction to achieve her goal of achieving evolution; these traits also serve as motivation through her arduous life as a slave and stressful yet thorny journey as an adventurer. Her amiable trait of not giving up in any agonizing situation bore her result of what she is now and the attainment of her hard sought evolution.

Fran is almost completely unafraid of the idea of displaying violence and mercilessness for the sake of achieving her goals, and many adventurers, mercenaries, slave traders, etc. who have insulted, offended, or challenged her without knowing the extent of her power sometimes didn't live long enough to regret it afterward.

Fran does not completely understand metaphors and will take things literally.

As of the most recent raw chapter, Fran showed restrain and humility when she was offered an upgrade to A Rank after her great achievement in Goldicia, which she rejected under the pretense that she can't be compared to the great adventure with great feat and contribution like Amanda and Forlund just yet but agreed to the terms that Guildmaster Gamud mentioned in which any subsequent contribution by Fran after that conversation will result in a forceful A Rank upgrade without qualms.

Appearance
Fran is an extremely adorable, pretty-looking, petite, young black cat girl with dark eyes. She has short black hair; however, sometimes in both the light novel and the manga, she has dark emerald hair. She has black cat ears and a black cat tail. On her left ear she wears a golden bangle decorated with a single red pearl.

After evolving, Fran obtains an Awakened state, where she gains golden-colored eyes and her tail gains alternating black and ash grey stripes. As a result of gaining the rare Black Heavenly Tiger evolution, rather than the standard blue lightning that would be seen emanating off of a regular evolved Black Tiger like Rumina, Fran's lightning is black in color.

Adventurers and slave traders alike have tried to harass her, either because they underestimated her or because they were mesmerized by her beauty and petite stature that shadowed her fearsome combat versatility as an adventurer lest she do not attack others unless provoked.

Background
Fran was born amidst her parent's journey in seeking the myth of evolution, and they took her on adventures ever since she was born to find the path toward evolution. Her parents passed away before finding out the secrets of evolving. After losing her parents, Fran followed in their footsteps to discover the secrets of evolution, carrying their dreams and motivation. Unfortunately, she was captured by slave traders and lost her freedom with constant harsh treatment and abuse to endure for four years, but not enough to break her will and conviction until the faithful day that she encountered her Master.

Volume 1
Fran was first introduced as a slave about to be sold and was being abused by one of the slave trader's lackeys. The slave trader then orders his lackey to stop so as not to ruin the merchandise; Fran was then loaded onto the caravan after that, she heard a voice, and then a bear attacked the caravan. The slave trader were all in a panic and instructed the slaves to act as bait for the monster; she watched as her slave companions were killed one by one before her; the monster then tried to attack her, but she luckily escaped and finds a sword which she uses to slay the monster, one of the slave traders arrives and shouts at her that she cost him a great fortune, he then starts abusing her while telling her that she will always be a slave. The sword kills the slave trader, and with Fran, they start a journey after she names him Master.

Together with Master, Fran spends a few days slaying monsters while steadily heading towards the city. Accustoming to Master's skill sharing and learning new moves, Fran began to gain experience in combat and magic. While en route to the city, the duo found a traveling caravan being attacked by a group of goblins; Fran proceeded to dispatch the goblins and got acquainted with the man Randell, a traveling merchant. As a sign of gratitude for Fran's help, Randell offers her a ride towards the city of Alessa. On the way there, he explains to her in detail information regarding the adventurer's guild and adventurer ranking system alongside corresponding responsibility as one progresses through the ranks. Finding interest in it, the duo decided that Fran would register as an adventurer upon reaching the city and sell the materials gained from slaying monsters.

Upon reaching the city, Fran gains access to Alessa without much trouble due to traveling alongside a merchant. Parting with Randell, the duo headed towards the adventurer guild. Master scans around, noticing the stats (in particular attack power) of other weapons held by other adventurers being higher than his; Master expresses depression and sadness for being a useless weapon; Fran then proceeds to console Master, claiming that he is not trash and that she treasures him. Arriving at the guild, Fran heads to the reception table, stating her intentions of registering as an adventurer. The female receptionist gazes at Fran and warns her that she will be required to take a test and that the guild won't take any responsibility if Fran is injured during the mock battle in a disdainful tone. Fran was then brought to the training ground, meeting her examiner Donadrond a D-ranked Oni race adventurer with a buffed body; Donadrond remarked that he would not be holding back during the mock battle. Their mock battle began with Donadrond swiftly swinging his axe towards Fran, massively damaging the floor tiles upon contact, Fran retaliated by casting the combination of Earth Magic, binding Donadrond's leg and sealing his movement, and a succession of Fire Magic Tri Explosion chipping away the defense of Donadrond, Fran then proceeds to launch an lv7 sword technique, Dragon Fang, forming a massive blade thrust towards Donadrond's abdomen, sending the latter flying towards the wall crashing and buried in the rubble. In shock, miss receptionist expresses her surprise at how Fran was able to display such a monstrous demonstration of power in combat, remarking on her being able to dish out such a high-level attack despite her appearance. Fran then asked if she had passed the test, to which Donadrond responded by raising his hand and giving Fran a thumbs up as a sign of declaring that Fran passed the mock battle test with flying colors.

As the mock battle ended, Fran was brought to the Guildmaster's (Klimt) office for inspection due to the abnormal circumstances. Klimt voices out his concern regarding the situation and chastises Donadrond for taking the matter lightly with Fran, then claiming that she had given all out during the mock battle. Klimt attempted to question Fran regarding where she learned all her skills, but Fran refused to reveal it, which prompted him to use Appraisal but failed to yield results due to Appraisal Block, a skill shared by Master that had its level increased recently. Fran asked if she had failed, but Klimt replied that it wasn't the case the latter was skeptical towards Fran about if she was hiding any bad intentions, she was then brought to the registration crystal to register mana wavelength and job class selection. Fran placed her hand on the crystal, and all her compatible classes revealed that she was compatible with a very wide range of job classes; Klimt remarked that it was something he had never seen before and was convinced that her battle with Donadrond turned out to be such fashion. The receptionist girl (Nell) then asked Fran which class she would choose, and after a brief discussion with the Master, Fran decided to choose Sword Mage to strengthen both her magic and sword talent in form of mana and strength growth. Upon successfully registering, Klimt informed Fran that her ranking would drop if she were inactive, and multiple rank drops would result in expulsion. Fran followed Nell to the reception table while remarking that she would be sleeping on the street shall she not sell enough material; she then brought all the dismantled material she harvested from the monsters that she had slain during her journey to Alessa, which ranges from E - C ranked in an abundant amount much to Nell's surprise. After calculating the value, the sales result in 195 thousand gold in total, to the shock of both Fran and Master. While happily mentioning that she had enough gold to stay in the inn with a faint smile, the duo decided to leave the guild to look for an inn, only to be stopped by 2 beastman and a human adventurer with a sinister look that contemptuously insulted her saying that she is smelly and accusing Fran of being a thief who stole the bag of gold from her material selling earlier.

After several heated exchanges between the sinister trio and Fran, which leads to her anger and intention to kill them when they scornfully insulted her tribe (Black Catkin), the trio then questions Nell regarding the differences of prices offered towards the material they've submitted in compared to Fran's and accusing her of being unfair which Nell then explains the distinct between their poor dismantling process that resulted in the lower price and harshly rebuked the trio. In sheer anger, the leader of the trio slashes towards Nell with his sword but was blocked by Fran using Master, the beastman then claim that he had sold several children like Fran to slavery, a bold statement which invoked the fury of Master, instantaneously a sword art Aura Blade was unleashed by Fran severing both of the beastman leader's leg much to Master's surprise, Alerting two of his members to kill Fran, one of them swung his axe towards Fran only to be dodged and retaliated with several rapid kick of Vibration Blitz by her which rendered them unconscious causing a round of applause from adventurers who witnessed the fight as bystander, Nell then gave a thumbs up to Fran and praised her by saying that she did a good job. In desperation, the leader of the beastman trio plead for somebody to alert the guard on Fran to which Nell replied that the guard has been notified as she challenges the trio to whether if whose statement are more creditable to the guard between hers and the trio causing the beastman to tremble in fear while signaling Fran to leave. Upon leaving the guild, the duo decided to shop for some defensive gear for Fran and a dwarf suddenly grabs onto Fran's shoulder which then promptly introduces himself as Gallus, a very capable magic blacksmith that offers to sell defensive gear to Fran with a lower price after witnessing her fight in the guild earlier and not wanting to see her in a shabby attire. At Gallus's weapon store, Fran delightfully adorned her new defensive equipment (Mithril Earring for Cat Tribe, Flame Oxhorn Dress Armor, Paraclaw Cat Gaunlet, and a pair of Wyvern Boots), Gallus then mentioned that the equipment was imbued with magic to auto adjust to it's user's size and it was originally meant for a small sized adventurer that met her demise before he was able to complete it. Fran told Gallus that her budget was 150 thousand gold, to which he agreed to sell the equipment to her at that price even though the original price was supposed to be higher, to Fran's excitement, Gallus then revealed his true intention by asking a favor, to converse with Fran's Intelligent Weapon causing both Fran and Master to be astonished.

As Gallus reveals that his eyes were special due to the skill God's Eye which allows him to appraise any weapon despite of Appraisal Block while stating that Master is a powerful sword, Master retorted by saying that Gallus was lying as he noticed that his stat were weak compared to other weapon from his appraisal around the city earlier but Gallus explains to him that his mana conductivity is A and there isn't any sword like him everywhere. Explaining the system of mana conductivity for magic swords and how their power can be enhanced when their user injects mana into the sword and Master's efficiency is 200% causing Master to be in estatic and regained his self confidence as a powerful sword, Fran then says that she has always believed in Master as a powerful sword which leads to an affectionate embraces between the two. Gallus questions about how Master were created and explains to Master details regarding legendary sword while Fran was browsing around the store, Master then inquires if he could be one of the legendary swords but Gallus says that his stat were not on par as one. With no longer needs to hide anything, Master pours out the materials of monsters ranging from rank D - C from his dimensional storage. Gallus remarked that he could create some stronger equipment with those materials and the remaining materials could serve as the charging fee alongside making a scabbard for Master. The duo then left Gallus's store to purchase some undergarments for Fran and other necessities such as potions before heading to the inn. Upon entering the inn's room, Fran expresses her excitement to be able to live in such an amazing room, she then embraces Master and tells him how grateful she is towards him with Master recounting the painful experiences that Fran has been through as a slave and promises to protect her, the duo then held a strategical meeting as Fran slowly falls asleep.

Next few days, Fran and Master was out doing quest for the guild, as Fran were still a low ranked adventurer her quest consist of gathering herbs and cleaning as one of such monotonous task. One of the quest involving slaying goblin but they were nowhere to be found thus relying on these task to rank up, the duo then caught the sight of a group of three adventurer consisting of a swordsman, archer, and a mage whom were struggling against a band of goblins beneath the hill they stood on. Decided to rescue them, Fran proceed to cast Fire Arrow dispatching three of the front line goblins while dashes towards the remaining 10. Upon noticing that the trees were burning due to the spell she cast earlier, Master cast Aqua Create to extinguish the fire as Fran cast a barrage of Stone Arrow and Stone Barrett, resorting on earth elemental magic as fire would potentially cause damage to the forest. With the combination other earth magic and Double Slash, Fran successfully dispatched all the remaining goblins and reached level 4, a feat which causes an awe to the trio adventurers noting how powerful she is only to be further surprised when Fran cast a Level 7 Mid Tier Healing Magic Circle Heal. Expressing their gratitude while inquiring her identity leads Fran to introduces herself as a G ranked adventurer causing another surprise to the trio adventurers due to them being in the same rank but with a huge disparity in terms of combat prowess and capabilities between them and Fran. Lĺs she bide an abrupt farewell the trio adventurers, they offered Fran all of the slain goblins to her but Fran decided to only take the hobgoblins remains. Noticing the hobgoblins the trio indicate that these were the omen of Goblin Stampede while explaining to Fran that the present of hobgoblins was a sign that Goblin King and Queen were the leading the goblin army thus a stampede due to their rapid multiplying nature. Suddenly, a goblin scout were spotted blowing whistle to notify other goblins which was swiftly killed by Master's Stone Arrow spell, Fran then offered to stay behind to stop the incoming goblins allowing the trio to head back to the adventure guild in town to alert the other adventurers. A large group of goblins were seen rushing towards the duo as Fran slashes her way through them gaining level upon levels with skill such as Heavy Slash while accumulating injury which was healed by Master. Amidst the battle, Fran expresses her desire to grow even stronger and Master vowed to help her as the duo continue their confrontation against the goblin's assault, leading Fran into the skirmish reverie. As sun about to set, Fran with massive injuries stand triumphantly on a mountain of piled up corpses consisting hundreds of goblins, an achievement which leads her to reach level 12 and earned her the title of Hundred Slasher.

Abilities
Fran is an extremely strong fighter, the essence of her formidable skill comes from her latent talent in both sword combat and magic spell wielding with a quick wit alongside fast learning nature and growth rate in battle ability reflected by skill with stat/level. Given the fact that she can share some of the skills possessed by Master and her own skill that she learned throughout her recently begun career as an adventurer which put her into multiple combat situation against foe par and beyond her stat has broaden her overall experience as a combatant. Her astounding growth and combat prowess earned her respect and reputation as an adventurer particularly after her feat in the Tournament which widely displayed her versatility and enhance her already wide spreading reputation as Magic Sword Girl into her recently gained new alias Black Lightning Princess for her capability to take on seasoned A ranked top adventurer. The harassment she suffered seems to have halted ever since her fearsome battle capability in Ummut's tournament were displayed and spread across continent alongside her impactful new nickname the legendary Black Lightning Princess which also serve to indicate her as the first evolved Black Catkin tribe after 500 years. Her current fame and influence helps to keeps the adventurer at bay from trying to mess with her lest invoke her rage given the fact that Fran rough up every adventurer or nasty people who harasses her which also spread across as one of the hearsay. Amanda during the tournament remarked that she expected that Fran would one day surpass her despite the latter being a seasoned A rank adventurer after 10 years but much to her surprise that Fran were able to fight on par against her after only brief few months after their first meeting in guild where Fran begun her adventurer career remarking the monstrosity of Fran's astounding growth as a combatant. Fran quick growth also contributed by her habit and capability to clear dungeon solo and fighting extremely large group of monster mobs constantly resulting massive experience point gain.

With Fran's already versatile stat and Awakening release which boost her stat even further allowing her to defeat two experienced A ranked adventurer Remmus and Goldalfa in 1 versus 1 match, a feat which surprised every spectator and beyond anyone's expectation given that Fran is a C ranked adventurer during the tournament.

Current and most recent Fran's stat and does not reflect her C rank status, her current stat (excluding Awakening) put her combat ability in a class of a fresh new A ranked adventurer and that is excluding all the stat boost she will obtain from her Awakening activation. Adding her awakening and recently evolved Sword Arts -> Sword Lord Arts and the fact that she leveled up and gained few more skills after the tournament (level 45) up to this point (current level 49) would allow her to take on and defeat A ranked adventurer which she struggled to defeat during tournament with much more ease now. After Fran's training in forest post chapter 510, her overall strength has once again greatly enhanced to the point that she is almost closely approaching to S-Ranked adventurer including her changes of class from Sword Mage to Sword King and her enhanced level and stat which is Level 61 including better mastery of Magic and her new prolonged awakened state duration. Current Fran were able to overwhelm and defeat B-Ranked Monster with just sheer sword technique alone using normal magic sword without the aid of using magic or using Master as a weapon signifying the terrible growth of her in combat which Amanda remarked that current Fran alone without Master or awakening could easily put herself in mortal danger as both Fran's strength and speed greatly surpasses her causing her to be in cold sweat during forest sparring.

Combat Style
Fran have a distinct unique style in combat, having taught by Master and the job class agreed by both Master and Fran namely Sword Mage route promised the ability and usage of Sword Art in conjunction with Magic granting an efficiency in battle. With swordmage having to master the combination of rudimentary sword skill and at least basic magic for the class to actually work in dealing physical damage and magic damage at norms to form a hybrid damage. What makes Fran special is that, by standard Sword Mage could not attain what a focused class could achieve in mastery of Swordplay and Magic Casting as standard swordmage could only have a lower mastery of both compared to single focused job class (Swordsman & Mage) while in Fran's case she was able to master high level sword style and high level magic beyond single class of physical and magic damage dealer due to skill sharing and her innate talent in learning in other words her skill were not bounded by class limitation. Fran is shown able to master all forms of magic and physical sword art and were able to inflict DPS beyond her job class threshold including high healing magic giving her a massive possible way to handle any combat situation above her level, adding up her innate evolve transformation increases her overall library of combat styles and produces a DPS so powerful that it can slay an A rank Adventurer in one strike should they have not taken any defensive measure. Due to such reason, Fran were able to operate as a one man party or army within dungeon or any combat situation thus eliminating the need of having other job class party members and support for as long as she can maintain her MP gauge to keep up with the healing in order to keep her physical wound healed, maintaining stamina to nonstop inflicting sword strike damage while at the same time to continuously casting magic in rapid succession as MP is very much pivotal to her combat style to be effective. After forest training arc, Fran have tremendously improved herself not just from change of class into Sword King which slightly lower her magic mastery and tremendously enhanced her sword skill permanently but in fact Fran trained her magic to overwrite the magic mastery reduction which not only improves her magic mastery greater than before. Fran has also closed gap of all her inherent weaknesses through sheer training to which she is now capable to respond to any combat situation and cast magic almost instantly which place the current Fran's combat capability far from any normal A-Ranked Adventurer and almost closely approaches the realm of S-Rank. Her battle technique currently were able to overwhelm B-Ranked Monster which equals to A-Ranked Adventurer with just sheer sword technique alone.

Other Traits
Despite of having powerful battle prowess on her own right and able to tutor and mentoring other adventurer thanks to the teaching of Master, Fran were incapable of leading or commanding a group or party of adventurer. Her lack of leadership quality were resulted by her less social, constant solo adventuring and solo dungeon diving gives her little to no chance to be in a party much less leading a group of adventurer. Though this does not pose any issue for her to improve her combat ability alone as she is decently capable of solo adventuring but it also prevented her to enhance her adventurer ranking above C despite her combat capability being A due to the requirements of having leadership quality and not just the capability of being one man army in order to rise above C. It is unknown if she have natural talent in leading but certainly is something that she must develop in.