Akusu

Akusu is a young Faun man and the leader of the exploration party "Thunderclaw Fang" (Raigeki no Kiba). He first appears in chapter 44, introduced to the protagonist Wof through the Witch. Described as a flax-haired youth with pale brown eyes, white horns and a handsome, gallant face, he fights at close range with a sword carried in an unusual wooden scabbard. His party is defined by a striking trait: none of its three members possesses a Relic. Akusu handles melee, Hoss covers mid-range with a halberd, and Rel provides ranged support with a bow. Despite being Relic-less, they clawed their way up to Class IV and are regarded as a genuinely skilled, hard-working party — a rank most explorers never reach.

His story is driven by a deep wound. His mother, Emmy, is a famous Class II explorer known as the "Thunder Claw-blade," a powerful Relic-holder. Born without a Relic himself, Akusu grew up amid whispers and cruelty, and ten years ago he was kidnapped by one of his mother's enemies; she was away on a commission and did not return for nearly a month, rescued in the meantime by her Class I partner rather than by her. From that point his relationship with his mother fractured, and he became an explorer out of stubborn defiance — to prove that one can reach Class I with no Relic at all, and thereby surpass and rebuke her. He openly hates Relics and those who lord them over others.

When his mother orders him to take her prodigy apprentice, Mineha — a Relic-supremacist and, at only ten, already ranked Class III above his own party — along on a dungeon quest, Akusu resents the arrangement and hires Wof to shepherd her, initially resolving to ignore her entirely and even to cut ties with his mother once the job is done. His arc turns on two revelations engineered by Wof: Wof gifts him a legendary "Relic Plate" that would grant any Relic, and in that moment Mineha finally discloses the truth — that his mother's absence ten years earlier was a life-or-death commission to retrieve an Elixir sacred egg that saved Mineha and her mother, a secret national matter she could never explain. Understanding at last, Akusu tearfully forgives his mother, vowing to speak with her and call her his pride.

In his defining choice, Akusu refuses to use the Relic Plate. He and his companions Rel and Hoss reaffirm their shared oath to reach the summit as three Relic-less explorers — to use it, they agree, would mean they were no longer the Thunderclaw Fang — and he returns the priceless plate to Wof. His warmth toward Wof (whom he treats almost as a younger brother and confidant) grows from this. He reappears later around chapters 104–156, reuniting with Wof, Mineha and Riv, still a steady, principled presence.