The eminence in Shadow

Shadow Garden is a clandestine organization founded by Cid Kagenou, also known as Shadow. They primarily focus on hindering the Cult of Diablos’ perpetual control over the world. By weakening their international influence and thwarting attempts to resurrect the demon Diablos, Shadow Garden hopes to weaken and eventually eradicate the Cult for good.

The origins of Shadow Garden dates back to the boyhood of Cid Kagenou, a reincarnated boy determined to fulfill a dream of becoming a shadow broker. To accomplish this, Cid routinely snuck out of his home to fight bandits. During one such outing, he discovered a rotting but surprisingly alive body. It was heavily mutated by the effects of magic overlord—one of the possessed. He performed multiple experiments on the body and accidentally reversed the effects after a month’s work. Under the rotting flesh was a young elf girl.

Cid named the elf Alpha and officially made her a shadow broker subordinate. Her job was to prevent the resurrection of Diablos. Initially confused by the mission, Cid explained that Alpha was a descendant of the Three Heroes who defeated the demon Diabolos. After the demon’s death, a curse plagued all future descendants. He claimed that an organization called The Cult of Diablos was responsible for not only hiding the cure, but they made the possessed ostracized by society. Alpha’s acceptance of the mission signaled the founding of the organization Shadow Garden. The two subsequently recruited six more possessed girls. He named them the Seven Shadows. Overtime, they became Cid’s friends and trusted subordinates.

The Seven Shadows initially spent their time training and learning under their leader. The studied subjects such as swordsmanship and martial arts. Furthermore, Cid’s pontificating about the technological, economic, art, and literature advances in his previous life inspired them to explore those concepts. Utilizing this knowledge, some of the girls created personas that garnered acclaim and prestige. It brought new connections and resources that secretly transformed Shadow Garden into an influential organization.

Shadow Garden is an extremely formidable organization with power and influence equivalent to the Cult of Diablos. By integrating “Shadow Wisdom”, Shadow Garden was able to expand the organization’s influence provide the necessary resources and recruit many members into their ranks. From their hard work efforts which resulted in developing the organization for two years, Shadow Garden possesses a well-trained army with skilled abilities, claimed the long-lost ancient capital Alexandria as their permanent headquarters, and has an information network of sources using public connections everywhere. In addition, they also have a considerable number of resources and wealth thanks to their public front, the Mitsugoshi Company.

Moreover, Shadow Garden even seems to have a vast information network as the organization has operative agents who specialise in espionage, infiltration, and reconnaissance. The operative agents used their intelligence-gathering capabilities to infiltrate circles of influence and gather information, even Shadow Garden built a wide network of informants using many influential contacts through their public identities which gave them access to archives containing important information.

Shadow Garden was initially established with only seven members and their strength had been trained directly by Shadow who is the organization’s founder managing to take down the strongest members of the Cult, along with several of their important facilities, and several of the oldest and strongest members, of the “Knights of Rounds”, along with their candidates, in just 3 years.

After the Seven Shadows decide to leave their master in order to expand the organization, Shadow Garden has grown to power with their hidden headquarters Alexandria with the protection of the Mist Dragon making their base look like a natural fortress. The Mitsugoshi Company works as an important fundraising base that creates innovative products which are based on “Shadow Wisdom” to fund and administer their operations missions, also their organization membership has now grown to over 600 members in just 2 years and is still increasing.

Shadow Garden’s members have shown far greater power and skill compared to the Cult of Diablos and other nation forces, despite being a relatively new organization. This is a combination of the fact that all of the Shadow Garden’s members are young women who were cured of Demon Possession, which in turn increased their magical power by manifesting it to further augment their strength and being given far superior training by Shadow, and later the Seven Shadows for newer members.

Shadow Garden is sovereignly led by Shadow himself as a founder and Alpha as a second-in-command who oversees all Shadow Garden operations and activities, she has direct authority over almost everyone within the organization, as well as leading the Seven Shadows who are Shadow’s special personal bodyguards. The Seven Shadows hold the greatest authority to exert command over the organization with their invincible supernatural powers in charge of their respective field with Numbers as the Numbers’s highest ranking members, served as their direct subordinates due to their exemplary fighting prowess and talent skill. Beneath these elite positions, there are the Numbers who are divided into members to running divisions that each specializes in a certain aspect of missions based on their most skilled capabilities.

Cid holds absolute authority as the ruler and leader of the Shadow Garden. He has complete control over Shadow Garden and all the subsidiaries and affiliates under its umbrella. This grants him the power to make decisions that supersede those of any other member, rendering their commands ineffective. Despite believing that the Shadow Garden consists solely of the seven shadows pursuing their own dreams, Cid remains unaware of the true extent of the organization. It has evolved into a vast global entity, created by chance or circumstance.

While Alpha effectively leads the organization, Cid possesses the ability to make decisions that all members must blindly follow, overriding any other directives. A prime example is when Cid whimsically ordered Delta to hunt Juggernaut, rendering the current mission assigned by Alpha ineffective during the Major Corporate Alliance conflict. When Alpha discovers Cid’s betrayal and his intent to destroy the Mitsugoshi Company and the Shadow Garden, she chooses to respect his wishes. Determined to bring about his desired outcome, she and the other members of the Shadow Garden are willing to do anything to ensure its downfall.

The Seven Shadows are the first seven original members recruited and granted power directly by Shadow himself, who having treated demonic possession symptoms in each girl which now will become Shadow’s most loyal direct confidants also the seven highest chief executives within Shadow Garden’s authority. They spent three years with Shadow studying and receiving all of his martial arts and magic training, so it can be said that they are each Shadow’s childhood friends and disciples. The extensive combat training possessed by the Seven Shadows and the valuable knowledge imparted from Shadow’s guidance have solidified their positional role in Shadow Garden’s hierarchal structure as the organization’s leading higher-ups become unshakable.

As Shadow’s earliest subordinates, Seven Shadows stand in a league of their own within Shadow Garden being the most powerful and/or skilled with exceptional abilities. Part of that blessing is due to Shadow, who bestowed upon them part of his own magical energy. The other part is his direct teachings in swordsmanship, martial arts, warfare, and other practices which contribute to the covert organization. Each of them mastered their respective fields be it in combat, espionage, science, or economics.

Seven Shadows are considered Shadow Garden’s elite members who serve to protect Shadow or simply accompany him in battle each of their abilities is extremely powerful & formidable because they have been fervently trained hard thanks to Shadow’s training under his tutelage. Due to their potential prowess, Seven Shadows’ abnormal strength is unbelievably frightening as they are on a completely different level from the rest of the regular members which makes them the foundational pillars in the organization and Seven Shadows (except for Delta possibly due to her nature) have the highest authority in holding the leadership to govern Shadow Garden, overruled only by Shadow himself.

Interestingly, the Seven Shadows’ capabilities are stupendous with their power far exceeding all the other members as each of them possessed different talents and fighting styles to the point where they outperformed the strongest knights and warriors in all countries in the world, especially the Cult’s most powerful members including from Named Children. In fact, the overall strength and skills of the Seven Shadows have already surpassed those of the Knights of Rounds members that have been revealed thus far. Each of Seven Shadows’ combat abilities cannot be measured and compared when dealing with members of the Rounds who have faced them before, such as Nelson and Mordred, especially in the special Cult facility called Sanctuary where they can still fight even though their magic has been absorbed.

With their immense and remarkable strength, Seven Shadows are a mighty force to be reckoned with, which even everyone in the world trembles in fear with their extraordinary abilities and greatly overshadowed any opponents they faced. From Rose Oriana’s estimation when she felt a truly overwhelming amount of magic from Alpha herself who is the leader of the Seven Shadows and Shadow’s right-hand woman, as well as Shadow Garden’s Second-in-Command alone could cause Rose’s spine to shiver and noted that the Seven Shadows’ enormous natural power could be detrimental, even incurring massive losses to a nation if they tried to do so, to the point where the nation itself will have to expend considerable amount of resources just to subdue one of them.[9]

Due to their significant prowess and tremendous magical energy capacity, the Seven Shadows’ capabilities were impressively outstanding, and their astonishing reputation is widely feared by the whole world, even the Cult of Diablos itself became extremely fearful of their true caliber of monstrous power on sheer magnitude they possess. Alexia Midgar herself said that each of them has great power that is equal to or even greater than Iris Midgar, who is considered the strongest warrior in the world, even Aurora who was known as the strongest witch in her time could become very nervous after seeing Zeta in person for the first time which shocked her when she felt her dreaded presence, to the point that Aurora had to warn Claire Kagenou to be vigilant of her and careful to approach her cautiously.

However, despite all that, their ranking as the Seven Shadows is based on their sequential position which had already become a permanent title at the time they orderly joined Shadow Garden even though each of them has a different level of capability in terms of physical strength and amazing skill they possessed. Apparently, at this time, there are only two members other than the Seven Shadows who received the privilege of being granted power directly from Shadow himself, considered to be the highest honor for the organization: Victoria and Rose Oriana.

According to Epsilon, they planned to make a second “Seven Shadows” with powers on par with the original first Seven and so far, Victoria is the only known candidate. While Rose qualified by having received her power from Shadow himself, she publicly became the new Queen of the Oriana Kingdom and wouldn’t be considered due to a conflict of responsibilities.

The Numbers is a class tier of members who were originally girls that have recovered from Demon Possession symptoms and already discarding their former identities with each of their members is given numbers in the order they were recruited. Seven Shadows gathered nearly 600 people before Cid enrolled in Midgar Academy, with the bulk of their recruitment happening within the first month of his enrollment. Thanks to their training in the organization, all members have shown great prowess, talents, ingenuity and other skills that have resulted in them acquiring, or even increasing their own incredible abilities.

Among the Numbers, there are several prominent members that hold exclusive commanding positions called “Numbers” who are immediate personal subordinates to Seven Shadows and occupy the organization’s upper echelon rank within Shadow Garden as field commander, which contains the finest Numbers members from 8 to 24 and receive a Greek letter for a name which commensurately equivalent to their commendable efforts. If there were Numbers members who are nearly the same level in ability and strength as their superiors, their potential advancement capability would be greatly recognized by the Seven Shadows until they become considerably quite capable of earning their respective Named ranks as Shadow Garden’s high incumbents.

By having this honorary privilege from the esteemed position, Seven Shadows can specifically choose any available “Numbers” as their confidants and supporting advisors from their highly experienced finesse among the most prestigious Numbers’ strongest elected members, such as Gamma with Nu or Epsilon with Chi and Omega. Numbers members will be carefully selected by judging their rare unique skills, advanced expertise and notable major distinguished contributions to Shadow Garden until they are chosen even worthy of being named according to the order of “numbers” assigned by Seven Shadows based on their level of ability. Regardless of their high standings, all members unequivocally answer to Shadow and Alpha. In the anime, the “Numbers” members wear gold decorated uniforms manifested their slime suits, from jackets and scarfs to hats and eye patches.

Currently, the Numbers members are regimented among 600+ agents, possibly divided into different roles based on strengths and focused capabilities. Such as soldiers, squad leaders, researchers, spies, scientists, and whatever role they need for the missions. With Lambda’s vigorous intensive training in practicing magic and swordsmanship from a tender age, each Numbers member’s strength approximately matches the first-rate dark knight standard for Spellswords. Most of the Numbers members also ostensibly work as staff of Mitsugoshi Company, allowing them to grow civilian personas while operating as an independent espionage outfit.

Numbers apparently refer to themselves strictly to the order in which they joined, not a ranking system like recruit or lieutenant. Despite Shadow Garden’s members being given numbers as their new identities, the number isn’t an indicator of power but rather the order in which individual members joined the organization. However, each set of 100 tends to be a good deal stronger than the next, so the numbers end up being a decent measure anyway. They have their own chain of command functions to fulfil as well and possess a certain amount of authority to give orders to other members. For instance, no.100 has seniority and higher authority than no.200, and other lower members are prohibited from giving their names and are distinguished by their ‘number’.

Every member with a double and triple-digit “number name” holds such titles from when they originally joined the organization in their numerical enlistment. They have a chance to climb into the higher ranks, but the condition is to qualify each Numbers’ member ability as a regulatory selection in its requirements that the newer members must challenge the older members, no matter how wide the numerical gap and then earn the right to challenge a high-ranking “Numbers” member. If the challenger number earns the opportunity, they can replace an established Numbers after Seven Shadows would commendably admire their potential and place a number name according to their predetermined level. Such may be the case with Nu who joined when Cid began his first year at Midgar Academy and quickly rose to Named Number status. It is unclear if the “Nu” name was vacant or supplanted. And as in the case of No. 559, who challenged No. 89 in a match for the right to challenge the Numbers, which surprisingly ended with No. 559 winning when considering she had just joined the organization recently, before Nu with the difference in numbers was more than four hundred spaces. However, her victory was also possible since she received power from her savior Shadow.

After graduating from basic training, Numbers member are allowed to personalize the appearance of their slime bodysuit so long as it remains predominantly black, with gold livery, and purple for decorative accessories. But the body suits cannot be too much as they should hold a conservative design to not be mistaken for a ranked agent.

Zeta’s Branch Division

These branch divisions are secretly founded by Zeta, one of the Seven Shadows within the organization that which share the same goal of destroying the Cult of Diablos. However, this division is created that only worked for Zeta and serves as a faction to work with a further goal, namely taking over the world and installing Shadow as its god to the new world after he attained immortality by reviving the Demon Diablos through Claire Kagenou who had become Aurora’s vessel. Due to the extreme nature of this faction, they worked hiddenly in executing their tasks without the leadership’s knowledge, from both behind and outside the main organization’s back to avoid suspicions from being discovered.

The rogue faction is completely independent of Shadow Garden which consists of Numbers activist members who are selectively handpicked by Zeta herself and unofficially run their clandestine operations but are still allowed to act on behalf of their organization in a way that legitimizes their actions in carrying out a given task. They discreetly continue their covert activities in furthering their ulterior motives by carrying out any assignments as a cover, while simultaneously collaborating on the actual mission to achieve the faction’s primary objective without arousing suspicion from their superior.

Not only Numbers members, but Zeta has also recruited outsiders who are not affiliated with Shadow Garden to work outside of the organization’s boundaries. Unlike Numbers, they are allowed to move freely on their own and act as they please, meaning they can take on unauthorized high-risk missions from the Shadow Garden that are otherwise forbidden or would require prior clearance from the higher-ups.

Known Members

Founder

Shadow (Cid Kagenou) (No.00): Leader; “figurehead”.

Shadow is the founder, main leader, figurehead with absolute authority, and ideological ‘inspiration’ of Shadow Garden. Here, the seven shadows and all the members under them revere and hail him as the ultimate ruler and mastermind.

Seven Shadows

The Seven Shadows are the original seven members of Shadow Garden, recruited and trained directly by Shadow himself after being named with the Greek letters from Alpha (Α/α) to Eta (Η/η). They are highly regarded within Shadow Garden by having their own magnificent capabilities and are a collegial body which makes them the general overseers who manage different facets of the organization.

[Α] Alpha (No. 01): Director of Shadow Garden; Second-in-Command.

[Β] Beta (No. 02): Head of mission logistics; Operations Coordinator.

[Γ] Gamma (No. 03): Head of Finance and Administration; Mitsugoshi Company Founding President.

[Δ] Delta (Sara) (No. 04): Head of Main fighting force; Leading the One-Woman Army.

[Ε] Epsilon (No. 05): Head of Espionage and Infiltration; Special Intelligence Spymaster.

[Ζ] Zeta (Lilim) (No. 06): Head of Exploration and Reconnaissance; Secret sub-branch Division Leader.

[Η] Eta (No. 07): Head of Research and Development; Chief Engineer.

Numbers

The Numbers are those whose abilities were recognized by the Seven Shadows and who have been granted a Greek letter like them. Corresponding to the Greek alphabet, their ranks start at [Θ] theta and end at [Ω] omega.

[Ⲓ] Iota (No. 9): Mentioned by Gamma to Eta after they rescued Chi (Master of Garden).

[Λ] Lambda (Zinaida) (No. 11): Shadow Garden’s drill instructor.

[Μ] Mu (No. 12):

[Ν] Nu (Nicoletta Marquez) (No. 13): Gamma’s personal aid and bodyguard.

[Π] Pi (No. 12):

[Σ] Sigma (No. 18): Mentioned by Beta to Alpha when Cid had already registered at the Academy (Master of Garden)

[Χ] Chi (Karen von Herzog) (No. 22): A Cult of Diablos’ defector as Named First Children and former member of the Velgalta’s Seven Blades.

[Ω] Omega (Olga) (No. 24):

Members

Nameless infantry who has above average capabilities with fierce training to become the best warriors. However, they do have earn the right to challenge the “Numbers” to obtain their position by defeating a gatekeeper. Their enumeration starts from 25 and continues onward, with the latest mentioned number recently being 712.

89: High-ranking two-digit number; Gatekeeper.

559 (Victoria): High-ranking three-digit number; member of Zeta’s secret branch.

664 (Nami): Queen Rose’s bodyguard.

665: Queen Rose’s bodyguard.

666 (Rose Oriana): Queen of Oriana Kingdom.

711 (Millia):

712 (Akane Nishino):

Allies

Although Shadow Garden had many connections, they didn’t have many allies and associates. Shadow Garden had been used their network for trying to make relationship with important people, central figure, even the famous or notorious individual to serve as reliable partners and trustworthy companion in working together to eliminate the Cult of Diablos by secretly aiding their activities, to which they playing a beneficiary role towards Shadow Garden who acts a main contact handler to a significant extent to be their organization’s watcher and operational intermediary in gathering intelligence from outside world.

Colleague

These people are comrades in arms who shared the same interest of eliminating the Cult in their respective acts and coordinating to support Shadow Garden’s operations as a work associate by investigate and monitor on the Cult’s illicit related activities.

Nina: A secret and direct subordiate of Zeta.

Yukime: Queen of the Lawless City and owner of the Snow Fox Corporation; Mitsugoshi Company trading business partner.

Supporters

They are situational co-operative friends in need who have their own goals but are allowed to be strong advocates in converging and helping the organization’s mutual objectives.

Mist Dragon

List of Mission Accomplishments

Shadow began Shadow Garden with Alpha’s recruitment and expanded to the initial seven members, having taught the “Seven Shadows” a myriad of knowledge playing to their respective strengths. When they expanded, his teachings became the corner stones of instruction for the rest of Shadow Garden’s 600+ membership, who hold him in the highest reverence.

Due to Cid’s previous memories from his prior life in modern day Japan, he “grants” his knowledgeable staff quite a few tips in improving Shadow Garden’s science, business, economic, commerce, agriculture, and technological understanding in what he describes as knowledge from the “Shadow Wisdom”: when it’s merely his previous life’s memories. In just two years and using what little information Cid gave them, they managed to build an extraordinarily powerful organization to take on the Cult of Diablos, rivaling their public assets as well as their covert resources.

The rest of Shadow Garden’s membership think that Cid is a powerful and all-knowing leader who has everything in the palm of his hand, because they are impressed by how Cid is seemingly able to see through the Cult’s plans and come up with countermeasures quickly. Whenever he goes about his Shadow persona, he (unknowingly) creates new opportunities for success for them, such as:

Two Year Time skip: Seven Shadows Chronicles

Rapid Growth of Shadow Garden’s Martial, Political, and Financial Influence

Standardization of education and sword techniques

Relocation of Shadow Garden to the Ancient City of Alexandria

Tuna King franchising

Opening Mitsugoshi Company

Recruitment of powerful members

Investigation of the Templars

Sacred Land of Lindwurm infiltration

Assassination of a templar leader

Recruitment of The Saint into Shadow Garden’s ranks

Continual Possessed Research and Rescue

Successful Assaults on Cult and Church’s convoys

Further development of efficient curing procedures for the possessed

Destruction of testing and holding facilities

Cult of Diablos Investigations

Supplementary intelligence provided by Beta’s infiltration of the Midgard Newspaper Association

Gamma’s Purchase of Midgard Newspaper Association

Deduction of the Cult and Church’s relationship

Present: 1st Year on Cid’s Command

Revealing the Cult of Diablos and Shadow Garden to the Public

Fenrir Sect weakened

Eliminated Zenon Griffey

Rescuing Princess Alexia Midgar

Saving Midgar Academy

Eliminating terror attack mastermind and former Knight of Rounds, Lutheran Barnett

Gaining intelligence on the Eye of Avarice

Infiltrating Lindwurm’s Holy Sanctuary

Attaining copies of ancient records via The Rolapoid

Annihilating Sanctuary

Eliminating Nelson Sect

Recruitment of Rose Oriana

Preventing the Cult’s assassination of King Klaus Midgar

Strength assessment of Beatrix, the goddess of war

Infiltration and Destruction of the Crimson Tower

Securing Elisabeth’s Blood for Demon Possession research

Allying with Vampire Queen Elisabeth

Alpha and Beta learn the Red Mist vampire ability

Making the Midgar Kingdom Economically Dependent on the Mitsugoshi Company

Absorbing the Major Corporate Alliance funds and assets

New ally Yukime

Lawless City becomes allied territory

Snow Fox Corporation partners with Mitsugoshi

The Oriana Kingdom Becoming an Ally State

Exposing crimes of the Cult’s puppet Royal Chancellor Perv Asshat

Exposing the treachery of Queen Reina Oriana

Eliminating Mordred Sect

Installing allied ruler, Queen Rose Oriana

Retained loyalty of Rose Oriana

Preparing for an eventual proxy war against the Cult’s international instigations. (Ongoing)

Attained Advance Earth Technology

Continual observation and study on an otherworlder

Reverse-engineered laptop (ongoing)

Present; 2nd Year on Cid’s Command

Preventing Fenrir Sect’s Attempt to Resupply Tears of Diablos

Eliminating Fenrir Sect

Zeta secretly bonded Claire Kagenou to Diablos’ right arm

In just one year after the Shadow Garden operation began when Cid entered the Academy, until he was 16 years old, their success was so effective that it made the Cult of Diablos’s power decrease exponentially. Even their core combat power the “Knights of Rounds” has already been reduced by about a third.

Unlike the Cult who have grown complacent in their hubris as they ignore and dismiss the Shadow Garden threat, they also fail to innovate as they have purposefully done so to maintain their policy, allowing the organization to rapidly amass greater wealth and power until Shadow Garden surpassed the Cult in overall might in a few short years. The rapid development and progress of Shadow Garden’s efforts agitated the Cult so much, which made them serious about destroying Shadow Garden after their “Round Table Committee” council meeting.

International Relations

While Shadow Garden as an organization had only recently established itself in the Other World, their initial areas of operational activity weren’t as large as the Cult’s. Thus, the organization’s strength had to continuously grow over time with each success and acquisition of new resources. In the first year of its public emergence, Shadow Garden’s sphere of influence had spread widely throughout the region around the Midgar Kingdom, also had earned the reputation of having the strongest military force which surpassed the Cult of Diablos and are feared by all neighboring countries.

Midgar Kingdom

Shadow Garden originates in Midgar due to their founder, Shadow, being a citizen, and Alpha being a resident. During the initial two years in secret, they recruited mostly around Midgar to their still sprouting ranks. After going public by their fifth year, they showcased their power by crippling several Cult installations with the few months of public exposure. With the attack on the Midgar Dark Knight Academy, devastating the Church’s holy site of Lindwurm, Shadow besting Princess Iris Midgar and Beatrix, and the regime change of Oriana Kingdom, Shadow Garden has accepted the branding as a terrorist organization with overwhelming military power, compared to Midgar which is already renowned for their own military superiority.

Oriana Kingdom

As the nation of the arts, Oriana had culturally renounced military favor and kept an alliance with Midgar for allied security, despite having their own Dark Knight order. With the death of King Geerk and Rose Oriana becoming a fugitive with Shadow’s protection, Oriana was against Shadow Garden during their civil war between the Pro- and Anti-Chancellor factions. After Rose exposed the Cult’s machinations of the Chancellor Perv Asshat’s crimes and his collaborators, her ascension to the throne was mired by the Church branding Oriana a heretic state, which economically sanctioned the nation internationally. Despite this, Shadow Garden quietly seeks to aid Oriana and support her reign, even without the resources of their public front in Mitsugoshi Company.

Velgalta Empire

Shadow Garden’s standing with Velgalta is limited, but the empire likely holds the organization in identical standing as their neighboring nations. Shadow Garden has been infiltrating Velgalta through Mitsugoshi’s stimulation of the new housing and automobile markets, due to major petroleum deposits in the empire and reconstruction from their historic war campaigns. As Velgalta is the culturally inverse to Oriana, Shadow Garden is also utilizing their Mitsugoshi connections to spy on the empire, who is likely to join a coalition of nations against Oriana due to their heretic branding. Due to her past in their military, Lambda routinely consults the Seven Shadows regarding their missions in the “Country of Swords.”

Equipment and Artifacts

Aside from their prowess, Shadow Garden have access to technologies far more advanced than their contemporaries thanks to the initial inventions of their Lord, Shadow and his vast knowledge known as the Shadow Wisdom (影かげの叡智えいち, Kage no Eichi?). The Seven Shadows (mostly thanks to Eta) were able to develop all sorts of tools, outfits, and things recreated from Shadow’s ideas and memories by creating effective equipment and artifacts for use in missions. Not only to increase their strength, but also to further assist them in making their work easier. Also, Shadow Garden can improve their research about any objects that are likely to be very useful by collecting them, especially snatching artifacts from the Cult of Diablos for data collection and among other things. These things are:

Slime Suit: Revolutionary apparel invention created by Cid Kagenou/Shadow with nigh limitless utility. Refined by Cid and the Seven Shadows since Shadow Garden’s founding, the upgraded version of the suit is now used by everyone, from the Seven Shadows to all subordinates in the Numbers.

Slime Weapons: The shapeshifting ability of the bodysuit extended and hardened into weaponry for close-range, distant, and melee combat. These weapons are as finite as the mass of the slime bodysuit.[11]

Slime Masks: All members of Shadow Garden are wearing prosthetic facial masks to cover their identities.

Slime Cloaks: All members of Shadow Garden use the slime jelly’s shapeshifting ability to create a black cloak, they are also able to fashion a hoodie to cover their faces to hide their faces to hide their identities.

Magical Training Weights: Some magical devices, created by Cid Kagenou/Shadow. Said, invention, allowed to help strongly, in military training, increasing one’s strength, and keeping it in shape, the devices as such, can be readjusted, to apply the desired weight.[12]

Locator of Possess: An artifact created by Eta, allowing Shadow Garden to locate all the girls who have symptoms of Demon Possession throughout over the world.

Homing Pigeons: Pigeons trained to find a recipient anywhere to deliver a message, a common form of communication in the world.[13]

The Rolapoid: An artifact created by Eta, based on Cid’s ‘Shadow Wisdom’, that is a reverse engineered instant camera with self-developing film.[14]

Anti-Magic Nullifier: Artifact created by Eta, to counteract the effects of any artifacts that weaken one’s magic or are draining it. Said artifact was created, in an inspired way, from the remains and other reports, of the Eye of Avarice.

The Cult of Diablos is a secret organization operating covertly to resurrect the demon Diablos.

For this task, they infiltrated many high-ranking positions and manipulated history so that the descendants of the heroes who originally sealed Diablos would get persecuted and abandoned by renaming the “Curse of Diablos” into Demon Possession. They managed to go unopposed for years until a new opposition called the Shadow Garden appeared.

Children of Diablos

These members are orphans or young citizens that possess magic, even the smallest amount, that the Cult kidnaps and are raised in Special Facilities. These children then go through harsh training and brainwashing and then are loaded with mana. Only 10% have managed to live. They are all ordered in, Third, Second, and First.

The Third Children are those that survive the test but are deemed worthless and are used as a sacrifice as their minds are too corrupted for them to leak classified information and they are more powerful compared to the average knight. The Second children are mentally stable while the First children are considered to be some of the most powerful warriors and as such, are quite limited in number compared to the Third and Second children. Among the Children of Diablos, those who have provided exceptional contributions to the Cult are granted a name. Most Named Children are First but being named Second is not entirely unheard of either.

Knights of Rounds

Furthermore, there are Named Children who have climbed into the ranks of the Knights of Rounds. More like, within the organization, being Named is almost considered a requirement to be considered for a position in the Rounds. There are 12 members in Knights of Rounds because each year, each member of Knights of Rounds will take 1 bead (Beads of Diablos) to maintain their demonic strength and immortality. Beads of Diablos have a small production amount, 12 drops a year, coincidently the number of people in the Rounds.

Demon Possession is a peculiar ailment and enchantment inflicted by the demon king Diablos, alias Aurora, upon individuals with his bloodline. These are the descendants of the Three Heroes who vanquished him. This affliction manifests abruptly, causing rapid decay of a woman’s body until her humanity is unrecognizable, culminating in death.

These symptoms, however, are unveiled as a manifestation of magical overload specifically affecting female descendants of the Three Heroes. This condition results in progressive physical degeneration, leaving the afflicted in a state of fleshly decay until eventual demise.

Demon Possession is characterized by an overwhelming magical potency inherited by female descendants of the Three Heroes from each tribe of elves, therianthropes, and humans. These heroes subdued the demon Diablos, leading to an excessive manifestation of magical power in their bloodlines. The degree of manifestation varies based on the race’s lifespan, with the power spiraling out of control due to its immense strength.

At a specific stage determined by the lifespan of each species, the cells initiate a process that overtakes a female descendant’s body, resulting in a transformation into deformed and decaying masses of flesh. This phenomenon is most prevalent when the blood of the hero generation is strongest and gradually diminishes with each subsequent generation, starting with elves, then therianthropes, and finally humans, in terms of rate of occurrence.

In the advanced stages of the curse, as it profoundly alters the afflicted girl’s body, she loses awareness of her surroundings, continuing to mutate without the ability to recognize her need for sustenance. The curse torments her without allowing death or self-termination, leaving her in an unconscious state during the latter stages. An illustrative case is Alpha, who, captured by bandits during her transformation, remains unaware of her circumstances, barely recalling her exile or comprehending the actions of Cid Kagenou during his experiments on her.

Therianthrope is one of the races in the world of The Eminence in Shadow. They have a human-animal hybrid appearance, typically having a human body with animal ears, lot of fur and tails.

They have a wide variety of different tribes. However, about 80% of them are people whose inherent abilities are their physical strength.

Therianthropes have greater physical ability, sharper senses, better reflexes, higher amounts of magical power, longer life spans and higher fertility rates.

The Therianthropes are a diverse race. There was a Therianthrope tribe with intelligence. The fox tribes are famous for their cunning intellect.

Tribes are always looking to others first. But when the supply line extends, those with the right mind took care of themselves. But powerful Therianthropes abuse them as cowards and attack them.

Mitsugoshi is a relatively new, but highly successful multi-trade company. They are known for their innovative products and quickly becoming the largest commercial trading enterprise with a significant global reputation. Their public acclaim is due to their business empire having progressed in the industrial, extractive, real-estate, banking, hospitality, infrastructure, and technology development sectors. The company progressed for three years until it became a worldwide, international mega-corporation, with influence over several nations due to their involvement in supplying the people.

Unbeknownst to the public, Mitsugoshi Company is operated by Shadow Garden as their primary front, managed by Luna as the company’s director, who secretly founded it with help from Alpha. The establishment of this company was inspired by the knowledge given to them by Shadow, which actually comes from Earth as they were able to recreate modern products and then traded recreations of goods until they gained enormous wealth. Thanks to their unique goods having sold well with buyers, considered to be “revolutionary” qualities, their brand is considered a trend and beloved by all people. The company has also created banknotes to be used as a popular currency by the populace in order to speed up their financial processes, until they could build their own bank for monetary transactions and loans. In addition, Mitsugoshi even promotes all types of business commodities and ventures that they own, which are favorites with visitors, as well as introducing all kinds of entertainment for customers who come to visit until Mitsugoshi gained popularity in the public society.

This company is used as an important asset for funding Shadow Garden’s missions as well as their employees, the Numbers. Mitsugoshi became a fundraising base in storing their wealth to increase their source of financial income, which became a vital place for building Mitsugoshi’s foundation until the company has advanced considerably in order to consolidate their power against the Cult of Diablos by eliminated their influence. Mitsugoshi has reaped success with astounding product sales rates in conducting trade, both in urban and rural areas, accompanied by a high demand to trade their merchandise to the general public and conglomerates, even nobility, until Mitsugoshi’s “new” commerce system had made progress on the economy in the Midgar Kingdom.

While the company has grown rapidly with the spread of their influence to foreign countries, requiring them to further expand their business by constructing branch offices in every country they reach. Mitsugoshi had competed with the Major Corporate Alliance, which was formed intent on preventing Mitsugoshi selling their merchandise. This resulted in covert continuous conflicts in the struggle for trading district, all through sabotage in their distribution chain until a trade war over the marketplace in the region began. Amidst the conflict, Mitsugoshi was the first to realize counterfeit bills of the MCA’s currency was already circulating and conducted their own investigation into the source. Concurrently, Shadow had collected a large amount of gold coins in secret by working together with Yukime, triggering the credit collapse.

Shadow Garden then learned the true purpose of Shadow’s plan in hiding his identity by posing himself as “John Smith” and moving independently was to remove any clues linking their secret connection with Mitsugoshi. This prevented Shadow Garden’s affiliation from being revealed to the public, and after translating the encoded letter, his message contained the location of where he hoarded the money. Shadow Garden kept the gold in order to replenish their reserves, able to weather the crisis, and successfully ensured Mitsugoshi Company’s credibility would not falter.

As the credit collapse concluded, Mitsugoshi Company had survived the verge of bankruptcy and successfully regained the people’s trust in banknotes after adequately conducting the money transactions on their gold coins. Knowing the Alliance’s swift fall, Mitsugoshi bought all of their assets and won the regional trade war. With a predetermined outcome, Mitsugoshi took advantage of the MCA’s downfall to eliminate their chief competitors, gaining monopoly rights to fully control the market and elevate their position until it became unassailable within the Midgar Kingdom. From their heights, Mitsugoshi brought unprecedented prosperity, and later formed a partnership with the Snow Fox Corporation.