Kaede Honjou

Kaede Honjou (本条楓 Honjō Kaede), known as Maple (メイプル Meipuru) in NewWorld Online, is the main character of the series. A curious girl with a great shield that blocks most attacks.

Kaede is the guild master of the guild Maple Tree.

Appearance
Maple has short, black hair that ends just past her chin. Her eyes are a cool-grey shade and her skin is fair. In-game, she wears armor that has a black and red color scheme. The armor's focus points of durability are the gauntlets, shin guards, boots and breastplate. Her forearms are predominantly bare as well as her legs above the knees. Red mesh fabric covers the least protected parts of her body, but some skin remains bare. Her armor descends into a cloak-like drape with a dark exterior and red underside.

In her hair is a white clip that consists of four rhombuses that create a compass-like shape. Her breastplate has a red crest on her chest. Carrying her shield, it matches her armor with red accents patterning it geometrically. At the center of the shield is a large red pendant plated in black.

Personality
Maple is an innocent, fun-loving girl, and her lack of ability to hold a grudge and non-competitive nature means she sees virtually everyone as a potential friend regardless of past experiences with them, as seen from her interactions with Kasumi. She also is quite the sucker for anything that looks cute and can be quite shy when she's the center of attention. That said, she also has a tendency to be absent-minded and reckless, especially in the beginning when she thoughtlessly puts every skill point she has into Vitality and later when she almost gets killed soloing the Poison Dragon Dungeon.

She also has the tendency to pursue prospects in finding anything of rarity quite interesting. Collecting things that are initially thought to be demimondaine.

While not averse to fighting in general, Maple tends to have a hard time attacking anything, especially other players, even if it is to her benefit, as she is averse to getting hurt and likely against hurting anyone else just as much. When the situation calls for it, such as in the fight against the Silver Wing boss, Maple becomes quite capable of making practical decisions on the fly, though the rest of the time, she's making her pet turtle, Syrup, capable of flight just because she wanted to.

Plot
Maples unorthodox play-style led her to gain skills before the game developers intended https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFa8JmzYaB4

Description

 * Out of the fear of getting damaged, and laziness to evade, she instinctively set all allowable skill points on (Vit) Defense, to minimize or completely negate any damage she is to receive from any attack. Inadvertently, finding and exploiting a game quirk yet to be discovered.
 * She also chose her Job Class to match her chosen attributes and skills, taking a large shield and short sword as primary equipment.

History
Kaede is a regular girl with a gamer friend name Risa. Risa had been forcing games on Kaede but nothing really stood out to her, until she tried NewWorld Online (NWO).

NWO would later provide Kaede an experience that she could not forget became addicted to. Her real life dreams and knowledge would dictate how she acted in game. These actions would be far off from the common sense of gamers, and would lead to much work for the administrators would built the game around it.

Maple's VIT summary:
 * During the Silverwing fight: 1104 + 110 (cover) (251 + 25 abominable,daily reset) x4
 * and Armor/Shield breaks 1st: 1224 + 122 (cover) (281 + 25 abominable,daily reset) x4
 * and Armor/Shield breaks 2nd: 1344 + 134 (cover) (311 + 25 abominable,daily reset) x4
 * After acquiring Fortress: 2040 + 204 (cover) (180 + 135 + 25 abominable,daily reset) x6
 * and with angel armor: 1230 + 123 (cover) (180 + 25 abominable,daily reset) x6
 * and with angel armor HP: 1300 (40 + 30 (skill) + 130 (two rings) + 1100 angel set)

Abilities
Maple's skills In depth

Active Skills

 * Atrocity: Transform into a demon. You get improve stats and lose armor benefits. Usable once per day.
 * Machine God: Skill with sub-skills. Sacrifice armor for armaments (quality matters).
 * Deploy Armaments, Deploy-left hand, Commence Attack, Deploy Barrels, Break Core
 * Loving Sacrifice: Skill with sub-skills. Protect and heal your allies. Skills cost HP.
 * Loving Sacrifice, Aegis, Self-Offering Love


 * Pandemonium I: Summon “Red Oni” and “Blue Oni” for 1 minute. Seals your skills for duration.


 * Cover Move I: Move to a nearby party member.


 * Cover: Protect a nearby party member. VIT +10% while active.
 * Meditation: User recovers 1% HP every 10 seconds for 10-minutes or until they attack.
 * Provocation: Gather the attention of nearby monsters. Usable once every 3 minutes.
 * Psychokinesis: Float a monster. Resistance affects success and MP cost.
 * Shield Attack: Damage depends on STR. Also has Knockback (Small).
 * Counter: Add damage suffered from a previous attack to your next attack.
 * Encouragement: Nearby party members have [STR][AGI] +20% for 1 minute.
 * Sheep Eater: Skill with sub-skills.
 * Wooly or Hair Growth: User produces sheep wool around themselves.
 * Quick Change: Change to preset equipment. Use it again to change back.
 * Frozen Earth: Freezes enemies within 5-meters for 3 seconds.Usable once every 3 minutes.

Passive Skills

 * Hydra Eater: Poison and Paralysis Immunity


 * Absolute Defense: Boosts VIT by x2. Increasing [STR][AGI][INT] costs x3 points.
 * Fortress: Boosts VIT by x1.5
 * Giant Killing: If four of your stats (not HP/MP) are lower than opponent's, double stats (not HP/MP).
 * Inhumane or Savage: Intentionally received attacks give VIT+1 (max +25). Resets daily.
 * Knowledge of the Large Shield IV: Reduces Damage by 4% when using a shield.
 * Attack Deflection or Parry: Reduces Damage by 1%.
 * Body Manipulation or Evasion: Reduces Damage by 1%.
 * Bomb Eater: Reduces Explosion damage by 50%
 * HP Strengthening (Small): HP +30.
 * MP Strengthening (Small): MP +10.
 * Pierce Guard: Your shield nullifies the effects of piercing attacks.
 * Stout guardian: Great Shielder exclusive skill. Once per day, survive any lethal attack with 1 HP.
 * Benevolent Knight: (does nothing)
 * Devil Eater: (unknown)
 * Venom Incantation: Poison attacks have a 20% chance of instant death, disregarding immunity to poison.

Equipment Skills

 * Hydra: Skill with sub-skills. Skills that deal poison damage. Access to Poison Magic.
 * Hydra, Paralyzing Shout, Deadly Breath, Venom Capsule, Acid Rain, Venom Cutter, Poison Lance


 * Seeping Chaos: Skill with 3 sub-skills. Demon guards, their boost, and a hydra-like attack.
 * Predator, Seeping Chaos
 * Devour: Passive skill that consumes things and stores them as MP. Usable 10 times per day.
 * Crystal Wall: Creates a wall with HP equal to the users nearby. Usable once every 5 minutes.

Unique combinations

 * Syrup's (pet) Megamorph + Psychokinesis: A flying transportation.
 * Spirit Canon: A beam of light emanates from companions mouth
 * Mother Nature: Vines from underground emerge and binds a target from movement
 * Syrup's (pet) Rampart + Deploy Barrels: A way to rocket into the sky. Other Machine God skills can be used to fly in one direction. Requires high VIT to survive.

Equipment
Maple acquired her unique set in episode 1 of the anime and chapter 9 of the web novel. The boss was a Poison Dragon and its' poison was lethal. Her high VIT reduced the poison damage she took, compounding with her poison resistance.

Maple defeats the giant queen bee in episode 1 and receives Forest Queen Bee's Ring. Its' wearer receives VIT+6 and recovers 10% of their max HP every 10 minutes. It was later given away during the Benevolent Knight chain-quest. ¹Desutrction Growth after sacrificing armor for Machine God to defeat "King of Junk".
 * Note: Maples Unique Series Equipment has the auto skill 'Destruction Growth' which significantly increases its durability and automatically repairs itself the more and each time it is destroyed.

Note: It is yet to be determined if a player can equip multiple skills on the same equipment, but it has been observed that Maple can utilize four skills while only having three equipped items.

Relationships

 * Best friend of Sally.
 * Monster Companion Syrup

Trivia

 * Her in-game nickname is a reference to MapleStory, an MMORPG.
 * She has the same given name with her Japanese voice actress, Kaede (楓).
 * Her last name also is similar


 * In the web novel, after Maple inherits The First 's power, she becomes The Third.
 * Apparently, NewWorld Online considers the act of eating an enemy as draining its life or HP Drain, which would entail that performing said act will also restore HP. (So Maple is already a Vampire...)
 * "They knew that something would happen the moment they took their eyes off her."
 * What the admins thought Maple was doing after the fourth event rankings were mostly decided:
 * “She's playing a board game with the other guild members.”
 * “She's practicing flying in the sky with the machine god.”
 * “The twins are juggling her.”
 * “She's testing to see if she can gain skills by biting weapons made with 'Smithing.'”
 * “Eh? Don't you think those are a little too normal?”
 * “Maybe you're right...”
 * “She's inside the mouth of a giant turtle.”
 * “She's fighting Sally for some reason.”
 * “She's biting the turtle.”