Shihoru

Shihoru (シホル, Shihoru) is the Mage of Haruhiro's party and one of the secondary protagonists of the Hai to Gensō no Grimgar series.

Appearance
Shihoru is a short girl with short light purple hair and purple eyes. She constantly says that she is overweight even though the rest of the party says that she is not.

Personality
A passive and dismissive personality. She is shy towards strangers and has low experience communicating with the opposite gender as well. Her close but compulsory affiliation with Manato, led to a one-sided crush, only added to her inept sociability, which took its roots in insecurity due to her weight and bullying.

Despite her struggling to voice her opinions and thoughts at first, she learns to be able to speak up throughout the series, often making passive aggressive remarks towards Ranta. She often trusts Haruhiro's judgement when it comes to decision-making.

Before Grimgar
Shihoru was usually bullied and harassed 'for being fat' by her peers and often cried alone. She became insecure about her looks and wore long hair to cover her face. Her stepmother would tell her to never listen to their opinions and to not cower from their hurtful words and stand up straight. Following her stepmother's suggestion of 'changing oneself if changing others wouldn't work', Shihoru carefully observed people's expressions and thoughts to understand them and blend in. Shihoru took her stepmother's advice to heart and tried to accept herself. At one point she decided to shorten her hair of which her stepmother complimented to suit her more.

Level. 1
Shihoru starts off really shy, barely able to talk to others, to the point that Haruhiro compares her to a newborn fawn.

Like all the group she comes to Grimgar with, she is introduced to the red moon army by Brittany. Unable to make a decision on what she wants to do, she ends up forming a group with Haruhiro, Yume, and Ranta as they are the last left behind. Once they leave the red moon office, Haruhiro leaves them to explore the city and find information. During that time Shihoru likely stays behind with Yume and Ranta, until he comes back with Manato.

When it comes to picking a guild Shihoru chooses to become a mage. (Her training is shown in Level 14+)

After the week of training, the team is reunited, it's around that time that Ranta starts to sexually harrassed Shihoru, mostly by speaking of her breasts, which is a sensitive topic to her. At the same time, probably in response to Shihoru's difficulty at dealing with Ranta, Yume started to act as mental support for her.

When the team begins hunting after recruiting Moguzo, she shows some slight opposition to killing at first but quickly understood that it's a necessity. The first problem Shihoru has to overcome is the fact that she closes her eyes when casting a spell, lowering her accuracy. She also has trouble dealing with the horror of fighting and unexpected situations.

But as they continue to hunt Shihoru slowly starts to become more assertive, even starting to respond to Ranta harassment albeit mostly under her breath. At the same time, the team start to live in the volunteer soldier lodging where she shares a room with Yume, living together bringing them even closer to the point where they sometimes share a bed. But living together also gives Ranta more time to harass her and Yume going as far as trying to peep on them which leads to the girl ignoring him.

After amassing enough money by hunting Shihoru is able to learn more spell from the guild, and choose to focus on Darsh magic to be able to better support. And as they become more and more experienced at hunting mud goblin in the old city she learns to stop closing her eyes when casting, staying aware of her surroundings at all times to best provide support, and start to propose strategies.

Abilities
As a Mage with virtually no defensive skills, Shihoru relies on the rest of the party to distract the enemies while charging up spells to stun or disable the target from range. Initially, Shihoru learned Darsh or shadow magic, which has many support-type spells that confuse or bind enemies. Later on, she decides to learn Falz or lightning magic to have offensive-type spells that deal damage.

According to Shihoru, with magic there is something called "mastery". Each magic type draws its power from magical creatures called elementals. A Mage will learn the proper way to control an elemental and will gain experience in that elemental type leading towards "mastery". Since Shihoru learned multiple spells from shadow magic she gained mastery in learning/using shadow spells. Because mastery of an elemental type of magic doesn't transfer over to another type; in essence, Shihoru had to start from scratch to start learning Falz magic. It took her four days to learn one lightning spell.

Non-Elemental Magic

 * Magic Missile: The most basic of spells taught to all Mages. A ball of light about the size of a fist that bursts from the end of the Mage's staff to hit someone. More experienced Mages can cast more powerful versions of this spell. After the fight with Mutsumi, she learned to cast multiple Magic Missile's at once. Its incantation is "Marc em Parc".

Darsh Magic

 * Shadow Beat: A medium speed, blackish purple projectile that stuns a single enemy momentarily. Liken to a physical punch. Similar to the Magic Missile. The stun often provides an opening for the rest of the party members to follow up with a finishing attack. Its incantation is "Om-reil ect Vail Dash".
 * Shadow Bind (Shadow Bond): A shadow elemental is placed on the ground, which immobilizes any enemy who steps on it. Only one elemental can be placed at a time, and only lasts for up to twenty-five seconds. Especially strong enemies can force their way out of the bind. Its incantation is "Om-reil ect Nem Dash".
 * Phantom Sleep (Sleepy Shadow): A shadow spell that causes opponents hit by it to fall into deep sleep. The casting range is about sixty-five feet away. The sleeping enemy can only be awakened by injuries, even if it is just a slap with the back of the sword, it will immediately remove the sleep effect. Its incantation is "Om-reil ect Chrome Dash".
 * Shadow Complex: A spell that got into the heads of enemies to bewilder them. Works on alert and strong willed enemies. Its incantation is "Oom rel eckt pram das".
 * Armor Shadow: A defensive spell that neutralizes one attack. A shadow elemental envelopes the mage's body. Its incantation is "Ohm rel ect delm brem darsh".
 * Shadow Mist: It is the upgraded form of Sleepy Shadow that induces an intense sleepiness in the target. It can affect multiple targets but the is less effective when the enemy is aware of the spell being cast. Its incantation is "Ohm rel ect el krom darsh". 
 * Shadow Echo: It is the upgraded form of Shadow Beat that fires three blackish purple projectiles that stun an enemy momentarily. Is able to briefly stopped a giant. Its incantation is "Ohm rel ect el vel darsh".
 * Shadow Pond: Is the upgraded form of Shadow Bond. It is able to immobilize multiple enemies provided they are close to one another. The incantation is "Ohm rel ect el nemun darsh".

Falz Magic

 * Lightning: Summons a bolt of lightning from the sky to strike enemies. There is a flash of light, a roaring sound, and bolt of lightning comes down. Its incantation is "Jess yeen sark fram dart".
 * Thunderstorm: More powerful version of Lightning, where a bundle of lighting strikes the enemy. It has a small area of effect. Its incantation is "Jess yeen sark kart fram dart".

Kanon Magic

 * Ice Globe: An ice elemental spell that freezes the moisture in the air to create a ball of ice that flies through the air to strike the opponent. Its incantation is "Jeeru mea gram tera kanon".

Original Magic:

 * Dark: An original spell/magic that Shihoru developed in Darunggar. Summons an elemental spirit as a familiar that obeys Shihoru's commands. It looks like a person that is palm-sized and made of darkness. Since Shihoru is primarily a Darsh type mage the elemental took on Darsh-like qualities. At the end of Volume 7, it is revealed that Dark was getting stronger, larger, and more cutesy. It is also replicating the effects of Sleepy Shadow, Shadow Complex, and Shadow Bond. It can only replicate one effect at a time.

Volume 1

 * After her Mage training, Shihoru was given a black, pointed hat, a black outfit, and a staff.

Yume
Yume acts as sort of like an older sister for Shihoru. Yume's friendliness is what causes Shihoru to open up more to the entire team.

Haruhiro
Haruhiro is like a role model for Shihoru. Her feelings about Haruhiro are very mixed from an occasional blush from a compliment to her seriousness in battle.

Manato
Manato wasn't afraid to approach Shihoru. In fact, he ends up buying a pin for her, that she ends up wearing all the time. Manato wins the heart of Shihoru in both that encounter and when they are walking back from a shopping run. So when Manato dies, Shihoru's heart broke.

Ranta
Shihoru utterly detests Ranta and frequently threatens to cast magic on him.

Wizard Sarai
The eldest mage in the Mage's Guild who oversees all beginning mage training. Shihoru calls him Grandfather..

Gallery
See Shihoru/Image gallery

Trivia

 * In Light Novel, Shihoru's cape is white, while in anime it is black.
 * She is slowly turning into a “sub-leader”.