Patricia

Patricia, publicly known as the Crusader, is a senior Civil Militia hunter whose reputation for calm justice makes her one of Babylon's most trusted authorities. That reputation is sincere but incomplete: beneath it lies a survivor of the great purge who prepares for betrayal, studies how to punish powerful killers, and relies on chosen relationships to keep justice from becoming another purge.

Biography

Truth amid the great guilds

Patricia first becomes important to Gong-ja as the Civil Militia's vice leader, responsible for order in a city where powerful hunters can kill beyond ordinary law. When Marcus Calenberry attacks Gong-ja, she joins the coalition's defense and then exposes her own A−-rank skill card so the two men can test their claims through her judgment. Revealing a high ranker's hidden capability costs her a strategic advantage, but she accepts that cost because cooperation on the next floor matters more than preserving her private weapon. (Chapters 20–27)

The Devil King's betrayal offer tests the limit of that method. Patricia questions every candidate and reports that all deny being the traitor, only to become a suspect herself because her listeners cannot independently verify either the skill or her honesty. As Bambolina begins killing candidates and Marcus attacks the guild leaders, she gives Gong-ja authority even over her life because he alone is certainly outside the betrayal reward. Her choice helps restore coordination, but an erased timeline later reveals that she herself had accepted the offer and killed Nisha first, fulfilling an older compact about what must happen if Patricia ever chose dictatorship. (Chapters 29–36, 349)

Later revelations recast her public reliability without making it fraudulent. During the great purge, Patricia had prayed for secret power to punish people she regarded as slaughterers, and she maintained the position, patience, and security access needed to act when an opportunity arose. Gong-ja infers that in other timelines she manipulated Yoo Soo-ha, the Saintess, Civil Militia records, and access to rival guilds as part of retaliation; these are his reconstruction from preserved timelines and Hishmith Kritz's disclosures, not a confession from present-day Patricia. The important change is that reconciliation and trust give her reasons not to execute those plans in the surviving timeline. (Chapters 226–228, 332, 349)

Coalition work and recovered music

Across the Library and later Apocalypse expeditions, Patricia serves as the coalition's verifier, battlefield leader, and civic conscience. She keeps Lie Detection active during decisions, supports Gong-ja's proposal to make Babylon a refuge for people rejected by the outside world, and promises to be the first sacrificed if the project fails. Her motivation is not abstract optimism: she comes from a ruined country, has watched authority fail, and wants the Tower's leaders to build a society capable of protecting newcomers without hiding from what they themselves did during its violent founding. (Chapters 50–61, 88–121)

The civilization stages give this guarded leader room to recover a life beyond enforcement. Patricia joins Anastasia and Gong-ja in developing Fire Painting Play, then returns to music by playing piano through aura and teaching Gong-ja because he promised Raviel he would learn. She had studied music before the Tower, but leadership and armor had pushed that identity aside; performing jazz again gradually makes her freer and more playful without erasing her vigilance. The same woman who keeps assassination contingencies can therefore sell out a concert, tease a friend about his playing, and treat beauty as part of what public safety should preserve. (Chapters 190–195, 341)

The mermaids and the name Patricia

Assigned the Ocean Race, Patricia first tries to protect the primitive mermaids through a direct oracle, only to learn that commands fail when their children do not yet possess the concepts needed to understand them. The failure forces her to replace authoritative instruction with attention to how another kind of body experiences the world. Over generations she supports the mermaids while refusing to make continental hegemony their purpose, valuing a secure and sufficiently prosperous life more than victory for its own sake. (Chapters 154–174)

When the mermaids finally ask why a land-dweller chose them, Patricia removes the helmet that narrows her senses and explains the private fear behind her choice. She did not want her children to grow on land until every breath taught them contempt; she imagined water making them feel their bodies, the weight and mercy of the world, and the changing beauty of sea and shore. The mermaids call that wish selfish but beautiful, and accept her as their mother because she wanted them to love what she had struggled not to hate. (Chapters 264–267)

Their 98.68 percent approval confirms the strongest bond between any of the guild leaders and their chosen race short of Gong-ja's unanimous result. Afterward Patricia thanks Gong-ja for helping the children of every race reach one another, gives him her real name for private use, and joins the mermaids in the water without armor. The disclosure marks friendship rather than public rebranding: “Crusader” remains her civic title, while “Patricia” belongs to people admitted behind the office and its requirement of impartial distance. (Chapters 267, 274)

Secrets, music, and chosen restraint

On the higher floors, Hishmith Kritz tries to weaponize Patricia's secrets against Gong-ja by speaking through a marionette made in her image. The puppet is the constellation's proxy, not Patricia's body, apostle, or independent duplicate. It reveals that she keeps seventeen plans for assassinating her comrades and that her patron supplied skills for concealment, distorted disclosure, and secret detection. Gong-ja refuses both denial and betrayal: he accepts that Patricia is capable of such plans and insists that friendship exists partly so people capable of atrocity do not carry it out. (Chapters 331–333)

Patricia later becomes Gong-ja's judge for Musical Heaven. Because their friendship is already secure, she promises approval even before his trial and stamps it as soon as he makes a sincere musical attempt; the stage that usually exploits hostility therefore becomes easy through accumulated trust. Her role also reconnects her public identity to the musician she had set aside. She proudly identifies herself as one of the Tower's finest performers, treats music as worthy expertise rather than an indulgence, and accepts becoming Gong-ja's follower through that judgment. (Chapters 340–343)

By the later ascent, Patricia, Nisha, Bambolina, Anastasia, and Gong-ja share a residential compound and respond to threats as a practiced household. Patricia can openly acknowledge that her old plan for Gong-ja included permanent sealing, then dismiss it as no longer important and use the same strategic understanding to protect him from an enemy attempting it. She fights the Constellation Killer's forces, withdraws only when Anastasia invokes a promise to Nisha, and returns to ordinary arguments with her lover and friends. Her latest life therefore does not depend on pretending the capacity for violence disappeared; it depends on relationships strong enough to redirect it. (Chapters 367–378, 400)

Appearance and personality

Patricia is a blonde woman who usually wears heavy armor, gauntlets, and a closed helmet. She takes careful care of her hair despite concealing it and removes the helmet only in private or emotionally significant moments. Her face and voice are usually controlled enough to support an almost expressionless public persona. Beneath that restraint she is protective, aesthetically sensitive, dryly playful, and capable of intense anger. She thinks through contingencies for a long time, but once she decides, she acts directly; this makes her a dependable leader and a dangerous potential executioner.

Abilities and skills

Patricia combines constellation-derived information skills, aura, martial competence, civic command, and high-level musicianship. Hishmith Kritz claims a broad role in creating her secret-oriented powers, but the constellation's boasts do not establish every activation condition or rank.

Lie Detection and concealed information

Lie Detection is presented publicly as an A−-rank skill that tells Patricia whether a person, NPC, or monster believes their statement to be true. It detects the speaker's belief rather than objective reality, so an honestly mistaken answer can pass, and the skill explicitly cannot force listeners to trust Patricia's report. She activates it while questioning individuals and can keep it running through a meeting, using brief judgments to arbitrate disputes without exposing the target's entire mind. (Chapters 26–29, 121, 274)

Hishmith Kritz later states that the skill was granted in response to Patricia's prayer during the great purge and belongs to a larger set derived from the constellation's authority over schemes and secrets. According to that disclosure, Patricia can also quantify how much someone likes her and distort the description shown when she reveals her own skills. The corpus confirms the patronage and later treats her skills as Hishmith-derived, but it does not provide complete cards, ranges, counters, or activation rules for every concealed ability. The marionette delivering the explanation remains Hishmith's instrument rather than a manifestation controlled by Patricia. (Chapters 332, 344)

Aura, combat, and command

Patricia is an experienced close-range hunter who can fight beside the other great-guild leaders, survive Marcus's attacks, and direct Civil Militia formations during large battles. She uses aura for physical reinforcement and fine control, and her tactical strength lies in coordinating people whose abilities must be timed together. The source does not name a signature weapon or fully explain her martial school, so her demonstrated battlefield competence should not be expanded into an invented style. (Chapters 25, 35–36, 118–123, 378)

Her institutional command extends beyond combat. Civil Militia handles identity verification, crime, security, and the treatment of disappearance records, giving Patricia both the means to protect civilians and the dangerous capacity to hide or facilitate targeted violence. She plans contingencies against powerful allies, including a method of sealing Gong-ja so regression cannot activate, but by the latest chapters uses that knowledge defensively when the Constellation Killer attempts the same tactic. Preparation is therefore her representative skill and her central risk: a plan remains available even when her relationships stop her from using it. (Chapters 332, 349, 375)

Music and aura performance

Patricia is a trained musician with a music degree, specializes in jazz and piano, and later performs sold-out concerts in the Tower. She can form an invisible keyboard with her fingers and make aura vibrate into piano sound, using control fine enough to perform Libertango without a physical instrument. She also teaches Gong-ja basic piano. The corpus shows refined performance and aura shaping, but does not establish that her music directly attacks, heals, or compels listeners. (Chapters 29, 191, 195, 341)

Her return to jazz is a form of personal progression rather than a new combat rank. Earlier Patricia hides behind a helmet and treats musical training as a private fact; later she openly calls herself one of the Tower's best musicians and serves as the natural judge of Musical Heaven. Music gives her a way to value expression that cannot be reduced to Lie Detection's binary verdicts, and her renewed confidence makes her noticeably freer in ordinary relationships. (Chapters 191–195, 340–343)

Relationships

• Kim Gong-ja: A trusted leader and friend whom Patricia once planned to neutralize, but now protects with the same strategic thoroughness.
• Nisha: Patricia's lover and closest check against unilateral violence; their relationship includes full disclosure, mutual trust, possessiveness, and a compact that makes Nisha the first cost of any attempted dictatorship.
• Bambolina: A fellow guild leader whose ruthless efficiency Patricia has opposed since the early floors, while continuing to fight beside him in the coalition.
• Anastasia: A reconciled friend and operational partner who is trusted by Nisha to bring Patricia home safely.
• Marcus Calenberry: Her former Civil Militia superior and one of the purge participants against whom she maintained a long, concealed grievance.

Items

• No notable personal item is established for Patricia within the generated item scope.