Ava Leafz

Ava Leafz is a monster tamer whose apparent lack of conventional talent hides the ability to field entire groups of contracted beasts. Initially shy and ashamed beside her accomplished siblings, she joins Ren Dover's Caïssa group and develops into a confident battlefield coordinator, tournament dark horse, and citywide reconnaissance specialist. The supplied text alternates between the surnames Leafz and Lefaz; this article preserves the canonical catalog spelling Leafz while recording Lefaz as a local prose variant.

Biography

An overlooked tamer at the Lock

Ava enters Lock as a sixteen-year-old Monster Tamer student ranked 1,078th, with her potential listed as unranked. She is petite, timid, and reluctant to meet other students' eyes. The institution undervalues her profession because taming is slow, technically demanding, and expensive, while the strongest creatures consume extraordinary quantities of monster cores. That judgment intensifies her private inferiority: she comes from a wealthy family, but as its sixth child and only monster tamer, she believes her achievements cannot compare with those of her siblings. (Chapters 18, 84, 138)

Ren notices that insecurity while investigating recruits, but Ava is not won by praise alone. When he eventually offers her a place in his new mercenary group, she recognizes how dubious a contract from another sixteen-year-old and an unproven organization looks and tries to refuse. Ren argues that controlling two beasts already marks her as unusual and presents the damaged Flute of Artemis as a path her profession can exploit. Ava still does not immediately surrender her judgment; after further thought and Ren's disappearance, she chooses to continue through Smallsnake and formally joins the group. (Chapters 138–139, 231–232, 238, 283)

Caïssa and the first field campaigns

Before joining, Ava struggles to make Newton, an E-ranked sharp-clawed sparrow stronger than she is, obey every order. What she wants is not merely power but acknowledgement: she longs to speak at family dinners with the same pride as her siblings and to earn her parents' praise. Caïssa gives that ambition a practical setting. Ren's group trains her outside the human domain, where she and Hein Kraaijenschot progress from difficulty with one E-ranked creature to defeating a D-ranked beast together. By the end of that expedition she has stepped comfortably into the E-rank range and has chosen a team that treats her specialty as useful rather than embarrassing. (Chapters 231, 283–300)

The Flute of Artemis makes her profession operational at group scale. Ren retrieves the cracked S-ranked artifact from a demon treasury because its damaged D-ranked output is low enough for an F-ranked tamer to use safely. In Caïssa's later defense of a dwarven tower, Ava summons wolves, assigns them to separate limbs under Leopold's tactical direction, and supports Hein's shield line instead of trying to imitate a direct fighter. Eight confirmed kills in the first wave and continued service in later waves show a new role: she is no longer the extra standing at the edge of stronger people's scenes, but the controller of a coordinated unit inside the team. (Chapters 184, 294, 304–313)

Henolur, repairs, and confidence

The dwarven war exposes the flute's flaws as quickly as its advantages. Ava can maintain only a limited number of pets, and the damaged instrument consumes enough mana that summoning a fifth beast is sometimes impractical. Recognizing that failure could leave her team exposed when the city barrier drops, she takes the flute to Malvil Ironhawk. Malvil finds its oscillating mana pathways unusually complex and estimates that full restoration will take a year, but he arranges the repair so she can reclaim and use it whenever battle requires. Ava accepts the compromise because participation in the war matters more than waiting for a perfect artifact. (Chapters 325, 328, 334–336)

Experience changes her manner as well as her output. She cuts her long hair to shoulder length after deciding it obstructs her sight, speaks with clear eyes, and greets former classmates with a confidence they can barely reconcile with the quiet student they remember. At the interspecies tournament she reaches the later rounds at C+ rank despite a profession poorly suited to duels. Her beasts compensate through rehearsed synergy: defensive creatures absorb attacks, steel-webbed spiders establish formations, and magic cards buy time for further summons. Defeating an opponent two minor ranks above her turns her into one of the tournament's acknowledged dark horses. (Chapters 312, 361, 369, 416–428)

The compressor and an expanding menagerie

When the party is scattered onto a demon-controlled world, Ava stays with Hein and Leopold Ray and keeps enough composure to assess that they are no longer on Earth. She treats Angelica von Droix as the best field authority in Ren and Smallsnake's absence, supports the decision to move toward the mana compressor, and is the person who notices that Smallsnake is missing. The choice reflects her development from inward anxiety to group awareness: under immediate pursuit, she still tracks who is unaccounted for and helps keep the isolated team moving toward a plausible exit. (Chapters 570–577)

Reunited with the larger group, Ava contributes through beasts rather than personal duels while stronger fighters handle a Marquis-ranked demon. During the following years she spends time away specifically to find creatures to tame, a training requirement her teammates do not share. By Chapter 619 she is B+ and can control about forty beasts simultaneously. The next seal on her flute remains locked until A-, creating a clear boundary on growth, but her enthusiasm centers on expanding and improving her animals rather than chasing rank for its own social prestige. (Chapters 585–587, 619)

War, reconnaissance, and the Seven Pillars

On Immorra, Ava's monster force becomes comparable in battlefield impact to an S- individual even though that is not stated as her personal rank. Mammoth-like beasts clear paths, armadillos finish what remains, wolves cover the flanks, and she rides a large gray wolf through formations while directing the whole group. The scale does not remove the cost of control. In Ashton City she spreads birds, cats, and mice through multiple stations and can coordinate around a thousand small animals for reconnaissance, but pushing only a few hundred beyond that would drain her mana instantly. Working with Ryan Polive, she becomes the city's “ears” while his cameras serve as its eyes. (Chapters 635, 641, 673)

The Pillar of Lust attacks her profession at its resource base. Its world is almost empty of mana, preventing Ava from replenishing what the flute and beasts consume, and prolonged pursuit leaves her torn, bloodied, and unable to use the instrument effectively. Angelica rescues Ava and Hein, then offers Devil Contracts that remove the Pillar's restriction and allow its demon-enhancing properties to strengthen them instead. They sign because continued ordinary resistance is unsustainable. The contract later gives them partial resistance to the Lust matriarch's mental fog, demonstrating a useful protective interaction without establishing that the borrowed state becomes permanent after the Pillar falls. (Chapters 808, 818, 849)

Postwar life

Ava survives the Pillar conflict and the final war without a later explicit personal rank replacing B+. Her closing scene is deliberately ordinary: one year after the Demon King's defeat, she and Hein arrive at Smallsnake's café carrying supplies and immediately press their friends into helping. The easy complaint and familiar teasing contrast with the girl who once avoided eye contact in a corner of the Lock. Her endpoint is not a solitary claim to greatness, but durable belonging inside the group that first treated her uncommon profession as a future rather than a flaw. (Chapter 859; Epilogue 1)

That ordinary life also clarifies what her development did and did not require. Ava achieves large-scale battlefield and surveillance value through patient contracts, animal coordination, and collaboration rather than becoming a conventional front-line duelist. The corpus leaves the later condition of the Flute of Artemis and her exact postwar beast roster unstated, so neither a completed restoration nor a higher rank should be assumed. What is confirmed is that she remains alive, close to Hein and Smallsnake, and confident enough to occupy their shared space without the reserve that defined her first appearance. (Chapters 619–673, 808–849; Epilogue 1)

Appearance and personality

Ava is introduced as a petite sixteen-year-old with a shy posture, semi-long hair, and bangs that partly cover her eyes. During the dwarven campaign she cuts her hair to shoulder length because the longer style obstructs her vision in battle. Later scenes continue to emphasize her small frame rather than giving a new detailed facial description. In combat she is visually associated with the pale-green flute, summoned animals around her, and at times a large gray wolf used as a mount. (Chapters 18, 138, 231, 306, 312, 635)

Her early reserve comes from self-comparison rather than indifference. Ava loves her family and is not neglected, but she speaks least at dinner because she believes her siblings have accomplishments worth discussing and she does not. She blushes at sincere praise, hesitates before unfamiliar offers, and is cautious about appearing foolish. Once field experience proves her competence, the same careful disposition becomes practical judgment: she repairs equipment before it fails, prepares formations, notices absent teammates, and listens to the strongest available authority during a crisis. (Chapters 138, 231–232, 328–336, 570–577)

Ava grows more direct, competitive, and humorous without losing her loyalty. She displays visible fighting spirit before the tournament, confidently greets classmates who barely recognize her, curses while escaping impossible odds, and teases friends in the postwar café. She also genuinely enjoys the growth of her beasts; the prospect of a new flute seal excites her because it will let her take more animals and help them improve faster. Her courage is tactical rather than showy: she accepts that a monster tamer depends on setup, mana, and suitable creatures, then builds her contribution around those constraints. (Chapters 312, 416–428, 619, 808; Epilogue 1)

Powers and abilities

Ava is a human mana user and Monster Tamer. Her personal letter rank increases the mana and control available to her, but much of her effective strength depends on the number, rank, obedience, and complementary roles of her contracted creatures. This makes comparisons with direct combatants imperfect: at B+ she can produce battlefield impact likened to S-, yet mana deprivation or loss of access to her flute can sharply reduce the force she can coordinate. (Chapters 18, 231–232, 424, 619, 641, 808)

Monster-taming contracts and control

Monster taming lets Ava establish control relationships with beasts and summon or direct them in combat. The profession is unusual because the tamer's own potential does not impose the same straightforward ceiling as a weapon specialist's: stronger results can come from stronger beasts. It remains difficult in practice. Taming requires complicated steps, contracted creatures may resist when stronger than the tamer, raising them consumes costly monster cores, and controlling more bodies increases the mana and attention burden. Newton's early disobedience and gradual improvement provide the clearest small-scale example of this process. (Chapters 18, 231–232)

Ava's capacity grows from two simultaneous contracts, already considered exceptional for a beginner, to five active pets during the dwarven war, eight C-ranked beasts after repair work, forty controlled beasts at B+, and roughly a thousand small reconnaissance animals under favorable city conditions. These numbers describe different burdens rather than one unlimited pool: combat summons are individually stronger, while the thousand-city network consists of birds, cats, and mice used as sensors. Ava states that adding only a few hundred more to the latter network would empty her mana immediately. (Chapters 232, 325, 424, 619, 673)

Flute of Artemis

The Flute of Artemis is an S-ranked beast-tamer artifact recovered in a damaged state. Its cracks reduce its effective aura to D rank, which initially makes it usable by F-ranked Ava; an intact S-ranked artifact would demand more mana than she could safely provide. By blowing short melodies, Ava summons and coordinates multiple contracted creatures, and the instrument's mana pathways store and release energy in oscillating bursts. The flute therefore multiplies command capacity, but its effects still draw on Ava's mana and require her to play. (Chapters 88, 184, 232, 306, 334–336)

Malvil's partial repairs make her beasts' movements more fluid and let Ava play longer, while later seals tie more functions to her own advancement. At B+ she controls about forty beasts and is approaching the third seal; reaching A- would let her break it, take more beasts, and help them improve faster. That threshold is a stated future condition, not a confirmed attainment. The flute can also be unavailable in practice when its user is exhausted or the surrounding world prevents mana recovery, as the Pillar of Lust demonstrates. (Chapters 336, 361, 369, 619, 808)

Beast formations and tactical roles

Ava's strength lies in assigning different creatures complementary jobs. Wolves attack limbs and flanks, Newton watches for ambushes, a metal-plated beetle absorbs direct attacks, and steel-webbed spiders form triangles that cast durable restraining webs. In the tournament she combines these bodies with temporary magic-card cover, accepting a pale complexion and heavy mana expenditure to keep summoning until an opponent two minor ranks above her is trapped by the formation. Her victories depend on rehearsal and synergy rather than one beast overpowering the target alone. (Chapters 306, 325, 424–429)

At army scale, mammoth-like beasts serve as breakers, armadillos clear survivors, and wolves support from the sides, allowing the group to erase hundreds of demons in coordinated passes. Ava can also ride a large wolf while issuing commands. These formations are powerful in open battle but need room, contracted creatures suited to each role, and enough mana to sustain simultaneous control. When isolated without replenishment in the Pillar, she cannot simply reproduce the Immorra army despite retaining the profession. (Chapters 635, 641, 808)

Reconnaissance network

Ava can use ordinary small animals as a distributed observation network. She stations birds, cats, and mice around Ashton City, receives enough information through them to locate Liam in a named district, and coordinates her stations with Ryan's camera access. The combined system lets Ren monitor both allied and hostile movement across the city, with Ryan providing visual coverage and Ava functioning as its “ears.” (Chapter 673)

The network has a clear scaling cost. About a thousand animals are manageable for several hours, but Ava estimates that a few hundred more would drain her mana instantly. The corpus does not explain the exact sensory bandwidth of each contract, whether every animal is permanently tamed, or how far the information can travel without support. Its demonstrated value is broad surveillance and warning, not direct domination of every creature in range. (Chapter 673)

Devil Contract in the Pillar of Lust

Angelica's Devil Contract temporarily changes Ava's access conditions inside the Pillar. The pocket world normally contains almost no usable mana and abundant demonic energy, leaving human fighters unable to restore expended reserves. Signing removes that constraint and lets Ava benefit from the Pillar's enhancement of demonic forces. The same contract later limits the Lust matriarch's mental interference, leaving Ava and Hein only slightly affected while an uncontracted Smallsnake becomes immobilized. (Chapters 808, 849)

This is conditional, borrowed access rather than a demonstrated permanent evolution of Ava's profession. It depends on Angelica's offered contract and the Pillar environment, and the corpus does not confirm that its enhancements remain after the structure is destroyed. Ava's latest stable personal rank therefore remains B+, while the contract belongs in her progression as a temporary state change rather than a new formal letter rank. (Chapters 808, 849; Epilogue 1)

Power progression

Relationships

• Ren Dover: Ren identifies Ava's profession as strategically valuable, recruits her into Caïssa, and supplies the damaged flute that changes the scale of her control. His early praise helps challenge her self-assessment, while his later leadership gives her roles in war and reconnaissance. Ava does not follow blindly—she initially refuses his dubious offer—but becomes a loyal member once she chooses the group. (Chapters 84–139, 231–232, 283–300, 304–369, 619–673)
• Smallsnake: Smallsnake researches Ava for Ren, completes her recruitment during Ren's absence, and later manages the organization in which she works. Ava notices his absence during the compressor crisis and, after believing him dead, is among the friends reunited with him in the Pillar. One year after the war, she remains close enough to bring supplies to his café and order him to help. (Chapters 84–139, 283, 464, 570–577, 818; Epilogue 1)
• Hein Kraaijenschot: Hein is Ava's closest recurring field partner. His shield anchors her beasts, they defeat their first D-ranked creature together, travel and fight through the dwarven war, and survive the Pillar of Lust side by side. Their postwar arrival together at the café shows the partnership continuing after combat. (Chapters 283–336, 361–445, 570–587, 635–641, 793–818, 849; Epilogue 1)
• Leopold Ray: Leopold acts as tactical coordinator during Ava's early tower battles, directing which limbs her wolves should attack while she and Hein execute the formation. He remains part of her closest field unit through the dwarven campaign and the compressor displacement, where his reckless humor repeatedly tests her patience. (Chapters 283–336, 361–445, 570–587)
• Angelica von Droix: Ava regards Angelica as the strongest and most trustworthy authority when Ren and Smallsnake are absent. Angelica reunites the scattered compressor group, later rescues Ava and Hein in the Pillar of Lust, and gives them Devil Contracts that allow them to keep fighting. (Chapters 570–577, 673, 808, 818, 849)
• Ryan Polive: Ryan's cameras and Ava's animal network form complementary city surveillance, described as the eyes and ears of Ren's Ashton operation. They also serve in the same Caïssa missions and migration forces. (Chapters 304–369, 445–587, 673, 793)
• Malvil Ironhawk: Malvil studies and gradually repairs the Flute of Artemis when Ava brings it to Henolur's utility center. His willingness to leave it usable during the long process lets her continue contributing to the war, while his craft improves the duration and fluency of her control. (Chapters 328–336, 361, 369)

Items

• Flute of Artemis: Ava's pale-green, beast-tamer-specific artifact. Ren recovers it in damaged condition and offers it during recruitment; Ava uses its melodies to summon and coordinate multiple beasts. Malvil partially repairs its complex mana pathways, and later seals remain tied to Ava's rank. The flute is not linked because it has no page in the frozen item manifest. (Chapters 88, 184, 232, 306–369, 416–429, 619, 641, 808)
• Magic cards: Ava uses Melissa Hall's one-use spell cards in the interspecies tournament to create ice obstacles and buy time for her beast formations. They support her strategy but are consumable tools rather than part of her Monster Tamer profession. The cards are not linked because no generated item page is present in the frozen item manifest. (Chapters 428–429)