Maria Yeriel

Maria Yeriel is a healing Priest known for exceptional skill, constant profanity, and an extreme attachment to money. She meets Seol Jihu as a Level 4 High Priest working in the Neutral Zone, where she performs a costly Ceremony to restore Yun Seora's crippled arm. Maria subsequently joins Seol's expeditions for generous payment, but repeatedly proves that her calculations do not erase professional duty. She heals him during the Arden Valley disaster, chooses to become a founding contributor to Carpe Diem's successor organization, and advances to Level 5 Chief Priest.

Biography

Yun Seora's arm

Maria first appears when Seol asks for help treating Yun Seora. She correctly identifies starvation, accumulated injuries, and an arm damaged too long ago for ordinary healing. As a Level 4 High Priest, Maria can petition the gods through a Ceremony to use the Level 5 spell needed, but doing so requires costly offerings, causes severe physical backlash, and removes her ability to cast for a period. She initially refuses because the patient is a stranger and the sacrifice is real, not because she misunderstands the injury. (Chapter 14)

Seol promises payment and invokes the gratitude of both himself and Kim Hannah. Maria agrees for the minimum cost of the offerings, performs the Ceremony, restores the arm, and leaves coughing blood with a high fever. The act creates her long relationship with Seol: she insists that he remember the favor, while he learns that her transactional language can coexist with genuine professional pride and personal risk. (Chapter 14)

Paid partnership

After the Neutral Zone, Seol seeks Maria as the Priest for dangerous expeditions. She is difficult to recruit but accepts generous advance payment and equal reward shares, recognizing that Seol is skilled, wealthy, and likely to repay help with interest. She joins the Forest of Denial rescue and later the Banquet as a Level 4 High Priest, providing the healing presence without which the parties would be far less viable. Her motivation is openly material, but the agreement also creates clear obligations that she honors in the field. (Chapters 35–41 and 60–64)

Maria's battlefield conduct exceeds a simple fee-for-service minimum. At Arden Valley she agrees to prioritize Carpe Diem without taking Seol's attempted wartime bribe, arguing that participation in the defense is a shared obligation. When Seol suffers a chest wound that resists recovery, she stays beside him and casts repeated healing spells while stronger fighters hold off Undying Diligence. Her fear and profanity remain visible, but she continues working until Seol can breathe and move. (Chapters 84 and 89)

Survival and the Pagoda of Dreams

Maria survives the failed Arden defense by healing her own bleeding and hiding among corpses. She later visits the injured Seol, maintaining the relationship through anger rather than tenderness. During the Pagoda of Dreams expedition, an illusion makes Seol believe Maria has stolen all the treasure and abandoned the group, exploiting exactly what he fears her greed might cause. In reality, Maria remains with the expedition and later keeps night watch over the recovered rewards, joking that her long-term investment in Seol has finally paid off. (Chapters 94 and 108–112)

The contrast does not make her greed fictional. Maria obsesses over shares, auctions, and the market value of Seol's success, and she can be manipulative when money is at stake. What the expedition establishes is a limit: she may calculate relationships like investments, but she does not actually betray the team for a single hoard. Seol's dream mistakes a conspicuous vice for the whole of her character, while reality shows loyalty operating through the same material vocabulary. (Chapters 106–114)

Choosing Carpe Diem and Valhalla

When Carpe Diem leaves Haramark, Maria arrives at the last moment with her possessions and declares herself a member. She declines a signing bonus tied to the contract option she regards as making her a “legal slave” and instead pays into the organization, insisting that this makes her a founding contributor. The decision is heavily calculated—Carpe Diem's standards and prospects have risen—but it still trades the freedom of a solitary specialist for continuing responsibility to a team. (Chapter 124)

Maria follows the group to Eva and accepts Kim Hannah's argument that donations can earn contribution while undermining exploitative organizations. She contributes money only after painful calculation and remains suspicious about every coin, yet the campaign helps her meet the requirements for advancement. After the Eva operation, she becomes one of Valhalla's High Ranker candidates, and she later confirms her promotion to Level 5 Chief Priest. Her investment in the organization thus produces professional growth without ceasing to be an organizational contribution. (Chapters 128, 139, and 156)

A Chief Priest in Team 1

During the Spirit Realm expedition, Maria works under Seo Yuhui's direction. When Oana Halep is critically injured, Seo orders Maria to cast Perfusion even though Maria protests that it is a High Ranker spell beyond her current Level 4 status. The crisis places her at the edge of advancement: she has the specialized foundation to be called upon, but not yet the rank to treat every command as routine or consequence-free. (Chapter 143)

After promotion, Valhalla assigns Maria to Team 1 under Phi Sora, with Ghionea Marcel, Yi Seol-Ah, and Yi Sungjin. Her Chief Priest class supplies the team's dedicated healing while the others provide command, range, and defense. She sometimes operates alone because Priests face intense competition for prayer and offerings, but she remains a Valhalla member rather than returning to fully independent contracting. (Chapters 156, 161, 163, and 172)

Appearance and personality

Maria is a small, pale young woman with brilliant blonde hair, chubby cheeks, and a deceptively youthful appearance. Her condition often reflects her habits and work: her room can be filthy, her hair unkempt, and her eyes sunken after drinking, while ceremonies and major spells leave her soaked in sweat, feverish, or physically collapsed. In formal service she wears Priest robes and carries a crucifix artifact. (Chapters 14, 35, 41, 62, 106, 143, and 156)

She is abrasive, foul-mouthed, theatrical, and intensely materialistic. Money changes her speech and manner almost instantly, and her attachment to profit makes her one of the “Six Crazies.” Yet Maria is neither indiscriminately selfish nor casually disloyal. She calculates the real cost of divine magic, expects payment for dangerous work, distinguishes a paid expedition from a collective war obligation, and refuses a contract she considers ownership. Her loyalty is clearest when fear is visible but she continues healing anyway. (Chapters 14, 35–41, 50, 84–94, and 106–156)

Abilities and class

Maria follows the specialized healing path from Level 1 Priest through Deacon, Clergyman, Level 4 High Priest, and Level 5 Chief Priest. Her work covers diagnosis, ordinary wound healing, large restorative spells, battlefield stabilization, and support under another healer's direction. She is especially valuable because dedicated healing Priests are rare. The corpus does not provide her complete final Status Window or an exhaustive Chief Priest spell list. (Chapters 14, 36, 41, 62, 139, and 156)

As a High Priest, Maria can conduct a Ceremony that petitions the gods for magic above her normal level. She uses this privilege to cast the Colossal-grade healing needed for Yun Seora's old arm injury. The technique requires appropriate offerings and inflicts backlash: Maria suffers fever, blood loss, temporary inability to cast, and the risk of lasting damage. Ceremony is therefore an emergency extension of her class, not proof that she can freely use every Level 5 spell while still Level 4. (Chapter 14)

Her battlefield healing is fast and persistent but not unlimited. Multiple consecutive spells exhaust her, injuries carrying hostile power can resist closure, and severe cases require protection from Warriors while she works. At Arden Valley she keeps Seol alive only while others occupy Undying Diligence. Perfusion is treated as a demanding High Ranker spell when Seo Yuhui calls for it in the Spirit Realm. Maria's strength is specialized recovery under pressure, not invulnerability or independent front-line combat. (Chapters 39, 41, 89, 143, and 146)

Power progression

Relationships

• Seol Jihu: Seol first earns Maria's help through payment and a promise to remember her sacrifice. She subsequently treats him as a profitable long-term investment, while he repeatedly chooses her because he believes she is trustworthy. The comic financial language does not erase mutual reliance: Maria keeps him alive in battle, and his organization gives her the contributions and stable team through which she becomes a Chief Priest. (Chapters 14, 35–41, 60–64, 84–112, and 124–172)
• Kim Hannah: Kim's name helps persuade Maria to perform Yun Seora's Ceremony, and Kim later negotiates the terms under which Maria joins Carpe Diem and funds the Eva campaign. Both women understand incentives and contracts, leading to frequent suspicion and verbal conflict. Kim can make Maria spend by connecting money to advancement, while Maria insists on tracking what belongs to her. (Chapters 14, 35, 124, and 128)
• Seo Yuhui: Seo is a far stronger healing authority whose presence punctures Maria's pride about being difficult to replace. During the Spirit Realm crisis, Seo directs Maria to use Perfusion on Oana Halep. Maria's place beside her is that of a specialist still developing under an elite practitioner, not an equal claimant to Seo's divine standing. (Chapters 84, 124, and 143–146)
• Phi Sora: Phi becomes Maria's Team 1 leader after Valhalla formalizes its forces. Maria's healing supports the team Phi commands, while Phi accepts that the Priest may need to operate separately because of class competition and offerings. Their relationship is primarily organizational rather than intimate. (Chapters 161–163)
• Yi Sungjin, Yi Seol-Ah, and Ghionea Marcel: The three are Maria's original Team 1 partners. Sungjin provides defense, Seol-Ah range and scouting, and Marcel long-range firepower, allowing Maria to remain focused on healing. Their shared placement marks her transition from a contract Priest hired for one expedition to the dedicated support member of a continuing team. (Chapters 161–172)

Items

• Crucifix artifact: Maria carries a crucifix as part of her Priest equipment and raises it while supporting Valhalla in battle. The supplied chapters do not give it a unique name or define separate powers independent of her holy spells. (Chapters 62 and 143)
• Offerings and money bags: Maria accumulates offerings needed for prayer and higher-level ceremonies, while money bags recur in her contracts and organizational contributions. They are resources rather than unique artifacts; their importance lies in the real cost of her magic and the material incentives that govern many of her choices. (Chapters 14, 35, 124, 128, and 163)