Malty S. Melromarc

"Please don't do anything as foolish as to look for revenge. Revenge only breeds further revenge. If you, Mr. Naofumi, could bear to show mercy, then I'm sure the queen would be grateful."

- Malty begging for Naofumi's forgiveness (only to be refused)

Malty S. Melromarc (in Japanese: マルティ＝メルロマルク, Maruti Meruromaruku), also known as Princess Malty, Myne and First Princess of Melromarc, Mein Sophia as her (previous) adventurer name (later altered to "Slut" much later), and later known as "Bitch" as a spiteful derogatory given by Naofumi, is one of the main antagonists of The Rising of the Shield Hero. She was revealed to be a soul fragment of the evil Goddess Medea Pideth Machina, the root all evil in the series.

Malty Melromarc is the former eldest Princess of Melromarc, and the eldest daughter of King Aultcray Melromarc XXXII and Queen Mirelia Q. Melromarc, and the archenemy of Naofumi Iwatani, the titular Shield Hero. Being the former first Princess of Melromarc, Malty was the first person to join Naofumi in the beginning, but it was revealed to be a ruse to steal his money and equipment except his shield. She also framed Naofumi of attempting to rape her and turned him into a criminal at large, turning him into a hostile and pessimistic person. Much later, she was later revealed to be one of the fragments of the Goddess Medea Pideth Machina, a self-proclaimed goddess originating from another world who is the true responsible for the creation of the Waves by merging together eight separate worlds. Her goal is to drain each world of its energy for her own use to destroy the universe, while enjoying the suffering of all the inhabitants inside.

She was voiced by Sarah Emi Bridcutt in Japanese version, and by Faye Mata in English version, with the latter also voiced Yumemi Yumemite in Kakegurui.

Official Description
The former first Princess of Melromarc and primary antagonist of the series. Malty was the first (and only) person to join Naofumi in the beginning, but shortly after, she stole his money and equipment, and then claimed he raped her. She joins Motoyasu's party, believing his good looks will be able to help her standing within Melromarc's nobility. While in Motoyasu's party she acts as his second-in-command, taking advantage of his gullibility and manipulating him into doing her dirty work or making Naofumi's life more miserable. Despite Motoyasu's kindness, she insults him behind his back and sells her fellow party members into sexual slavery should they get in her way.

After the defeat of the Church of the Three Heroes, whose members she worked with in an attempt to assassinate her sister Melty and frame Naofumi, her true nature is exposed by her mother. Disowned from the royal family, Malty is placed under a special slave curse and is forced to reveal the rest of her crimes, and upon Naofumi's suggestion, has her name legally changed to "Bitch." She stays in Motoyasu's party so she can repay her debts; Motoyasu still believing her lies. She and her followers, however, abandon Motoyasu during the battle with the Spirit Tortoise. Now a wanted criminal, she goes on the run, manipulating and robbing Ren and Itsuki in the process.

Specializing in fire magic, Malty is sadistic, power hungry, and manipulative. She uses her looks and status to control others, often appealing to their egos or taking advantage of their naivety. Believing her unfit to rule, prior to the start of the series, Mirellia placed her second-in-line to the throne after her younger sister.

Fragment - Malty Melromarc
In spite of her beauty and pretentious kindness, Malty is in fact a greedy, opportunistic, selfish, ungrateful, manipulative and treacherous bully who always treats deceiving, manipulating and insulting others as a hobby. She never shows true loyalty towards others, and will use and betray others as soon as she get a chance. Her personality was apparently caused by being spoiled by her father

Due to her traitorous nature, Malty is the catalyst of every bad events in the story, including Naofumi Iwatani's turn into the dark side and his false infamy. She is directly responsible for each of the Four Heroes unlocking their Cursed Weapons, indirectly renders Motoyasu permanently insane, and caused her father's decline from the Wise King to Trash.

Besides her deceitful nature, Malty is also an uncaring person to the people in her kingdom and even her own family. According to her mother, Malty always hides in the shadow and enjoys bringing misery to others. Naofumi was so disgusted by this information that he immediately dubbing her as "Bitch" (or "Witch" in some translations). She goes as far as to use the countries treasury for her pure enjoyment of a hedonistic and luxurious life, even calling it "for the sake of the world." She also levying heavy tax on the wave damaged village calling it for reconstruction.

In a nutshell, Malty is a hateful consummate deciever who is fond of trample those who trusted and loved her to reach her own goal. Given a chance, she will bite the hand that feeds her. Even her own family was no exception.

True Form - Medea Pideth Machina
In the final arc of the web novel, which the light novels, manga and anime are yet to adapted, Malty is revealed to be a soul fragment to a self-proclaimed goddess, known as Medea Pideth Machina, who is even worse than all of her fragmental counterparts.

Much like her fragments which work to sabotage the heroes and ensure her Waves of World Fusion go uninterrupted, Medea is a rotten, hateful, selfish and remorseless God Wannabe in the core, believing human are just her tools for her to manipulate and admitting everything she did was all for pure enjoyment. She has no attempt of repentance over everything she did. Instead, she boasted her atrocities proudly and had no regards over anyone she trampled underfoot, including Naofumi and later Glass.

Besides, Medea is just as manipulative and deceitful than her fragmental counterpart, Malty. She and her fragments managed to convince many reincarnated people that she's "good" while sowing discord and death. This act is so convincing that even when she's perpetrating horrific atrocities right in front of them, and confessing to many other crimes, the "heroes" that follow her still think she's the epitome of righteousness.

One of her crueler tactics is to bring back the soul of a deceased enemy and send it to their former allies, claiming to have survived their apparent death. After fighting on their side for a short time, the soul will take advantage of an opening to betray them.

In the end, Medea reveals her plans to extinguish all life in the universe one world at a time simply to boost her power level, before flying into a rage when beaten and simply trying to take down millions with her as she dies. Ultimately, Medea is revealed to be a self-proclaimed sadist who committed her crimes for nothing except greater power, and she always commit atrocities with glee and pride.

Background
According to her mother and sister, Malty hides in the shadow and enjoys bringing misery to others. It is believed that the reason for her malicious behavior is because her father Aultcray spoiled her while she was growing up, causing her to abuse her authority without any consequences. Her lack of discipline and repulsive personality led to her younger sister Melty to be chosen heir apparent to the throne.

To fix her bad personality, the Queen sent her to study abroad in a school at Faubley. However, all that accomplished was Malty's "graduation" from virginity.

"Myne Sophie"
Malty made her first appearance under the disguise of Myne Sophia, claiming to be a female adventurer who once intended to join the Spear Hero/Motoyasu Kitamura's team after the four teenagers from other alternate realities was summoned to Melromarc to become Four Heroes who fought the Wave.

However, upon seeing Naofumi Iwantari, the Shield Hero, was alone, scorned and detested, Malty voluteered to join Naofumi and assisted him in their early days of adventures. Naofumi started to trust Myne and believed she was a true companion in his adventure inside a world he barely knew.

Demonization of the Shield Hero
However, it was soon revealed that Myne/Malty was just using Naofumi's insecurity as well as his need for companion to fool him and manipulate him. After staying in the hotel, Malty faked her kind attitude to Naofumi and bought him new armor as a way to convince him she meant for good. Soon, when Naofumi went asleep, Malty stole all of his equipments and money, before finding Motoyasu and lying to him that Naofumi went drunk and raped her.

Motoyasu immediately reported the King about it, and next day, the royal soldiers arrested Naofumi, who was lost, confused and panicked to find his money and all his equipment (barring his shield) had being stolen. Being forced to kneel in front of the king, Naofumi claimed he did nothing wrong when he saw Malty "crying" by Motoyasu, falsely accusing Naofumi trying to rape him, before gleefully and silently mocked Naofumi when no other people noticed this, except the victim.

Naoufumi realized everything connected to "Myne Sophia" was a lie. She followed him in order to raid everything from him, nothing more. Enraged and disgusted, Naofumi broke free from the guards and vowed to return for vengeance before storming out of the palace. Afterwards, Malty returned back to the group of Motoyasu, who trusted her in every words because of her beauty and her manipulative skills.

Peddling Arc
According to the news gathered by Naofumi, the other three Heroes were on their own mission and fought in other realms like playing games. In Motoyasu's case, he accompanied Malty to save a villiage from famine. It was speculated by Naofumi that Malty suggested Motoyasu to use a kind of magical seed to grew plants in order to harvest more foods from its fruits.

However, unbeknownest to Motoyasu, the seed was actually demonized. The plants it grew could only ended up fully mutated into monstrous beings when it was not dealed properly. Eventually, the mutant plants turned into an enormous and menacing threat to the villiagers nearby, and it took the combined force of Naofumi, Raphtalia and Filo to destroyed it. Afterwards, Naofumi reconstructed the seed with his newly found power and made it harmless, successfully solving both famine and plant monster's invasion at the same time.

Whether Malty knew about the seed's true nature was unknown, but judging from the warning sign in front of the chest where the seed was contained, it was highly speculated that Malty actually knew the consequence all along when she stole the tabooed seed, but she didn't care anyway since she only tried to manipulate Motoyasu just like she once manipulated Naofumi.

Trivia

 * Malty is similar to Rize Kamishiro from Tokyo Ghoul. They both pretended to be sweet and kind women who made the protagonists to fall in love/befriend them, before trying to take them down when they revealed their true nature. They are also responsible for the formation of the protagonists' darker personality and tragedy.
 * Malty Melromarc was the center of one of the most contraversial subjects of 2018-2019 in the first episode of the anime's launch. Even before its release, Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (Rising of the Shield Hero) has preemptively stirred up "drama online" as netizens have discovered that the series revolves around a man being falsely accused of rape, with critics labeling it as a show for “vicious regressive misogynists”. In several places of Internet, the false rape accusation orchestrated by Malty in the first chapter (episode) managed to enrage those online who take offense at the mere thought that a woman could falsely accuse a man of rape, claiming women never lie about rape accusations. Anime News Network, for example, received a lot of negative comments after one of their critics ranted Malty's false accusation of rape was all about the author’s “personal hardships”. However, it was much later revealed the author was Aneko Yusagi, a female writer, and referred the controversy of false rape accusation (and legal slavery) in the West as "stupid" and "pathetic".
 * Despite being THE most hated character of the series by the entire fanbase, Malty still managed to enter in the Popularity Poll of 2019 with 551 votes.
 * Naofumi Iwatani (The Shield Hero) - 24,782 votes
 * Raphtalia - 21,088 votes
 * Filo - 6,198 votes
 * Erhard (the Weapons Shop Owner) - 3,850 votes
 * Fitoria - 1,386 votes
 * Melty Q. Melromarc - 1,149 votes
 * Mirellia Q. Melromarc (The Queen) - 936 votes
 * Ren Amaki (The Sword Hero) - 845 votes
 * Glass - 695 votes
 * The Pope - 625 votes
 * Malty S. Melromarc (Myne) - 551 votes
 * Itsuki Kawasumi (The Bow Hero) - 342 votes
 * Motoyasu Kitamura (The Spear Hero) - 231 votes
 * Aultcray Melromarc (The King) - 103 votes
 * Van Reichnott - 95 votes
 * Like any member of the royal family, Malty can only have sexual relationships after marriage but it was later revealed by the Queen of Melromarc that Malty was not a virgin and has implied her daughter had quite a few lovers.
 * WatchMojo.com listed Malty S. Melromarc as #1 on their "Top 10 Most Hated Characters in Anime" list.
 * Naofumi personally considers Malty's handwriting to be messy, implying she doesn't like to write or even study.
 * Interestingly, the respective Japanese voice actressess of Melromarc Sisters also worked together in Date A Live anime series in voicing Yamai Sisters. The voice actress of Malty, Sarah Emi Bridcutt, voiced Yuzuru Yamai, and the voice actress of Melty (Malty's younger sister), Maaya Uchida, voiced Kaguya Yamai.
 * In the Web Story, Malty was killed by the rapist King of Faubley after she became his spouse, but in the continuty of Light Novels, Malty is currently still alive after Faubley Arc ended, narrowly escaping her fate and becoming an ally to the Reincarnators led by Medea, foreshadowing of her soul connection to the Goddess.