Shar Berylan

Shar Berylan (シャール＝ベリラン) is a character introduced in Shinyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index. A disgruntled guard working for Science Guardian during the Natural Selector tournament, he is forced to survive in the ensuing chaos of Academy City's attack upon the city with nothing more than the equipment that he has and his extreme luck. He is a point-of-view character used to gauge the events of the arc using his perspective.

Appearance
Shar is described as a large Caucasian male. Since he is a guard for the tournament, he is always seen wearing his security gear, which includes a bulletproof vest, as well as carbine and grenades.

Personality
Shar is slightly bigoted in regards to those who have entered the Natural Selector tournament, and of magicians and espers, most likely, all people with supernatural abilities, calling them "skunks". Despite this, he still does his duty as his a guard for the tournament, and during the invasion of the Kiharas and Academy City, hold steadfast his ground up until he no longer had, most likely, weapons to do so.

Background
Shar Berylan became employed under the Science Guardian as security of the Natural Selector, as a part time. It can be presumed that he has prior training before becoming a security guard of the city, and had even more training for the equipment and weapons that Science Guardian had.

He was later sent to Baggage City for the tournament.

Baggage City Arc
Shar Berylan first appears at the outside of a main venue but were in an indoor space that is connected to the tournament facility. Here, he starts complaining about the tournament competitors to his fellow guards, referring them as freaks and skunks. Suddenly, Saflee Opendays comes upon the place and asks for directions, and Shar obliges. Before she leaves, she tells Shar that since the building is designed in a unique way, something said from afar thither, can be heard from afar, implying that she heard all of Shar's complaints. As she turns her back, Shar insults her as well, though one of his colleagues tell him that she must have heard that as well. They later hear the queer steps of the coming of Grecky Reletsman, whom Shar states is the favorite to win in the competition and a magician, and mocks him.

He later reappears as Baggage City is invaded by Academy City. Here, he is completely helpless and can only witness one of their unmanned weapons being destroyed by a _Over Modelcase_"RAILGUN", and is later stucked in utter fear as the machine prepares to fire at him. Suddenly however, he s saved by a man in white and who wore a helmet with the use of his fists, there, the _Overs begin focusing on the person instead.

He later remotely controls a unmanned tank, which falls into the underground passageways. It later becomes useless after Kumokawa Maria and Oumi Shuri detonate its explosive reactive armor to safely escape the tunnels. Seeing this Shar later runs away and leaves the tank and remote.

Shar is later seen using snow as a camouflage, already abandoning his post and tries to survive the chaos that had consumed Baggage City. Here, he notes on how it is strangely quiet, as if people have mysteriously disappeared, as well as the sounds of battle having been long gone. Later crawling away a few meters, Shar sees several Academy City soldiers using a Support Balloon, trying to locate something, and discovers at the same time that Academy City has declared the suppression of Baggage City over. Fearing that they may soon finds him, Shar abandons his hiding spot and tries to find a new one.

Finally, after Othinus and Marian Slingeneyer leaves Baggage City, and all the Kiharas were defeated, Shar Berylan finds himself to be one of the soldiers that have survived, and is informed via radio that the hostilities are over. He later finds one of the Academy City bombers that were downed a while back. Thinking that he could use it for profit, he tries to reach one the large fragments, but his plans are later squashed as people in powered armor arrive and he tries to hide from them. Here, he learns that they were trying to salvage the destroyed bomber, and discovers that he'll be eliminated if he is seen. Seeing this, Shar abandons his plans and slowly moves away, as a survivor of war.

Abilities
He most likely has some basic hand to hand combat tactics, and is probably trained to fire a gun or rifle. He is shown to be very pragmatic when it comes to survival, and may have been thought winter survival techniques. He is shown to know how to remotely control a tank.

Quotes

 * (From NT 4) "This is just a collection of horrible monsters."
 * (From NT 4) "…If that's the case, I really hope that they share some of this grace with me."
 * (From near the end of NT 4) "I…survived…"