Kurt von Benno Baumeister

Kurt Baumeister(カート・バウマイスター,Kāto baumaisutā)was the main antagonist through the first part of the series. He was the eldest brother of Wendelin von Benno Baumeister. As the eldest son of the ruling noble he was, until his death, the presumed heir to the elder Baumeister family estate, its hereditary knighthood and the Baumeister Knight Territory.

Personality
He holds a deep jealousy toward his other siblings due to them being far more skilled, educated, more capable than him and fears that they would one day supplant him as the heir to the knighthood. After four of his brothers left the territory to start their own lives and a fifth married into the branch family of the Junior Commander his jealousy died down considerably, but with the consolidation of his eventual power he became arrogant and abusive.

He is considered a person who will do anything for money. First, he tried to get rich off Wend by trying to charge a 50% tax when the standard was 30% for hunting in the territory. Second, when Wend opened the bazaar he wanted to tax him at 30%. Thirdly, when Wend brought back the armour and weapons of the people killed during the Demon Forest expedition he tried to rip off the people by saying they has to turn the items over to Eckart, one of his cronies, who was not going to pay market price for the iron. When has to step forward to give them a block of iron as a replacement. He probably got this from his Artur as he had no problem taking money from the fiefs population and claiming it is for the betterment of the territory. The reward the Demon Forest survivors received he taxed till them was nothing left. This is probably were he got the idea to try and tax Wend to steal him money. This of course backfired since Wend was a Baron and a powerful magician.

He always thinks ill of other people and that they either want what is his or they are trying steal from him. He never realized that all of his brothers hate the territory and couldn't wait to leave for greener pastures. Even when Wend came back, he couldn't make a deal with Wend that would allow for the development of their territory as he could only think Wend was their to steal what was his.

Even in his death he only thought of taking Wend's money and developing the territory "Using Wendelin’s inheritance, I will rejuvenate the Baumeister territory."

Background
He was the eldest son of Artur von Benno Baumeister and Johanna von Benno Baumeister and heir to the Baumeister Knight Territory. He is the least educated of all his brothers and was always worried about one of his brothers stealing his inheritance. Instead of trying to works with his brothers he just wanted them to leave the territory.

Synopsis
After he formally becomes the presumptive heir of the Baumeister Knight Territory and starts to gain power from his father his personally becomes toxic and corrupt.

When his youngest brother Wendelin gained a noble title higher than his own family's, his jealousy returned. At the behest of Duke Bleichröder, Wend returned to the southern territory to start development of the monster-infested lands to the south of the Baumeister territory. Kurt became convinced of a conspiracy that Wend and his other brother Hermann (the second brother, who married into the branch family) plans to usurp him and deny him his right to rule the Baumeister territory.

At some point, prior to Wend's marriages, the major nobles and King Helmut started to maneuver Wend into taking over the elder Baumeister estate. Kurt was furious and attempted to assassinate Wend in order to inherit his assets and title, as Wend was the only member of his separate family line, at that point in time. The judicial law of the Helmut Kingdom, would have appointed Kurt as the proprietor of all assets left behind by Wend, if he were to suffer an untimely death. However, Kurt was so jealous and greedy, he was ignorant to the fact that attempting murder of Wend would also place a bounty on his head, as a result. He was also unaware that Wend had already written a will and that Kurt and his family would never receive anything from his estate.

Due to his lack of intelligence, and the inability to see beyond himself, he had no power and ability to actually complete the task himself. This left Kurt to become vulnerable to manipulation from the Head Auditor of the Ministry of Finance, Baron Rückner. Rückner, who was left out of the development of the Savage Lands Project, saw Kurt as his means to dig into the royal purse. Subsequently, he supplies Kurt with a magical ocarina (a type of vessel flute) called the Flute of the Grudges, but told him it was the Flute of Dragon Tamer and  when played would summon a clan of dragons to the player.

Kurt uses the ocarina, believing that it would summon dragons to attack Wend. Instead, unbeknownst to him, the Flute of the Dragon Tamer is actually the cursed Flute of Grudges. This flute amplifies the negative energy of malice in the area, in order to turn its player into a monster that can then defeat the person who they have hatred for -- but it also kills them in the process of enacting their vengeance.

The Flute of Grudges summoned all of the grudges in the area, which gathered rapidly like a cloud of black smoke. It turned all of Kurtis accomplices into zombies, who then proceeded to attack and kill Kurt. He then became part of the grudges and attacked Wend and his group. While the golem was powerful, Wend's and his group were eventually able to destroy most of it with Holy Magic. Kurt remaining grudge was full of so much hatred that it was purified and fled toward the Stadtburg.

Kurt hatred was redirected toward the scheming Baron Rückner who had provided him the cursed item. Baron Rückner, who was hosting a party with his family and the families of his co-conspirators in the capital celebrating him getting concession from Finance Minister Rückner towards the Savage Lands, had his party interrupted by the grudges attack. All the party-guests and guards alike turned into zombies who subsequently attacked and killed the Baron. Cardinal Hohenheim, who had received an advanced notice of the possible malice attack from Wend, had arranged for a series of magicians to be on standby, in the event the malice caused an emergency. The magicians were able to ensure the party-guest zombies were completely annihilated before any more damage could done to the capital.

In the aftermath, Artur formally retired and with Kurt dead, Hermann became the new Knight Baumeister. The kingdom decided to raise the rank for Hermann to baronet, with the possibility of it rising further to baron in the future. Paul was given territory adjacent to Hermann's and for his work in helping defeat the monster was also elevated to baronet. Despite not participating in the battles with Kurt, Erich and Helmut were also raised to baronet after being told to just accept it by the king, as he believed it would be advantageous to elevate the entire family, as they will all become important members of the kingdom. Finally, Wend was awarded the title of count and Klimt von Armstrong informs him that the king granted him an appropriately significant amount of Savage Lands territory adjacent to Hermann's and Paul's. The king had actually decided to award him the land prior to the incidents with Kurt, as the value and growth of his existing development efforts were progressing well, and with the addition of new territory, those development efforts would naturally grow even further.

Kurt believed that after he killed Wend he would inherit all his money and would become an Earl. He had delusions of being surrounded by a lot of beautiful wives and concubines and live like a real noble.

Abilities
He has normal human mana

Skills
Kurt is a farmer by trade, albeit a bad one, and has no real skills, and lacks any proper education. He is almost completely illiterate and relies on Amalie and Klaus, the village chief, to handle written communications and book keeping. He is the ordinary of ordinariness.

Eckart
The Blacksmith of the Village. He turned into a Zombie along with Kurt when Kurt used the Flute of Grudges. He was purified by the priest of the capital. In the Anime, he was bribed by Wend to go the the Capital to learn to become a better blacksmith.

Other Followers
The other followers are not named, but they all perished along with Kurt when he used the Flute of Grudges.

All the family members of his accomplices had to move to Paul Baumeister new territory to start over.

Trivia

 * Wend tried to give Kurt a compromise with the development of the Savage Lands by providing financial aid to help help Kurt expand the territory. However, Kurt's paranoia caused him to decline, despite Wend's sincerity.
 * Every time a new story about Wend would make its way to the village, Kurt's hatred for Wend increased.
 * In novel when Kurt makes inappropriate comments to Elise and Erwin, Wend puts him in his place by saying "In the first place, our negotiation partner is Lord Baumeister. Why are you arrogantly interrupting the conversation here? And to cap it off, you treat my fiancée as corrupt priest and my junior commander as punk." In the Anime, Wend just takes his party and leaves.
 * He is illiterate in the Novel and Anime, but in the Manga they make him literate.
 * In the Manga it says that Kurt and Wend bonded before Wend left to the Adventurers Academy. Even though in the Novel he despises Wend the whole time from when Wend was 6 years old till Kurt died.
 * When Erwin and Burkhart get mad at him he is scared to death. In the Anime they made him more strong willed.
 * He is the one who stopped their father from sending gifts for Erich's wedding
 * Up till the time of his death he was always thinking of a way to fleece Wend.
 * He was such a petty man that not only did he get upset when Amadeus deducted the money that the Baumeister's owed him he also got upset when Paul, Hermann and Wend were having dinner together.