I Became the Leader of a Villain Organization - C75

Chapter 75: Boreal Forest (4)

~A nearby clan of elves~

It was, indeed, the most horrible form of evil that a human being can exhibit.

─I realize now how contradictory and ridiculous it is to find myself saying such a thing, but there is no other way to describe it than that.

“…….”

If even I had to swallow my words in the face of such embarrassment, it goes without saying how Selena, a dark elf with a higher price on her head than most of her kind, would have reacted.

It was a ranch, a ranch run by the Empire.

As the name implies, there were free-range livestock there, but that wasn’t all.

‘─Livestock have no human rights.’

At the same time, what humans hope to gain by raising and breeding them is not the milk or eggs of the beasts, so what do elves, who must crawl on all fours, gain by keeping them as livestock?

“Sometimes, beauty is a sin in itself.”

Aria laughed, amused by the sight, like it was really someone else’s business.

“Huh? Why?”

Alice shook her head, as if she didn’t understand, or couldn’t understand, what she was saying.

I couldn’t say anything.

“Selena.”

Again, I couldn’t say anything.

“…….”

“Do you remember what I said?”

I don’t, so I just repeat.

“My new orders to you.”

“─”

Selena swallowed wordlessly.

It was the resolve that had been left in me after my encounter with the real Rain Gray that day.

“-New orders.”

I ordered my troupe, then and there.

“Act freely.”

I wanted them all to share the same ‘freedom’ I had.

It was no different now.

“……free?”

Selena repeated, more outraged than anyone else at the injustice that had taken place here, yet more loyal to me than anyone else in the Serpents, sworn to my side.

“Are you sure you’re granting me my ‘freedom’ here?”

“Yes.”

I nodded.

“…….”

Selena was silent for a moment and I was silent, too but after a few moments, she spoke.

“You don’t care about any of the consequences of my freedom, do you, Master?”

“Yes.”

I agreed again.

“─”

The silence that followed was not long.

There it was, the ranch. A ranch where races of non-human beasts, who were not granted human rights because they were not human, were raised and grazed by human hands.

At the same time, there were humans on the ranch, with their own agendas for the livestock, who were no different from animals in that they were not entitled to any form of human rights.

─The Red Coats, the elite military force of the Breton Empire.

“……?”

The silence is broken by a question from one of them.

The head that should have been attached to one of the soldiers was sliced off and flung into the air, and the next thing they knew, a parabola of severed arms, legs, and necks, too many to count, was forming.

“Attack!”

“Attack! Form up now!”

A few Imperials shouted back, taking up positions but everyone there knew, at least we did that their actions meant nothing.

─Chew!

I hear a sound. With the sound, an eerie flash of moonlight engulfed the surroundings, and the flesh of the Breton Imperial Army was dismembered into all manner of surgical units.

It was not a difficult task to annihilate the enemy there.

Thus, when all was said and done, Selena called out to her kin beyond the paddock.

“They’re all dead! Now-”

A voice that never doubted its own justice or the consequences it would bring.

Nevertheless-

“Ah, ah, ah…….”

Said one of the elves, crawling on all fours like a cow. It was an inarticulate murmur that hovered hollowly in her mouth.

“Ah, ah…….”

The rest of the livestock were no different.

No, it wasn’t just the livestock.

“─”

There are elves who are stripped of their human rights and treated like livestock, and there are elves who watch over them.

Other than that, humans, at least those wearing the red uniform of the Empire, no longer existed.

The problem is solved. Evil is gone. It was supposed to be.

“Ah, ah, ah, ahh……!”

Again, the unspeakable, screaming voice rang out.

It was not the voice of a domesticated elf.

It was the scream of an elf who had been granted ‘honorary citizenship’ by the Empire and was living a normal human life.

“All of you, what have you done……!”

I said nothing.

For at this moment, everything she did here was her, Selena’s, freedom, not mine.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

She, too, could not hide her bewilderment.

“Can’t you see how your own people are treated like animals here……!”

It was what Selena felt right then and there, the truth as it were.

“And those human invaders who are raping our people!”

It was the truth.

And yet, in the face of the bewildered emotions displayed by the “honorable people” there, I could sense a similar familiarity to the original world.

“Because of you……!”

“It’s over, it’s all over-”

Aria chuckles meaningfully at the sight.

“Solidarity responsibility, what an exquisite way to rule.”

Solidarity.

“Indeed.”

Selena laughed softly.

“The responsibility of an entire village, for the crime of helping livestock.”

At the same time, no one argues in the face of such an act. The blame and the arrows of condemnation fall not on the perpetrators of the evil, but on the innocents who are victimized by it and those who resist it.

“……You must be afraid.”

Selena mumbled something in understanding. But the finger-pointing didn’t end there.

“That’s not going to solve the problem!”

“Why on earth would you commit such an irresponsible act-!”

“In front of the imperial troops who have come to take care of the situation, what the hell are you going to do!”

Because of your self-satisfaction, how many of your kind are sacrificed.

─That was the story.

But Selena smiled bitterly, unperturbed by the elves’ finger-pointing and criticism.

And so did the livestock crawling on all fours.

“Stand up.”

Even at the touch of Selena’s hand, they remain silent and do not rise.

The elves had resisted the empire long ago and set an example. They were the first to resist and stand up for themselves, but now that they have been turned into livestock, they no longer have the will to fight.

“Oh, no…….”

Finally, one of the animals spoke up.

“I, I can’t stand up, no, we can’t…….”

“Why?”

“─You don’t know!”

Selena shouted back.

“Of what?”

“─The real horrors of the Empire.”

Said the cowherd elf, horrified.

“Ooh, how our feeble resistance has driven our people into great suffering─.”

“You mean like now?”

“……Yes!”

A voice of despair, as if any resistance was pointless.

Hearing that, Selena fell silent.

“Fufu, are you disillusioned?”

Aria asks, giggling at Selena’s silence. Silence descended once more. It wasn’t a long silence.

“It’s not their fault,” Selena said.

“It’s not their fault that they bow their heads in submission in the face of an irresistible force.”

“If it’s not their fault, what is it?”

“Weakness.”

She, a self-proclaimed member of the Black Snake, said.

It is never wrong to bow the knee in the face of irresistible power, or to bow the head in the face of evil.

“So, now you’re going to be a fighter for the underdog?”

Aria asked and Selena looked at the elves there one last time.

“……if they wish it.”

It was the last chance she would give them.

“I beg you, my kin. Won’t you please join me?”

“……Get lost!”

Of course, the reply was predetermined. Maybe Selena knew it too.

“Yo, you need to beg for forgiveness.”

“Not yet, not yet, it’s not too late to tell the Empire the truth…….”

Several elves turned toward them, muttering something along those lines.

“This…… is our reality.”

Meanwhile, the group of dark elves who had led us here answered.

Losing the will to fight, they gazed at their own kind, who called themselves human livestock.

I look at my honorable subjects, desperate to defend their guaranteed ‘human rights’ among such livestock.