episode_0001

“Can I eat it?”

Inside a grand cathedral, where the dawn moon shone palely.

A young blonde girl asked, licking her lips like a child with a marshmallow before her eyes.

“Patience, Alice.”

Then the black-haired lady beside her admonished the girl in a gentle voice.

“The Commander-nim is still speaking, isn’t he?”

“Ugh… fine.”

Aria of the Black Sword.

As her moniker suggested, she carried a jet-black greatsword on her back and wore an all-black outfit from head to toe. Even the black bandage covering her eyes was no exception.

Putting their conversation behind me—I silently took out a cigarette and put it in my mouth. As soon as I bit it, an ember automatically lit, and the tip caught fire.

“……Speak.”

I said, curtly.

One of the few good things about being a villain was that I no longer needed many words to converse.

If I just struck a pose and remained silent, they would spill everything on their own.

“I—I’ll tell you everything! Everything I know!”

The man before us was no exception.

“The mastermind behind the abduction of the Holy Maiden Jeanne is…!”

Even as the man in a violet cassock trembled with fear, he desperately began to reveal what he knew.

“─Commander-nim.”

It was then.

The lady clad in black, Aria, broke the silence and spoke. Her hand subtly resting on the hilt of the Black Sword on her back.

“It seems the rats have caught a scent.”

Rats.

*Whoosh!*

At that very moment, a silver flash shot out from somewhere. A throwing dagger, imbued with enough power to pierce a heart even from afar.

But Aria didn’t even twitch an eyebrow. She snatched the incoming dagger out of the air and spun it back.

“!”

The blade shot back, retracing its incoming trajectory as if a video was rewinding.

*Thud*, a sound of someone falling echoed from afar, unable to even properly scream. As if a marionette with severed strings had slumped down.

It was a divine skill, unbelievable for someone with their eyes covered by bandages.

Perhaps realizing her extraordinary skill, shadows began to emerge from all directions, no longer even attempting to conceal their presence.

Their attire and weapons practically had “Assassin” written on their foreheads.

“They’ve come to silence him, then.”

“Yes, it appears so.”

Their numbers were not small. Furthermore, they moved in a highly organized manner.

It seemed the information about the ‘mastermind’ the man had given was not wrong.

“Th-they wouldn’t kill me to silence me, would they?!”

“Fool, Uncle, don’t you even know that?”

The blonde girl giggled. The already pale man’s face turned even whiter.

“It doesn’t seem they’ll retreat gracefully.”

“Indeed.”

At Aria’s words, I nodded in agreement.

“Alice.”

“Yes, Commander!”

She was licking her lips, eyes full of anticipation. Now it was time to fulfill that anticipation.

“……You may eat.”

“Seriously, I thought I was going to starve to death!”

As soon as permission was granted, Alice’s lips stretched into a chilling, crescent-moon grin.

Honestly, it wasn’t something I particularly relished.

“I’ll chew up every last bit and leave nothing behind!”

The central chapel of a uselessly large and lavishly built Romanesque grand cathedral.

As the archbishop and human trafficker of that very cathedral trembled in fear, the dark shadows of the predawn night writhed.

“!”

The shadows in the vicinity rose up like living creatures, opening their jaws. Like an ocean whale opening its maw wide to swallow prey underwater.

Alice of Gluttony.

As her moniker suggested, this was not a fight or a battle. It wasn’t even a hunt.

It was just a meal.

A meal so ordinary that there was nothing special to add.

A one-sided act of gluttony, enacted to sate her endless hunger.

“Th-the shadows…! *Gaaah!*”

No one could escape their own shadow. This wasn’t a metaphor or an allegory; it was literally true.

There was no way to escape when the shadow beneath one’s feet shot up like a shark and bit off a leg.

Even the assassins who didn’t bat an eye at killing people were no exception. Minions were, after all, just minions.

“M-monster! It’s a monster!”

“Save me! *Aaaah!*”

Screams echoed from all directions like a harmony. The number of rats hidden inside the grand cathedral was not small. But no matter how many rats there were, they were ultimately just a swarm of rats.

They could never be a match for ‘them’. For a rat could never defeat a monster.

“……*Phew*.”

I flicked the ash off the already burnt-out cigarette with my finger, and out of habit, took out another stick and put it in my mouth. Once again, an ember spontaneously lit, and the tip caught fire.

A one-sided massacre that couldn’t even be called a fight.

No, it wasn’t even at the level to fuss about calling it a massacre. It was just like an afternoon coffee break. At least, for them.

So I couldn’t possibly endure it without chain-smoking, something I normally wouldn’t do.

When people were vying to put on grotesque displays with their insides spilling out one after another, it would be crazy to remain sane.

Regrettably, I wasn’t that crazy.

“*Burp*! Ugh, I’m too full to eat any more…”

“Hehe, Alice, really. You should observe better manners while eating.”

“Ugh, but I just ate too much, I couldn’t help it!”

What nonsense was it for me, who led these monsters as subordinates and was even called their Commander, to say such things?

I wanted to ask. Truly.

Because I was dying of curiosity about it myself.

“*Gasp, gasp!*”

I realized that on the chapel floor, there was still one survivor clinging to life.

An assassin whose lower body had completely vanished, awaiting the imminent end of his life.

He painfully lifted his head and looked at us. Very slowly. One by one.

The innocent, young blonde girl with her Gothic dress fluttering, the female swordswoman with her eyes covered by a black bandage.

Finally—the man in the raincoat silently watching their exploits.

“Y-you, you guys, surely….”

After looking, he let out a hollow laugh, realizing something. Even while gasping and spitting blood, he looked truly distraught.

Because he understood who they had dared to confront. And the price of their foolishness.

“Why is 《The Black Serpent》──”

His painful muttering never finished.

*Shing.*

In the darkness, the sharp edge of the Black Sword gleamed. Simultaneously, the last assassin’s head was severed and tumbled lifelessly to the floor.

When I realized her movement, Aria had already returned her greatsword to its sheath.

“*H-Heeek!*”

The surviving bishop and human trafficker, terrified even further by the atrocity that had unfolded, cowered. He was practically in a state of panic attack.

Yes, this was normal, this was common sense. Now the world seemed to be functioning properly again.

He was a rare piece of trash who used his position as Archbishop of the Holy Kingdom to sell the Holy Maiden to an enemy nation, but it was still good to see a shred of common sense from him.

“Deal with him.”

“Understood, Commander-nim.”

That didn’t mean he was being spared, though.

“W-wait! H-hey, that’s not what we agreed on! Please, s-s-spare…!”

*Splat!*

Aria’s Black Sword scattered its sharp edge once more. The voice that had been desperately begging for his life moments before suddenly cut off.

I silently turned my head away. As if I didn’t need to see, feigning indifference.

“Will you continue to pursue the Holy Maiden’s whereabouts?”

“That is the plan.”

At my words, Aria’s voice trailed off, imbued with an emotion uncharacteristic of her. She probably wanted to ask, ‘Why?’

“……Understood.”

But that was as far as it went. No further personal doubts would cross the line.

She neither doubted anything nor asked anything.

She simply obeyed the Commander’s orders absolutely. For that was the organization’s rule.

The secret society, 《The Black Serpent》.

A villainous group appearing in the long-running role-playing game series, ‘Century of Heroes’, and a small, elite organization composed of powerful individuals, each boasting top-tier combat abilities in the world.

The biggest unsolved mystery in the series, which has been running for nearly 20 years, with its identity and purpose still unclear.

So, when a new ‘Century of Heroes’ game, churned out like clockwork this year, was released, I, as a top-tier whale, without thinking, pre-ordered the most expensive Ultimate Sucker Edition.

That’s right. This was a game story.

And I had transmigrated into that game.

Of all places, among absurd monsters who put on grotesque displays with corpses without even batting an eye.

They even called me and followed and obeyed me.

So, if my true identity were ever exposed in front of them? It wouldn’t end with awkward laughter and moving on.

I could never be found out. No, the day I was found out would be the day I died. I’d stake my life on it. Not that there’d be anything left of me anyway.

Thus, whether I liked it or not, I had no choice but to play the role of the .

“I will procure train tickets to the Empire immediately.”

“Wow, we’re going to the Empire next?! Hehe, exciting!”

Aria, silently assisting me and coordinating the schedule as always, and Alice, smiling brightly like a child going on a picnic.

The organization’s second (II) and twelfth (XII) in command, respectively known by their monikers ‘Black Sword’ and ‘Gluttony’.

Even if it looked like we were just posing for group photos without doing anything, our work was busier than it seemed.

Being a villain wasn’t as easy as one might think.

The world of the role-playing game .

I had become the Commander of the villainous group within that very work.