episode_0075

A nearby elf settlement.

It was, truly, the most horrific form of evil humanity could display.

—Even knowing how contradictory and absurd it was for me to use such an expression now, there was no other way to describe it.

“……”

Even I was speechless in the face of such dismay, let alone the reaction of ‘Selena’, a Dark Elf with immense pride in her kin—it was truly beyond words.

The place was a ranch, bred by the Empire’s hand.

A facility set up for raising livestock. As its name suggested, there were grazing animals, but that wasn’t all.

‘—Livestock have no human rights.’

At the same time, what humans sought by raising and breeding them wasn’t animal milk or eggs. So, what would they gain by turning elves, who had to crawl on all fours, into livestock?

“Sometimes, beauty itself is like a sin.”

Aria chuckled, seemingly amused by the sight, as if it truly wasn’t her concern.

“Huh? Why?”

Meanwhile, Alice tilted her head, as if she didn’t understand Aria’s words, or was just bewildered.

I couldn’t say anything.

“Selena.”

For my part, I couldn’t say anything.

“……Leader.”

“Do you remember my words?”

Thus, I merely repeated the question.

“The new order I gave you.”

“—”

Selena silently gulped.

It was the resolution left within me after confronting the true Rain Grey that day.

「—This is a new order.」

There, I commanded my unit members.

「Act freely.」

I wished for all my unit members to share the same ‘freedom’ I had obtained.

Nothing had changed even now.

“……Freedom, then.”

Selena repeated the question. She, who was angrier than anyone at the injustice unfolding there, and who, more than anyone, had sworn loyalty to me as a member of the Serpent.

“Does the Leader truly grant me ‘freedom’ here?”

“Yes.”

I nodded.

“……”

Selena was silent for a moment. I, too, was silent. At the end of that silence, she replied.

“Does the Leader mean that you won’t care about any consequences my freedom might bring?”

“Yes.”

I agreed again.

“—”

The ensuing silence wasn’t long.

There was a ranch. A ranch where races, no different from animals because they weren’t human and thus not granted human rights, were bred and grazed by human hands.

At the same time, at that ranch, there were humans, each with their own ‘purpose’ for the livestock, who were no different from animals and whose ‘human rights’ could not be guaranteed in any form.

—It was the elite army that the Bretona Empire boasted, a military force known as the Red Coats.

“……Huh?”

The silence broke with the question of one of them.

A head that should have been attached to a soldier was severed and tumbled through the air. The moment the anomaly was realized, countless severed arms, legs, and heads, too many to count with both hands, were arcing through the air.

“It’s an attack!”

“Enemy attack! Maintain formation at once!”

A few Imperial soldiers belatedly raised their voices and took positions. But everyone there knew.

At least, we knew.

That their actions were meaningless.

—Slice!

A sound was heard. Along with the sound, a chilling flash, like moonlight, engulfed the surroundings, and the bodies of the Bretona Imperial Army there were dissected into all sorts of surgical units.

Annihilating the enemies there was not difficult.

Thus, after everything was finished, Selena shouted towards her kin beyond the ranch.

“They’re all dead! Now—”

A voice that doubted neither her own justice nor the consequences it would bring.

Nevertheless—.

“Ah, ah, ah……”

One elf, crawling on all fours like livestock, spoke. It wasn’t even words. An unintelligible mumble echoed hollowly in their mouth.

“Ah, ahh……”

The rest of the livestock were no different.

No, it wasn’t just the livestock.

“—”

There were elves stripped of human rights and treated like livestock, and there were elves watching them.

Other humans, at least those wearing the red uniforms of the Empire, no longer existed.

All problems were solved. Evil had vanished. It should have.

“Ah, ah, ahhh……!”

Again, a voice, not even language, almost a scream, rang out.

—It wasn’t the sound of the elves who had become livestock.

It was the scream of the elves who had been protecting that place, who had been granted ‘Honorary Citizenship’ by the Empire and were enjoying a normal human life.

“W-what have you done, you people…!”

I didn’t say anything.

Because at this moment, every action taken here was Selena’s freedom, not mine.

“What have we done—?”

Therefore, she too, unable to hide her dismay more than anyone, repeated the question.

“Can you not see? How our kin are treated like beasts here…!”

It was the emotion Selena felt in that moment, and furthermore, the unvarnished truth.

“And those human invaders who violate our kin!”

It was a just argument.

Nevertheless, before the dismay shown by the ‘Honorable Imperial Citizens’ present, I felt a familiar sensation, similar to my original world.

“Because of you…!”

“It’s over, everything’s over—”

Aria giggled, watching them, her voice meaningful.

“Collective responsibility is truly an exquisite method of governance.”

Solidarity.

“Is that so.”

Selena chuckled calmly.

“A responsibility the entire village must bear for the sin of helping livestock, then.”

At the same time, no one raised an objection to such an act. The arrows of responsibility and blame fell not on the perpetrator of evil, but on the innocent manipulated by such evil and on those who resisted.

“……They must be afraid.”

Selena murmured as if she understood. But the accusations didn’t stop.

“That’s not something words can solve!”

“Why on earth did you commit such irresponsible acts—!”

“What do you plan to do in front of the Imperial Army that came to sort out the situation?!”

How many of their kin would be sacrificed for your single act of self-satisfaction.

—That was the story.

But Selena merely gave a bitter smile, unperturbed by the elves’ accusations or blame.

The livestock crawling on all fours there were no different.

“Stand up.”

Even when Selena offered her hand, they remained silent, not standing up.

The elves who had once resisted the Empire and served as an example. Even though they had volunteered to resist and confront before anyone else, in those who had become livestock, there was no longer any will to fight.

“N-no……”

Finally, one of the livestock spoke.

“I, I can’t stand up. No, we……”

“Why?”

“—You don’t know!”

Selena repeated the question at the returning shout.

“Don’t know what?”

“—The true horror of the Empire.”

The elf, claiming to be livestock, said, terrified.

“H-how our pathetic resistance plunged our kin into immense suffering—”

“Like now?”

“……Yes!”

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

Hearing those words, Selena fell silent.

“Heh heh, are you disillusioned?”

Aria chuckled, asking Selena, who remained silent. Silence fell once more. It wasn’t a long silence.

“……It’s not their fault.”

At the end of the silence, Selena spoke.

“It’s not their fault to bow their heads and submit before an irresistible force.”

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

“Merely weakness.”

She, who called herself a member of the 《Black Serpent》, said so.

That kneeling and bowing one’s head before an irresistible force, or before evil, was never a wrong thing to do.

“So, are you going to become a champion for the weak now?”

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

“……If they wish for it.”

It was the last chance she offered.

“Please, my kin. Will you not join forces with me?”

“……Get lost!”

Of course, the answer was set. Perhaps Selena already knew it.

“W-we have to beg for forgiveness.”

“It’s not, not too late. Even now, if we reveal the truth to the Empire and……”

Some elves muttered among themselves, turning towards us.

“This is…… our reality.”

Meanwhile, the group of Dark Elves who had led us here replied.

As they watched their kin, who had lost the will to fight and willingly claimed to be human livestock.

As they watched the honorable Imperial citizens desperately struggling to protect their ‘human rights’ guaranteed among such livestock.