More than a thousand orc warriors had been annihilated by a mere fifteen knights of Arcadia,
without putting up a single proper resistance.
The villagers had witnessed with their own eyes, right before them, the sight of those orcs being slaughtered helplessly.
Even having seen it for themselves, it felt utterly unreal.
Until now, they had been terrified of the orc warriors’ cruelty. Orcs killed people without
so much as twitching an eyebrow. But even the savagery of those orcs was nothing compared to
the people of Arcadia standing before them.
They had flayed the captured orc squad leaders alive. And they had done it while smiling brightly.
The squad leaders’ horrific screams as they died still rang in the villagers’
ears. The same was true for the others. Compared to the cruelty of those men, who cut off
the necks of groaning orc warriors as if it were nothing and piled them to one side, the orc
warriors were nothing at all.
They did not know that it stemmed from hatred toward orcs who had eaten humans. At a loss,
the village chief bowed deeply to Damon. Because of their long life as slaves, the villagers had
the habit of obeying the strong deeply ingrained in them.
“P-please take us with you.”
Damon leisurely folded his arms.
“Why?”
“If we remain here, we won’t be able to survive.
The orc warriors will surely take revenge on us.”
“I thought you were satisfied with life as slaves? Why does it matter? Stay in the village, and when those bastards
come for revenge, just accept it.”
Desperation appeared on the village chief’s face. Having barely escaped the fate of being caught and eaten,
his attachment to life had become that much more desperate. The quick-witted villagers,
led mostly by the women, were clinging to the knights. They were instinctively trying to attach themselves
to the strong. The knights had now become the heroes of the villagers.
“Please save us. We will follow you anywhere.”
The village chief pleaded earnestly, by any means he could.
“Even so, are we not all human? We’ll do whatever you tell us to do. So please……”
Damon coldly cut off the village chief’s words.
“No. You merely look similar on the outside. In truth, you are not.”
“………”
Damon smiled coldly and looked at the villagers.
“We are human. Rather than live miserably as slaves to another race, we would rather choose death—
in other words, we are humans whose pride is still alive. But you are not. In my eyes,
you are nothing more than livestock raised by orcs.”
The village chief’s face turned blue.
“H-how can you say such a thing……”
“What makes you any different from livestock? You eat the feed given to you, then when the time comes,
you are caught and eaten. Just how are you any different from livestock?”
The village chief could say nothing and lowered his head deeply. Because that was the truth.
Seeing that, Damon’s voice softened slightly.
“Before long, Arcadia’s great army will cross over into Truvenia. To wipe out every last seed of
the orc bastards who enslave humans and eat them……”
Damon extended a finger and pointed to the mountain of orc heads piled up nearby.
“Before long, every single orc in Truvenia will end up just like that. We crossed over in advance
to prepare for that war. With the sole intention of awakening the pride of these lands’ people as humans.
But as I said yesterday, it seems we came to the wrong village. There wasn’t a single human in this village.
Only livestock swarming everywhere.”
Having finished speaking, Damon coldly turned away.
“Livestock should live like livestock. Shall I tell you one thing? A true human
would never live this way, even if it meant death. If they had no strength to resist, they would choose death instead.
By doing so, they could at least cut off the orcs’ supply line. But
you people would never do that, would you? Yesterday, I saw you point your bows at us without hesitation.
Unless you turn those bows on the orcs, you are plainly livestock. Livestock.”
After mercilessly pouring out his words, Damon turned away coldly.
“We’re leaving. Since you have already chosen the path of livestock, I assume you have no regrets.”
As Damon turned, the members firmly
shook off the hands of the villagers clutching at their clothes and followed after him. Since they had already been instructed, the members deliberately
acted coldly.
The villagers watched their backs with stunned expressions. Until
their figures completely disappeared into the grass.
Tom approached the village chief, who was standing blankly as if his soul had left him.
“Chief.”
But the village chief, as if he had not heard, only repeated one phrase in a daze.
“Humanity…… Pride……”
When Tom called him again, the village chief finally came to his senses. Tom was looking up at him
with a worried expression.
“What do we do now?”
Hearing Tom’s question, the village chief fell into thought again. After a moment, the chief seemed to make up
his mind and looked at the villagers.
“I ask all of you. Do you perhaps wish to live like humans?”
At the village chief’s sudden words, the villagers looked as though they could not understand.
The village chief began to explain with a resolute expression.
“Let us go into the mountain behind the village. As they said, if we disappear, the Thor
tribe that has been using us as slaves will face a serious food shortage. If we plow up the fields, take all the livestock,
and go into the mountains, the Thor tribe’s food supply will be cut off completely.”
The villagers were startled.
“D-do you mean we should rebel? How can we possibly deal with orc warriors
so strong and cruel……”
Without hesitation, the village chief pointed to the piled mountain of severed heads.
“The warriors of the Thor tribe, who were so strong and cruel, ended up in that state
right before our eyes. In other words, even orcs die when struck by arrows.
They were not invincible after all. Moreover, the people of our village are especially skilled at hunting.
If we hide deep within the rugged mountain behind us and resist with bows, we will not be
subjugated so easily. What do you think of my opinion?”
At the village chief’s words, the villagers kept silent. Because they were deeply steeped in habit,
they could not dare to think of rebellion. The village chief struck his chest in frustration.
“Then do you plan to just sit still and obediently be caught and eaten by them?
Like those twenty young men who died?”
Only then did the people begin to muster courage. After seeing the scene of fourteen hundred orc
warriors, whom they had thought impossible to defeat, being slaughtered en masse, courage they had never had began to well up within them.
If fifteen fellow humans had done it, there was nothing they could not do. And the word “livestock”
that Damon had spat out awakened the pride that lay dormant deep in their hearts.
“Good. Let’s do it. If we are destined to be caught and eaten anyway, then I’ll fight those bastards at least once.”
“I am sick of losing villagers to them. I would rather die fighting.”
The village chief was smiling faintly. At last, a chance had come to live like humans.
The villagers hurried back to the village and packed their belongings.
In order to leave nothing for the orcs to eat, they drove out every last head of livestock. Anything too large
to take with them was simply slaughtered. From now on, they intended to block the Thor tribe’s food supply
as repayment for having enslaved them.
When the villagers came out with their belongings, the village chief set fire to the wooden fence with his own hands. If the entire village
was reduced to ashes, then the Thor tribe’s food would disappear along with it.
Whoooosh.
After staring for a long while at the flames blazing fiercely, the village chief turned away.
“Let us go to the mountain behind us. Let us try living like humans.”
In the hearts of the villagers following behind the village chief, their pride was slowly coming back to life.
Even if they were caught and killed by an orc punitive force, they felt they would have no regrets. After all, they had been destined
to be caught and eaten by orcs anyway.
“Still, weren’t you being too harsh? Calling people who are clearly human livestock?”
Damon smiled and looked at Crancia.
“Think of it as a kind of shock therapy. They were deeply steeped in inertia, so it was necessary to shock them once.”
The party, which had appeared to have gone far away, had not actually gone far. They were hiding a short distance
from the village and observing the situation. The Death Knight and Winslet had been placed inside Increcia
out of concern that their dark mana would be detected. Unlike Damon,
they could not skillfully conceal their dark mana.
Before long, the flames rising from the village entered the party’s sight. Seeing them, a satisfied smile
appeared on Damon’s face.
“It seems to have succeeded, for now. Setting fire to the village means they no longer intend
to live as the orcs’ slaves……”
But Crancia did not seem ready to accept it so easily.
“But that still hasn’t been proven yet.”
“Wait and see. Mitchell went to check……”
As soon as Damon finished speaking, Mitchell returned. He smiled and began his report.
“There’s no doubt. The villagers packed their belongings and were going up the mountain hand in hand.
They were driving all the livestock with them. The village chief set the village on fire himself.”
After receiving the report, Damon looked at Crancia with a triumphant expression.
“Well? My method……”
Crancia smiled bitterly. Though the method had been somewhat rough and bold, its effectiveness
was certain. He had succeeded in instilling in the villagers the will to fight against the orcs—
something Crancia had dismissed as impossible.
“Amazing. I never dreamed of such a method. How did you think of that……”
“It’s simple. I clearly showed the villagers the logic of strength. Until now,
they had feared the orcs greatly. And those orc warriors were slaughtered by a mere fifteen humans……
I can’t say for certain, but they will no longer fear orcs.”
Crancia, who had been listening silently, frowned.
“But I am still troubled by the fact that we left the village youths to be eaten.
If we had stepped in earlier, we could have saved them.”
Damon waved his hand as if it were nothing significant.
As befitted someone from the unorthodox path, his logic was extremely simple and clear.
“For the sake of the greater good, the sacrifice of the small is inevitable. It is also a method your father enjoys
using. Your heart may not be at ease now, but when you think back on it later,
you will understand that today’s choice was the right one.”
Having finished speaking, Damon turned away.
“Let’s go, then…… Katroi and that girl Yuliana must be waiting with their necks stretched long……”
Kasim, who had been listening quietly, looked at Damon with a stiff expression.
On closer inspection, the expressions of the members had hardened slightly.
“By the way. I was truly surprised.”
“What do you mean?”
“I had no idea you could be so cold-blooded, Damon. As if wiping out hundreds of orcs in an instant
was not enough, you flayed living orcs alive……”
Damon suddenly felt a stab in his chest.
“Is that such a big deal?”
“I thought you usually disliked killing, but after seeing you today, it seems that isn’t the case. Earlier, you seemed completely
intoxicated by blood and slaughter. Until now, we had never imagined
such a side of you, Damon.”
“T-they were bastards who ate people. I-I simply couldn’t forgive them.”
Flustered, Damon stammered his reply. It had been all well and good to be freed from the restriction
of the Sevenfold Severing Forbidden Art and enjoy slaughter for the first time in ages, but he had not imagined
it would shock the members. Yet he could not very well explain the circumstances of the Sevenfold Severing Forbidden Art to them, so Damon
hurriedly turned away.
“Everyone has an instinct for slaughter. Think of it as that instinct properly taking hold.”
As Damon turned, his clothes were drenched entirely in blood. The members, watching Damon with
strange eyes, followed after him one by one.