Chapter 57

"Comprachikos."

Scarlet said.

"That's the name of the organization he belongs to."

She pointed to the mysterious man who had been brought in by the smiling man, who referred to himself as a tramp.

In the short time I hadn't seen him, he had become so hideous that it was a miracle he was still alive. There was only one voice, barely audible, begging for death.

He was in an endless agony, losing his grip on life and seeing only death as liberation.

It is a pain worse than death.

"Now I understand why that innocent boy did what he did."

"...."

By naive, I assume she means Gwyn. He's not a man who would just kidnap someone and bring them back.

Assuming that, I didn't answer, because there is no solid basis for judgment as to whether Rain Gray knows those facts or not.

"Comprachikos."

Fortunately, it was Aria who repeated the question.

"I've never heard that name before."

"Of course not. It's a criminal organization that operates around the Holy Kingdom."

"─A criminal organization."

"If that's what you call the Black Snake, they're certainly a small and insignificant force that can't even compare to us."

Scarlett shrugged and chuckled.

"It's more like they'll never be able to connect with a mastermind or a tycoon of our stature."

Hearing that makes me feel like it's somehow not my business.

The world is full of criminal organizations that operate in secret. But the Snake's name doesn't lend itself to being lumped into the same category as these ubiquitous criminal organizations.

"They're a human trafficking organization that mainly kidnaps children and sells them to sleazy nobles."

"So they're just your run-of-the-mill criminal organization ... that's everywhere."

"Well, ordinary, in that sense, a very ordinary evil."

A commonplace evil, so commonplace that it's not even worth recognizing. Still, her words were meaningful, and I asked her.

"Do you have anything to add?"

"The problem is, those kidnapped and brainwashed children are now calling themselves the Revolutionary Army."

My eyes widened at the unexpected statement.

"...You mean kidnapped children can serve as an army?"

"Well, the crime of child abduction is fairly common in the Holy Kingdom, so it's not hard to raise an army if you fill the ranks with kidnapped children."

"Was he involved with those planning the revolution from the beginning?"

"Apparently so, to the point where they could fight the current, weakened Crusader Knights."

Hearing that, I asked again.

"You can train a kidnapped child to that level? That doesn't seem like a normal thing to do."

"Well, they must have gone to some extreme measures."

Scarlett shrugged.

"A criminal organization that traffics children, what else would they do?"

The laughter stopped.

He stops chuckling to himself, bending and twisting and laughing.

"Ah, ah, the children...."

At the same time, a voice came out. My assumption that he was a mute was wrong.

"Children are precious... and must be protected...."

His voice seemed to struggle as he squeezed out each word.

"I, I, children...will, keep...ooh, laugh too...children's, laugh...."

After barely finishing the sentence, he bent over once again and started laughing hysterically, like a mysterious comedian in a horror movie.

"Of course, Gwyn. Don't worry."

Scarlett smiles softly at that.

"Bad adults who bully kids, this sister will kick their asses."

"Heh, heh, heh."

At that, the smiling man laughed again but it was a different, more subdued laugh.

"I'm intrigued."

"Oh, my, you too?"

"We're not exactly uninterested in the revolution that's going on right now."

With that, I knew what I had to do.

"If their human trafficking organizations are involved in any way with the revolution, they are no exception."

Human trafficking, kidnapping, and criminal organizations like that were trivial to the Black Snake, not even worth bothering with. We had no sense of justice, no sense that we had to root out evil in the world.

For now, we were evil ourselves.

But apart from that, things are different now, for this is a chaos that must be completely under my control.

I cannot easily tolerate anything that will give me unexpected, unexpected variables.

"Ah, then it is premature to grant mercy yet."

Scarlett smiles meaningfully at that.

The man, covered in the most horrific form of blood a human being can have, whose very existence is a miracle, stops muttering his pleas.

He realized that no hope or wish would do them any good.

Just as good men have the misfortune of encountering the Black Snake for no good reason.

It was no different for the wicked.

*

The first test subjects were those who were burning for revenge. Those who had lost everything and were willing to work with the devil for revenge were willing to submit to their experiments.

Vampire hunters were born.

Most died, of course, but the few who survived succeeded in hunting down their enemies, the vampires.

At the same time, such "vampire hunters" are not those who obey discipline and orders. They were more like madmen who would do anything for revenge.

They provided ample guinea pigs for experimentation, and as a result, the art of turning humans into 'hunters' has advanced by leaps and bounds.

The art of enhancing the flesh of uneducated humans into monsters that could hunt even vampires.

For the organization, this was a great achievement.

From the beginning, they had only one goal: to replenish their power to complete the Revolution.

To overthrow the entire country, rotten to the core, in the name of the New Regime.

Now that the experiment was over, revenge was not the organization's concern.

They needed loyal children, unknowing, naïve, blank slates that could be indoctrinated with ideology and taught to willingly become the horsemen of the revolution.

"Revolution or death!"

Boy soldiers, forgetting who they were, chanting the same words as they burned down the estates of nobles who refused to comply with the revolution.

They were monsters created by the same technology that had earlier turned ordinary men into "vampire hunters.

There was the army of the Revolution, the so-called Iron Guard.

*

An uprising of the people sparked by the shocking truth that none other than the royal family of the Holy Kingdom had sold the Holy Maiden Jeanne to the Empire.

The uncontrollable chaos that engulfed the Holy Kingdom far exceeded the speed with which I had originally imagined.

The country, which is not even centralized, has descended into a radical civil war, with nobles from all over the provinces joining together to fight for their own ideologies.

Royalists and revolutionaries were unaware of the implications of their infighting for the Duchy, which now has troops stationed on its borders, so I began to move in the midst of the escalating strife.

The streets of the capital of the Holy Kingdom resemble wartime conditions.

Lutecia, the so-called City of Stars.

But just a short distance away, the suburban slums of the City of Stars are a far cry from its name.

And with the chaos sweeping the country, it's not hard to tell which side the people living there are on.

Everyone in the streets is chanting slogans in praise of the revolution.

I made my way through the crowd, unperturbed with Aria and Alice, as usual, Scarlett and the smiling man also joined us.

"Over here."

Aria said, her voice cold. It was the hideout of the human trafficking organization we were looking for.

But, as befits a criminal organization that traffics people, it was a church.

<A church for the poorest of poor>

It's not a small facility, with several orphanage-like facilities attached to it.

"This is it."

"They have a bad name."

"Those who praise the gods are often the most ungodly."

Scarlett chuckled, her voice cold.

The laughing man just laughed, louder and louder, as if he found the joke hilarious.

"Well, well, Gwyn. I see you liked my joke."

"Heh, heh, heh, heh."

"...."

Leaving their conversational back and forth, I walked away.

This world is no longer the game world I know. All the knowledge I have from the game is not omniscient in this world, but only a handful of bits and pieces.

So it was time to see it with my own two eyes the nauseatingly ugly, raw reality of this world I didn't know.