I Became the Leader of a Villain Organization

Chapter 1: The Black Snake (1)

“Can I eat?”

Within a cathedral, as the rising moon cast a pale light a little blonde girl asked, her mouth watering like a child with a marshmallow in front of her.

“Be patient, Alice.”

Then the dark-haired woman beside her nudged her in a soft voice.

“You’re still talking to the leader.”

“Oooh……okay.”

Aria of the Black Sword, a woman dressed in all black from head to toe, with a tinnitus-like black demeanor. Even the black bandages covering her pupils were no exception.

Leaving their conversation behind, I wordlessly took out a cigarette and placed it in my mouth, igniting a spontaneous flame.

“……Say it.”

And I did. Briefly.

One of the nice things about being a villain is that you don’t have to say much to communicate.

You just have to look the part and stay silent, and they’ll do the talking for you.

“I’ll tell you everything, everything I know!”

The man in front of us was no exception.

“The man behind the kidnapping of the Holy Maiden Jeanne is……!”

The man in purple Sudanese robes began to speak in a desperate attempt to tell us what he knew, even as he stuttered in fear.

“-Sir.”

It was then.

The all-black lady, Aria, broke the silence and spoke up, her hand gently resting on the hilt of the black sword on her back.

“Looks like the rats have picked up the scent.”

Rats.

-Shhh!

A flash of silver flew out of nowhere, it was a throwing dagger, powerful enough to pierce a heart from afar but Aria doesn’t even bat an eyelid, snatching it out of thin air and flipping it upside down.

“!”

The blade reverses its trajectory like a video rewind and the assailant, unable to even scream in the distance, collapses like a puppet with a broken string.

Her eyes were covered with bandages so it was an unbelievable feat.

The rats, realizing that her skills were quite up to par, had begun to creep out of the shadows with no intention of hiding.

Her outfit, her weaponry, and the way she carried herself seemed to have ‘assassin’ written across her forehead.

“They’re here to cut the tail.”

“Yeah, it looks like it.”

There are a lot of them and they seem to be moving in a fairly organized fashion.

Apparently, the man’s information about who’s behind this wasn’t wrong.

“Are they going to kill me to shut me up……?!”

“Idiot, you don’t even know that, do you?”

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

“I don’t think he’s going to go away gracefully.”

“I doubt it.”

I nodded, agreeing with Aria’s words.

“Alice.”

“Yes, sir!”

Her eyes glistened with anticipation, and now it was my turn to fulfill her expectations.

“You may eat…….”

“I swear, I thought I was going to die of hunger!”

The corners of Alice’s mouth quirked up in an eerie, crescent moon-shaped smile.

To be honest, I don’t look forward to it.

“I’ll chew every last one of them!”

In the central chapel of a needlessly large and extravagantly built Romanesque cathedral where the dark shadows of the early morning night stirred as the archbishop and trafficker of that very cathedral cowered in fear.

“!”

The shadow rose like a living creature, its gaping maw open like an oceanic whale opening its jaws to swallow its prey from beneath the water.

Alice of gluttony, like her tinnitus, this is not a fight or a battle. It’s not even a hunt, it was just a meal, a meal so mundane that there’s not even a word for it.

A one-sided gluttony to satisfy her insatiable hunger.

“He, the shadow……! Off!”

No one can run from their own shadow. It wasn’t a metaphor or a metaphor, it was a very literal one.

The shadow beneath their feet jumps up like a shark and bites their leg, so there’s no way to escape.

Even the assassins, who didn’t bat an eye at killing people, were no exception. A jokester is a jokester after all.

“Monster, monster! Monster!”

“Help! Aaaahhhh!”

The screams echoed in harmony from all directions. The number of rats hiding inside the cathedral was not small, but no matter how many rats there are, they’re still just rats.

They could never be a match for ‘them’. Rats can never defeat monsters.

“……Huh.”

I flicked the burned-out cigarette with my fingers and, out of habit, pulled out the next one and popped it into my mouth, only to have it spontaneously ignite again, sending my nostrils flaring.

It was a one-sided slaughter that can’t even be called a fight.

No, this wasn’t even a massacre to make a fuss about; it was just an afternoon coffee break. At least for them, it was.

So I didn’t even bother burning my cigarettes, which were not for sale.

It takes a madman to stay sane when people are having a killing contest to show off.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t that crazy.

“Ugh, I’m so full, I can’t eat anymore……”

“Alice, you should have more manners when you eat.”

“Oooh, but I ate so much I couldn’t help it!”

What kind of bullshit am I talking about, having these monsters as my subordinates?

I wanted to ask, really, because it’s driving me crazy wondering that too.

“Huh, huh!”

I realize there’s one survivor on the chapel floor who isn’t dead yet, an assassin, vaporized from the waist down, waiting for the end of his life to come.

He raises his head with difficulty and looks at us very slowly.

An innocent, young blonde girl in a gothic dress, a female swordswoman with black bandages covering her eyes and finally-a man in a raincoat who watched them perform wordlessly.

“Yeah, you guys, you can’t be…….”

He looks up, and then laughs at what he realizes, even while coughing up blood and gasping for air.

They understood who they had dared to take on, and the cost of their foolishness.

“Why did the Black Snake-”

The struggling muttering was never finished.

-Thud.

A chain of black swords shone in the darkness. Simultaneously, the last assassin’s throat was cut, and he lay helplessly on the ground.

By the time I realized the movement, Aria had already sheathed her blade again.

“Heh, heh!”

The surviving bishop and trafficker cowered, horrified by what he saw and was in a state of near panic attack.

Yes, this is normal, this is common sense, this is how the world works now.

Even though he was a rare scumbag who used his position as Archbishop of the Holy Kingdom to sell a holy maiden to an enemy nation, it was nice to see some common sense.

“Deal with him.”

“Yes, sir.”

Not that he’d let him live.

“Now, wait! The promise is different, isn’t it? Please, please, spare……!”

-Boom!

Aria’s black sword scattered chains once again as the voice that had been desperately begging for life until just before was suddenly cut off.

I turned my head without a word as if I didn’t have to look.

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

“I intend to.”

At my words, Aria’s voice trailed off with an emotion uncharacteristic of her. Perhaps she wanted to ask, “Why?”

“Because……I understand.”

But that’s it. More inquisitiveness crosses the line.

I doubt nothing and ask nothing.

There is absolute obedience to the leader’s orders. That’s the code of the organization.

The Black Snake, a secret society.

A villainous group in the long-running role-playing game series Hero Wars, a small elite organization whose members are each among the most powerful fighters in the world.

In the nearly 20-year-old series, their identity and purpose are still unclear.

So when the new Hero Wars game was released this year, which is still churning out like a factory, I did my usual first-class black cow thing and pre-ordered the most expensive Ultimate Edition without thinking twice.

Yes, this is a gaming story.

This is the story of the game……And I was possessed by it.

“I’ll get a train ticket to the Empire right away.”

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

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

They are the 2nd (II) and 12th (XII) in the organization’s hierarchy, nicknamed ‘Black Sword’ and ‘Gluttony’ respectively.

Even though they look like they’re doing nothing but taking group shots and getting in shape, our work is busier than it looks.

Being a villain isn’t as easy as it seems.

The world of the role-playing game Heroic Age Series and I became the leader of a group of villains in that game.