Elf Tensei Kara no Cheat Kenkoku-ki

I shook my head at Raffa’s words that offered to give up the Fire Foxes and spoke.

「That’s no good. Even if we were to offer them up there is absolutely no guarantee of them letting us live in peace.」

「I said as long as we give them up we’ll be fine! Believe me!」

「On what basis are you saying this?」

「That’s…..anyways if we offer up the Fire Foxes we’ll be saved.」

Raffa argued desperately. However, I already knew he was a traitor actually…

「Even if provisionally, the Fire Foxes are the citizens of our country Erucy. I will not be selling out our citizens.」

「Fire Foxes are our comrades!? What are you saying!? This is an Elf Village!」

Raffa’s loud and hateful voice made Kuu’s shoulders slightly shudder.

I impulsively wanted to grasp her shoulder to help her calm down. However, doing so at this moment would only show a weak point.

「I can’t believe in this foolish and baseless argument. I even explained before that we cannot win with just Elves. From now on I intend to bring in other races, not just Fire Foxes, depending on the situation. That is the purpose of naming ourselves as Erucy. Raffa, just shut up from now on.」

「I won’t! What do you guys think!? The enemies will be 3,000…no more! Even if we fight we can’t win. We have no choice but to surrender. Can’t you understand that what I say is right? Not only that…if we…if we just give the Fire Foxes then!」

Raffa desperately turned and looked at everyone trying to find an ally. Yet no one nodded in agreement.

At this moment Roleau opened his mouth.

「Raffa, we’ve been in plenty of hopeless situations. Yet in each of them the Chief has led us past them. I will believe in him and apply myself to become one of the elites.」

「Roleau have you gone mad?」

「Plus…do you think I can trust the words of a traitor? Chief…it’s fine already right?」

「Yes…go ahead.」

At that moment Roleau signaled and some of the vigilante corps appeared and captured Raffa. Raffa looked up with a demonic expression as he glared hatefully at me.

「Raffa I’m sorry to have been forced to trick you in such a way. But…we know that you met secretly with Imperial Soldiers and leaked intelligence about Erucy. We have witnesses who saw first-hand so there is no use in making excuses. We only let you go so you could leak unimportant or beneficial info and to root out any other traitors.」

The reason I had let Raffa attend this meeting was to see if there were any other people who would work with him. After observing Raffa for the past few days and his current actions in the meeting, there was no need to question our conclusion.

「Saying that ‘if you give up the Fire Foxes you’ll be saved’ was something the Empire told you isn’t it?」

「Yeah, that’s right. But, what I said is the truth. So if we offer them up we’ll be saved. That’s what the Empire told me.」

「You can stop saying it. I won’t be selling out our comrades.」

「Damn it why!? It’s obvious that it’s better for us! Why can’t you understand!?」

Raffa’s desperation and anger echoed in the room.

「Raffa…why did you betray us? If you had leaked vital information Erucy could have been directly destroyed. Be they Elves or Fire Foxes, all of us would be dead or slaves.」

In the first place we hadn’t allowed Raffa to come in contact with vital information even once.

The greatest worries had been about the crossbows and the Fire Fox magic stones that Kuu had donated to Erucy. There was a risk of either of them being stolen, but the crossbows had serial numbers engraved in them. Furthermore those who had them were under strict supervision and had been told that they would be heavily punished if a single one were to be lost. In the case of the ones in the warehouse, they were being monitored 24/7 by elves that we trusted.

For Raffa both things were unobtainable.

For that reason, no matter what he leaked it would only be at the level of how many fighters we had, the performance of the crossbows, and individual combat ability.

Such things would’ve long been discovered by Imperial forces. The only true info they might have obtained was that I had been bluffing when I said there were stronger people than me in the village. These sorts of things had been bait for Raffa to observe his movements so there was no issue.

「…..I talked to him….the Empire’s Lurvish guy…he informed me that that was our only path of survival. What I’ve done can be considered betrayal…but this was done to save us.」

I see, so that was his reasoning. He decided to dishonor himself in an attempt to stop what he saw as a reckless and hopeless battle.

Those thoughts led him to not feel much guilt.

「They even said that…if us Elves surrendered they’d return them…My wife and my…that Lurvish bastard said they were still alive. See Cyril? If it was your Lucy who’d been taken and you were told the same thing…what would you DO!? Abandon her!? Can you even do that???」

We’ve gotten off topic for a while now. After he claimed his betrayal was all for the sake of Elves he suddenly cried about how it couldn’t be helped because they had his wife hostage.

Raffa truly wasn’t in a proper state of mind.

「As for me…I would not follow the Empire’s orders.」

「You can say anything! Are you that cold of a man to abandon the woman you love??」

「Nope. Even if I obeyed them there’s absolutely no way she would be returned to me. Think about it. Once they got their hands on the Fire Foxes, why would they purposefully repay a puppet who has lost their usefulness? Especially when they were an important source of magic stones and a woman capable of birthing more elves.」

Up until now, the only reason they had not kidnapped every single Elven woman was because it was far easier for Elves to conceive children with each other. The efficiency of having an Elf Village was much higher and they could even collect taxes while they were at it.

If they were unable to satisfy their need for elves by having us sacrifice them, they would instead breed their own using our women even if the efficiency was lower.

At this point, I sincerely doubted that Raffa’s wife was still alive and even if she was there was no way they would let go of one of the few female elves that they had.

Especially when they rarely ever chose women as sacrifices. Those they had chosen were Raffa’s wife who had been weakened by disease, Lucy’s weak bodied younger sister, and old elven women. Each and every one of them could not be expected to do manual labor or bear more children. There was no way they would survive or be let free.