Reincarnated as the Villain Who Experiments on Orphanage Kids – Why Are the Test Subject Girls Begging Me for "Night Experiments"? - Chapter 6

Chapter 6: We Secretly Formed an Organization

“Actually, we made an organization.”

“……………………Huh?”

The moment Priere said that, my mind went completely blank.
Because this was an orphanage, the kind of place that should have nothing to do with anything called an “organization.”

But if they were somehow connected to the organization from the original story… I had to stop them no matter what.

“…An organization?”

“Yes!”

“Really an organization?”

“It’s an organization.”

“Um, you mean you started some kind of group inside the orphanage?”

When I asked, Priere instantly shook her head.

“No. Of course it started with just the three of us, but after five years, we already have over fifty members.”

“Fifty!? Isn’t that a little much for playing house?”

“Playing house? Can you not joke around? I’m serious.”

“It might look sloppy compared to Master’s plans, but we’re doing this with everything we’ve got.”

“That’s right. We’re totally serious!”

The three of them stared at me with dead-serious eyes.
The sheer intensity made me catch my breath.

—Just what kind of organization did they start?

As the head of the orphanage and as their guardian, this was not something I could ignore.

“For now, can you tell me? What kind of organization you three started and what you’ve been doing?”

“Of course. It all began five years ago.”

Priere started talking.
I decided to just listen quietly.

※

[Side: Priere]

I started the organization five years ago.
Right after I decided I would support Sai from up close.

I thought about it nonstop while looking over the documents Sai had left behind, wondering how I could help him.

It goes without saying that Sai is a genius.
As a scientist, he probably has one of the best minds in the whole country. So copying the same thing he does wouldn’t mean anything.
I wondered if I could support him in a completely different field.

“…Rebellion.”

What caught my eye was the evil organization called Rebellion. They were throwing the country into chaos using force and information.

If that was the case, maybe I should create an organization to fight against them.

But to do that, we needed to get stronger. We needed enough fighting power to stand up to them, and above all, information power.

So I talked it over with my new roommates, Rafal and Fioraia.

“You want to fight an evil organization? I’m interested, but…”

“Hmph, sounds fun. It’s worthy of this Fiora.”

The reason I asked the two of them was because we were roommates, and one other thing.
In the documents from Sai’s lab, there was a list labeled “Test Subject Candidates.”

Our three names were on it. That probably meant we had the right qualities for the experiments.
Thinking about the future, I decided we should bring them in as allies.

“Sai’s goal is to save the world from the shadows. But there’s a limit to what one person can do. That’s why we’ll support him from right beside him.”

According to the information, the two of them had special circumstances just like me. Since they’d ended up at the orphanage, they must have gone through some pretty rough stuff.

And they stood out a bit even inside the orphanage.
So for some reason I felt like I could relate to them. They didn’t feel like strangers.

After giving them a rough outline, Rafal spoke with a serious look on her face.

“Get stronger… huh. Easy to say, but I don’t have any aptitude for the Holy Sword. I don’t think I could ever stand up to an organization.”

“Hmph, I’m the strongest, so of course I can! I just beat the crap out of some annoying guy the other day.”

Leaving aside how Fioraia was quick to pick fights but also quick to lose, Rafal’s point was the most important one.

It was true that in this country, whether you had aptitude for the Holy Sword decided a huge part of your life.

Anyone with the aptitude got sent to the Royal Academy when they turned ten. There was no refusing it.

Which meant that the fact we were still here proved we didn’t have the aptitude.

“It’s true we might be weak. But that’s not a problem. Because we have the experiments.”

“Experiments?”

“Hmph, what’s that?”

“There’s one and only one way to fight monsters without relying on the power of the Holy Sword. And that is… Sai’s experiments.”

My chest grew hot as I told them about Sai’s experiments, including how amazing he was and how noble his goal was.

I explained the importance of Sai’s experiments in detail.
At first the two looked doubtful, but gradually their eyes started to burn with excitement.

“Okay. I’ll help too.”

“Hmph, Fiora will become even stronger than the strongest. In other words, the strongest!”

Once I had their agreement, I looked at both of them. Then I declared loudly:

“Then today, right here, I declare the founding of our organization. The name will be… let’s see. How about the ‘Let Sai Do Experiments On Us Squad’—shortened to SJO Squad?”

“Good name.”

“Hmph, not bad.”

And that’s how the SJO Squad was born.

The next five years were quiet but steady work building our foundation.
At the start, there were only three members: me, Rafal, and Fioraia.

But the organization grew incredibly fast. Probably because the environment was perfect for it.
The orphanage was full of kids with all kinds of difficult backgrounds.

Kids abandoned by their families. Kids who lost their parents in war. Kids who got caught up in crime and lost their place to live.
Most of those kids shared two things in common.

One was—they were looking for power.
And the other was—they really loved Sai.

Especially lately, Sai had become even kinder than before.
He sometimes said strict things, but it wasn’t just spoiling us; he really cared about us when he spoke.

So for us orphanage kids, Sai was like the sun. Everyone loved him.

“Don’t worry. If you join the organization, even after you leave the orphanage you can still legally stay connected with Sai. That’s a huge benefit, right?”

That’s what I said to recruit more members.
Of course I didn’t invite everyone. I chose carefully.
I picked people who had strong faith in Sai and could keep their mouths shut.

To do that, I started with observation.
Who had what personality, what kind of past, and how far they could be trusted.
The one in charge of judging that was Rafal.

“This kid’s fine. I think they can keep a secret.”

Rafal had a good eye for people.
Maybe because she was an elf, she was really sensitive to the subtle shifts in people’s emotions. She probably had different senses than us humans.

And Fioraia was in charge of fighting power.

“This one’s too weak. Gotta train them again.”

Training sessions were always happening in the orphanage backyard, led by Fioraia.
Being a descendant of the Knight King, she seemed really good at combat.
Looks like it wasn’t all talk after all.

“Ouch—hey, I just tripped!”

She did mess up sometimes, and there were plenty of times she got carried away and ended up getting beaten instead, but overall she was a reliable comrade.

There was one more reason our fighting strength shot up.
That was the recovery medicine we found in Sai’s lab.

According to Sai’s research, the recovery medicine had the effect of boosting growth.
I didn’t understand the exact science, but basically you trained hard, drank the medicine, trained hard again, drank the medicine, and repeated.
Doing that would make you stronger.

“Ugh… this stuff really tastes awful.”

The recovery medicine was bitter, so Fioraia always made a face, but the three of us drank it eagerly.

We drank so much that in just one year we finished every last bottle in the storage room.
Basically we were completely drugged up.

But there was no problem at all. We had the right qualities as test subjects.
We only gave tiny amounts to the other kids because the backlash was big for them, but at least for us it was fine.

By the time a year had passed, the SJO Squad had decent fighting power and over ten members.

But that alone didn’t make it a real organization.
What an organization needed was information power.

So next we started building an information network.
The trigger was the slum district.

Back then, every time something bad happened in the slums, we went around punishing the adults.
Adults who stole, people who shook kids down for money, thugs who tried to rule with violence.

We’d find those kinds of people and shut them up with our fists.
In the process, we naturally started sharing information with the slum kids.

They had no homes, no parents, and were just struggling every day to survive.

That’s why they knew a ton about what was going on in the city. They were everywhere.
The accuracy of their information was really high, and the speed they passed it around was amazing.

So I decided to make good use of that system.
First I made a simple promise with the slum kids.
If they saw any suspicious people, tell us.
If they heard rumors about monsters, report it.
In return, if thugs tried to force their way into the slum, we would deal with them.

That was the deal.
And that’s how our information network naturally formed in the slums.

※

“And that’s how we, the SJO Squad, kept growing.”

“…I see.”

After listening to Priere’s whole story, I couldn’t help but hold my head in my hands.
It was way bigger than I had imagined.

Of course there were tons of things I wanted to say.
Sneaking into the lab, using up all the recovery medicine in storage, doing secret training while I was away, working with the slum kids, and the naming sense of “SJO Squad.”
If I started listing everything that bothered me, there’d be no end.
But the one thing that bothered me most was this.

“I’m not actually trying to save the world, you know?”

“……………………Huh?”