WE ARE NUMBA ONE

I'm an Elf.

But I don't introduce myself as an Elf.

I call myself a Red Elf because I live in the red country, and 'Red' comes first before 'Elf'.

Our red country is the greatest and the oldest, I've been told and taught this since young. How could it possibly be wrong?

Even though I live in a poor coastal town and survive on bread the administration doesn't take away from our farms and fish they don't hook with their nets, we're always grateful to them, because the administration owns all the lands and seas of the world.

When I turned 16 years old, it was time for me to give the imperial examination, whose rankings would determine whether I had a chance of joining the supreme administration.

I gave my best to prepare for it. The questions asked during the examination were from all sorts of fields, especially our ancestors' teachings.

Our heritage and teachings of our ancestors are perfect in every sense of the world, and yet the foreigners refuse to accept them! Shouldn't they be damned? No wonder they weren't allowed to join the imperial examination.

They don't understand us, make fun of us, and bully us because of our skin color and jealousy and so in those lands, we need to unite together to ward off those attacks.

A few of our comrades once said that they could possibly be hating us because we're xenophobic and closed-minded instead of our skin color and magical talent. We executed them of course, burned them all with fire magic.

How dare they question and doubt the supreme administration? How could red elves ever be wrong? WE ARE NUMBA ONE, of course, in everything.

Anyway, when I passed the examination, I was assigned the post of a junior associate of a branch of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the administration.

The branch was near the coastal city where I lived in. In the name of my family, I had an old father, who was left back at home.

2 years later, I was promoted once and taught a lot of things. For example, how were we the greatest, how many injustices did we suffer throughout the years while still being the greatest, how we were surrounded by demons and devils on all sides of the borders, and it is only due to the diligence of the senior red elves of our administration that these demons stopped at the borders?

The population of their kingdoms was far smaller than us, and so was their land but they still posed us a considerable threat, not because they were stronger than us in magic, had better formations and tactics, or something, but because they were... despicable.

Yes, this was how they were able to beat our noble, righteous, supreme, filial, loyal, and perfect leaders and ancestors throughout history.

They betrayed, raped, looted, manipulated, used devious schemes, threatened, bullied, colluded with the enemies, etc. This was the sole reason why they were able to defeat us kind and forgiving red elves throughout history.

I swore to myself, 'I'll rather massacre those horrendous and despicable foreigners with my magic and sacrifice myself than allowing them to set foot in our sacred homeland and pollute it with their disgusting breaths.'

In another 2 years, I was promoted again and hunted a few of those foreigners myself. They dared to use magic on ME!? They were definitely as despicable as our textbooks and seniors described them. We massacred them all before they were even allowed to come near our coast.

We celebrated our victory by kissing our parents' feet all night, it is a part of our red tradition, nothing disrespectful or disgusting, it's just one of the rituals we red elves performed to show our filial piety.

This was the reason we are called the greatest and everyone else is jealous of us. We are loyal, filial, honorable, good, and just. Just... perfect.

When our enemies attack us, we rise together in defiance and against all odds, snatch victory for our supreme administration from the jaws of death. We are simply the greatest.

My life under the administration's rule was perfect as well but it suddenly changed one day when my father, who had gone out to fish to pass his time brought the body of a foreigner back home.

He told me about it when I went to kiss his feet. He was slightly at fault here for not drowning this guy himself, but I didn't blame him. Everyone makes mistakes in their ignorance.

After I educated my father and respectfully sent him to another room, I brought out my blade to behead the alien invader that my father caught.

Just as I was about to slash his throat, his eyes suddenly opened wide as he coughed up seawater in my eyes. I was angered at his shameless sneak attack, but he continued coughing water.

His appearance told me that he was from the small island of Blue Elves on the other side of the ocean. 100 years ago, these beasts in human skin had used despicable means to enslave us, they were still planning something like that perhaps.

I don't know for sure since we're not allowed to have contact with anyone from the outside world. This rule is implemented by the administration to save us from the clutches of dark and forbidden magic and demons that hide in plain sight in the foreign world.

These blue elves are devious and divided, completely in contrast with our honorable and united Red Elves.

We aren't touched by their degeneration.

When he saw my appearance, he looked panicked. I knew he was devising some evil plan right now, so I cast an edge of fire at his throat.

He jerked his head and moved aside, rendering the move useless. I knew it! His intentions were definitely impure, otherwise, he wouldn't have needed to dodge that strike.

The guy then jumped up and started running away, carrying a shield made from magic on his back, which protected him from my attacks.

As I chased him he kept shouting, perhaps trying to distract me and take me by surprise, "Don't kill me, demon. I'll pay for my life."

What a bastard, even calling a beautiful Red Elf from the administration like me a demon and also attempting to bribe me, he deserved much more than death, but I'm just, honorable and lenient in my decisions, so I decided to give him a death without torture, like my seniors would have.

I kept chasing him as he kept coughing and panting, but no matter how much I attacked, he refused to stop in his tracks and let me kill him.

I was thinking of casting forbidden magic spells after half an hour of chasing him but he stopped on a mountain ridge before I could.

Behind the mountain ridge, countless blue elves walked out and surrounded me but there was no way I was alone.

I had the hands of my ancestors, the backs of my compatriots, and the soul of my motherland protecting me at all times. What could be more glorious than this?

One after another, I started casting the dangerous forbidden spells that only the administration had the authority to teach but strangely they were stopped by defensive spells of similar magnitude cast by these illegal Blue Elves.

Were these guys also a part of the glorious administration with its immortal and ancient values? If not, then how were they able to use forbidden spells that only the administration was supposed to know of?

I knew it! This must be the reason for them hiding here, to steal the secrets of the perfect administration.

How dare these guys make wronged and pitiful expressions in front of me while telling me stupid, senseless, slanderous things like,

"We're the NATIVES of this land, stupid."

"The administration is brainwashing you, we won't bother you, just let us live in peace."

"These spells were created by our forefathers and stolen by the administration, kid. We have much more than the administration."

"We won't attack you if you promise to let us off, and not speak of our secret."

I laughed out loud at their tricky and misleading words, which were not even witty enough to fool a 3-year-old child. After all, we were taught the TRUTH about everything from a young age, yet the words of these aliens were convincing enough.

I knew I only had one choice at this moment, the one they had given me.

...TO SELF-DESTRUCT

How these idiots thought my life was worth as much as the sacred mission of the Administration was beyond me.

And so with one last content look at these devious souls that were panicking, I lit my soul on fire, which rampaged quickly, and my body became an explosive that managed to kill a few of their members and stun even more of them.

After making sure that the noise was loud enough to alert my comrades from the administration nearby, I closed my eyes for the last time.

FOR THE GLORY OF THE ADMINISTRATION.

FOR THEE IMMORTAL POWER.

WE ARE NUMBA ONE.