In all his life, Guiche had never given anything too much thought. He left the impoverished, stifling village of his birth to go to the city, simply because he was talked into it on a whim by a bad friend. Once there, he was unable to find a decent job and applied to a mercenary band because he took their solicitations at face value. In the end, the mercenary band turned out to be nothing more than a group of glorified bandits, but rather than flee, he went with the flow and joined them in attacking merchants and travelers.
He found thinking to be annoying. Guiche had a vague inkling that such a notion was not a good opinion to hold, but he lacked the will to do anything about it. Naturally, his line of work didn’t last long, and the mercenary band was captured, their leader sent to the gallows. Guiche and the other underlings were sold off as slaves.
Guiche was taken to a mine alongside a great number of other slaves. The shafts were dark, narrow, and hot, and his fellow slaves died one after another from cave-ins or poisonous gas. He was convinced that he wouldn’t last long either, yet he did nothing.
Thinking was annoying. Even if there had been a way to escape, coming up with it and putting it into action would have been too much of a pain for him to bother. He only joined the revolt because it happened right before his eyes.
One night, Guiche was awoken by a commotion and found the overseers’ guardroom set ablaze. Corpses lay scattered about, and excited slaves armed with pickaxes, hammers, and stolen swords stood around them. From their conversations, he quickly learned that they had revolted. Guiche decided to go with them, and they stormed the slave owner’s manor, killing the fat, middle-aged man and his family before stealing all his wealth and setting his home on fire.
“Damn.” Guiche couldn’t help but mumble to himself as he watched the manor burn, grasping a pilfered gem tightly in his hand.
The slaves cheered, the enormity of what they had done finally sinking in. Their number had grown significantly. It seemed that the slaves working on the plantations had risen in revolt at the same time and joined up with them.
“We did it, everyone! We’re free now!” Guiche didn’t recognize the man who had brought the two groups together. He thought the man might have been a slave from the plantation, but looking back, he realized the man had already been there when they’d fled the mine. He must have been a fellow mine worker.
“Whatever.” Guiche didn’t give it any more thought. It was a pain, and more importantly, he didn’t really care.
After that, the slave revolt began attacking towns and villages. Attacking settlements was no simple feat—even small villages usually had numbers on their side. People would fight to the death to protect their livelihood. Wealthier villages had vigilante groups, and in towns, it was common to hire knight orders who doubled as patrols and guards. Only a limited number of settlements were susceptible to bandits. That was why they tended to target caravans.
However, it was a different story when it came to a force the size of the slave revolt. After seizing control of the mining and plantation town, the revolters’ numbers swelled to the extent that they could easily overrun a small town. After leaving their original location, they marched relentlessly in a single direction, claiming to be requisitioning supplies, but in truth, attacking every town and village along their path. Though the leader and his followers claimed it was in the name of justice, their actions were anything but.
Yet Guiche didn’t care.
“Heh heh. Damn,” Guiche muttered, unable to contain himself. He had cornered a village girl in a barn, a bloodstained knife in his hand.
He was watching something unbelievable unfold. He didn’t understand the man’s talk of freeing the slaves or abolishing the nobility, but he knew that he’d finally found excitement in his life that had been nothing but dull until now. Of that, Guiche was certain.
Every town and village they struck, they gathered up slaves and the downtrodden, drawing people whose circumstances mirrored their own into their ranks. At times, they would conscript people by force, but those people were treated as their personal servants and were sent in as the first wave when attacking a settlement. That made Guiche feel rather pleased.
Finally, the rebel army reached a fortress city. Though on the smaller side, it was still incomparably larger than all the towns and villages they’d attacked. Even with how much their numbers had grown, bringing down a walled city would be next to impossible—yet for some reason, the gates had been left open.
Passing through the unmanned gates, the rebel army silently advanced through the city. There wasn’t a person to be found. They eventually made it to the city center, where the rebel army came to a stop.
“Huh?” Guiche cried out in surprise as the clamor around him grew.
The city center was already filled with people. They didn’t appear to be residents of the city—it was a disorderly mob of people in ragged clothes, wielding swords, spears, sickles, and hoes. They seemed to be just as confused as the rebel army.
“Guess my job’s finally done.” A quiet murmur reached Guiche’s ears. The leader stepped forward from the mass of slaves. With a degree of refinement uncharacteristic of a slave, he called out to the rebel army. “Relax, everyone. They’re our allies. They’re followers of the Church of Sozo. Unable to endure their persecution in the southern lands, they rose up like us. They found the courage to strike down great evil, and continued their journey all the way here.”
Guiche had heard of the Church of Sozo before. As he recalled, it was some sketchy new religion that had grown popular among the poor. He had no desire to be lumped in with such people, but they had considerable numbers on their side as well. If either side were to make the first move, it would result in more than a minor skirmish. Guiche held his tongue, and the leader continued speaking with a wide smile.
“Let’s join up with them. We have the same goal, and together, we can accomplish more than ever.”
Guiche’s eyes went wide as a commotion broke out all around him. As the leader had said, if both groups united, they would become a force to be reckoned with. Forget towns and villages—they might be able to topple fortresses like the one they stood in. They would even be able to stand up to the feared imperial army. It might even be possible for them to occupy a large city and convert it to their own purposes.