His Soul is Marching On to Another World; or, the John Brown Isekai

[CabbagePreacher]

50th of Summer, 5859
City of Casamonu, Casamonu​

Time: sometimes it passes, sometimes it doesn't.

General relativity hadn't been invented yet however, so the men besieging Casamonu couldn't exactly explain why the temporal flow had been rushing so quickly. One day they had come to besiege the town, and it only felt like a moment that the walls were slowly crumbling down right in front of their eyes.

"Fire!" Two cannons roared once more, taking off what was left of the old walls of Casamonu. It didn't have much protection due to being an inland town, nor was Casamonu built to last in the age of cannon in the first place. First the stone bricks fell down, then the earth packed inside the brick flowed down after being unshackled from its stony cage. Slowly, as the earthen core of the wall flowed free, so did the stone bricks from other sections free themselves as a chain reaction occurred to create a cascade of earth. It brought down a few poor souls down on the walls with it as well, making for quite the gruesome and chaotic mix by the end.

Sir Baha had been standing idly next to the cannons as he watched them break the walls. He intended to give orders when, in great jubilee and lack of patience, the other noblemen ordered their men to attack through the breech. Since they had already done what he'd planned to order them to do, Sir Baha sufficed by standing safely at the back and watching the battle unfold. His trusty servant Ted brought him his trusty binoculars, which gave him a clear view.

The first to enter the breech were the forlorn hope: convicted criminals seeking forgiveness or adventurers looking for extra cash. It was easy to conscript desperate enough men, whether looking for their freedom or just plain dosh, to brave the charge and put themselves vis-à-vis with certain death. They climbed up the rubble of the collapsed wall, meeting way more than twelve angry men behind the ruins of the wall.

Those who still stood atop the intact parts of the wall began throwing boulders and boiling water down to their besiegers as they tried to enter the breech. Even a simple boulder from such a height would cause a man's skull to be cracked open like a quail's egg meeting a road roller on a Sunday afternoon. Some heads were cracked open, some heads were boiled al dente, and a couple men managed to make it to the other side and escape being made into a gruesome meal for the earth below.

Forlorn hope was forlorn for a reason however, for their next appointment was with the polearms of the men standing on the ground. The broken part of the wall led into a narrow street, in which there were already a few sentries from the garrison of the city. These sentries set forth to delay the besiegers, while not forgetting to send some of their comrades as messengers to warn the other members of the garrison to make their way to defend the breech.

Now the backstreets of Casamonu, ever familiar with petty fights, had become a proper battleground. The forlorn hope, despite being somewhat outnumbered due to coming in as a trickle from the breech, went on the offense. Unlike the garrison men with their pikes and halberds suitable for a defense, the forlorn hope carried longswords and small round shields meant for a quick offense before the pikes could fall into formation. Even if they fell into formation, these men would just duck under the pikes and try their best to earn their pay by poking the legs of their enemies.

The garrison consisted of the men of the city, conscription during times of siege was the duty of every man living in an urban area in most of Gemeinplatz, who hadn't gotten much chance to train in acting as a group during the brief siege. Still, they managed to instinctively band together quickly enough to erect a line of pikes wide enough to block the street. Their lack of experience was covered by the fact that their weapons made their formation into a huge porcupine that wasn't too pleasant to try and break through.

Still, the forlorn hope had to earn their pay somehow with what few officers had managed to make it through with them watching them closely. The strategy to break these formations was simple: ram the long polearms with their shields to break the balance of its wielder, duck under the giant porcupine whose eyes were chiefly focused on other attackers, and pray that they'd manage to slip through and slice a couple people before they were skewered. Thankfully the members of the garrison were unskilled, so they had a hard time counter-skewering the men traversing below their pikes who became tangled together in a big mess as everyone tried to murder everyone else. Men screamed as their tendons were slashed, others couldn't scream due to having their throats being blocked by foreign metal objects.

It was quite the bloody mess, a bloody mess which eventually resulted in the garrison tactically retreating when the walls around the city crumbled once more. The rest of Sir Baha's allies began pouring into the backstreet, being met by the members of the garrison gathering reinforcements to block the street. Sir Baha himself rode in to the scene on his horse, commanding his own little retinue with a little surprise in store for the wall of men blocking them.

"Allies, stand back!" commanded Sir Baha, and the allies in question withdrew away from the wall of enemies ready to meet them.

"Men, fire!" Instead of arrows or lead balls shooting out as expected from the command, Baha's men took out hand-sized bags which were full. The bags had very short matches attached to them, borrowed from the matchlock firearms of Sir Corvus' men, and these bags were about to meet their intended recipients.

These bags, relatively light and easy to throw, flew towards the members of the garrison who had crowded around the street. It took a good few seconds for these bags to do their thing but, even if many men of the garrison realized their up and coming fate, nobody could escape back through the tight streets before the bags went off with a loud boom. As the experts know however, it's not the explosion that kills you, it's the shrapnel. These bags had also been packed with the little lead balls (a.k.a. ammunition for the firearms) also looted from Corvus' men, and these lead balls now flew around with the fury of a thousand muskets firing in unison.

With a bang, the garrison blocking the road was no more, being replaced by a gruesome scene which needs no further description lest this novel be declared adults-only by the relevant authorities, neither would most readers be likely to enjoy the description of this scene if it was done properly. To spare you the need for eye bleach, the scene post-explosion could be explained thus: It was as if somebody had bought out the entire stock of cranberry in a supermarket and smashed it with a giant mallet, proceeding to spew the cranberry in a frantic fashion mixed in with entrails for some reason which is not clear to anyone but the hypothetical somebody. Mix that with a lot of Late Medieval armor and weaponry, and you may be able to imagine the scenery in a more advertiser-friendly manner.

With their enemies having been turned into cranberry paste, it was time to move on to the rest of Casamonu. The men exited the street, doing their best not to step on someone's entrails.

​

Time: sometimes it passes, sometimes it doesn't.

General relativity hadn't been invented yet however, so the men besieged in Casamonu couldn't exactly explain why the temporal flow had seemingly ground to a halt. Some blamed chronomancers, some blamed chronomancresses, but the truth was that siege warfare included lots of waiting. Waiting around to see if the walls would be breached today, waiting to see if the enemy would finally retreat, waiting to see if it was all finally over… The anxiety of it all had made time stop without any need for magic or sci-fi shenanigans.

Count Leon too had been feeling restless. A small pocket of black had appeared beneath his eyes. He would have lost his hair tearing it apart if not for the fact that he had no hair to lose. Baldness wasn't his biggest problem however; he only had to shave what little hair he had once in a while to have a fully shiny head that looked attractive enough.

Unfortunately for Leon, fugitives and revolting lords outside his precious walls couldn't be shaved away like his pesky hair. He really wished to forge himself a giant razor which could pluck out the rebellious blades of hair camping outside his walls. Perhaps the dwarves could forge something like that if they had not abandoned him. "Those pesky, hairy, no-good sons of cave shrooms…" The count would definitely stomp on the next dwarf that entered his sight. He'd like to stomp on all the dwarves if he could. He'd like to gather enough gunpowder to blow their mountain down to-

Knock, knock. "Sir, it's me, Hilmi." …knock knock! KNOCK-KNOCK!

Leon didn't exactly want to have a talk with his servant, but there was no other choice if he was to get any updates. "You may come in."

Hilmi bowed down to his lord… "Sir, I'll keep it short. A small battalion of enemy pigmen slaughtered all your guards on the walls. The palace guard has surrendered." …for one last time. "They wanted to have a servant come over to retrieve you."

"…wait." Leon was a bit too surprised to get angry right at that moment. "Wait, wait, wait a bloody minute, who did they surrender to?"

"The men of Sir Baha, sir." Hilmi opened the curtain in Leon's room, revealing a disorganized mob of men looting the grounds of the palace. "They entered so quickly that nobody here noticed them until they demanded that we open the gates of the castle."

This was it. Leon would normally not be too worried about a civilized army comprised of fellow noblemen capturing him. It was tradition to ransom high members of society at worst if they were captured in honorable combat. Of course, his visitors were here because he had tried to capture a nobleman, which was considered a "dick move" by many.

The count's chances were, "…not good." as said out loud by Count Leon himself.

 

[CabbagePreacher]

51st of Summer, 5859
Imperial Highway №04-763, Outskirts of Azdavay​

All roads lead to Rome, except for the roads that were built in realities in which Rome doesn't exist. Such was the case with the Imperial Highway, on which you couldn't roam to Rome.

Where you could roam to was every other city in Gemeinplatz however, and traders loved to roam to grease the wheels of the economy. One such group was making their way, loaded with a dozen donkeys and a dozen men who were mostly indifferent from donkeys. They were marching single-file to allow anyone else to pass them if need be, though they hadn't seen anyone else for a long while now.

"The roads really are deserted, aren't they?" said the caravan master, whose title as "master" was confirmed by the fact that he had a really fancy feather attached to his silk cap.

"It's all the fugitives, sir." replied a caravan guard marching behind his back. "Though, I'm guessing you have heard about them already…"

"I thought that the others at the Merchant's Guild were exaggerating to try and discourage me from making some good profit." Of course, such a shrewd caravan master was not to be tricked by such lowly tricks, or so he had thought. "Still, if these lands aren't visited by others, then that just means there isn't much competition."

"You're right, sir." The guard patted the sword which laid securely in his scabbard. "It's not like a bunch of savage fugitives can harm… our… caravan?"

"Hm? Is there something wrong?" The caravan master had taken his eyes off the road while chitting and chatting. He turned around to see a most unsightly sight, one which he couldn't believe was real. "A-Are yo-you seeing that?!"

"Y-yes, sir!" Swords were drawn as the caravan got ready to fight. Their spirits didn't last long though. "Ten, twenty, thirty… They just keep coming!"

"They" in question were a column of men marching in formation. Normally men marching in formation wouldn't be that much of a concern, the caravan was doing the exact same thing, but the nature of these men made the caravan master soil his fancy pants. "What are these darkskins doing?!" He had never in his life seen so many of them at once, not to mention so many of them armed and in a military formation.

Panic ran amok amongst the ranks of the caravan, though they didn't exactly have the tools to beat a fast retreat. Donkeys weren't quick on their own, neither they were quick when they were loaded with goods. All the caravan master could do was watch as the column of fugitives got closer, and pray that he was granted a quick death.

"Good morning to you." Instead, the caravan master was greeted by an old man greeting him from the front of the column. He seemed to be of the gentlemanly sort, far away from someone that the caravan master expected.

"Good… Good morning?"

"What a fine day, isn't it? Such a clear sky, thank the Lord, a perfect day to take a walk and witness Creation in all its glory." Such peaceful words came out a bit funny when it was said by someone who had an entire army behind his back. "Anyways, to get to the point…" The old man took a good look at the caravan loaded with goods. A few of the fugitives had already taken upon themselves to inspect the goods. They returned to report their findings to the old man. "Dried meat and fish? Grain? No slaves? Good, good, then I think we'll have a healthy business relationship. How about you sell us everything you have?"

"Huh?" The caravan master was shocked once more. "I thought you were going to rob me?"

"Rob? Oh, no, robbery is a sin." The old man procured a small bag of money from a petite catgirl next to him. "Things are about to get rough around these parts, so we'll be doing you a favor by bailing you out of these goods which you won't be able to sell otherwise."

The caravan master received the small bag, opening it and even chewing on the coins to confirm their legitimacy. He had been given money, far away from being enough to compensate for all he had lost, but enough to let him start doing business again once he got back. This didn't make him happy of course, but was he going to object to these hundreds of armed men? At least these bandits were merciful enough to not murder him outright.

Soon the fugitives had mounted the donkeys, seized their goods and let the caravan off with enough food to make it to their intended destination of Zon'guldac. As the two parties separated, the caravan master had one question:

Who the hell were these people?

51st of Summer, 5859
Casamonu, Castle Casamonu​

Sir Baha had a big problem on his hands: he had won. Victory, sweet as it was, wasn't the end, and it only led to bigger problems that he had to contend with.

For now, Count Baha was sitting in the office of the Count of Casamonu. He had been declared the legitimate ruler by the loose coalition of noblemen he led. Now he had to fight the biggest enemy he had ever encountered: his co-conspirators, who were sitting in the office with him.

They were all quite comfortable physically, the count had thankfully not shied away from comfortable lounging with puffy sofas and cloudlike pillows all around the room. Mentally, however, they were tense like the spine of a sixtysomething who had slept all night in a cave.

"The fugitives, they have stopped their raids." announced a baron who Baha had convinced to join with promises of plunder which had been fulfilled after the siege. "We, and none of my fellow lords in the area, have reported any plantation being burnt down by fugitives."

"…excuse me?" Baha was confused as to why such good news would be delivered with such a somber tone. "That is good news! Isn't it?"

"The thing is…" replied the man next to the baron, who was the mayor of some village who had donated troops to the anti-count campaign. "The matter is, it is certainly true that the fugitives have stopped for now. The problem is that the fugitives weren't the only one committing such activities. We caught a group of lightskins trying to set the slave barracks of a plantation on fire after having killed some of the overseers and looted the plantation of its valuables. They, before we executed them, admitted to deliberately following the methods of the fugitives in order to confuse is into thinking that their actions were done by fugitives."

Count Baha could only groan in response. "…great." The implications of this weren't good: who knows how many of these raids were done by fugitives and others by plain old bandits? Thinking about it, so many plantations being harmed by such a discrete and small group of fugitives was impossible… Had law and order broken down so much that people were daring to do such brazen acts? Not to mention, the count was deposed due to not being able to protect these petty lords… and I'm the count now! He had to do something. Anything. Anything would be better than no action, but what was he to do with a treasury which had been emptied from the siege and a lack of trade?

Sir Baha had saved his head once; Count Baha had to find a way to save his head on which a little bronze crown stood. It's not like he could negotiate with the fugitives to somehow stop all of this… could he? Baha shook his head. No, trying to negotiate with the fugitives would just be a death sentence. The other noblemen would rather see their plantations burn rather than willingly surrender their primary source of cheap labor. Baha would see his head fly the moment that the fugitives eventually returned; they would definitely return since nobody had yet to find and destroy them.

This is it, thought Baha. It's much better to live with dishonor than die with honor. He had secretly negotiated with fugitives, rebelled against his liege to escape the consequences, hadn't he already gone beyond the point of no return? What was to further stain his honor when his honor had already been stained pure black?

"We'll discuss these topics by gathering a council of lords tomorrow." replied Baha "I'll be listening too all of your concerns there and finding a solution. It shouldn't be too hard to deter some criminals." He looked at his visitors. They seemed convinced enough.

"Thank you, Your Excellency." Both of his visitors bowed down before leaving the room.

The brief taste of power that Baha had managed to taste was more than enough. Power was bitter, tasteless, only desired by those who were addicted to it. Baha would rather not perish in his futile pursuit for power.

When time marched on and tomorrow came, Baha was nowhere to be seen in Casamonu.

 

[CabbagePreacher]

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May their efforts to advance the cause of the John Brown Isekai be never forgotten.)​

---

52nd Summer, 5859
Azdavay, County of Casamonu​

Sir Doruk, the mayor of Azdavay had a simple job: keep the peace, keep communicating with the count and keep anyone from capturing the city. The first one had been easy enough after he had turned a blind eye to the populace lynching some slaves, and the third one was more than easy enough considering that Gemeinplatz was at peace.

The second one seemed to be a hard ask during these times however.

Doruk was having issues with tax records and other reports which needed to be filed and sent to the count a week or two ago (thankfully submission times were a bit flexible to account for the fact that communication wasn't instantaneous). None of his couriers had come back, neither had any follow-up messengers he had sent to ask the count what was up. Now his desk was swamped with unsent records, taxes, messages… The high-society ladies and gentleman who had elected Doruk wanted answers, and they wanted answers now.

It was as if Azdavay had a magical barrier erected around it, isolating it from the rest of the empire. The only major road connecting them to the rest of the empire was the Imperial Highway, and one arm of it went directly to Casamonu. The other arm went directly to Zon'guldac. Neither arm had any blood flowing through it. No visitors came in to visit, which of course made anyone anxious to leave lest they encounter whatever has been eating up everyone outside Azdavay. Thankfully there were farms nearby Azdavay, otherwise Doruk would be facing starvation along with a stagnating economy.

Maybe he needed a fresh breath of air. That was it. No need for worrying about anything else as long as he could get a whiff of air and feel himself refreshed. Doruk opened his curtains and opened his windows to take a look at the city which he controlled?

"…what?"

The mayor saw a whole lot of people outside.

Most of these people had dangerously high levels of melanin.

​

Old Brown had come a long way. From Connecticut, to Kansas and to Virginia, and finally to this strange land called Gemeinplatz. The last one was the most alien out of all, with an unfamiliar land filled with unfamiliar people practicing an unfamiliar culture. Yet, despite their unfamiliarity, the downtrodden of Gemeinplatz demanded one thing:

"Freedom or death!"

They had gotten death for a bit too long, so the time had come for a pinch of freedom. Entering the town itself hadn't been a hard task. In fact, it had been so easy that the narration hadn't gotten the time to catch up.

Azdavay was a minor town without a defense against any organized army. Protecting against more than a hundred armed men was way above the pay grade of the city's guards, so they had fired off a bolt or two before turning tail and disappearing. Such had also been true for the adventurers, who wouldn't take one swing without one shilling paid to them.

The freemen, now soldiers, couldn't believe their eyes. The Empire, the Leviathan which towered above them all, had retreated without much resistance. One could see much jubilee in the eyes of the freemen who were now marching on the streets and towards the center where the (soon-to-be former) mayor's mansion stood.

In contrast to the victorious and jubilant freemen, the people of the town were locked up in their homes. Those without homes had retreated into the backstreets, and there was a general confusion going on. Who were these strange men breaking into their city? Had some sort of apocalypse befallen them? Were they all experiencing some mass hysteria?

Unfortunately, for the nerves of the town people, what they were seeing was very much true. It was morning, the sun was rising, and Brown's men had made it to the town square. The mayor's mansion was quickly besieged, the guards in the mansion surrendered, and it was only a matter of time before somebody got the mayor.

Warfare, as quick as lightning, had been conducted without a casualty suffered. Despite that however, Brown and Tubman looked quite nervous. They had finished the easy part, the one which is (supposed to be) violent. The hard part had been softening the local authorities until such an operation was possible, by raiding their economy and weakening their unity.

The hardest times were yet to come, though that part hadn't been realized by most of the freemen who were drunk on victory. Soon, they'd have to begin reconstructing something out of the mess that they had caused in Azdavay.

To turn from a bunch of unknown fugitives in the mountains to some sort of legitimate government, without having the local populace overthrowing them the moment they left…

One of the freemen ran up to Brown. "Captain, we found the mayor in his office. They're bringing him over now."

…It'd be quite the hard task, to say the least.

​

Sir Doruk, the mayor of Azdavay had a simple job: keep the peace, keep communicating with the count and keep anyone from capturing the city. This story isn't about him however, for Doruk was no longer acting as mayor after having failed at all three of his assignments. Now somebody else occupied his seat: former maid café worker turned abolitionist catgirl wizard turned Captain Ayomide. She only physically occupied his former seat however, no one person had gotten the responsibilities of the mayor just yet. Brown and Tubman were also amongst those who occupied the former mayor's office, though they were sitting at the corner of the desk and discussing deep matters that didn't interest Ayomide at that moment. She didn't get why they were so worked up after having achieved victory. Hers was quite the cushiony seat, and Ayomide intended to sit there as long as she could without a worry in her head. Plus, the sweet irony of sitting where the head honcho of the town she had once been enslaved in made it all the better.

"Salutations, Her Imperial Majesty Lady-Mayor Orange!" Shinasi entered the room and saluted Ayomide. He immediately broke his salute as he broke out into laughter. Maybe it was the joy of victory, maybe it was because he had raided the mayor's cellar and done extensive taste-testing, but the young man seemed a whole lot giddier than usual. He found a seat on the mayor's desk, almost knocking over a huge stack of papers that sat on it.

Brown immediately withdrew the papers from Shinasi's general area, shooting an angry glance at his chemically inconvenienced comrade-in-arms. "Young man! These are the most important items in this here room, for the love of the Almighty, please do take care not to damage them!"

"These?" Shinasi didn't exactly find much excitement in papers, unless they were banknotes or cheques.

"Yes, these!" Brown shuffled the papers back into order and made a grand "thuck thuck!" while he straightened them on the table "These are what we need to achieve victory."

"Excuse me, but haven't we achieved victory already?" asked Ayomide. Occupying the mayor's soft seat sure felt like victory to her.

"'course not! Think bigger, Miss Ayomide!" interjected Tubman. She was as restless, if even more, than old Brown. "We're not here to grab a bunch of our brothers and sisters before making an escape like we usually do. With God by our side, we're here to stay, and for that we need to cut off the head of the snake. What better way to start than by checking the records of the mayor?"

"The records of the mayor? What was he recording?" Having never participated in the governing process, Ayomide was left in the dark.

"The people in this town. Number of adults in households, who is working and who is not, who owns what and who owns who for the sake of taxation… or so I assume, none of us can read these." The last part caused Tubman's mood to turn sour. "Our plan is to learn who owns slaves in this town, and strike them down before they have a chance to organize against us. Along with many other surprises that I and Brown have in store."

Brown nodded. "We need to act quick, however. I already ordered some men to block the gates of the town and forbid anyone from leaving, but that cannot last forever. Nobody yet knows why we are here and what we want from them, so it's better to get the gentlemen out of the way before they realize that we're coming for their heads. After that is a long process of getting the populace here to accept us…" The old man felt his head ache while thinking of that. "No matter, our focus now is to stabilize what we can immediately stabilize. With our Heavenly Father above, we'll deal with other issues as their turn comes. Anyone here have any suggestions for where we can find some literate people willing to read these for us?"

"Oh, I do! I do!" Shinasi screamed like an excited schoolchild. "Some of the bigger parties in the Adventurer's Guild have those smart literates to do their accounting and whatnot. If you pay them enough money they'd probably accept to read whatever for you.

"That… That is a good idea. I'm glad to see that your brain is still functional, young man." Brown clapped his hands and stood up. "Prepare to have a long night, ladies and gentlemen."

---

Here's a map of Gemeinplatz known by John Brown as of this episode according to a map he found in the mayor's office:



BTW, I released this early on my Patreon. If you'd like more brassican goodies, like up to twenty preview chapters, I'd be very happy if you could check out my Patreon!​

 

[CabbagePreacher]

A great many delusions have been swept away by this war. One was, that the Negro would not work; he has proved his ability to work. Another was, that the Negro would not fight; that he possessed only the most sheepish attributes of humanity; was a perfect lamb, or an "Uncle Tom;" disposed to take off his coat whenever required, fold his hands, and be whipped by anybody who wanted to whip him. But the war has proved that there is a great deal of human nature in the Negro.
- Frederick Douglass, What the Black Man Wants (1865)

53rd​ Summer, 5859
Azdavay, County of Casamonu​

Things were quite tense around in ye olde Adventurer's Guild. Understandably so: they had lots of unexpected guests in the town. Unfortunately, the adventurers hadn't had any times to prepare any meals for their guests due to the unexpected nature of their visit. Quite rude of them not to have anything ready for their guests, but I digress from the main point of the John Brown Isekai which is the Johning and Browning.

Moving on from the impromptu etiquette class, the guild itself was quite packed with people. So packed in fact that everyone was standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Most of this crowd weren't adventurers despite the name of the building clearly suggesting it should be full of adventurers; the common folk of the town had made a run for the building with the biggest concentration of armed people in the local area. There were a few priests from distributing food while a pair of babies were crying in some far away corner of the room. Some poor old git had been relegated to a corner due to having forgotten to put on their clothes during their panicked escape, while on another corner someone was trying to quickly sell their house on the cheap before the fugitives would surely burn it down. An odor, a waft of sweat mixed with a pinch of fear and soiled underpants, permeated throughout the room. Not the most pleasant environment to be in, but it seemed a whole lot more pleasant than having to deal with the "horde of savages" outside.

One person of relatively import was Shakira, the former adventuring comrade of Shinasi, who had found herself stuck on a table. Her position was quite rough: the table was quite the long one, and everybody who needed to rest their precious legs had occupied the space around her. She had put her head on the table. The cacophony in the room was quite unignorable, so she hadn't managed to travel into the realm of sleep despite desperately wanting to book a ticket there. There was one especially loud git in the room, possibly half-drunk or fully-drunk, who was standing on a table while preaching. His garb seemed to suggest he was some sort of preacher, with a humble robe and a white cap taking him one or two centimeters close to some sort of divine power.

"Hear ye, hear ye!" The preacher stomped his foot on the table to grab attention. His stomping noise dissolved like a droplet of water in a tsunami amongst the crowd of people. Still, he managed to get the attention of a few people including that of Shakira. "This is a sign, people! Have you not seen the moral degeneration of Gemeinplatz? Our lords are corrupt, our men lazy and our youth corrupt! With how far we have fallen from the days of the old empire, it is not a wonder that the Divine has sent these demons to punish us! The rise of the Demon King is near!"

One of the priests in a white robe shouted from nearby the preacher "I'd say that it is more likely that our punishment is for how we've treated the darkskins and forced them to be here in the first place!" This overtly humanistic comment caused many heads to turn around towards the man shouting such odd things. "Harmony shall only be achieved once we send all races back to where they belong: lightskins in Gemeinplatz and the darkskins back north to Ginye!" Having fulfilled his racism quota, the priest intended to go back to his job only to be interrupted by a new challenger arriving with new hot takes.

"So, you're saying that we should send Lord-knows how many people to a foreign land just to pretend that we rid ourselves of our sins? Aren't we all meant to be all equal under the gaze of the Divine?" This take came from someone who had no robes, but he had the glorious beard of a priest that made him eligible to take part in this discussion. "Why don't you ship yourself out to Ginye and let the darkskins stay in Gemeinplatz instead?"

The desktop preacher raised a point that seemed poignant to him and the others in the room "First off, it's debatable if the darkskins are even human-"

"They are human, but undeveloped. Like children." replied the priest.

"Alright, setting aside the potential humanity of the darkskins, Gemeinplatz belongs to us lightskins! The Divine put us here, rightfully so as our race is the only one mature enough to diligently enjoy the many bounties of this land, and you expect me to leave this place to the barren deserts of Ginye?" He looked at the audience for approval, which he got loads of heads nodding upon his gaze. By now the entirety of the Adventurer's Guild had tuned into the debate.

Amongst those who nodded in approval was the priest. "Yes, and that is why our races must be separate to prevent conflict and further oppression. We should send the darkskins back to their natural environment where they belong, lest we see more disasters akin to the one we have experienced today!" He had the crowd's approval as well, and the only one left without any approval was the plain-clothed man who was now served the angry gaze of the crowd. He was about to defend himself, only for his voice to be drowned out by a flurry of disapproving grunts and mild insults that gradually turned more violent.

The desktop preacher called out to the man with his booming voice "You, I wonder if you'll be able to spout that nonsense when these savages forcibly deflower our women, murder the men and burn the city to the ground! They know not of civilization, of faith and of love!"

Despite the crowd's booing and grumbling, the plain-clothed man managed to shout out his line "Don't we force the darkskins to serve our vices, don't we murder those who escape and don't we burn their cities to the ground in order to capture them? Tell me, in which way are we different from savages?"

The priest, standing somewhere in the center of the two, rebutted with the classic "Hard labor builds character for the darkskins which they naturally lack!" As the tensions in the crowd got hotter and a few angry folks began making their way towards the plain-clothed man, the priest slowly retreated towards the desktop preacher to distance himself. "We must send them back so that-" By now, discussion had broken down as a bolder member of the crowd grabbed the collar of the plain-clothed man. The savages were about to beat the poor man to death when they saw something even more concerning outside the window.

"The darkskins! They're here!"

"Hide the children!"

"Screw the children, hide yourselves!"

Some drew their weapons, some began praying, all were in a state of panic. A platoon of soldiers had surrounded the guild building from all sides. None in the building were brave enough to charge out there.

On the contrary to those inside, somebody on the outside was brave enough to enter. It was a semi-familiar figure to many, an unremarkable young man who had been a foreigner to Azdavay. Only Shakira could remember that his name was Shinasi. He had his hands raised up, and no arms were to be found on his body other than the ones which were made of flesh. "Goodness, this place is quite crowded…" The room was so quiet that one could hear a microscopic pin drop on a pillow. All eyes were on the man once thought to be unremarkable. "So, uhm, we've got a quest for you?" He took out a sack full of coins, shaking it around to let the room hear how full it was. "Ten libra! Ten libra for any literate people who are willing to help the… mayor." Having seen the crowd of people had disheartened Shinasi quite a bit. They'd probably have to do something about this, but he wasn't the ideas man except for ideas about wine-related infiltration tactics.

"Ten?" The desktop preacher's eyes opened up like an open wallet.

"Ten?" The priest's eyes too opened up like an open wallet.

The other man was unable to open his eyes in reaction to this information as he had escaped from the scene with his bones intact. The two that had been left behind slowly made their way through the crowd of people to meet with Shinasi. "So, what's with the darkskins outside?" asked the desktop preacher.

"Oh, them? Don't worry, they're friendly folk." Shinasi waved towards the back, and some of the soldiers waved back at him.

Taking a look at how well-armed the men outside looked, the desktop preacher and his comrade-in-debate decided not to question further. They were probably some slave soldiers or something recruited by some lord and, considering how the town hadn't burned down, it seemed that Azdavay was going to be spared.

"Let's go then." With that, Shinasi and co. were off to introduce these men of the cloth to the new sheriff in town.

 

[CabbagePreacher]

53rd​ of Summer, 5859
Rogers' Plantation, Outskirts of Casamonu / Azdavay​

Tensions were quite high everywhere in Casamonu, for reasons not as of yet related to the hostile takeover in Azdavay. Such high tensions called for becoming higher than the tension to escape it, which meant that business was going well for Sir Rogers' tobacco plantation. To meet this demand the already strict production quotas had been made even stricter, sleep time had been reduced from 6 hours to 4, and new slaves had been bought from nearby plantations that had gone bankrupt from the raids.

Sir Rogers himself had been saved from bankruptcy thanks to the sudden increase in the average level of stress in the region. He was having a whiff from his pipe; not from his own supply of course, he was a rich enough man that he could afford a mix of tobacco imported overseas and "poppies" imported from the North. This man of high status was reaching new highs as he burnt away his not-so-hard-earned cash in his pipe of dreams. Not that he had a shortage of money to burn; a man like him could convert all his money to banknotes, use the banknotes as toilet paper every day, and still live a comfortable life for the rest of his existence on the temporal realm. It was a life free of worry except for the times when his slave barracks happened to burn down. Other than that, Sir Rogers could kick up his heels and relax.

However, his relaxation was cut short by a worrying matter, that being that the plant matter in his pipe had all burnt up. No matter however, for Sir Rogers could call up some more. He rung a bell on his desk to call one of his servants. Then he rang it again. And again. One more time for good measure. Was he just so high that time seemed to be moving so slowly? A couple minutes had already passed by now and nobody had knocked on his door to help. Quite the odd thing for a man who had a couple servants serving him.

"Hello? Anyone?" Sir Rogers still had enough of his mind working to sense something was wrong. He struggled to get up his chair and wobbled to the nearby window, where he found the plantation to be devoid of any workers. It was morning, the prime time for work. He'd have to punish whoever had let the slaves laze around. Then he turned back, almost collapsed onto the floor as even this simple action of turning around was enough to overload his clouded mind, and waddled towards a door leading to a corridor. Waddle and waddle he did, for a very long time, until his jittery hands finally made contact with the doorknob. It clicked open, the door swung open, and Sir Rogers finally lost his balance and found himself on the floor when he tried to hold on to the accelerating door. The noise made by his body crashing on to the floor was great, so great that it prompted some footsteps to begin approaching him. He was ready to chew out whoever would come into his sights first, though that whoever turned out to be very unexpected.

"Is that him?" It was a bloke clad in a gambeson, carrying a spear, leading a group of half-naked slaves carrying agricultural tools.

"Hey! Where have you been all this time?" shouted Sir Rogers. He shook his fist around, furious and unserved. "Get me something to smoke, damn you!" His attempts at getting off the ground failed due to his lack of balance.

The slaves didn't seem to be too willing to oblige however, and they slowly approached their master instead. The guy in the gambeson opened his mouth to stop them, before taking a pause and changing his mind. "Eh, he's going to be executed anyways. Do what you want with him."

53rd​ of Summer, 5859
Azdavay, County of Casamonu​

The former mayor's office in Azdavay had turned into a jungle of paper-shifting quill-dancing bureaucracy overnight. A couple more of the well-read members of Azdavay had joined the mayor's office after the two men of the cloth upon hearing (thanks to Brown letting the preacher go back to the Adventurer's Guild to recruit more) the excellent pay offered by their new visitors, not to mention that getting on the good sides of their new "overlords" seemed to be a good deal for them. Brown had his own place at the table, with a large sheet of paper where he transcribed the mayor's records into Latin script.

"Lady Lily of Azdavay, two slaves. Lives in the 14th​ Street." shouted Vaiz, the only one in Brown's party who knew how to read and write thanks to having been educated as a clergyman.

"Sir Ford of Azdavay, one slave in his household. House is on Flower Street." declared the desktop preacher whom had taken quite a liking to the money now sitting comfortably in his pockets.

"Sir Rogers of Azdavay, seventeen slaves and three overseers employed in his plantation. Plantation is situated on the road to Casamonu." cried out one of the receptionists at the Adventurer's Guild.

"We just got Sir Rogers; you can cross him out." replied Ayomide from outside the room. She was out of breath due to having been running to-and-fro all day. "I haven't heard from anyone else in a while. I think we've almost gotten everyone who's in the records, well, anyone who has not escaped."

"Not that there should be too many high-society people, especially in a small town." To Brown, Azdavay felt like a small American village rather than something that deserved to be called a town. He wrote another line on the translated record before continuing "We aren't working on those records just to find the blue-blooded enslaver of men. Getting rid of them was just the first step of the plan."

"The first step? How many steps are there?" asked Ayomide standing under the doorframe.

"As many as we need, young lady. Only our Heavenly Father can predict the future."

You could have just said 'I don't know', thought Ayomide. No matter, she liked the part where she got to apprehend the high and noble men of the realm. Old John Brown was all about "not taking revenge" and "only fighting for what was right", but Ayomide wasn't. So were her comrades-in-arms.

Brown continued working on transcribing the records, his eyes focused only on the numbers upon numbers. He wasn't an accountant, far from it, but he wanted to have a general idea on how society in Gemeinplatz worked in the first place. A 19th​ century man like him only had a vague outline of pre-modern society through Shakespearean plays, semi-truthful biographies of the great men of the past and the fantastical accounts of the Bible. Perhaps it'd even be correct to say that his level of (or lack of) knowledge wasn't too far off from a 21st​ century person who only knows of the Medieval Ages through pop culture.

As for the numbers themselves, they were surprising. Brown had left the world before industrialization and mechanization got crazy, the old man hadn't lived to see commercially produced electric light bulbs, but even by the mid-19th​ century agricultural production had increased considerably and Brown himself was quite involved with agriculture considering he had lived on the frontier. Traction engines, threshing machines, artificial fertilizer… All the people of Gemeinplatz had were oxen, scythes and manure.

Most of the grain was consumed by the peasants themselves while the excess was taxed away (yields for cash crops was similarly low, though those yields had recently gotten exceptionally lower due to old John Brown). This low yield meant that there was little surplus for urban centers, which meant that the urban population in Gemeinplatz was quite low compared to what Brown was used to. In the case of Azdavay, it had more than ten thousand peasants on record (not all of them recorded individually, only as households to be taxed) for an urban population that barely surpassed a thousand.

This was a big, and unsurmountable problem for John Brown.

There was no way for him to get an agricultural revolution going without an industrial revolution, and getting an industrial revolution going was a bit tricky to say the least. It was certainly not Brown's expertise. Unless the Lord was to come down and reveal to him the secrets to constructing a usable steel engine with Medieval metallurgy, which wasn't a thing that God was known to do, then Brown had no luck getting that going (not to mention the fact that an industrial revolution takes more than just making steam engines). Lacking the common isekai protagonist powers of pulling inventions out of his breeches, Brown only had one option: try to reorganize the already existing agriculture as best as he could, make sure that the peasants were getting their fair share instead of being lorded over like slaves along with making sure that there were no slaves in the process.

The old man's head was already beginning to hurt thinking about all this; old John Brown hadn't actually gotten to the part where he had to administer territory. He was a rebel, an abolitionist, not a politician. He made up his mind to delegate all this business to someone he could trust as soon as possible.

For now, however, there was business that was way more immediate. Brown turned to Ayomide, who was still catching her breath under the doorframe. "Have we captured everybody we needed?"

"Mmh?" Ayomide jolted up from her half-asleep state. "Oh, the big men? We couldn't find some of them, they probably made a run for it, but we got most of them and freed their slaves. A bunch of the slaves agreed to come to Azdavay with us, but some of them wanted to stay in the plantations."

Brown was surprised by the brief report. "Stay?"

"Yeah, one of them told me that they want to keep working there. Something about 'this is all we've known in our lives; we'll keep this place ourselves and sell the crops'." Ayomide shrugged, making a few grumbles of disapproval. "Actually, now that the owners are going to be dead, who'll own the land?"

This simple question from Ayomide caused the entire room to pause and go silent. While the question seemed innocent enough at the surface, it was one which questioned Gemeinplatz society at its core. People loved to listen in when Brown ranted about the lords, but there was also the question of who would replace these lords. Lords didn't exist just for the sake of it: they were the owners and managers of the lands that the peasants and slaves worked on. If not them, who?

Brown and Tubman knew the answer, though both sufficed by looking at each other and nodding. They already had collected the data needed to redistribute all this land. "Young lady, be patient. First, we have to rid ourselves of these lords permanently."

 

[CabbagePreacher]

54th​ of Summer, 5859
Azdavay, County of Casamonu​

Another day had dawned in Azdavay. The effects of yesterday were still pretty apparent on the nervous faces of the populace. It wasn't easy to forget the fact that a bunch of slaves had marched in unison on these streets, and that fact was quite the nerve-racking one for many. Nobody had any idea yet as to what their new occupiers wanted, most had though that they'd all have been slaughtered by a band of angry fugitives by now.

Despite their many worries however, the town was perfectly intact and most were alive except for a few upper-ups who had disappeared (though most people didn't personally know their former overlords in the first place). The fugitive soldiers had mostly kept themselves to the mayor's mansion and town hall only occasionally being seen bringing newly freed slaves in. Nobody really knew, outside of wild guesses, what this slave revolt was planning on doing.

And so, still being alive and needing some guidance of a spiritual nature, the temple was packed full by people. Not that it was empty by any measure on any other day, but today was another level of crammed. Not a particle oxygen was to be found in the temple, the air being filled by the smell of the common man (which was not a pleasant smell in any way, shape, or form). They were sat on the ground, waiting for the priest to arrive. He eventually did, along with a couple more flanking him; that was unusual as normally one priest was to attend noon prayer.

At the front of this congregation of priests was Vaiz, who had mostly been busy attending to the fugitives of Libertycave and going through records until now. Now was his time to finally shine. He cleared his throat, and allowed the temple to come to complete silence. And then he allowed the silence to continue on for a while longer. Vaiz was gauging his audience while piquing their curiosity as to what he was about to say with the delay. It was quite easy for him to see the mixture of fear and curiosity on people's faces. He himself found it hard to hide how stressed he was. A man of the cloth like him could have easily led an easy life and not get himself into this mess. A slave uprising was the last thing he should be the public face of rationally speaking. However… "Ahem, dear Believers. If I may have your attention!"

Vaiz suddenly shouting caused some to jolt up. The silence was broken, and now was time to pay full attention to the man at the altar. "If I may have your attention! Attention to the fact that we are missing many from our congregation!" He paused to let murmurs pass among the flock. Who was missing? The whole town had practically packed themselves in. "Behold, your siblings!"

Minor chaos ensued when these siblings walked into the room, and somebody in the flock shouted out "Darkskins!"

Vaiz had finally found a suitable place for his congregation, and he wasn't giving them up. He banged on the altar multiple times to calm people down. The members of the congregation already in the room instinctively retreated away from the newcomers as they entered. However, they couldn't fully segregate themselves due to how full the room was. Despite objections, the free people of the town came shoulder-to-shoulder with the fugitives. Vaiz began speaking once his congregation had settled into an uncomfortable status-quo. "Behold your siblings whom you have done your best to ignore for so long! Behold them, they who are equal members of creation as you are! Behold them, they who are equally as blessed by the Divine! Behold them, they who have all the right to stand-" Vaiz crouched down as a shoe speeded towards him. He raised his head up, only to meet another volley of shoes. The congregation clearly weren't satisfied with what he was preaching. He was besieged behind the altar until the angry congregation ran out of their limited supply of shoes.

Thankfully the altar had proved shoe-resistant. Vaiz popped his head up again, meeting eye-to-eye with his congregation. Their frustrations seemed to have been vented for now. He let out a very quiet, almost inaudible groan; it wasn't going to be easy to lecture these people. "I get that you are upset at having to stand right next to the ones that you deem to be savages. However, I ask you: who right now is defiling such a hallow place and hour by throwing shoes at a priest?" Vaiz leaned on the altar and towards the congregation, suddenly heightening the volume of his voice. "If there was anyone who needs to leave, then it is those uncivilized savages who have thrown the shoes!" He saw heads turn away from him when he directly looked at members of the audience. "Now, the Divine instructs us to be kind and patient, especially to those who need education. I pray that you have learned your lesson." He relaxed his posture and stopped leaning on the altar. Time had come for prayer, now that his lecture was finished.

​

The red sun in the sky was at its zenith, frying the congregation as they headed out the temple. Those who had failed to recover, or were too embarrassed to recover, their shoes amongst the pile were even unluckier; their bare feet burnt in contact with the scorching road below. It was as if they were receiving a small taste of hell. However, the scorching ground was about to be the least of their concerns when they saw the next attraction that Brown and co. had planned for today.

"Ayomide, be a bit gentle, won't you? We're supposed to keep these prisoners alive for only a moment longer." Shinasi was standing guard next to a tall oak tree which stood in a garden next to the temple along with everyone else from Libertycave. He and their noble prisoners were surrounded by men of the League of Gileadites supported by newly-hired adventurers to plug gaps. The irony of adventurers protecting them and standing in formation with former slaves wasn't lost to the freemen or the adventurers, but the adventurers were paid enough not to complain. Having prisoners scream for dear life toward their backs did make this job quite annoying however.

John Brown too was with Shinasi, though he was more occupied with dragging in a box towards the middle of this barricade. Not that he was going to give a speech himself, no. He wasn't suitable for what they were planning, for Brown didn't look too far from the common man of Gemeinplatz despite being an otherworlder. They needed an otherworlder who was sufficiently foreign-looking to them, and an otherworlder who had gathered experience in acting after having worked an office job for several years. As Brown put the box in a suitable place for the people of Azdavay to see him, that person took his stage on top of the box.

"Ahem, err… Konnichiwa, people of Azdavay!" The one who took on the challenge of climbing the box was the errant otherworlder Brown had chanced upon in a dungeon. "I am Watanabe Haruhi, yoroshiku onegaishimasu."

The sounds of a language from the mythical lands of Örf immediately caught the attention of people of Azdavay. This mixing of languages was deliberate, otherwise Watanabe knew well enough that the Japanese language made no sense to the people in Gemeinplatz. He had been extensively trained by Vaiz beforehand, who had gotten the idea to have Watanabe on stage in the first place. The young man was decked out with a suitably impressive outfit scrounged together from the possessions of various noblemen: a golden tiara, an impressive set of steel armor and a deep blue tabard trimmed in gold.

"Nanika nantoka kantoka, I have come here to warn Azdavay and the rest of Gemeinplatz of a great threat!" Watanabe had to keep himself from breaking down in laughter after seeing people be so willing to listen to his gibberish. He had to stop himself at releasing a few snickers that went unnoticed amongst the chaos of the crowd.

"On Örf I was a techno-wizard, and through my devices I saw that one world in particular was in danger, that being Gemeinplatz. The elders of Nehoun then elected me to be sent as a Hero to assist you!" The crowd was dead silent upon being warned once more. "This realm, Gemeinplatz, has been beset upon by the agents of the Demon King! You have just witnessed one of his machinations when he made you attack men of the cloth through his dark influence. Yes, his influence is so great that he'll make you go fight against the word of the Divine!"

Meanwhile, in the background, the captured slaveowners were having nooses tied around their necks by former slaves. Brown had ideally wanted to conduct a trial for them and whatnot, but he wasn't going to wait around even for a show trial. These slaveowners had committed many crimes. They had stolen the freedom of men, they had stolen the labor of peasants… Theft, of such a large scale, was a capital offense in most of Gemeinplatz; Brown was only making sure that the law applied to everyone, using a language that was understandable to the people of Gemeinplatz.

"So, from today onwards, we shall fight against the legions of the Demon King! Those behind me, they have served him by separating you from your siblings; we must unite as one to stand against the Empire controlled by the Demon King! If you think of your siblings here as demons, and as lowly slaves, then that is nothing but lies told by the servants of the Demon King looking to weaken us!" By now, Watanabe had gotten into his role. He was making grand gestures with his hands, he was shouting, he had gotten into the role of a hero as he had practiced. "Join me, the Hero, and fight against the demons who have oppressed you for so long!" The crowd was in an uproar. Whether they agreed or disagreed, they had been agitated.

As the crowd shouted, the slaveowners, those "servants of the demons", were brought closer to the tree. Soon they'd no longer live in Gemeinplatz.

 

[CabbagePreacher]

54th​ of Summer, 5859
Azdavay, County of Casamonu​

"Phew, that was really bloody tiring." Watanabe sat on a sofa in the office of the former mayor. He quickly threw away the "chestplate" (a round metal plate next to his heart secured there by some leather straps) which had heated up greatly under the sun such that he felt like there was a hot cooking pan strapped on his chest. The "chestplate" clanged loudly as it was set aside; it seemed especially loud as the room was empty aside from famous radical abolitionist and soap manufacturer John Brown.

Brown jolted up from hearing the loud noise. He took a deep sigh of relief upon realizing that there was no immediate threat to his life. "Young man, please do be careful with causing a disturbance." Watanabe bowed down in apology and muttered a "sorry" in English. Brown switched to speaking in English upon hearing his mother tongue. "Every Oriental I've come across seems to know the English language."

Watanabe continued conversing in English as well. Despite somehow knowing the language of Gemeinplatz near perfectly, it still felt unnatural for him to use. The same was true for Brown. Perfectly speaking a language that should be perfectly alien to them felt odd, Watanabe likened this feeling to having his brain preprogrammed to make a perfect recreation of a classical painting without having any training in art. That was about the closest he could get with his lackluster understanding of literature (outside of isekai) and metaphors. "Hmm? Almost everyone on Earth knows English. I've seen it since the first year of elementary school. I imagine it's similar for everyone else you've met." Even English, a language he used mostly to browse online, felt more natural to speak. Watanabe had an odd way of speaking, with a passable Cockney accent (thanks to his high school English teacher being an immigrant from London) that sometimes revealed uniquely Japanese restrictions in its phonotactics.

"How interesting. How interesting…" Brown nodded a few times before returning to scribbling on a piece of paper he had on the desk.

"What are you writing, captain?" asked Watanabe, who had nothing better to do at the moment.

"A provisional constitution. I didn't have time to prepare any due to lacking writing supplies back in Libertycave." replied Brown casually, as if the act of preparing a constitution was as mundane as taking a walk in the morning. "Right now this town is in a lawless state, nor do we have any legitimacy to rule in the eyes of the people, and we have already had more than a few instances of people committing arson and theft. Apparently the mayor would hear such cases, along with collecting taxes and levies and…" The old man felt his head ache thinking about all this again. "For now, I plan on letting the old system of having an elected mayor and town hall continue as is with an extended franchise."

"Uh… 'Franchise'?" To Watanabe, that word was something related to business and not voting.

"Suffrage, the right to vote, it all means the same thing. Ideally we'll have universal suffrage, along with a congress, a supreme court, and a president." These were all things that Brown and his company bac in the United States had planned for, so he was mostly going off of the Provisional Constitution he had written back then.

The basics weren't making Brown's head ache, he was rather worrying about the fact that he was dealing with a completely different political situation. Back in the United States, he had planned for his uprising to be provisional, something to be ended once the federal government banned slavery. Thus the Provisional Constitution was fit for a group of fugitives hiding and fighting in the Appalachian Mountains, a group not intending to build a state.

However, as he had thought of many times before, Gemeinplatz was a completely different beast. Brown didn't want to get a feudal monarchy to end chattel slavery and be done with it. That just wouldn't be right, to let there be lords other than the Lord, which was why Brown had switched his strategy and taken a town rather than staying up in Mount Curry. The seemingly obvious answer was to bring democracy to Gemeinplatz, but that came with major problems. First was the fact that the slaves were a minority compared to the rest of Gemeinplatz, which meant that they'd easily get outvoted if anyone decided on re-enslaving them, not to mention rolling back anything resembling racial equality. Second was the fact that Gemeinplatz lacked the infrastructure for democracy in the first place. Just saying "vote for someone!" wasn't going to work out if there was nothing to stop fraud, bribery, cheating… Both issues needed a transitionary period to fix, which was why Brown was making what was only to be a provisional constitution. As for what was in it, "Be patient, young man. You'll hear of its contents soon enough."

"Alright, captain." Watanabe himself felt sleepy. He wasn't a public speaker, having had to practice for weeks on the speech he gave beforehand, and standing in front of a crowd to play the role of a hero had tired him. He sunk into the sofa, and closed his eyes…

​

Shinasi was making rounds around Azdavay, doing his duty as a watchman once more. The palisades comprising the town's defensive walls were much easier to navigate compared to the mountainous terrain of Mount Curry, and Shinasi had made 23 (or 24, he had likely lost count of it at some point) full trips around the raised platform behind the palisades.

He occasionally passed by the solders of the League of Gileadites who saluted him every time he passed. Not that he outranked them, there still wasn't actually a formal military ranking system other than Brown and Ayomide being "captain" and Tubman being "general", but he had gathered respect due to his help in the slave uprising at Azdavay. Not that he had done that much with his last-minute help back then, but his veterancy had led to positive rumors about him popping up. "Captain Shinasi" was equally a captain as his counterparts by this point.

Other than the occasional town resident coming to protest them with insults, which Brown had explicitly instructed everyone in the League of Gileadites not to enact unjust punishment against the common people much to the mild annoyance of the soldiery, things were peaceful for now. Anyone who had the power to stop them also dabbled in slavery, which had meant that everyone who had the power to stop them had been hanged yesterday. Shinasi was curious as to what Brown and Tubman were planning on doing next, surely they were not intending to stay idle in this town, but Brown loved to only divulge details of his plans at the last moment only to those who really needed to know said details, and Tubman respected that enough not to leak much.

Shinasi was about to complete his 24th​ (or 26th​?) round around the palisades when he stopped next to a gate upon seeing a group approaching. They were clearly not enemy soldiers considering they had children with them, nor did most of them carry weapons. Rather it was a caravan of people in a rather sorry state, with dirty clothes and tired eyes, who clearly had come travelling here in a rush. There were clearly some nobles among them along with their slaves, but they were all in various states of tired.

"Who are you?" called out Shinasi from his high position.

A well-dressed bloke came forward to reply to Shinasi. "We're refugees from Casamonu! Please let us in, good sir!" His plea was echoed by many in the group with similar words.

Shinasi remembered something about there being a siege in Casamonu; it made sense that there would be refugees after whatever had happened there. There seemed to be no problem letting them in for now. "Let them in." he said to a pair of soldiers standing next to the gate. They obliged and opened the door, much to the surprise of the refugees who saw the skin color of the gate's guards.

"H-huh… Since when did they allow darkskins to be guards?" muttered one befuddled refugee who was the well-dressed bloke from before. "I need to see your manager, this isn't good for the security of the town!" he complained to Shinasi.

"Oh, them?" Shinasi looked at his comrades-in-arms standing beside him, then he looked at the chained slaves in the caravan and had an idea. "Don't worry, the mayor needed to cut some costs. It's a temporary thing. As for your darkskins, could they line up next to their owners? The mayor has a new system to better compensate anyone whose slave escapes, so we need to register them to their owners, otherwise we cannot let you in. The rest of you can go in."

Desperate and with no other choice, the nobles lined up next to their slaves while the commoners proceeded into the town. After making sure there was no one around, Shinasi talked to the nobles once more. "So, you're all slaveowners? Glad that we got that out of the way. All your slaves are now free, and you're all under arrest for theft."

 

[CabbagePreacher]

54th​ of Summer, 5859
Adventurer's Guild building of Azdavay, Azdavay​

A cramped room, a floor dirtied with unspeakable substances, and a mass of unwashed, rowdy folk. Those would be the words that'd describe the adventurers of Azdavay, and the situation inside the guild had only gotten only worse with the influx of newcomers. Those without the means had made their way into the temple, while those who could afford it had lodged themselves into the guild. Not that there were many lodgings left to go around – some were paying money for the right to sleep on the tables (thankfully there were enough tablecloths to not start a backache pandemic in Azdavay).

Shakira, former adventuring companion of Shinasi and veteran of the failed attack on the copper mine, was still staying in Azdavay. Going out the city for a quest was impossible, not with all the patrols on the walls, and she was surviving on her ever-dwindling pay she had received for her service. Her simple lodgings on the upper floor had been downgraded to a third-class table spot, and her booze was getting more and more watered down. With the way things were going, she'd have to reserve herself a spot on the floor of the temple for sleeping. No quests meant to money for Shakira to escape from this situation. Nothing to do, in a state of certain doom...

Growl...

…and she was very hungry. Ordering food here was impossible with all the people around, not to mention the expense. She'd have to head out in search for some, though heading out proved to be a challenge by in itself. Shakira jumped on the table, carefully maneuvered around a sleeping man and his extended family who had lodged themselves on the table, and then she squeezed through the crowd to make it to fresh air outside. From there it was a short walk to the temple, where there would usually be a soup kitchen open. Shakira saw the usual set up in front of the temple: a giant metal pot, inscribed with blessings from various priests over centuries, heated over an open fire to make some variety of gruel. "Nourish thine fellow believer" and all that as commanded by the Divine, a command oft ignored by anyone other than a handful of welldoers.

There was one oddity about the soup kitchen today, though it wasn't odd enough to stop Shakira from getting her own fill and sitting on the street along with the other poor folk. "Why are there darkskins working here?" asked a stranger who had chanced next to Shakira. "Does the temple of this town employ slaves?"

The stranger was just asking a rhetorical question, not one that she expected to get an answer to, but Shakira had the answer. "The temple didn't have slaves, and they'd all be dead now if they had it. Are you from around here?"

"No, we just arrived from Casamonu. I'm Azra, by the way. You are?"

"Shakira of Yellowclover, I've been to Casamonu a few times. How's it going there?" Small chat was the way forward in Gemeinplatz, as there was a lack of newspapers or other means to gather information about distant lands. Hence any travelers would be bombarded with questions by any curious folk like Shakira.

"It's terrible, I tell you." Azra took a sip from her bowl of gruel as if she was sipping tea. The gruel wasn't too far off from what she had been eating on the road for a few days, and she had gotten used to its taste. "There was a siege, you probably heard of that through the grapevine, but then the new count apparently completely disappeared. All the noblemen he left behind began fighting with each other for the county. The city was in anarchy by the time I managed to gather enough odds and ends to wing it out the city."

"Bloody hell!" exclaimed Shakira. Everything seemed to be falling apart recently.

"So, what's with the darkskins?" asked Azra once more. She was eyeing them nervously. "They separated the slaveowners in our caravan once we entered. Something about registering the slaves."

"Oh, I don't think you're going to be seeing those poor slaveowners ever again." replied Shakira. Azra looked shocked as she expected, but she didn't look horrified at the prospect. She was more in disbelief rather than anything. "I was as surprised as you are. A bunch of fugitives entered the town and deposed the mayor, and then they hanged everyone who owned slaves."

Azra looked around her, examining the town once more. She slowly took a sip filled with disbelief. "Just the slaveowners?" It was as if the existence of the town was surprising to her.

"Yeah, everyone's got their gussets in a twist, but nobody else has been harmed." Saying this out loud, Shakira realized how odd this statement was as well. Azdavay had been in an apocalyptic mood just a few days ago, but now they were doing just fine. "There was this Hero who declared that the Demon King was coming and that he was uniting the land for a final fight or something." Still, self-declared heroes were about as common as self-declared messiahs, so Shakira wasn't about to get excited over some otherworlder in fancy armor.

"A Hero?!" Azra almost spilled her bowl of gruel. "Is that true?"

"M-maybe? Possibly?" Shakira shrugged. She didn't want to shatter the hopes of this young girl. "Go ask the priests, I'm not the authority on this."

"The rest of my family is still stuck in Casamonu, do you think the Hero could save them?"

"Again, ask the priests for Divine's sake. Or just ask the Hero directly, I don't know." Shakira hadn't been the most attentive in the temple lectures regarding their messianic hero archetype.

"I will!" Azra gulped down the rest of the gruel, shoving the empty bowl in the hand of some local priest before making her way to… somewhere. Shakira was unsure where she was considering that Azra probably didn't know where this "Hero" was. She mumbled something about "today's youth" before proceeding to finish her own bowl.

54th​ of Summer, 5859
(Former) Mayor's Office of Azdavay, Azdavay (Azdavay)​

Only a bit of time had passed since Watanabe had closed his eyes. Waking up, he saw Brown and Tubman slouched over a map on the mayor's grand desk. They were having some sort of discussion that was going way above Watanabe's head, so he decided to ignore them and relax on the sofa without a care in the world. Due to the nature of rebellion and whatnot they'd surely have something to worry about in the future, so why not relax now when there was no trouble?

Knock, knock!

Whoever had knocked on the door, it was probably something that concerned Brown or Tubman. He got even more comfortable on the sofa, sinking himself in further. Shinasi opened the door, excusing himself in. "There's some girl asking to meet the Hero. What do I do with her?"

"Me?" Watanabe lazily moved his head to look at Shinasi. "Why would anyone want to meet me?"

"You're supposed to be our front for convincing the common people of Gemeinplatz, Watanabe. Of course you'll be seeing them!" replied John Brown. "Young man, get on your costume and go meet her as long as she isn't, God forbid, some assassin."

"She's already on the other side of the door, captain." Shinasi was pushed aside to make way for Azra. She immediately spotted the otherworlder in the room, who was a man slouched on the couch like an empty sack of potatoes. Watanabe quickly got up and combed his hair with his bare hands to look a modicum of presentable.

"Sir Hero!" She gave the "hero" a military salute. "I have come to petition you and give you a quest!"

"I'm glad to listen to a charming lady like you." Watanabe debated whether he should kiss her hand or something to complete the hero act, but he shied away. Even shaking hands seemed too intimate an act for a man used to greeting people by bowing. "What malady has befallen you, milady?" Old Brown covered his face in shame upon hearing someone use the word "milady" unironically. That word was, to him, only to be found in Shakespearean place and nothing more, and it seemed a bit "cringe" as one late Jacob would describe it.

"My family is stuck in Casamonu, where anarchy reigns supreme after the count disappeared!" Brown and Tubman suddenly got a whole lot more interested upon hearing of regional instability in their local area. "Please, o' Hero, lead your armies and save the poor people of my town!"

Watanabe was unsure as to what he wanted to do. They had just taken a town, and he wasn't sure whether the League of Gileadites was ready to go on the offensive once more. He couldn't ask it directly due to the girl being right next to him, so he turned his gaze to Brown and Tubman for affirmation. Brown wasn't giving a thumbs-up, due to the thumbs-up not being popularized until after he had passed away, but he was giving an OK sign which Watanabe understood.

"Don't worry milady, we'll be marching our armies to save the people of Casamonu!"

 

[CabbagePreacher]

55th​ of Summer, 5859
(Former) Mayor's Dining Room of Azdavay, Azdavay (Azdavay)​

Every politician needs to entertain their guests, and the late mayor of Azdavay was no exception. His dining room was quite a sight to behold, with a wide open space only occupied by a grand table that certainly had cost quite a lot of money. Illuminating the room would be a chandelier if not for the fact that the new occupants of this dining room didn't know how to operate it. The former mayor would have probably died from shock instead of asphyxiation if he had seen his dining room be filled with fugitives. There was no fancy food unfortunately, save for some choosing to eat some flatbread and hardtack while listening in, but the room contained someone much more attention-grabbing than fancy dining.

"I'm glad to have you fine folk here." Brown had found himself at a spot in the corner of the room, which had prompted the people inside the room to scoot the chairs towards his direction. The fine mahogany floors of the dining room had been ruined by all this scooting, but there was nobody around who cared about that.

Brown took a look at the crowd around him before he continued speaking. There certainly was a whole lot more people. Libertycave already had a population of more than two-hundred before they left; now some of the liberated slaves around Azdavay had joined up to swell their ranks to a thousand. The rest of the liberated slaves had either decided to take ownership of the now ownerless plantations or stay away from the military side of liberation, which them not wanting to take a risk just after getting their liberty was understandable. Still, this was a far cry from the days of yore when they were nothing but a dozen strangers escaping from Azdavay.

"We have made it far, thank the Lord for having protected us in our arduous journey. But let us not rest or idle! While celebrations have been in order, Azdavay is just the beginning of the beginning. I know not how many still toil in the fields and mines of this realm, but there are many of your brothers and sisters that await you. We must not stop here; we shall not stop here. You might have heard rumors of strife in Casamonu, and let me tell you that those rumors are true. We have been graciously spared only by the lords fighting amongst themselves. The moment they stop fighting will the moment that they come together to snuff out our spark of rebellion."

The thought of their rebellion being snuffed out caused quite the commotion, especially amongst the new members, who definitely didn't want to go back to their old form of employment. The older members had heard similar thoughts and speeches from Brown already, but the thought still terrified them.

Brown waited for the crowd to calm down before speaking once more. "Our enemies are currently disorganized. Yet, I'll be honest, we are similarly disorganized to them. The 'League of Gileadites' is currently a concept that amounts to nothing but a vague notion of us being grouped together. This was more than enough to enter Azdavay, but will it be enough to break through the walls of Casamonu? What about all the other cities of Gemeinplatz?" He took out a particularly large roll of paper from under his coat and unfurled it. "Therefore, after long deliberation with General Tubman, we have drafted this constitution for the League of Gileadites as a starting place." The paper was quite long, with it written in Latin script on one side and the local Gemeinplatz script on the other. It was so long in fact that Tubman was holding it on the other hand to keep it straight, not that anyone in the room could read it in the first place. "With your approval, it shall come into effect."

Being the only person literate in Latin script, Brown was left with the task of reading the constitution out loud. "We, as members of the League of Gileadites, hereby declare that Gemeinplatz belongs to all those living in it, and that the people of Gemeinplatz have been robbed of their birthright of liberty and equality. Therefore, we have united together in this League and adopted this Provisional Constitution to protect our inalienable rights for the time being."

Article I: All persons who of mature age, and their dependents, who agree to uphold and enforce the provisional constitution shall be accepted into the League.

Article II: Decision-making shall be done through a Council, which shall be composed of a majority of the adult members of the League and gather regularly for voting. The Council has the right to make ordinances for the general good as long as it doesn't go against the constitution.

Article III: The Council shall elect, through a majority vote, a President whom shall faithfully execute the decisions made by the council, and a Commander-in-Chief who shall lead the League in all military affairs. They shall hold office for three years unless the Council elects to remove them through a majority vote.

Article IV: The President, with the Commander-in-Chief; shall, immediately upon entering on the duties of their office, give special attention to secure from amongst their own people, men of integrity, intelligence, and good business habits and capacity, and, above an, of first-rate moral character and influence, to act as civil officers of every description and grade, as well as teachers, priests, physicians, surgeons, mechanics, agents of every description, clerks, and messengers.

Article V: It shall be the duty of the President and Commander-in-Chief to find out (as soon as possible) the real friends as well as enemies of the League in every part of the country; to secure among them innkeepers, messengers, adventurers, otherworlders, and agents, through whom may be obtained correct and regular information constantly; recruits for the service, places of deposit and sale, together with all needed supplies; and it shall be matter of special regard to secure such facilities throughout Gemeinplatz.

Article VI: It shall be the duty of all officers of the League to name candidates of merit, for office or elevation to the Commander-in-Chief who shall be the appointing power of the army; and all commissions of military officers shall bear the signatures of the Commander in-Chief.

Article VII: All money, jewelry or other articles captured by honorable warfare, found, taken, or confiscated, belonging to the enemy, shall be held sacred to constitute a safety fund; and any person who shall improperly retain, dispose of, hide, use, or destroy such money or other article above named, contrary to the provisions and spirit of this article, shall be deemed guilty of theft, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished accordingly.

Article VIII: No person, after having surrendered himself or herself a prisoner, and who shall properly demean himself or herself as such, to any officer or private connected with this organization, shall afterward be put to death, or be subject to any corporeal punishment, without first having had the benefit of a fair and impartial trial; nor shall any prisoner be treated with any kind of cruelty, disrespect, insult, or needless severity; but it shall be the duty of all persons, male and female, connected herewith, at all times and under all circumstances, to treat all such prisoners with every degree of respect and kindness that the nature of the circumstances will admit of, and to insist on a like course of conduct from all others.

Article IX: No two of the offices specially provided for by this instrument shall be filled by the same person at the same time.

Article X: Every officer, civil or military, connected with the League shall, before entering upon the duties of his office, make solemn oath or affirmation to abide by and support this provisional constitution and these ordinances; also every citizen and soldier, before being fully recognized as such, shall do the same.

…

The president of this convention shall convene, immediately on the adoption of this instrument, a convention of all such persons as shall have given their adherence to the constitution, who shall proceed to fill, by election, all offices specially named in said constitution, the president of this convention presiding, and issuing commissions to such officers elect; all such officers being thereafter elected in the manner provided in the body of this instrument.

It took a while for Brown read all the articles. Thankfully, he had brought a big cup of water to sip when his old throat got hoarse. There were a few more minor articles, mostly minor ones delineating some separation of powers and secretaries and ministers, but Brown quickly skipped over those as to not tire out the already tired audience in the room. Their attention was grabbed once more when Brown asked the most important question of the day: "So, you have heard of the constitution. Before we move on to the voting, does anyone have any questions or proposed amendments?"

One hand was raised, that hand belonging to Watanabe. "Captain, I thought that this was supposed to be a constitution for the League. But, it sounds more like the constitution of a country."

Brown couldn't help but smile at the question. "Of course, that is exactly what we are achieving here. Ladies and gentlemen, all of you here, you are witnessing the birth of a new country in Gemeinplatz, no matter what its final name will take after this provisional constitution is amended."

This caused a storm throughout the previously disinterested audience. All of them had the vague feeling that they needed to replace the Empire of Gemeinplatz with something else, but most of them had yet to consciously come to that realization. "Constitutional convention" was a term that was alien to almost all in the room.

Watanabe sat down after having his questioned answered. "Any other questions, objections, proposals?" There seemed to be none at the moment; the articles of this constitution weren't too dissimilar to how the League already informally operated. "Then, let us move to the voting. Those who are in favor of adopting this constitution, raise your hands!"

Almost everyone in the room, aside from those very little few who wanted something like a monarchy to continue, raised their hands in approval.

Today, on 55 Summer 5859, a new republic was formed in Gemeinplatz.

---

Most of the articles in the fictional Provisional Constitution were based on / copied from Brown's actual Provisional Constitution. You can read that here.

 

[CabbagePreacher]

55th​ of Summer, 5859
???, ???​

Sunlight shined through a stained glass window, making an impression on the table below while dust danced under it. Depicted on the window was a simple scene – divine light at top shining down on a man who held a scepter and wore a crown. Such divine light was reserved for one man of course, with the rest of the peasants in the scene having to suffice with sunlight to toil under. Thus the world had been made, for earth for the peasants to stand on and peasants for the big man at top to stand on.

It was this scene that an old man was appreciating. His forehead was barren and wrinkled, so was his face, yet he had determination on that old face. Not the determination akin to that found in a hero, but a determination akin to that found in a rat going through the tightest of spaces to escape and prolong its life no matter what.

To the outside observer however, this man was far away from a rat. He was a well-bred well-dressed bloke, a gentleman, an intellectual. A man of certain taste in architecture, the type to pause to appreciate a stained glass window. The type to make plans to rebuild the building he inhabited in his image. Forget the building, he'd rebuild the entire city that the building was in. He would build, rebuild, and rebuild some more, until there was nothing to do but re-rebuild. A utopia, yes, he'd make a utopia out of these ignoramuses.

"Spear, are you staring at walls again?" It was the voice of a younger man, coming out of the shadows to be enlightened under the stained glass. He was much well-dressed than Spear, though not as well-dressed as he could be if he had to. There was no need to dress fancily while in one's home.

"I was just pondering, my Leader." replied Spear, clapping his boots together. He had readied himself to give a salute that he didn't need to give, and the clap of the boots awkwardly echoed throughout the corridor.

"As you always do." The man beckoned Spear to follow him. He seemed to be going nowhere in particular. "What is it that you were pondering?"

"Architecture. I was thinking on how I could rebuilt the capital." Spear inspected the brick walls and marble floors of the room while following the man. "Everything here is so different. I've had to rethink how I can realize my projects with the limited resources in Gemeinplatz." Spear couldn't help but stifle a laughter upon saying "Gemeinplatz". It was such a silly and nonsensical name if one knew what the two words composing it meant. "Still, I have many things planned if I am to ever receive approval and a proper budget."

"We could do many things if we were to only receive a proper budget." The man sighed. "Yet, the only thing that the noblemen do is bicker amongst themselves. Such a sad state of affairs, isn't it? How did you manage to deal with such things back home?"

"We shot anyone who complained. Even better, we apprehended dissenters and made them labor for our grand projects." Such irony delighted both of them equally, so much so that they were laughing wholeheartedly.

"Oh, only if I could do that, Spear. Only if I could…" The man slumped his shoulders, looking all dejected. "I could, but then I'd find my head rolling on these floors."

"That won't do, would it? No, it wouldn't. It won't do, my Leader. It shouldn't. You shouldn't give yourself in to these traitors. You are the leader. You have all the right to drive anyone away who dares go against your will. One will. One realm. One leader. Not many wills fighting each other."

Spear's words seemed to mesmerize the man, who had walked a great distance without even thinking. Thankfully they had more than enough space to loiter around all they wanted all day long. "Yes, to move this fractured realm into greatness to… to… to unite all under me. To move to an era of peace where the realm shan't bicker with itself."

"Yes, that's most beneficial for the folk of the realm." replied Spear. "To submit to the will of an absolute and wise ruler, that is what's beneficial to everyone."

"Wise words as always, Spear." With all the talk they had done a whole lot of walk, ending up in front of Spear's office. "Only if every one of my vassals were as amicable…"

Spear put a hand on the man's shoulders. Opposed to his own clean-shaven face, the young man in front of him had the beginning of a beard as if he was trying to compensate for his lack of age. His eyes were all focused on Spear, listening to his trusted advisor intently. Spear had learned how effective a good, deep stare into another's eyes were from his former leader. The kid in front of him had none of that, no charisma, no wisdom, no experience in leadership… One could see that from how he completely trusted the political adversary right in front of him. The young man was ready to be molded like putty by Spear. "That'll change soon, my Leader. Have you heard the news coming from the west?"

The young man shook his head. "There are many news coming every day from everywhere. I cannot keep track of them all."

"That's why I'm your steward. Ever since I was summoned to Gemeinplatz, keeping track of all this has been my only job." Spear cleared his throat, and looked around him to make sure nobody was around to listen. The corridor leading to his office was empty. "A group of lords in Casamonu rebelled over concerns of a slave rebellion, which materialized in a border town." Azdavay was so insignificant that its name had been lost travelling through the grapevine. "Your other ministers are trying to keep this news from leaking fearing that it might spread panic, but they likely won't be able to hold back the rumors once the first wave of refugees arrive… especially as I've hired a few people to make sure that this leaks out to the general public."

The young man was perplexed by the last part. "Spread panic? Why?"

Spear simply laughed at the naïve question. "Excuse me… Ahem. It's simple: Panic is a tool, a tool that can be efficiently wielded to gain power. My previous Leader had his men burn down the diet, a type of royal court on Örf, controlled by his own allies. Then he publicly blamed his enemies for the attack and he simply purged them for the good of the realm. Of course, there's no need to actually set fire to anything for this to work. As long as the folk is scared enough…"

"…I- I get it."

"Good. Just follow my advice; it'll be obvious when the time comes." Spear let go of the young man's shoulder. "Now, my Leader… Or, should I call you Your Imperial Majesty? Your Imperial Majesty, if you'll excuse me, I have duties to attend to as your faithful steward."

The Emperor nodded in approval to Spear's request, and they parted ways as Spear entered his office. It was an office quite unlike any other in Gemeinplatz, being quite plain and utilitarian. There was a desk for Spear to work on with a set of filing cabinets next to it, and another larger table for him to use for planning. That large table had a pretty big plan on it: A city model lovingly handcrafted by Spear. Simple, symmetrical buildings made of marble, granite and concrete. Plenty of triumphal arcs, grand pillars, and a grand hall in the middle with an enormous dome that'd need the work of several wizards to hold it up.

​

Spear watched his magnificent model city from above. He had unfinished business, a business which he'd finish here: to build the perfect city. For that, he needed to build the foundation of a perfect state for his perfect city to stand on, and to build that perfect state he'd need to do something other than look at this model all day. He turned back to his desk to do some work only to notice that somebody had made a delivery on his desk. It was a nameplate with Spear's name and title on it. He disliked how his surname had been mispronounced in Gemeinplatz, but he had to make do with the people here:

SIR ALBERT SPEAR OF MANNHEIM
Imperial Architect and Steward of Gemeinplatz​

The old man turned the nameplate to face the door and got back to work…

---

On other news, the John Brown Isekai has more fanart. Thank ye No-Analyst-4821 for the awesome Ayomide art with her staff-bayonet-thing!

(The artwork was originally posted here, on r/JohnBrownIsekai)