I'd only stated the obvious.
"Slavery is wrong."
"You're saying they force children into hard labor? How is that something a person does? Children have the right to grow up with their innocence intact."
Words most modern people would agree with.
......Well, this happens to be a medieval fantasy world, but still.
'Just because I've been reincarnated into a medieval fantasy world doesn't mean my mindset as a 21st-century modern person changes.'
I'd just spoken my mind a few times here and there.
Not even publicly -- only around people I was close to, and only on very rare occasions.
And yet.......
"Your words have awakened us, Leader."
"This world, stained with discrimination and persecution -- as you said, the only answer is to burn it all away and purify it."
"......The time for revolution has come, Leader."
Somehow, things had spiraled out of control.
""All for the utopia you have dreamed of.""
Before I knew it, I'd created a shadow organization.
By the time I came to my senses, I'd become the Empire's most feared mastermind.
......Where exactly did things go wrong?
***
My hobby is shopping for orphan slaves.
......Phrased like that, I sound like absolute human garbage. Obviously, I don't buy them to put them to work.
"You really are an eccentric customer, sir. Buying expensive slaves only to set them free -- what a waste. Why on earth do you do such a thing?"
Five months ago, I hit my head and awakened to my past life.
Even if this is a medieval fantasy world, I'm a modern person.
"I'm not the eccentric one -- it's this world that's insane. Isn't messing with kids just wrong?"
Kids barely old enough for kindergarten, shackled in irons and about to be dragged off to forced labor -- how could I just stand by and watch?
So here I was, visiting the slave exchange again today.
The slave merchant asked me in a careful tone.
"Are you perhaps the child of a noble family?"
"I'm a commoner. The money for buying slaves doesn't come from family wealth -- I fund it by selling handmade soap."
"......Handmade soap?"
"I have my own secret recipe, you see."
A hobby every person of refined taste enjoys.
That is, of course, reading web novels.
I'd read quite a few alternate-history novels too.
A protagonist dropped into a past era making and selling soap -- that was the most classic development of all classics.
I remembered the soap-making methods I'd read about in those novels.
Thanks to that, I'd managed to secure a source of income.
"Self-made -- how impressive! Please continue to visit us in the future! You won't find another slave merchant as honest as us, imperially certified and all."
A state-certified slave merchant.
The very phrase was violently absurd.
I understood, given that this was a world where slavery was the norm, but still.
"Are you perhaps interested in a bundle deal? We've got a batch of slaves who were captured after a group robbery. For a valued customer like you, I'll offer a special price -- all twelve as a set at half off!"
My head started spinning.
They aren't pencils. Having human beings sold by the dozen was more than a modern person's mind could endure.
I truly don't like a single thing about this damn Empire.
"Forget it, just show me the usual -- young orphans, kids who ended up as slaves for stealing food because they were broke."
I sighed as I said this.
The slave merchant looked slightly flustered.
"......You don't have any children to show me?"
"No, it's not that. There are newly arrived twins -- a brother and sister. It's just that I'm not sure whether they're merchandise fit to sell to customers."
He was saying something strange.
Was he laying the groundwork to overcharge me?
When I narrowed my eyes and glared at the slave merchant, he put on a face of genuine grievance and spoke.
"Blood-red eyes. Born in December...... or so we think, though it's not confirmed. Their features match those of the Seven Great Calamities from the prophecy, so I've been deliberating whether to dispose of them per the orders from above."
"Uh...... so you're going to kill them because their eyes are red?"
"Yes, well. That's about the size of it. We haven't confirmed their birthday yet, but. The order was to eliminate risk factors in advance."
The Emperor was obsessed with some bizarre prophecy and was having children hunted down and killed. I'd heard the stories, but to think it was actually happening.
If I left things as they were, those twins would be executed too.
Hearing that, I made my decision.
"Sell them to me."
"Pardon?"
"There's no way a couple of brats who got caught stealing food are some grand figures from the prophecy's Seven Great Calamities. You said yourself you haven't even confirmed their birthdays and their eye color is the only match."
"Uh, well...... that's certainly true."
"So sell them to me. If you'd rather not, I'll start looking at other slave merchants."
At my words, the slave merchant's expression turned urgent.
"N-now, why would you say something so hurtful? Of course I'll sell them if that's what you want, sir. Follow me, I'll take you to them."
The slave merchant put on his customer-service smile.
Perhaps worried I'd leave right then and there, he quickly led me to where the slaves were kept.
Soon, children locked behind iron bars came into view.
Both siblings had blue hair and red eyes.
They looked to be somewhere between ten and twelve years old.
"Neither of them has a particularly obedient temperament, so. I'm worried they might be rude to a valued customer such as yourself."
"You've chained them up and locked them in a cage by force -- it'd be stranger if they behaved nicely. I want to talk to these kids alone without you here, so just clear out already."
"Very well, I'll be waiting outside."
The slave merchant bowed his head and withdrew.
I confirmed he was gone and opened my mouth to speak. Or rather, I was about to speak first, but --
"......What are you planning to make us do?"
The twin spoke to me first.
A gaunt body, as if starved for days.
Yet still putting up a defiant front despite that condition.
"Are you going to strap bomb vests on us and use us as suicide soldiers? Or cut out our hearts for a ritual sacrifice?"
I'd been about to say something like "what kind of terrifying things are you saying, kid," but the words died in my throat when I heard what came next.
"It won't work anyway. We've survived together through all of it every time, and this time won't be any different."
I'd wondered why a child's imagination was so gruesome.
It wasn't imagination -- it was experience.
This insane medieval world is truly unbearable.
A rotten Empire.
Commoners treated as expendable, a deranged world where slighting a noble's mood even slightly could get your entire family massacred.
I'd nearly died more than once or twice myself.
'This rotten Empire really needs to be completely overthrown...... Well, not that I've got the guts to step up and do it myself.'
Overturning a nation couldn't possibly be easy.
I let out a deep sigh and spoke.
"Don't worry, I'm just going to set you free."
This time, it wasn't me who was caught off guard, but them.
Their expressions went blank for a moment.
As if doubting what they'd just heard.
"......Set us free? How does that make any sense?"
From my perspective, though, their reaction was even more absurd.
Isn't this just the most obvious thing in the world?
"A world where orphans barely ten years old become slaves for stealing food because they were hungry -- and that makes sense to you?"
The more I looked at this medieval world, the dizzier I got.
But I had been a modern person, and I wanted to remain one. I wanted to uphold the basic decency any person should.
"Slavery itself is unethical to begin with. Treating a human being with their own identity as property -- how does that make any sense? Where did human dignity and basic rights go?"
I wasn't exactly a human rights activist.
But when you see kids barely ten years old starving and locked behind bars, anyone would think this isn't right.
So I'd only said what was perfectly obvious, and yet --
"......I don't understand."
My sense of "obvious" didn't apply here.
A two-eyed person in a village of the one-eyed. Well, these were values from centuries in the future, so it would be stranger if they did apply.
"Showing kindness without asking for anything in return -- there's no way something that convenient is real. The stupid kids who believed in things like that were all dragged away and killed a long time ago."
Her eyes were full of suspicion.
After all, these were twins who had survived in this era on their own without a guardian. If they'd been lax in their vigilance and quick to trust, they would have been corpses long ago.
I thought it over briefly and reached a conclusion.
"If kindness with no strings attached makes you uncomfortable...... well, this works out nicely. How about you come work under me?"
You're scared of getting help for free because there's no such thing as a free lunch in this world? Then I'll just offer them a job.
This was something I'd been doing regularly anyway.
Simply freeing orphans only left them to starve, so I always tried to find them jobs that suited them.
"As it happens, there's something I've been planning."
On top of that, this was right when I'd been about to expand the soap business.
'I'll just hire them as the first employees of my soap company.'
They still looked deeply guarded, but.
That was something I could work through.
I launched straight into a heartfelt speech.
***
"Haven't you ever thought this? That the people of this Empire are revolting. That they reek worse than corpses."
A reincarnator began his speech with brimming confidence.
There was no deep meaning behind it whatsoever.
"They give off an unbearable stench, I'm telling you."
This wasn't some kind of metaphor.
He said they stank because they literally stank.
Because medieval people rarely bathed.
His intent was to say, 'Don't you think people smell terrible? Come join my soap company and help me improve the Empire's hygiene.'
"From the nobles to those even higher than them -- the stench from those who pride themselves on being noble is even worse. To think they believe they can mask that horrid smell with perfume."
But to the twins, those words sounded different.
They couldn't help but sound different.
'......He's c-criticizing the corruption of the nobles this openly? This is even lumping in the Imperial Family.'
All humans are equal, therefore slavery is a scourge.
This was coming from a man who had said such things.
The hypocritical Imperial Family and nobles are revolting. No matter how they pretend to be noble and try to conceal their revolting atrocities, the stench rising from their rotting hypocrisy cannot be masked.
That was the only way it could sound.
"Of course, I can't exactly say this sort of thing openly. If I did, I'd surely turn the entire world against me."
The man approached.
He approached, those golden eyes gleaming.
The man spoke with a smile.
"But here's what I think. Even if it means turning the entire world against me, there are times when what's wrong must be set right, don't you agree?"
It's fine even if the entire world becomes your enemy.
This rotten world. If it means completely overturning this Empire where people cannot live as people should.......
He was prepared to make even the world itself his enemy.
"Won't you lend me your strength too? Together, we'll cleanse the filth and exterminate the disease."
That offer was unutterably dangerous.
Turning the world into your enemy was no idle boast.
A world where people can live as people. A new order, built by defeating the hypocrites reeking of corruption.
The road ahead would undoubtedly be one of thorns.
"I'm not forcing you, of course. The choice is yours. If you don't want to work with me, I'll find you an orphanage or another job. Honestly, that would be the easier option."
But the word "no" never left their lips.
Because they knew better than anyone.
How horrifically rotten and decayed this world was. How that stench gnawed away at people's hearts.
"But if you do want to work with me -- if you've heard what I have to say and thought you'd like to walk this path together......"
The man extended his hand.
The revolutionary who dreamed of a new Empire spoke.
"Let's make this world clean, together."
Let's burn away this rotten world and purify it all.