Rise of The Holy-Realm Rebel

'Young man? It's been a while since anyone called me that,' I thought to myself as the same soldiers who had escorted me there led me out of the castle.

I stopped to glance at the castle for one last time, and it took everything within me to keep my mood upright.

"Don't stop moving," one of them commanded impatiently.

'So well for special treatment.' I obeyed him, keeping my worried thoughts till I got back to the shelters.

My second time down the path had seen me focused on trying to memorize it. Unfortunately, all I could remember upon reaching the hill's foot was my focus.

I cursed as I tried to recall how we got down but only scattered and distorted images reached my mind's eyes.

Well, it didn't matter. I had more pressing topics In my mind.

The dinner with the general had educated me in a couple of ways. But mainly two.

One; was the fact that there were indeed other camps in that region, and ours was very much in contact with them.

This was important because it meant an attempt to escape had a higher chance of being thwarted. If there indeed were human settlements around, then they were most likely under the Empire's control.

As such, escaping would be far more tricky.

This first point already left me worried, feeling like a bird in a cage. The second made me border depression.

This had to do with the firepower the camp possessed.

There were already tens of soldiers present in that camp; all of which were armed. That force was enough to take care of us all. Talk less of one escapee.

But much more than that was the firepower the castle possessed.

I wasn't able to figure out if there were more, but the man who had guarded Sub-general Ivon had been no less than the Hill stage.

Yes.

That fellow could single-handedly take out the entire camp of slaves. He was close to the peak of the Earth-Realm. That made him a force we normal humans could only dream of surviving.

By the time I arrived at our sleeping hall after changing, the only sounds I heard were the snores of my pseudo colleagues. They had all slept.

A helpless smile creaked into my features as I watched those men sleep peacefully—Unaware of the monster that lived up in the castle.

I quickly cast away the idea of a revolt. We'd only be massacred. There was no practical way I thought of, where we could escape as a group. And even doing so as an individual looked impossible.

I lay down and slept… My only way of battling the darkness of hopelessness that crept into my soul.

.

.

.

The days went by after that night and I slowly but surely began to believe I'd indeed spend the rest of my life there. This time I had evidence to back up that belief.

It was also safe to conclude that the others had accepted that same fate, and had even begun to find ways of enjoying themselves in the process.

After all, we were not exactly slaves as we'd expected. More like workers whose wages were the necessities of life—A bleak lifestyle if not for the war that now raged in the kingdom.

Of course, this significantly reduced the severity of our situation thanks to Sub-general Ivon. The man's good nature was the reason for this. But I had the idea he hid dark things under that pleasant smile.

Seeing as we were not expecting to leave any time soon, some of those men took up the challenge and decided to get into conversations with the formerly hard ladies of the camp.

They were not treated harshly like we were. And for good reasons.

Still, they were mostly as limited as we were. If not more. Unlike us, they never actually left the camp.

It was normal that they too would want excitement.

Some of us promised them that excitement they desired, and after days and even weeks, I heard that one of them succeeded in wooing one of the ladies. Her name was Sliva.

The soldiers found this out and beat the guy to a pulp. Out of jealousy, of course.

Still, that one achievement raised the morale of those men and soon during serving times they took turns trying their luck out with those girls.

At night times they'd all gather to share their experiences. I could not ignore their stories and obviously gained information.

Many testified of the general pride those ladies had. And of course, they played hard. They were so few. They probably felt important.

But that changed a couple of weeks down the line when new additions of ladies were brought in, the same for men.

Bringing their number to ten.

At that point, those men could easily break through the hardness those women put up.

From then on, stories that recounted how they expressed their depraved desires became popular.

Soon multiple men attested to sleeping with the same woman.

Less than a month after the new additions nine of those women had sexual histories with more than half the men on the camp!

Including the soldiers too.

That was a significant number considering how we men were already more than a hundred-and-twenty. Excluding soldiers.

Those stories quickly grew less frequent as those men got bored of the already-tested ladies.

One of those females even got pregnant. Her name was Yuvia. She was the third prettiest amongst them, and according to those men had been the most tasking.

She had been easy to get to.

Or so they said.

Of course, I never paid more attention than needed to their stories.

But I had to notice the only lady who had kept herself in the entire camp.

The orange-haired lady whose name no one still knew.

They titled her the 'Ice-queen', but many disagreed since she was a Flame-crafter, though only in the Plain stage. As such, they settled for 'Fire-queen'.

This was because she had not held back on expressing her fiery prowess on any man who was too pesky. Including soldiers.

They could not treat her badly too, because Sub-general Ivon had taken a liking to her.

Many believed she had relations with the general seeing as she frequented the castle on the hill, and though I cared little about the topic itself, I disagreed with their claims. Especially since of all the men in the camp, I was the only one who had spoken to her.