Conspiracy

The moon hung high in the sky.

By the time Eren finished handling government affairs that day, it was already evening. There were too many captives now, and with so many people, even such mundane matters as eating, drinking, and relieving themselves needed to be managed. If they relieved themselves wherever they pleased, it could easily cause all kinds of epidemics.

After dealing with these trivial matters, he summoned the leaders at regiment commander rank and above for a meeting.

While Eren was meeting with his subordinates, the captives were gathered together in a holding area beside the Dothraki camp. To make them easier to manage and keep their handlers safe, they had all been gathered in one place, while the Dothraki guarding them formed a ring around the perimeter, enclosing them within it.

Eren had also done this to prevent the captives from scattering and mutinying, which would be difficult to deal with. At night, to avoid giving anyone opportunities to commit crimes under cover of darkness, Eren did not allow the Dothraki to patrol inside the holding area either.

Of course, this had its drawbacks. Although Eren had divided them into groups of ten, as time passed, some would naturally want to resist, particularly those who had once belonged to slave-owning families.

Although those slave owners had been killed, some of their relatives had surrendered outright when they saw things going badly. The Dothraki had simply bound them and made them captive slaves, keeping them for future use as laborers building the empire's infrastructure.

Though the heads of these slave-owning families had been killed, some members of collateral branches and illegitimate sons remained. Although they had no inheritance rights or were far removed from the political centers of their families, they had spent their entire lives pampered and spoiled. Naturally, they could not accept losing their lives of wealth and luxury.

Once someone grew accustomed to luxury, making them live in poverty, or even worse than poverty, naturally bred discontent, just as the ancients had said: it was easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but hard to go from extravagance to frugality.

These people had surrendered to stay alive and could only scrape by, but as time passed, they began to yearn for the old days. They also knew that, under their present circumstances, they could not return to the way things had been.

In the stillness of that late night, beside a campfire in the captive holding area, there were some people dressed in coarse hemp clothing with ash smeared on their faces, yet the skin visible through their clothes still looked faintly delicate.

They all came from families of former slave owners in Slaver's Bay. Some were slave owners' illegitimate sons, while others belonged to collateral branches, such as an uncle's sons. Although they had possessed no power, they had still enjoyed lavish meals and fine clothes. Now that they were in this captive camp, Eren gave them only one meal a day, and even that consisted of Dothraki leftovers.

This left these pampered people full of complaints. Every day, not only did they go hungry, but they also ate poorly, dressed poorly, and slept poorly. They had no women beside them and no servants to wait on them.

The only women left in this holding area were elderly, frail, sick, or disabled. Following Eren's orders, the Dothraki had placed all healthy women of suitable ages in a separate camp, where they awaited a future selection or would be bestowed on Dothraki warriors who fought bravely.

When these people were first captured, the nuclear blast Eren unleashed after turning into a Giant had left a shadow over them. Yet the greed in their hearts drove them to begin shaking off that shadow. They wanted to overthrow and kill Eren and return to their former lives of wealth and luxury.

After some time, quite a few of them wanted to rebel, but because of Eren's Ten-Person Collective Responsibility System, many had been reported and killed. Later, they grew wiser. These former nobles contacted one another through various means and then arranged to be placed together.

For instance, they would maliciously report someone to force a ten-person team to be reorganized, or volunteer to fill vacancies in other teams. Although not everyone could necessarily get in, over time, some successfully slipped into other teams, allowing quite a few of them to gather together.

There were now twenty people beside this campfire. Through various means, they had finally managed to be assigned together. Of course, there were certainly other former nobles who were not present, but under the circumstances, gathering twenty was already quite an achievement.

Moreover, these people were very clever.

During the day, they pretended to be strangers, then gathered at night for secret conversations. The group surveyed their surroundings. This campfire was in a secluded spot, far from the center of the crowd, with very few people nearby. Whenever they held a secret gathering, they chose somewhere like this, away from the crowds, where those nearby would not easily discover that they were plotting.

Among them was a man who looked to be in his thirties. He was the younger brother of the head of a slave-owning family in Meereen. When Meereen first fell, he had seen that the Dothraki were unstoppable and prepared to flee by ship.

Instead, he had run straight into Eren and the pursuing troops. He had pretended to have been cut down, hoping to escape disaster, only to discover that the Dothraki finished off the fallen after the fighting ended. With no other choice, he could only pretend to be severely wounded and be taken captive. After spending some time in the captive camp, his life had become unbearably miserable.

Although he had initially been stunned by the nuclear blast with which Eren destroyed Meereen, his longing for his former life still drove him to raise the banner of rebellion against Eren.

His initial observations revealed that many who stuck their necks out had their heads cut off and displayed as a warning. Left with no choice, he could only lie low for the time being. Later, as he followed Eren's forces, he saw Yunkai and Astapor follow in Meereen's footsteps.

Through his former position as a family head's younger brother, he had met many nobles from Yunkai and Astapor through trade and various balls. After these people arrived in the captive camp, he contacted them through various means, and after considerable effort, they finally gathered together. Although many had yet to join them, those present could still hold a meeting first and settle on a direction.

"This is the first time we have all gathered under such circumstances. We were all once nobles of Slaver's Bay. Those hateful Dothraki destroyed our cities and reduced us to prisoners, but I believe that one day we will gain our freedom and regain our former glory."

The organizer spoke in a voice only they could hear while watching their surroundings.

"But Jace, you saw it too. They have Giants. Even now, Giants are guarding the perimeter of the captive camp. Some people who tried to escape were eaten by Giants."

"Exactly, Jace. You know our situation. We don't get enough to eat each day, and we have no strength. Most importantly, all our families' property has been confiscated. Even if we resist, we have no weapons."

Jace naturally knew their current predicament. They had all been hungry for days and had no weapons. Resisting would be no different from dying, so he could only say,

"Of course I know the current situation. We cannot resist outright as we are now, because we have no weapons and no food. We gathered here today because we want to bring together all our like-minded friends."

At this point, he paused.

"Besides, although we cannot resist now, we can try to see whether we can escape. Of course, simply running away will never work. We can only try some other methods."