I Became a Witch and Started an Industrial Revolution

Walking leisurely through the woods, the noontime sunlight poured down from the treetops.

A breeze brushed past, stirring up rustling sounds as if something had fallen.

The leaves, dyed golden by the sunlight, broke free from the embrace of their branches, drifting and swaying in the air as if dancing with butterflies, before finally settling gently into the clear stream and floating away.

“Pasha~ Pasha~”

“Hurry up~ it’s ready to eat!”

Stepping on the carpet of golden leaves, Pasha followed the calls, turning several bends before emerging from the forest, where the view suddenly opened wide.

On the lawn, carefully tended by servants, smoke rose in curling wisps.

Several servants busily flipped and shook the roasting racks, where small animals grilled over the fire gave off a rich aroma.

His mother called out his name.

His adorable younger sister sat obediently on a chair, holding a pure white rabbit in her arms, staring at the roasted meat while swallowing her saliva, her little feet kicking restlessly now and then, betraying her impatient heart.

“Pasha!”

“Leader Pasha! Leader Pasha!”

Pasha suddenly opened his eyes.

A pungent stench lingered at his nose, making his throat itch with a violent urge to cough: “Cough, cough...”

The one calling him quickly helped him lean against the wall and handed him a bowl of icy cold water.

He gulped down two mouthfuls before he managed to calm himself, a faint bitter smile appearing on his face.

Sure enough, no matter how much time passed, he still could not get used to this smell.

Once, he had been the high and mighty son of a viscount.

He had a happy family, a fortunate birth, and his knightly talents were exceptional, earning him much favor from his mentors at school.

Until Mitia rose to power and took over the authority of the great lord, and everything changed...

He had once seen Mitia a few times from afar, and had admired and fantasized about that beautiful girl with her striking hair color.

He had also often heard of her acts of relief for disaster victims.

Perhaps very few men could resist a girl who possessed both beauty and kindness.

Especially when winning her heart also meant gaining immense benefits that could elevate one’s family overnight.

That drew countless young noblemen to pursue her feverishly.

Yet, to everyone’s shock, her kindness might have been real, but she gave not a shred of it to the nobles of her own class.

Instead, she raised a merciless butcher’s knife against them.

Every noble who had opposed her—or even merely thought of opposing her—was ruthlessly executed.

His father, simply for trying to help a friend, was reported by commoners, thrown in prison, and sent to forced labor in the mines.

Their family was not spared either.

Pasha remembered how his mother had nearly given away all their wealth in exchange for their chance to flee that demonic domain.

Under the escort—and surveillance—of a squad of Astal soldiers, their family set off to seek refuge with relatives.

But when passing through Titus territory, misfortune struck.

They encountered bands of brigands.

Though the Astal soldiers’ powerful weapons and Pasha’s own combat skills drove the brigands back, Pasha himself was knocked unconscious and taken away.

The Astal soldiers did not pursue or rescue him.

Their numbers were too few, and they needed their wagons to hold the line against the brigands’ cavalry.

And to those common-born soldiers, nobles were not worth dying for.

Pasha was lucky.

Because of his strong physique and potential value, he was not killed.

But his status as the viscount’s heir earned him no privileges.

He was branded with the slave mark and eventually sold off to Hendak, where he became a slave miner.

Only a month ago, during a raid on the mine by the Church’s army, did he seize his chance, kill a guard in the chaos, and escape with a group of others.

The words Mitia once spoke—words he had scoffed at—kept resurfacing in his mind during those days when he fell from the clouds into the abyss, branded as a slave, toiling only to be beaten, insulted, and starved by overseers.

The slave mark on his body had become a lifelong stain.

For the kingdom would never allow a branded slave to be a noble.

Even one who once had been.

And so, when he escaped his torment, he instinctively echoed words much like Mitia’s to his companions:

“Why can they arbitrarily cut down our food rations? This isn’t fair!”

“Why are we slaves? There should be no slaves in this world! We are all equal as people! If we work hard, we deserve to eat our fill and to have the dignity of being human!”

“We must resist them! Fight for our own survival!”

Pasha’s strength and his words earned him the position of leader.

With a few captured muskets and cartridges, he led his small squad in guerrilla strikes across Hendak territory.

Clumsily imitating that woman’s words, Pasha told them everyone should own their own land, to eat their fill and be clothed against the cold.

He learned to attack those nobles who, by the civilians’ word, committed crimes.

He redistributed confiscated noble property evenly among the people.

When he saw the joy of those who, with food in their hands, could finally eat for the day, his heart swelled with both happiness and sorrow.

As more and more commoners he rescued—or who joined him willingly—gathered around, he heard and saw even more suffering and bloodshed among the lower classes.

From blind imitation at first, Pasha gradually began to form his own realizations.

His force once grew to several thousand, but then the Hendak great lord took notice.

Large squads of musket-bearing troops closed in for the kill.

His group suffered disastrous losses, crushed almost instantly back to nothing.

“Miss Miwei sneaked in to heal your wounds.”

“Leader, we’ve run out of food. This is the last bit...”

The bowl was placed back in front of him, holding a watery gruel tinged with a faint black-green color.

The broth was thin—so thin he could count the rice grains within.

Pasha clearly heard the middle-aged man who handed him the bowl swallowing hard, his stomach growling audibly.

In the dim firelight, Pasha looked around the damp and narrow room, crowded with dozens of people.

These people were all he had left now... no, not subordinates—comrades.

“Has Little Ger come back yet?” Pasha asked in a low voice.

Little Ger was a clever boy, highly skilled at gathering intelligence.

Pasha valued him greatly, for he always managed to find weak points in their targets, making ambushes far more effective.

“Little Ger’s been caught. They say he’s being tortured in prison...He’s so young, he can’t endure the whip soaked in brine. So we’ll have to abandon Route No. 3 he knows.”

Pasha sighed helplessly: “Sigh...”

Though Route No. 3 stored a good amount of food and supplies, he knew the man was right.

They could not risk it now—they would have to give it up.

“Brother Pasha, I still have food! You can have it.”

A tiny, soot-blackened hand stretched out before him, in its palm a small chunk of coarse black bread, its crust marked with faint toothmarks.

Pasha raised his head toward the frail, reed-thin little girl at the bedside and asked in surprise: “Wasn’t this given to you several days ago? Fatty, you haven’t eaten it?”

This girl had been found when they raided a squad of looting soldiers inside a civilian house.

She had been hiding in the firewood pile.

She said her parents called her Fatty.

She had hidden well and wasn’t discovered.

Pasha had covered her eyes and carried her back, coaxing her with the lie that her parents had fled and simply hadn’t had time to take her.

She might have no real use to the group and would only consume food.

But Pasha kept her, because to him, her very existence was her greatest value.