Chapter 81

Judgement

[May your Judgement be right!]

The first notification window alarmed Ethan who was forced to use Mana to calm himself down. Battling? That, he was comfortable with. Even fighting monsters nearly twice his Level would be doable. But passing judgment where his choices will either make or break the story? Especially within a scenario that he knew nothing about? The thought petrified him–yet, he had to proceed onward.

[You shall judge 3 Sinners. Judge whether they should be forgiven or punished. Whether executed or imprisoned]

[Your choices will directly decide the fate of this world!]

[For each Sinner, you shall be provided with their Crime, and two statements–One a Lie, and the other a Truth–before the Sinners themselves present their story. Their stories will be true, though in which way is up to you to decide]

[All 3 Sinners shall regale their stories, after which you shall have 30 minutes of deliberation before passing judgment. Choose wisely, lest the choices haunt you forevermore]

There was temporary silence within the throne room as three of the numerous chained figures were ushered forward by a hooded, topless figure. Of the three, two were men, and one was a woman. The woman appeared to be in her late fifties to early sixties, her hair greying and wrinkles folding, bags underneath her eyes dark and encircled. She wore tattered, prisoner garb and had lashing wounds across her thin, almost skeletal arms.

One of two men, the one to the left of the woman, was a bellied and short figure, bald in the head and the eyebrows. He looked to be in his forties, and despite the tattered clothes and some bruising, the affluence within which he lived could not be hidden. His expression was rather hardened, eyes unyielding, glazed in the sheen of light.

The last of the three was a man deep in his fifties–he was a stalwart, looming figure, reaching almost six-eight per Ethan’s quick estimates. He was broad and bulky, his skin tanned like copper, eyes silver and daunting, and hair as black as night. Even on his knees he appeared taller than the hooded man that ushered them forth, and the partly chains hardly seemed the type to hold him, yet he seemed not to resist them.

The three of them were forced on their knees, facing the throne, their fates to be arbitrated in front of the massive audience.

Up on the platform, besides the King, were four more figures–one woman, likely a Queen considering her garb–and three men, two of whom looked to be rather old while one appeared ever so slightly younger than the King himself.

It was one of the older men who stepped forward, causing the entire hall to turn mum, bearing forth pin-dropping silence.

“The first Sinner, come forth,” the man said. “Awal, the Wayward Merchant.” Upon being called out, the short, bellied man stood up and walked a few feet forward, his head lowered all the way through. “The Sinner’s crime is as thus: smuggling forbidden artefacts into the Kingdom.”

“...” murmur was brief, though distinct, as Ethan kept to heart every single word spoken.

“You may present your story, Sinner.” Just then, a notification appeared in front of Ethan, providing two statements–one of which was the truth and one of which was the lie.

[The smuggled artefacts have the ability to amplify magic fiftyfold]

[The Merchant was selling them to dark mages throughout the land]

“I, the Accused, say,” the man’s voice was high-pitched and almost jovial, though pleaful at the same time. “My crime is the one I was forced into, my Lords. A Noble came forth, masked and terrifying, and told me he would kill me and my family if I did not obey. If I did, I was promised eternal protection and enough gold to last me a lifetime. For he was a Noble, I wholly believed the artefacts would have been used to shield the Kingdom. Even if a Sinner, do be understanding, my Lords. I am but an ordinary Merchant–I could not defy a Lord.”

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“...” murmurs continued, though no one in Ethan’s party was able to discern any of it. It was almost like a ‘background effect’, or perhaps a distraction.

"The second Sinner, come forth," the same elderly man said as the merchant retreated. Upon being called, the woman stood up and walked forward, her expression unflinching. "The Sinner's crime is as thus: altering historical records of the royal family without Royal Deliberation. You may present your story, Sinner." Similarly to before, another notification window appeared in front of Ethan regarding the woman.

[The recent records show the King’s lineage as questionable]

[The Scribe was trying to disgrace the royal family for personal revenge]

“My truth is simple, my King, Queen, and my Lords,” the woman spoke firmly and confidently. “A figure approached me, cloaked in darkness, and gave me ancient documents. I have personally verified the validity of these documents–as have my colleagues at the Library–and they spoke of a transgressional period of our Kingdom’s history, the Farland’s Wars. The records, thus, seemed to provide detailed accounts of the Kingdom’s Founding Lineage–the same lineage that I was unable to connect His Majesty to. I believe in truth, and my life thus far should serve as an example of that. You may hang me, but I will die knowing I am not a Sinner.”

“...” once more, murmurs erupted–this time even louder than before. Ethan frowned, as did Ronald, Mingzhu, and even Elijah. This wasn’t merely being the jury at a trial–at best, this seemed almost like guesswork.

“Silence!” the elderly man’s voice, though soft and low, was commanding, ending the hubbub immediately. “The third Sinner, come forth,” the last of the three, the tall bulwark of a man, stood up and walked over, his shoulders drooped, eyes glazed in vacancy. “The Sinner’s crime is as thus: abandoning his duty as the General and abandoning his post in the Eastern Valley, allowing the forces of Sola Kingdom to penetrate deeper into our eastern region than ever before in history. You may present your story, Sinner.” Once more, a notification window appeared.

[The General was attending a secret meeting during the invasion]

[The General had been bribed by the invaders]

“My story, Lords and Ladies,” the man’s voice was deep yet soft and he spoke slowly and deliberately. “Does not matter. But, if you must hear it, hear it so: I have spent my life shielding our borders, serving my King with all my might, and delivering my duties to a fault. I did not abandon my post because I suddenly grew fearful of war–I abandoned my post because I received intel suggesting an assassination attempt on His Majesty, the King.” Ethan frowned further; something about the three stories… was not adding up. “In order to investigate the validity of this information, I pursued the man who offered it–and was trapped by a force of twenty well-trained Knights, whom I fought for hours. By the time I returned to my post, the castle had fallen, and I immediately rallied my men to take it back. That is my story, Lords and Ladies. Take it as you will.”

In the midst of murmurs, Ethan fell silent.

Suddenly, the world around them froze, and the final notification window appeared in front of them all, red in colour.

[Countdown until the end of Deliberation: 29:59]

Nobody spoke for a couple of minutes as they all deliberated on all three stories. Their task was simple: make judgements on all three. However, the core, the crux of it all was one simple factor: they could not fail. Nowhere within the description of the quest did it state that they would ‘fail’ if they got wrong judgements, or succeed if they got the right ones. This meant that this wasn’t a particularly dangerous Tunnel, in so much a Tunnel can be ‘not so dangerous’, but what worried Ethan were the rewards–whether he would get the one item he came here to get.

Even though there wasn’t a ‘fail’ or ‘succeed’ prompt within the quest itself, every Tunnel, no matter what, had fail-success states. Not necessarily in terms of 'right' or 'wrong', or even 'completing the quest', but the optimal thing to do so as to extract the best rewards from the Tunnel.

In his past life, this Tunnel ended up being a survival one–newcomers were thrust into an open battlefield that didn’t really have much context around it and were told to survive for a period of time or run away. Surviving yielded better items, but most people opted into running away as the chance to get [Dimensional Flux] was equal whether someone ran or survived.

That open battlefield was the direct result of the choices people inside this Tunnel made. Somehow, some way, passing judgment on these three 'sinners' had a chance to yield a state of total chaos in the end. How? There were millions of pathways Ethan would consider, but it was easy to thin it out.

“Alright, let’s compress the stories,” Ethan was the first one to break the silence. “The merchant: he smuggled artefacts into the Kingdom, supposedly due to the blackmail by some Noble that he could not identify. There’s a lot of holes there, but this baseline story is 100% true.

“Second story: the scribe altered records at the behest of some ancient documents that just happened to fall into her lap. That part is undeniably true.

“Third story: the General ‘abandoned’ the post because he got intel that there’s a plot to assassinate the King so he went to investigate, when he was ambushed. What do all three stories have in common?”

"... they're externally driven," Mingzhu said. "In each and every one, there's a secondary party that instigates the events. The noble, the cloaked man who delivered the ancient documents, and some figure who provided intel on the King's assassination."

"Right. A few observations I made: the King reacted rather emotionally to both the woman and the General. This meant that he either trusted them or knew them rather well. However, he had no reaction to the merchant, which means that he's a likely outlier."

“What about the truths and the lies?” Ronald asked. “Do we just guess which are which?”

"Well," Ethan said, glancing at the notification. "We have just shy of 26 minutes to figure it out. Fuck, it's times like these that I miss just tossing down with some oversized, over-engineered monster."

“... aren’t you a psychiatrist?” Ronald asked with a strange look on his face.

“Yup. Exactly.”