...

Days later, Alexander's Office, Copper Courthouse, Wolfsteeth

A space devoid of any semblance of joy and happiness, its very air heavy with the weight of dread and sorrow. It was a place where dreams came to die, a place that once held the promise of changing the world, at least for one specific golden-eyed boy, who was being slowly squeezed out of his determined spirit after he entered through the doors.

Inside this relentless machine, the young wolf-kin boy was experiencing the sensation as he looked at the form before him, sitting at his used desk, "I wanna die..."

Otto stood behind him, shaking his head and sighing, "Mr. Alexander, you didn't fill out form A38, so please wait until you finished your task."

With a dreaded voice and bags under his eyes, Alexander looked back at Otto, sounding confused. His voice slightly cracked, "But... I did?!"

"Mr. Alexander, I am afraid there has been a mistake. You filled out form A39 instead of the required A38. There is a significant difference..." He cleared his throat, "...one is used for assault with energy against a guard, and the other for without. If the clerk sees it, after the ruling, the fine will be fifty times the actual amount for the perpetrator, going by the current catalog of punishments."

Apprehension spread over Alexander's face, not wanting to see another of these terrifying forms, full of nonsensical wordings and overcomplicated definitions, "But..."

However, Otto interrupted him rudely, seeing that the young noble had enough, "Mr. Alexander, before you fill it out, I also have a surprise for you."

Alexander forced a small smile, "Did you bring me a sturdy rope and an almost broken chair?"

Otto smiled back at him, genuinely joyful, "Mr. Alexander, while I like your crass humor, please be more careful about what you say since I fear I will get in trouble." Chuckling at the joke.

Alexander sighed, switching back from his playfully suicidal tone to the one he had constantly for the last few days, annoyed, "Fine, I don't want you to get into trouble. What is the surprise you mentioned? Now, for real."

Otto nodded, "In a couple of hours, you have your first case you may rule on, Mr. Alexander."

Alexander opened his eyes wide, feeling full of life again, "No... really?! What is this all about?!"

While still talking, Otto went to the door, "You obviously deserve it..." Alexander interrupted him, banging his hand on the table, "...yeah I do! I memorized almost everything!"

Otto chuckled at the outburst, "Of course. I will bring you the case file now while you complete form A38, okay, Mr. Alexander? I think you will like what my selection will be."

Alexander nodded vigorously, "Yes! Whatever it is, as long as I can stop this Outer Circle!"

Opening the door, Otto rolled his eyes and looked back, "How melodramatic..." He smiled, "...I will be back in an hour. Until then, Mr. Alexander."

Clank

When the door closed, Alexander leaned back and looked at the form he still needed to fill out, 'This was Outer Circle, but at last, it is over.'

For the last couple of days, Alexander had a particular routine. He commuted to the Copper House, or, as they called it, Cophy, leaving the estate at six in the morning, only for him to take a slight detour.

First, he visited different marketplaces in the east part of Wolfsteeth, buying things, trying to build up resistance against the terrible smell, and holding small speeches. It was nothing grand, but it had a visible effect as more and more people came, hearing him repeat what he said for the first time.

Of course, his speeches were all different, as he wanted to try many things out. Some had a more flourishing tone, others were more authoritative, and once, he tried to talk more like a commoner, taking the modern Western approach by making jokes and speaking to his subjects directly.

Whatever the version of his speech was, it was always practically the same—encouraging and trying to find the right way to his future subjects' hearts by using the pride of being inside the Leonandra territory and a Moorgrelian. It was a blatant copy from Earth, which worked fine as long as he only slandered the ones from central Mal-Gil, making those nobles their common enemy.

He even got a skill for all his work, [Public Orator], which enhanced his passive aura for the public to sense. It was a great skill, which also increased to level 16 very fast. When discussing this new skill at dinner, his Mother also mentioned that there were far more skills for such occasions that couldn't be learned as easily. The public's perception was vital to gaining those other skills, and if they didn't see you as something specific, no skill could be gained. Other than that, it was a long and arduous process, usually only reserved for nobles in acquiring such skills in the first place since they were the only ones who were able to talk to the public often and try to manipulate them without fearing much repercussions.

However, after the splendid time he spent basking in admiration, which Alexander immensely enjoyed, he went straight to Cophy. Being there made him become dated in a matter of days and suicidal in less than a month, with intrusive thoughts of how quickly he could bleed out by ramming a feather into his neck before Lili could save him. Usually, such calculations were prone to fail because of his sturdy body, sadly.

All Alexander did was learn how to fill out forms, which had templates, making them dreadful and repetitive. Like the form before him, they all looked more or less the same, with slight differences, which varied from those long forms from Earth, where one could skip sections. However, either in this or the previous life, he would rather hang himself endlessly before doing it voluntarily.

Though, he still did it because he understood why this was necessary. Every time he filled out a form for a case, it was archived and used for future reference, be it for fines or repetitive offenders.

For example, if someone stole a fish, Alexander would need to fill out a specific form explicitly mentioning thievery and food when ruling, so all the following steps, like the clerks who would process the imposed punishment, also knew what to do. A small mistake could ruin the offender's life for good.

The first hypothetical example he was presented with was also an inside joke in the Copper House—fish thievery.

In this case, it was essential to distinguish what kind of food had been stolen. If the food were expensive, it would be voluntary thievery, a term they used with a pretty hefty fine attached to it. If not, cheap food was involuntary thievery, which was seen as they wanted to feed themselves. Most of the time, the fine was replaced with paid work, such as doing nonpopular jobs like cleaning up the sewerage system for a few days, never mind their skills or specialty.

Hearing this for the first time, Alexander couldn't believe that his Mother had created a basic system to help the poor. It was wild, and he couldn't be more proud. However, those were easy cases, with little to no flexibility needed.

It became a little more complicated when he ruled on his first hypothetical test case—a daughter of an Earl stole cheap fish for fun.

It was a grey zone because the daughter did this not out of necessity but for other puppyish reasons, making it more like a case for more costly food. So, what to do? Here, the actual importance of judges came into play, as black-and-white cases could also be ruled by some dude with some reading comprehension, just connecting the crime with the punishment.

Grey cases were, for Alexander, the most fun to rule on as he could bend the law. In the case of the Earl's daughter, he would've punished her with a month of gutting out fish at the harbor.

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However, Alexander would've been too lenient, failing the test as it wasn't the norm in this territory. The actual judge at the time, who was Noriken, punished her by forcing her to clean up the latrines at the harbor for a year, not giving a single shit about any repercussions, even though he was threatened.

Reading about all the other cases Noriken ruled on made him more sympathetic. His rulings were somewhat creative and unbending, which was also probably why his Mother took him in as a retainer.

Alexander ignored his thoughts momentarily, conjuring a mana ink ball and filling out the correct form before Otto returned, 'Okay, what was it again? Assault without energy use... one copper coin.'

Some crimes he filled out the forms for were not worth mentioning, at least in the eyes of the judiciary in this territory. It was usually the case for assault, rape, and similar things which would not end in death. In truth, thievery was seen in this region as more serious since one could always get healed. However, the concept of psychological trauma wasn't really seen as a thing here, as skills usually offset those.

It was weird but also made somewhat sense. If one could overcome most trauma by simply learning a skill or two, other things became the priority, like possessions. However, Alexander also knew the truth that most just broke before they had the chance to learn those skills that could regulate the individual's mental state, making them instead go insane—a good example was his aunt.

Yet, everything regarding nobles, true ones like him, was a death sentence without any wiggle room. In some cases, he could accuse just someone, and whatever was true, he could decide on—a typical absolute system.

However, while those hypotheticals derived from actual cases were entertaining, the usual cases were messy, with the accuser usually swearing that they didn't do it. Of course, one could use mana contracts to confirm it, but those cost an average of ~20 gold per piece, and even if they could prove that the accuser lied, it meant that they would need to pay the price for the contract, which would be impossible for them. As such, Cophy judges did not use mana contracts to confirm crimes.

Here, Alexander would need to step in and do actual work, like using people with lie-detection skills, evaluating hearsay or eyewitnesses, and processing facts that were brought to him. Here, the judge was basically the lawyer for both sides and even partly an investigator, which was an insane responsibility and very prone to corruption.

Fortunately, Otto taught him all the basics he needed to know and the usual procedures to prepare Alexander as well as possible for his real cases.

However, who was Otto? He was an asslicker who could understand Alexander perfectly. He always caught on when he tried to be humorous and or truly felt unwell, which made him want the buff pig-kin as his social skills were top-notch.

While Otto was brown-nosing as if Alexander had truffles in his rectum, he didn't slack on his teaching tasks, doing everything by the book; even though he was much more boring than Anastasia and less fundamental, he was relentless. He also did not back down when Alexander did something wrong or wanted to escape this Outer Circle, always pressuring him, pointing at mistakes, and even arguing with him.

Alexander sighed, feeling joyful for the first time after such a long and tedious phase, 'At last! A case!'

...

On the way to the case allocation room, Copper House

Smiling and jumping slightly with every step, Otto lost his usual demeanor, which was stern but friendly. He felt it was Core for him, not wanting to change anything, even though his thoughts contradicted his feelings, 'Mr. Alexander is such a pain in the ass.'

Otto loved and hated Alexander with every fiber of his being. On one hand, Alexander was a genius who could be compared to Merlin, Leo, Moorgrel, and his first Knights. However, he also needed to be looked after every second of the day. Otherwise, he would quickly do his work and then start writing speeches or studying something related to magic or alchemy instead of trying to work through more test cases so he could get through the training period much faster.

Otto sighed, 'A puppy to the core.'

Alexander was visibly young and, as such, not mature, which meant he needed a lot of supervision. Also, given that he was a Moorgrelian, it was a wonder that he could sit still at all and not want to execute everyone by himself so that he would not have any work to do.

For Otto, who was born and raised in central Mal-Gil, these local folk, including the nobles, were usually too emotional and flimsy in his eyes but also somewhat charming, making his stay here delightful, especially when teaching such a talented young man.

However, Alexander was also visibly fond of him, mentioning that he looked for someone like Noriken as a retainer. It was a dream come true, but Otto still observed the ferocious furball, as he couldn't make head nor tail of him.

'His speeches are insane.'

Otto listened once to Alexander's speech at a marketplace. He wouldn't describe it as eloquent and beautiful, but it was impactful and, right to the core, what commoners wanted. It was manipulative, trying to impose onto them undying loyalty by pure happenstances of their birthplace and sometimes denouncing central Mal-Gil nobility, which Otto also hated.

There were many positives, without question, but the negatives were also overwhelming. Yet Otto couldn't wait much longer since Alexander's retainer, Aurum, was already trying to find an archivist.

However, what were the negatives that prevented Otto from immediately bowing down to him? Alexander was like a small campfire inside a dry forest during a heatwave—unpredictable. One little spark could burn down the whole area, and this fire was crackling a lot, always trying to jump over the wall of stones built around it.

This mindset was usually seen in politics as tremendously positive or defeatingly negative; there was no in-between, and even trying to understand it would result in a headache.

'What to do, what to do...'

Even though Otto had his own opinions about politics, nobility, and society as a whole, he was flexible and couldn't care less at the end of the day when he would get his Master or Mistress. He would give them his talent, adjust toward their personality, and be loyal, something his family did for decades with their previous proprietors.

What was his price, though? Prestige, wealth, and extravagance. Otto loved all those things, and looking into Alexander and his retainers, he almost immediately confirmed two of three points. All his retainers, be it the weird spider-kin disciple or the arrogant swan-kin boy, looked rather bland, but his discernible eye could see something else. They wore the most expensive clothing in Wolfsteeth and ate daily in luxurious restaurants, not caring about expenses. They were wealthy, to an insane degree.

Now, what about respect? All of them could do magic, an open secret in the higher commoner circles, which already brought a lot of prestige to the individual. Besides that, Alexander was generally respected because of his charity, primarily by lower commoners, but this was also a problem simultaneously.

Alexander wanted to open schools for everyone free of charge and pay for them at first by himself and later, when it worked out, with taxes. At least Otto and other commoners in their circles heard rumors about this, which were seen as insane. Even teaching orphans and other folk how to read, write, and calculate became a joke until the first ones went to some acquaintances of his, asking for apprenticeships as accountants, bookkeepers, scribes, or clerks.

The higher middle-class commoners didn't appreciate them very much and didn't accept them, even though they weren't too bad. However, while most saw them as a plague, Otto saw the future as Alexander created a new class of commoners.

Those would be the newly educated subjects, soon to open their own shops, work for the nobility, and slowly reach into every nook and cranny. It was impossible not to since there were so many, and only one needed to start getting them as apprentices; others would follow soon.

It was an army slowly emerging that would be loyal to Alexander, who made it happen and, consequently, his retainers, who helped him. They would slowly displace all those who would stubbornly hold onto some weird sense of right and wrong, not seeing the progress happening under their nose.

Otto licked his lips, 'It's decided, I guess...' He arrived at the case allocation room, walking casually inside as everyone knew him, '...hmm, what should I get him?'

...

An hour later, on the way to the courtroom

Alexander almost floated with happiness, smiling all the way while walking through the Copper House toward his designated courtroom, being all giddy about his first case.

"So, what did you get me? Should I get the guillotine ready?"

Otto chuckled, also genuinely happy, "First, we are not humans and don't use such barbaric instruments. Second, it's a surprise, Mr. Alexander, but you will hopefully like it."

Alexander fell into thought, thinking aloud, "Hm... what will I like? It isn't a fish thief because of our running joke, right?"

Otto chuckled, holding his hand before his mouth, "While funny, we have no fish thief, as the harbor markets are closed at the moment."

Alexander nodded, thinking and trying to guess again, "Right, right, because of the sea monsters, I remember, but what could..." Before he could end the sentence, he heard screaming from further away, "...you asshole! I'll kill ya!"

The answer came promptly from the same direction, also sounding angrily, "Do'cha bitch!"

Alexander looked confused at Otto, hoping it was not it, "Please tell me you didn't get me some weird couple dispute?"

Otto shook his head and pulled a pamphlet from his spatial pouch, sounding frustrated, "Please read it first, Mr. Alexander..." He sighed, "...I wanted it to be a surprise, but they really screamed immediately after seeing each other."

Alexander immediately opened the pamphlet, reading, and with every sentence, he got more desperate but didn't show it, "Wow... this is really..."

Otto nodded happily, visibly proud of himself, "I know, it's complicated. I especially took a case that you would love to solve."

Alexander forced a smile, "Thanks..."

It was the worst-case scenario he could've imagined, with a case involving a very esoteric law created solely by his Mother. The law was so weirdly convoluted that many judges ignored it, trying to avoid such cases altogether, 'Great... family court it is.'