One hour after the incident with Onde, Soma, and Marina along with everyone from the orphanage made their way to the town square, and there they saw the townspeople crowding the place and demanding an explanation for whether the rumors they heard one hour ago were the truth or not, the people who were standing outside the lightning cage before Ren’s arrival saw and heard the whole exchange between Soma, Ren, and Onde, and they told everyone about what they saw and heard which led to this situation right now.
The people crowding the place made a way for Soma and those who came with him, Soma walked through the way the people made for him, and as he did they all started cheering for him and after walking past the last citizen, Soma came face to face with one of the knights surrounding the central area of the town square, the knight nodded his head and opened a way for them to enter the central area, and there Soma saw Ren standing in the center and on the opposite side of Soma’s group stood a woman and a young man with their hands clasped with iron cuffs linked to a chain that had its other end linked to a stake that was driven in the ground, and around the woman and young man stood several men and women who were in the same state as them.
To the right of them, there was Onde setting on the floor with despair apparent on his face, and around him were the men he took with him to attack Soma’s mansion, and as expected, all of them Onde included were cuffed and chained to a stake driven to the ground, and near Onde stood Hols with a wry smile on his face, and he as well, was chained to the same stake that was used for Onde and his guys.
“Oh! Soma! Here you are! Now, let’s begin the-!....”(Ren)
“What’s the meaning of this!! Why are we Chosen Nobles chained and those filthy commoners are not?!! Especially that slave of a beastman! Why is she left to walk around as if she owned the place?! You filthy dog! You dare act all freely like that in front of meee!! I’ll-!”(Wind)
“SILENCE! Who allowed you to talk? This is a trail for you and those chained around you, in other words, you are a criminal that is about to be judged, and Soma here and those with him are the victims, and the people around us are the witnesses to this whole thing! And as of this moment, no one is allowed to talk without my permission and those who go against that will be punished severely, you hear? So keep your mouth shut unless I ask you a question”(Ren)
“Stop fucking around! We are a Chosen Nobles and you have no right treating us like that!! So-!”(Wind)
“Do it!”(Ren)
Heading his orders, a female knight from amongst the knights surrounding the central area stepped forward and started walking towards Wind, stood in front of her, and silently slapped her across the face with the back of her hand, the slap alone was enough knock Wind down, Wind was surprised by what had just happened, a noble such as herself slapped like that in public no less, she looked up at the female knight that slapped her and there she was met with eyes full disdain.
“Mother!! How dare yo-!”(Marik)
Marik was about to start complaining but as he started talking without permission, a fist connected to his face knocking him down, at the same time the female knight stepped forward, a male knight did the same, and he is the one who punched Marik in the face just now.
“Lift them up!.... as you saw right now if you talk without my permission you’ll be punished! Now let us start the trail!..... I’ll start first with the orphanage case! Maria, the caretaker of the orphanage, answer me! For how many years now have Marik taken over his father’s job of managing the orphanage finances?”(Ren)
“…For four years”(Maria)
“The scale didn’t move! She is telling the truth! Now…. Could you describe his management?”(Ren)
“…He mostly took all the money provided by the Lord for himself leaving the orphanage with just enough to barely survive, and he placed people to spy on us and whenever someone felt pity towards us and gave us some charity money he would send armed men to take it by force, and just some days ago his men demanded we hand my daughter, Mai to them while taking two of the kids hostages, we were lucky that Soma and Marina came by and saved us”(Maria)
“… No change with the scale! She is telling the truth! As everyone present heard, Drold Marik has been embezzling and extorting money from the poor orphanage and taking the money that the Lord specified for the orphanage for himself for four years now! But that begs the question, Maria, why didn’t you inform the Lord or those around him?”(Ren)
“…I-I was threatened not to dare to even think about that! They said that they would kill the kids or worse! They would have taken the kids and sold them to as playthings for some cruel nobles if I had tried to inform the Lord!”(Maria)
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“…The scale didn’t move, she is telling the truth! As you heard! The poor orphanage has been suffering in silence for four years now because of those people! Now… Drold Marik and Drold Wind, do you have any words of defense?”(Ren)
“…. I... I-I-I….Erm…”(Marik)
“Of course we have!! That money would have gone to waste spent on that filthy orphanage!! I don’t even understand why would the Lord send that much money to such a filthy place!! It’s either a mistake on his part or that he had no pride as a Chosen Noble!! So all we did was correct that mistake of his and spend that money on something much more important such as ourselves!! Chosen Nobles!!”(Wind)
Marik realized his situation and was unable to answer, and on the other hand, his mother, Wind, started talking grandly that the money was wasted on the orphanage and that it’s better to spend that money on themselves instead, everyone listening to her was stunned by what she was talking about, even her own son was looking at her with eyes full of regret and realization.
“….Haaaah… What can I say… As you all saw and heard just now, Drold Wind is just this type of person!.... Now to the next matter! This one I was part of it in a way! Before the Flood, Soma informed me that a friend of his was illegally taken as a slave, and requested from me to accompany him to Hols’s slave market, and we found the said friend, Marina, there. And Soma bought her from there using me to pressure Hols to say the truth! At the time, Hols denied the existence of a slave named Marina in his market, but when we asked to inspect the whole market he gave in and handed her over! At the time, his actions were weird and suspicious! So… Hols, Would you care to tell us the whole story?”(Ren)
“…Understood, one day prior to you visiting my market, Marik-sama and Wind-sama asked me to place a slave collar on a sleeping girl, Marina, and to draft a special contract to make her remain a slave forever, and after that, I was instructed to only sell her to Onde-sama as he had his eyes on her for some time now, but you two came to my market before him and I had no other way than to hand her over to you”(Hols)
“The scale didn’t move! He is telling the truth! Hols, was that one the first time you did something similar ?”(Ren)
“No…. I have been working with both the Drold household and the Onde household doing this same thing to many many innocent people, the Drold pair would give loan money to people who are unable to read and write and make them sign a contract so that no matter how much they returned of the initial amount their debt would never go down and setting it so that the time limit for them to repay the debt is way too short, causing those people to become debt slaves and sell them through my slave market in exchange for a share of the profit. And as for my dealings with Onde-sama, he would from time to time kidnap women from here and there and pay me to turn them into slaves or more precisely into his playthings”(Hols)
“No change with the scale! He is telling the truth! But I gotta say… you are being awfully cooperative, I didn’t expect that to be honest”(Ren)
“…Whatever I lie or tell the truth you are going to get the truth out of me anyway, and even if I was able to get away here, my life will end anyway, no one will be willing to do business with a slave merchant that was suspected by Rendoulf El Valc the crown prince himself especially after the outrageous things Wind-sama said, that’s why it’s better to tell the truth right away”(Hols)
“…So… the Drold pair, What’s your defense?”(Ren)
“Those are all lies! We did no such things! Hols you bastard don’t go lying like that!”(Marik)
“The scale’s left pan dropped down! These are lies! And this completely proves that what Hols said is the truth! Now… Onde, do you have any words of defense?”(Ren)
“…N-No…”(Onde)
“…I see, Then to the last matter! A piece of certain information found its way to my ear, Drold Wind, Is it the truth that your husband, the head of the Drold family has passed away?”(Ren)
“That’s right! He died after being stabbed with a dagger! He was stabbed by that filthy daughter of his, the filthy dog standing over there next to that thief who helped her do it!!”(Wind)
“…!.... The scale’s left pan dropped down with a force I have never seen before!! She is lying!!... Marina, I’ll ask you now; did you kill your father?”(Ren)
“No I didn’t, leave alone killing him I was never allowed to be near him, I don’t even know what he looks like…”(Marina)
“The scale didn’t move! She is telling the truth! Now, …Marik, Did you kill your father?”(Ren)
“…”(Marik)
“What’s wrong? Answer me!”(Ren)
“…..N-No, I didn’t!...”(Marik)
“The scale’s left pan dropped down! Which means he is lying! Is the right answer ‘yes, I did’?.... the right pan dropped down! This means that the right answer is ‘yes, I did’! Now, answer me! Did you do it alone?”(Ren)
“…”(Marik)
“Answer the question!”(Ren)
“…-!”(Marik)
“What’s the point asking such questions?! That foolish man went and brought that filth of a woman in and even married her!! That’s why I killed her!! But even in her death, she was able to give birth to that filthy dog over there!! And rather than letting me get rid of her, that foolish man went and hid her away!! That’s why I killed him!! All we did was to clean the world from such filthy people!! The world surely is a cleaner place without those filth!! We don’t deserve this treatment!! We ought to be hailed as heroes!! Heroes who made an effort to clean this town from the filth stuck on it!! And thus I demand you remove these chains this moment and hand over those two filthy scums to us with some monetary compensation for wasting our time and treating us like this!!”(Wind)
Hearing his mother, Marik slumped down to his knees losing all hope, Marik noticed his mother’s obsession with the idea of ‘Beastmen are filthy’ a long time ago, and because of her raising him, he agreed with her that Beastmen and commoners are lower beings and that the nobles are a chosen existence, but today he was shocked by his mother’s lack of common sense, or more like he noticed that the woman named Drold Wind was nothing but a mass of selfishness, obsession, arrogance, and absolute self-rightness. And he is not alone, everyone present there noticed the same things, but the one most upset about it was Ren, this was not the first time he met people like her, many of the nobles in this country were the same as her, this gave Ren un idea about how dangerous this country’s situation was, and without Soma, he would have never noticed it at all, for a brief moment he glanced at Soma, and Soma just simply nodded his head.
“This marks the end of my questioning! And now I’m going to pass my judgment! Drold Wind, Drold Marik, Onde, And lastly Hols, those for are to be executed publicly today in front of the whole town! As for those who worked for them and followed their orders are to be separated into three groups, those who have committed murder are to be executed, those who haven’t committed murder but guilty of other crimes are to be turned into crime slaves, and those who are found innocent of any crime will be released right away!”(Ren)
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