Domain of the Self
The Authority of Judgment
The Guillotine and the Scales
Erica was the first to grasp the situation, not Godou.
“Godou! Don’t say a word! Not a single word!”
Erica was deeply versed in magic, sorcery, and supernatural powers.
That was only natural. As a young lady of the Blandelli family and a knight, she had been a woman of that world from birth.
And on top of that, though only for a short time, she had been a witch taught by the Sword King, Saint Raphaelo.
So she understood.
The structure of this Authority.
“It’s a barrier that drags even the user into its own law and raises its output. The rules inside this space are absolute. There’s no way he would have allowed a defense for no reason.”
The defense itself must be part of the rules.
It was probably the penalty he bore in exchange for gaining overwhelming advantage, and that would make this Godou’s weapon.
If they wasted their chance to defend themselves with useless words, they would be dancing exactly as the other side intended.
So Erica calmly emptied her mind and stepped forward in Godou’s place.
“I’ll ask you this. Under whose law does this trial proceed?”
“My sense of justice.”
“Huh?! Hey! Where the hell is—”
“Godou, I told you to shut up, didn’t I?!”
“S-sorry...”
“I demand an explanation of this trial’s procedure. You can at least tell us that much, can’t you? If this really is a trial.”
She was asking indirectly.
Was this, too, part of the penalty?
Il-gyu let out a faint snort.
Then he glanced at Godou and said, “The king really did bring along a pretty capable lawyer.”
Correct.
As for explanations of the procedure, he would usually answer when the other side requested them.
But when the demand came this blatantly, even Il-gyu had trouble refusing.
“I’ll explain briefly. I am the prosecutor in this trial, the one who reads the burden of sin borne by the defendant standing here and indicts him for that sin. The charges I just listed are exactly that.”
The prosecutor exposes the defendant’s sins.
The defendant then gets one chance to plead.
He could keep his mouth shut.
He could confess and hope for a lighter sentence.
Or, having secured a good lawyer, he could use his chance to plead and aim for acquittal.
However, if the defendant chose to plead, Il-gyu would obtain one piece of evidence to refute that plea.
And the evidence would be random.
“If your plea contains no lies and you really are innocent, then the evidence will honestly choke me. In other words, if you make a false plea, I’ll hit you with an aggravated charge.”
Let it be said in advance: Il-gyu had already “read” the sins.
It would be extremely difficult to win acquittal.
Because, though he didn’t know the full circumstances, Il-gyu had effectively seen the crimes Godou committed.
After hearing that, Erica finished organizing the rules in her head.
Oddly enough, she wasn’t all that surprised by the part where Il-gyu had read Godou’s sins.
She knew of a similar kind of Authority recorded in Greenwich.
“It’s probably an eye that reads human karma. It won’t be exactly the same, but I can roughly treat the evidence the prosecutor presents as records from the time of the crime. Like CCTV footage.”
Then she asked again.
“What happens if he’s found guilty?”
“I’ll leave that as the pleasure after the verdict.”
Ah, so that part isn’t a penalty.
Well, it wasn’t really connected to the trial itself.
Having finished her final line of thought, Erica saw Godou fretting over what would happen if a guilty verdict came down, and she told him the truth.
“Don’t even dream of acquittal.”
“Why?! No, what did I even do wrong?”
“You can tell from the charges, can’t you?”
Wasn’t he the destroyer of the world who had killed no one?
In truth, that description fit Godou perfectly.
Even if he usually pretended to be a pacifist, once the reins came loose under the excuse that he had no choice, he was the sort of man who would commit anything without hesitation.
Erica knew that was Godou’s true nature.
Especially since among the charges Il-gyu had brought, the destruction of the Colosseum would certainly be included.
This really left no answer.
But Godou seemed genuinely wronged and shouted at Il-gyu.
“No matter how you look at it, that’s way too unfair!”
“Oh? Go on.”
“The trial itself is way too favorable to you!”
Reading sins and indicting someone with them was already a power bordering on cheating.
Like he said, acquittal was nearly impossible for anyone.
Whether one kept silent or confessed, the outcome of guilt would not be overturned in the end, and even if one pleaded, Il-gyu would automatically receive evidence to refute it.
In other words, the plea itself was effectively meaningless.
“How is that a fair trial?!”
In a way, Godou’s complaint could seem reasonable.
It was true that Il-gyu had the overwhelming advantage.
However—
“Then I’ll give you the answer that perfectly counters my Authority.”
“What?”
“Live without committing crimes. How about that? Easy, right?”
Maybe not for petty offenses, but crimes serious enough to reach trial were not things one committed lightly.
Crime rates differed by country, so statistics were difficult, but even conservatively speaking, seventy percent of people live their lives without ever seeing a trial.
And for Il-gyu, the meaningful verdicts were even fewer.
Final judgments for crimes of serious punishment were rarer still.
“It’s the countermeasure most people in this world are already using as a matter of course. What, is it hard?”
“That’s...”
“You say the trial is unfavorable to the defendant? Of course it is. Then don’t commit crimes. Did you think a trial was some kind of game? And now you’re whining about fairness?”
In truth, that was the real penalty borne by Il-gyu’s Authority, [Ju-bok-sa-sa], despite its power.
Only sinners.
An ability that could be used only on those who had committed crimes.
The fact that it was meaningless against the overwhelming majority of the world’s people.
Godou, left speechless, finally lowered his head and fell silent.
Erica patted his shoulder, then began her first and last plea.
The content was complicated and long, so it has been omitted somewhat.
“So, in short, you’re saying it wasn’t intentional?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll admit there’s some merit to that.”
Indeed, Erica’s plea was excellent.
And it was also true.
Godou had indeed overreacted somewhat, but he had not been the one to start the fight in the first place.
He could not hope for acquittal, but there was certainly room for extenuating circumstances.
However, the problem was what Il-gyu would be handed as evidence to rebut the plea.
When Il-gyu checked the evidence, the corner of his mouth curled upward in a faint smile.
“In all the acts Kusanagi Godou has committed so far, the greatest weight seems to lie in the ability to summon a giant boar. Do you admit that?”
“I admit it.”
“The defense argued that the boar is an Authority whose output cannot be controlled, and therefore the destruction that accompanies its use is unavoidable and independent of the defendant’s will.”
Rebuttal of the plea.
Evidence.
Record of the Greenwich Wise Men’s Council.
Excerpted from the Authority of the godslayer, Kusanagi Godou.
“So this is one of the ten incarnations, the conditions for using the boar.”
“That?! Don’t tell me even information like that comes out as evidence!!”
“You seem to have tried to hide as much information about your lord’s Authority as possible, but you’ve only shot yourself in the foot.”
The fifth incarnation of Verethragna.
The conditions for using the boar are as follows.
“Designate a destructive force estimated at no less than ten tons, and permit the destruction of the summonable target in relation to it.”
In other words, Erica’s claim
that destruction had inevitably occurred because he used the boar was a lie.
The moment he used the boar, Godou had already assumed that the surrounding area would be reduced to scorched earth.
“Those are completely different things.”
The intent behind the act of destruction itself clearly belonged to Godou.
Especially the crime that occupied the largest share among the charges.
The evidence Il-gyu held regarding the destruction of the Colosseum was far too lethal.
“The battle that caused the destruction of the Colosseum was the sparring match between Kusanagi Godou and Erica Blandelli.”
More precisely, it was a situation in which their duel proved to the people dispatched from the Greenwich Council that Kusanagi Godou was a godslayer and possessed enough power to be recognized as a king.
“At that time, Kusanagi Godou used the boar and destroyed the Colosseum.”
Erica had tried to take this crime onto herself.
She claimed that, because she had overlooked the fact that it was a sparring match and pushed Godou too hard, Godou had reflexively brought out the boar.
And that the Colosseum had merely happened to be in the boar’s path.
But that was not the truth.
“Judging from the boar’s conditions of use, and from the fact that the boar summoned at the time was recalled without destroying anything other than the Colosseum...”
Kusanagi Godou had clearly offered up the Colosseum as the boar’s sacrifice.
Even though he had the options of stopping the sparring match or surrendering.
“Judge, deliver the verdict.”
Needless to say.
“[Guilty]”
The sentence is forfeiture.
“Aaaaaah!!”
“Godou?!”
The instant the verdict fell, Godou screamed, and golden dust suddenly began pouring out of his body.
Then all of that dust was absorbed into Il-gyu’s body.
When the process ended, the space returned to normal.
Godou understood.
“My Authority...”
That five of Verethragna’s ten incarnations had vanished.
thanks for the chapter