Who is the ‘witch’?
Her essence is that five years later, she created the black spots, spread them, and caused numerous people to die.
“He always wanted rabbits. I’ve been disposing of dead rabbits.”
Listening to Ethan’s testimony, I recalled the ‘witch’ who died on the gallows five years later.
“I always helped with the cleanup. Before he blackmailed me, he used the excuse that they were food for the hunting hawks he was raising. But there were really far too many, and they were always dead. I still clearly remember the rabbits’ white-glazed eyes.”
Back then too, it was a woman, a middle-aged woman, I heard.
“I think he might have approached my mother because I showed signs of finding it strange.”
Was she Rilke’s accomplice?
Or did Rilke frame that woman who now travels to and from Iota?
“I did give the rabbit carcasses to the hawks.”
Ethan’s testimony continued.
“The hawks ate well at first. Then later they didn’t want to eat. For reference, all the hawks that ate the rabbits eventually died. There’s something I remember.”
Ethan also testified that he saw what the hawks left uneaten.
“The torn-up meat was sporadically discolored black. I saw it many times.”
He said it was such a strong impression that it wasn’t easily erased from his mind.
“I’m a preciously obtained child and a late-born one. My father passed away a few years ago from the shock of the family head’s death, and my mother’s health has been poor for several years from that shock as well.”
Rilke pretends to know about his mother’s condition, which had become more frail since last year. He gives Ethan several bottles of medicine, saying he has good medicine for senility.
“At first, my mother’s illness neither improved nor worsened. Then gray spots gradually began appearing on my mother’s body.”
Early black spots have no pain. He said the neighborhood physician diagnosed it as a type of age spot due to old age.
“And as the gray spots turned black, what I inevitably recalled were the rabbits that had died stained black.”
Ethan calmly explained the process of his mother’s illness worsening. Sighs naturally flowed from people’s lips at the cruelty.
“When I absolutely couldn’t bear to watch my mother’s pain as her child, Prince Rilke Yorick came to visit. That person gave me incense candles, saying they would stop the disease’s progression.”
“……”
“I was blackmailed with the incense candles. That’s how it happened.”
Ethan finished speaking, bowing his head once more like a criminal.
The Yorick House counsel raised his hand. The initial vigor couldn’t be felt in his voice.
“This doesn’t prove he directly made the medicine.”
“That person made it, for certain. He shamelessly manufactured medicine even in my house, saying he needed a furnace.”
Ethan specifically explained what he knew or remembered among the ingredients.
I could see the opposing side’s witness in the gallery, the dean of the pharmaceutical school, earnestly writing down the ingredients with serious eyes before I knew it.
“If it’s not rude, may I ask for the dean’s opinion on what kind of ingredients they are?”
Count Leroy discovered him and inquired.
“If they really come together, they’re ingredients that could cause serious effects. It’s already poison. Particularly those unnamed ingredients whose appearance he described without knowing what they were appear to be ‘mud turtles’ in spawning season and ‘Behemoth’s horn’. They’re Class 1 dangerous medicinal materials, and if true, I think we must also rigorously clarify how they were brought into the system.”
“House Yorick. Nothing to refute or interrogate?”
Rilke was slowly turning to look at the counsel.
The Yorick House counsel was looking at documents without even blinking. I could see him stubbornly chewing on his thin lips.
“Your Honor. I request an additional witness.”
In contrast, Count Leroy was unrestrained.
“I request the Meyer family merchant guild administrators and servants as witnesses.”
“Actually, Prince Yorick, back then you were little Prince Meyer. You used to secretly request unusual things. You requested rabbits be secretly brought in. You already had specific plans. I only did as I was told.”
He was one of the Meyer guild merchants who mainly handled Rilke’s furniture.
“You asked me to put rabbits inside furniture that would have empty space, like couches or large shelves.”
The merchant explained that it started on a very small scale. He said he just thought the young noble family’s young master liked cute animals.
As the description continued of when the merchant received a request to take the furniture back and checked the furniture’s strange condition, voices of condemnation began bursting from the gallery.
“The couch was crawling with rabbit corpses. The smell was so bad… Prince Rilke Yorick calmly sprayed perfume on it.”
Following this, testimony from the Count Meyer House servants also continued. They testified that everyone knew Rilke frequently changed furniture, and that he was sufficiently respected living in Meyer mansion and didn’t look discriminated against at all.
After that, the trial became anticlimactic.
The Yorick House counsel spoke with difficulty with an ashen face but seemed to have given up.
The trial’s flow was gaining rapid momentum. Ethan, whom they would have prepared as another decisive hand, had become meaningless from House Yorick’s perspective.
Nevertheless,
“It’s special assault charges.”
There was far too much left for the Meyer House side to accuse. Because there were many things Rilke had committed.
The assistant judge carefully brought the evidence with gloved hands.
Count Leroy pointed inside the transparent glass box.
“Those earrings are cursed objects that Prince Meyer recently received as a gift. They were sent disguised as from someone else, but were actually received from Prince Rilke Yorick.”
The final witness was the dean of the Enchantment Magic Association.
The small-framed, thin middle-aged mage briefly explained about the earrings. If they had been worn as is, it would have been terrible, and significant scars would have remained. The mage briefly described in future tense what had happened to me in the past.
“I swear. I testified without a shred of exaggeration compared to the intensity of the embedded magic.”
Those earrings were an object that showed how much the ancient Alphas and Omegas loved, hated, and distrusted each other.
From now on, strange relics would be excavated from the ancient island and flow out to the continent. Such things often caused ominous incidents in the places they settled. Those earrings that reacted to omega pheromones were particularly cruel among such objects.
The process of uncovering the destination and interrogating witnesses was replaced by documents investigated by the capital guard.
Count Leroy was concluding his argument. His voice was heavy.
“The charges I’ve prepared are up to here, but.”
The Yorick House counsel was now closing his eyes.
“Particularly, Rilke Yorick, with the mere thought of framing someone in today’s trial to occupy an advantageous position, fed poison to dozens of innocent Empire citizens. The crime of driving them to death must also definitely be addressed.”
Rilke’s face had become leaden.
I was certain that kid had lost the chance to flee.
“I think no matter what excessive punishment is given to Prince Rilke Yorick, who was excessively cruel and drove many people to misfortune and tried to do so, it would not be insufficient.”
The court entered a brief recess for sentencing.
It didn’t take long. The result was, of course, House Meyer’s victory.
And… Rilke was sentenced separately.
In today’s courtroom, Rilke, whose end was decided in an instant, might appeal. Seeing the visibly furious Regent Duke storm out of his seat, it seems difficult though.
Looking at Rilke’s pale face, I said to Mikhail.
“I want to know the list of spectators who attended today without missing a single person.”
“Heretics?”
It was the identity of the Empire citizens Rilke had poisoned and intoxicated.
“Yeah. That’s why I’m skeptical about treating them.”
Mikhail suggested that since it’s come to this anyway, how about leaving the heretics alone, pretending there’s no cure.
“They’re also Empire citizens. It would be better to save them first, then make them pay for their crimes according to the law.”
Mikhail didn’t seem to care much either way and eventually agreed to distribute White Orchid to the heretics free of charge. Instead, he added mischievously.
“After all, I’ll deduct it from your share of the inheritance.”
It wasn’t very surprising. What’s more surprising is that Mikhail was thinking about my share of the inheritance.
“This is the list of nobles who attended the trial.”
Mikhail handed me a few thinly bound sheets of paper from under the table.
“I did it because you asked, but. Why do you need this?”
“There’s something I want to confirm. What about people who left in the middle?”
“I had them all recorded.”
I continuously observed Rilke throughout the trial. I had decided to do so from the beginning.
That’s why I was able to catch those brief, strange glances when that kid unconsciously looked back at the gallery each time he was cornered.
“It might be nothing. If it’s something worth telling you, I’ll let you know. What happened to Rilke?”
“It’s obvious, what.”
Mikhail shrugged his shoulders.
“He’s confined in House Yorick.”
It was common for high-ranking nobles’ children with their own investigative authority who committed major crimes to receive house arrest rather than being immediately taken to prison.
“I think it’s unexpected though.”
It’s strange. The Regent Duke I saw at the courthouse seemed cold as if he’d cast Rilke out immediately.
“I guess he’s worried about his reputation as a ‘gentleman’. What a water snake-like bastard.”
As Count Leroy had confidently predicted, the trial that was supposed to be a light honor duel concluded with serious charges. People forgot about the dispute between House Meyer and House Yorick. Only in social circles remained Rilke, Rilke, and some rumors about me.
“I’m not too pleased about such rumors sticking to you either.”
“It can’t be helped. It’ll die down with time.”
Soon Rilke’s second trial will proceed. Seeing the Regent still keeping Rilke, I had to consider the possibility of him hiring a counsel.
However, Rilke had already received an evaluation tinged with feelings from the court that ‘the quality of the crime is seriously poor’. I could only hope he could take responsibility for his own decisions, as much as he’d lived making cruel decisions.
