It seems like his Majesty couldn't sit back and take it like a good boy anymore, so he tried to shout once again as he slammed his hands on his desk and got up.
"NONSEN-"
However…
"Shut up."
Not only was he interrupted, but he froze in place the moment he realized what he had just done.
"Geezer, I allowed it once because the trial hadn't started yet."
"N-no… G-Great Sovereign-"
"I told you to shut up, didn't I?"
"Of course, of course..."
He then quickly sat back down, however, Mio continued.
"As I said. I forgave it once, since it was before the official start of the trial. But if you dare I act up again inside of my courtroom, I won't forgive it a 3rd time."
"…I understand."
"Good."
She sighed, clearly a little sick of him by now, but regardless she still recomposed herself and went back to the casual and serene tone and expression we all know.
"Now then. Since there shouldn't be any more nuisances interrupting me, I think it's safe to draw a line here. But first off, do you two have anything to say about what the Ashford couple stated?"
"…we don't."
"It's unfortunately a fact that we have no way of proving them wrong."
"That's true. But coincidentally, neither can the Ashford couple prove that you fabricated the interview, nor prove that the butler himself wasn't lying. Am I wrong?"
She asked our parents this time, probably trying to once again keep the "make it seem like a mutual debate, rather than a debunk" act consistent.
"That's true. Technically speaking, while they can't disprove our argument, neither can we prove it beyond our words. The estate is gone after all."
"And on the other hand, neither can we prove that Olith simply had a chance of heart and decided to lie on purpose, as much as we'd like to avoid thinking that."
"That's right. Which is why, I think it's best if we move on to the next one, and see how that goes. We can't prove any side to be correct, but what we can do is observe and dissect the next interviews properly. When fabricating things like this, inconsistencies are fairly common, which could be a lead towards the truth. Does anyone have anything to say against that?"
No one said anything though, which I'd say was enough of a reply. And with that out of the way, Mio went on to display the next interview and pictures on the screen. Once again, we had some time to properly read them before the debating began, however…
There wasn't really much of a chance in the outcome. Frankly speaking, I think it's plenty impressive that this was dragged on so long with how basic and iffy the debate topics were. These interviews kept the same exact format, amidst every single one of them. Supposedly interviewing someone that was either directly working under our grandpa, our parents confirming their identity, going over the interview which followed the same few questions of background checks before suddenly switching to heavy allegations.
Then the debates followed just as smoothly, or I guess roughly? As before. The detectives held their own for a decent amount of time, until our parents gave solid arguments to counterattack. But once again, there's no real way to prove anyone right here, which is why Mio kept simply delaying any absolute decision, and simply moved on to the next one, over and over, until we were finished with all the interviews. The whole process took around an hour, of nothing but pure debating on nonsense that was somehow stretched to make it seem believable to some extent..
Next up were the rumors, which were still under an interview-ish format, but more like a grouping of several answers from different people. It was even harder to try and get to an objective conclusion with those, simply because in all honesty? A good load of these came from absolute randoms. No ties to Ashford, whether it was our family itself or as workers.
In fact, most of them were from completely regular civilians, so you can imagine how that went. When you have a group that's framed as treasoners, even the most ridiculous rumor can spread like wildfire amidst the public, which has made this all the more annoying. Our parents this time genuinely had to argue against words of totally biased people that just said whatever they heard, because no matter how stupid it may have sounded, to them it was most likely true.
And if I was to give you an example, someone had genuinely said "I heard that the Late Ashford Great Duke was actually a drug and sex trafficker… apparently, they were trafficking women and drugs from other continents, and using them with everyone else in the family!" With a straight face. Like, I would've understood if the rumor was simply about grandpa having been a drug and sex trafficker, since that's a common allegation with most nobles, but seriously?
I'm genuinely wondering how it was possible for that lady to genuinely believe that not only did our grandpa traffic drugs from a different continent… but women as sex slaves too…? I genuinely don't think most people realize just how hard continental traffication is in this world. When all the other continents are considered off limits as almost, or rather, straight up war zones, drugs and women are the last thing that you'll see come from them.
Hell, up to date, the most common and main thing that has ever entered our continent from a different one were monsters, and sometimes humans or semi humans, all of them which have been obviously dealt with by the Sentinels and recruits. Why? Because once again, the other continents are considered war zones against us… because once again, they're under the rule of the Dragon King… and we're the only continent that isn't… and the Dragon King often sends random waves of monsters, humans or Demi humans to fuck with us…
Do you see how ridiculous the rumor is now? which made it all the worse when our parents simply physically couldn't prove them wrong. Because yeah…. You know, the Ashford estate was kind of burnt to the ground…. Hahaha. I really disliked that part, in case it wasn't obvious. It just put it into a clear perspective, just how biased the hatred towards us was, on a completely false treason claim and sentence.
These people genuinely from the bottom of their hearts believed anything that was being said about us, no matter how vile, unlikely and straight up stupid it may have been. But regardless, it's not like there was anything we could do about it, besides the very thing we're already currently doing. Being in the Supreme Court, arguing for outrage innocence is the only option available to us… and it seems like it would be a little harder than anticipated.
But of cooourse, why wouldn't it be? After all, his Majesty simply blackmailed a happy couple with a stable job as detectives with a clear career, to completely make up some random bullshit and interview a bunch of idiots on the street. So obviously, now our parents have to deal with it, and genuinely go easy on them so their careers won't be over even after Mio or Maia, I don't even know which one will do it, save them. Hahaha.
If only his Majesty was a tiny little bit more of an honest person, huh? But once again, there is simply nothing else we can do about it. So moving on, as the cherry on top, we had the alleged remains from the burnt estate.
Things like a wooden safe that magically survived the whole mansion burning, letters, more mysterious items that really just looked like they were random wood pieces put together in weird shapes, and so on. This one was thankfully the easiest to actually move on from, since they were genuinely so ridiculous that not even the detectives themselves put in that much effort to defend them.
It was kinda like "well, we did find them, but we can't really prove their accuracy either…" instead of just admitting they made them up of course, which was taken lightly enough by Mio and everyone else who was probably just tired of these pretty stupid debates.
"And that was… everything that these 2 presented to me. Is that right, or do you have anything else?"
Mio asked the couple, but they shook their heads.
"No, Great Sovereign, that is indeed the case."
"That was all the proof we managed to accumulate in the span of our commission, and we don't have anything else."
"I see. However, I'm pretty sure both of you surely could tell by now, right? We achieved absolutely no objective conclusion with them."
"That's… not something we can deny. It seems like we were lacking in terms of fulfilling our commission properly."
"No, I wouldn't go as far as saying that. Given the fact that we spent around 2 hours debating so far, I think it's pretty safe to assume that you did a great job. This is just a really important and complicated topic, that's it."
"Thank you… Great Sovereign. It means a lot to both me and my wife."
"No need to thank me. However, if you're done, I don't think there's any further reason for you two to stay at the front. Given the fact that you've been brought here as part of the trial itself also, I'm granting both of you permission to stay in the Courtroom and watch the rest play out though. Take a seat wherever you want."
"We'll take you up on that offer, Great Sovereign. Thank you once again."
As Mio nodded, the detectives turned around towards the benches and found a place towards the ones closer to the doors, and sat down. Honestly, I personally really think they deserved this. Not only could they finally rest, but I'm assuming they're at least a little less scared of whatever may happen to them, since Mio didn't even make them leave the room.
"Now then, does either one of you wanna go first, once again?"
"If you allow me, then I'll gladly go first, Great Sovereign."
"Hmm, you still wanna do that after your detectives wasted 2 hours of our time with no definitive proof?"
He did seem to be taken a little aback by it? But it's not like he could've denied it or anything either, so he recomposed himself as quickly as possible. And as for the detectives? Well, I did see where they sat down generally, but I couldn't see them from here, even if I turned around, but I'm imagining they were probably a little affected as well. But I'm fairly sure that Mio is just going to talk to them sometime after everything is over and apologize if needed, so I'm not really worried about them anymore.
"Well… they did their best, didn't they? And while indeed, they haven't managed to prove their filth objectively yet, the Ashfords haven't been able to prove their worthiness either, am I wrong?"
"I can't say you're wrong. But that's the same logic that wasted us 2 hours, you know? If we don't have any objective proof of anything, we can't deduce whether or not these people are dangerous, or whether the Late Great Duke was a treasoner."
"Don't worry, Great Sovereign. I am indeed more than aware of that, which is precisely why I had prepared ahead of time something which cannot be falsified."
He seemed to have had a folder on his desk, which I honestly didn't even pay attention to or notice until now, but after opening it and taking it out a few sheets, they disappeared and appeared in Mio's hands shortly after.
"Go on…"
"What you have there, are official Sentinel enforcement documents, regarding some events that occurred a few months prior to date. More specifically, they're unmistakable proof that at least 2 of the current Ashford generation is problematic."
Mio kept silent, still reading the papers, but did gesture with her hand so that he could continue speaking.
"I'm sure that everyone here would prefer it if I don't waste any more time either, which is why I'll be going straight to the point. A few months ago, before the Eldest Daughter of the Ashford became your Lieutenant, her and the Eldest Son went to the town nearby to the village where their family resided."
My eyes widened, as I glanced over at Maia, who seemed just as surprised. We started another mana conversation on the spot too, because we had to make sure we were thinking of the same thing.
"Say, my dear older sister… you don't think he could be possibly referring to…"
"Unfortunately my dear younger brother, I'm afraid he is talking about that day. Me and Mio did consider the possibility of him bringing this up, but I'm actually surprised that he genuinely went ahead with it."
"And would you look at that? Before they even entered the town, they had already caused issues. Specifically, knocking down the 2 poor guards at the gate, simply doing their job. The reason? It's unknown. All we do know is the fact that the guards simply wanted to do a simple body search, like they do with anyone else before they enter the town, to ensure the civilian's safety, but I'm assuming that it must've been asking too much for those two…"
"How did it get twisted this bad…? And he said something about an official Sentinel enforced document? What's that about?"
"Well, you know how Sentinel Recruits also have a Law enforcing department, right? That's why there's usually some recruits in any big city and town, and they act the same way as general guards. A Sentinel Recruit's arrest is a little different than a guard's, due to a necessary documentation and authentication which is required before the document is officially enforced, and the sentence or trial starts. It's a type of seal that only Law Recruits have."
"Then, not only did they cause a ruckus around the town during the entire day, with their presence disturbing everyone's peace… but they ended the day in such a disgraceful way, that I'm hesitant to even say it out loud."
"But how did that completely fake story even become an official document? Was it from a rigged recruit?"
"Did you forget that it was … or at least, let's just say that it was me, who took care of all of those guys? Both in the alley and at the gate."
"'Let's say it was you…' huh?"
Now that I think about it, Luna- well, Mio, did "go to find" Maia, who apparently took care of the guys in the alley after me, but I'm not so sure anymore.
"Well, regardless of that. These documents are actually… made by Mio and Myself, and we had a Recruit hand them to his Majesty and act as a double agent. That's why I'm genuinely surprised he actually went ahead and used them."
"What? You can't be serious, right? Why would he randomly accept a story that's oddly convenient to his completely made up narrative, from a Recruit… while knowing that you and Mio are in charge…"
"As I said, I'm just as shocked as you are. He seemed to have at least a few functional brain cells left in him earlier, but clearly we were overestimating him."
Which seems pretty weird to say, considering that just now he even took a fairly long dramatic pause… maybe his Majesty was only good at acting, but nothing else?
"The Eldest son had wandered in an ordinary alley, and there… he found 2 kids around his age. One was a boy and the other a girl, younger than both him and her brother. It seemed like the Eldest Ashford son took a liking to that girl, however neither did her or her brother reciprocate."
"You have to be kidding me…"
"However, instead of taking the rejection… he assaulted both of them. It had gotten so bad, that a group of men passing by the alley, alarmed by the screams of the 2 other children entered the alley to check what had happened, and found the 2 kids blooded and on the verge of passing out."
"Well, sorry about that… we had to make it pretty bad though, in case he did actually use it."
"Bad my ass! Why am I an assaulter that can't take no for an answer… not to mention how I allegedly took a liking to Juna on the same day I fell in love with Luna at first sigh-"
"Hmmm?? My, oh my, myyy oh my, what was that last part again, my dear little brother???"
"Shut it…"
"And that, is when the Eldest Daughter came in. We don't really know why they were separated for a short amount of time, but it seems like she knew her brother was in the alley. When she arrived, she of course took her younger brother's side, and ended up beating up the group of men that were trying to rescue the kids. In fact, they were beaten up so badly, that they all ended up with permanent handicaps. Some even lost their entire arms. The report described their wounds 'as if a gorilla had went all out on their fragile bodies'"
"…At least the wound report is accurate."
"I'll blow your head up."
"See? That's probably what a gorilla would do, isn't it? You strawberry freak gorilla."
"Mio must've added that last part… I should've read the whole thing, for fucks sake!"
"So as you can see, at the very least even if we are currently incapable of proving that the Late Ashford Duke was a treason, it is still possible to prove that the current Ashford family is problematic, perhaps too much to be allowed to reclaim their former power."
"Hmmm… these are definitely official documents at the very least."
"As I said, it's not something I can falsificate after all-"
"However, I have to correct you there."
"What-"
"You can falsify Sentinel documents. I'm not really sure if you expected me to just voucher for every single Recruit and act like "they would never!" Or some shit like that, but that won't be the case, Geezer. All it takes is a good bribe to some Recruits in the Law department, and you're good to go. To begin with, the biggest requirement for becoming a Recruit is strength. As long as they have that, most of them will be accepted and utilized. It's only natural to expect some rotten individuals among them, the same way not every Noble has a noble heart, not every adventurer is a good person, and so on. It all simply depends on each individual."
"That's… not something I can deny. However, we can't risk not taking these seriously, given the gravity of the allegations, can we? Dismissing them as fraudulent without any kind of proof would be disingenuous."
"Which is why I'm not going to dismiss them whatsoever. This is a very serious matter after all, so I won't allow any allegations of this degree to be taken lightly. I'm assuming you two also agree, Ashford Couple."
"Of course, we have no complaints. Regardless of what we believe as their parents and how unlikely we think of these allegations to be true, we cannot risk the possibility of them not being falsified."
"Please, feel free to have both Cael and Maia themselves come forth, and get to the bottom of this."
"Do mom and dad also know?"
"Yeah, don't worry, they do. It's not like they have a choice but to play along though."
"Yeah, that much is pretty obvious…"
"Alright then. Both of you, you heard your mother, right? Get up."
I feel weirdly normal about getting bossed around by her… should I be concerned?
Though it may just be because she's quite literally the Commander of the Sentinels, and hopefully not because I get both bossed and babied around by her fairly often. But regardless, we both did as we were told and walked to the front, stopping right next to our parent's desk.
"This should go without a say, but Maia, I hope you're aware that right now you're just a potential criminal testifying for herself, and not my best friend or Lieutenant."
"Of course, I know that much. There's no need to remind me, Mio. Both me and my dear little brother intend to rightfully and earnestly prove our innocence, against these ridiculous and outrageous allegations."
"She's pretty good at acting, huh?"
She then turned towards me.
"The same goes for you too, Cael. I'm not going to blindly believe either you or her. So I'll be only asking one time before we begin, are both of you ready to defend yourselves?"
"You have no idea how good of an actor she is, unfortunately or not, my dear younger brother."
"…I'll just take your word on that for now. But either way, it seems like it's our time to put up a show now, isn't it, my dear older sister?"
"It sure seems like it, huh? I guess we can't disappoint our dear spectators, can we?"
"I don't think we can, no… so that means we only got one option here, don't we?"
"'Ready when you are.'"
"I guess that is indeed the case, huh? Then we should stop talking and…"
"I agree, it's probably best if we just…"
"'Let the show begin.'"
"That's good. Both of you and the geezer have permission to speak freely among yourselves. As for the Ashford couple…"
"Well, we don't really know the details, nor have any real way of helping them."
"So don't pay us any mind, we'll just stay silent and let our kids do their job."
"Thanks for the understanding. Now then… which one of you wants to go first?"
"I guess that'll be me. I'd like to clarify a few things right off the bat, since I'm the one who suggested and brought Cael to the town after all."
"Go ahead, Maia."
"For starters, it's not like we were there for no real reason "other than causing trouble!" Or anything like that. Before becoming Mio's Lieutenant, while our village was still getting rebuilt, I trained Cael myself. We do recognize which day these allegations supposedly took place very well, because they're twisted events of what happened during the first day of our training."
"As far as I'm aware, that town is around 50 kilometers away from your village, is it not? Why would you go so far just to train a little brat? Not to mention, for a child his age, there must be no particular training plan that you could even make for him except a few physical exercises, so why would you need to go so far?"
"Well, you see your Majesty, for once, it's simply a matter of commodity. We have a friend there that owns a restaurant, so we went there every day to have breakfast, lunch and even dinner sometimes. But if that's not good enough of an answer, I'd have to ask you to not underestimate my little brother. After all, he's been training for years already, and he's way past the simple physical exercising phase."
"Hmph. No matter how much he's "trained" until now, at the end of the day he's still just a brat, is he not? Was that training you did with him even necessary, or have any results? Just because the first born is a prodigy, that doesn't mean the second will too."
"You do have a point there. Just because I'm as strong as I am as the Eldest, that doesn't mean my younger brother has any real potential. The logic is certainly there… except, the fact that you frankly speaking have absolutely no need to know how strong he is, neither if the training was fruitful or not. You sure seem to care a lot about us, don't you? Even though as far as I'm aware, you've been constantly referring to us as scum and what not. Does his Majesty perhaps have a liking for scum?"
Normally, I'm fairly sure that Maia wouldn't be this aggressive out loud… but this time is different. What exactly is it that mmi at likely made her take on a more aggressive approach this time, you may ask? It's pretty simple. It's the fact that his Majesty hasn't held back one single time when referring to us. At the end of the day, we're just repaying him with his same energy.
But there is also a clear advantage to this on our end, which is the fact that we will win in the end. It doesn't matter what his Majesty may try to do, we are 100% going to win. And before you come at me with "don't jinx it!" Or anything like that, I suggest you tone down the unrealistic dramas or anime that you watch, and take a look at what the facts are here. The Commander is on our side, and she knows the entire truth.
If I was to guess, the only reason this trial even became a thing is genuinely just to avoid a civil war or something among the civilians that may have had an issue with an Ashford being her Lieutenant. It's pretty simple when you actually look at it from an objective point of view, since there's really just one coherent narrative here.
We avoid a civil war, we clear our name, we make our life easier. And as a cherry on top, as I noticed earlier, they are also clearly trying to make the King lose credibility. First the oblivious disrespect that he faced when Mio appeared, which was most likely planned ahead of time, then the constant humbling he's been getting from Mio, and finally even the detectives having been just a waste of time. By now the people are surely starting to doubt him.
So if we take an aggressive approach, it'll actually benefit us when the trial is over, and the people won't really care that much. "His Majesty was shamelessly talking trash to their face even though he ended up being wrong, he deserved it." It's that kind of thing that's most likely going to happen.
"How dare you speak to me so shamelessly?! Who do you take me for-"
"You're our adversary in court, who we're having a formal debate with. If you expect me to sugar coat all of my words and risk not getting my points across, then you may just need to back out of this case… Your Majesty."
"You little…-"
"And for that matter, since you're so curious, I'll let you know of something that should be more than enough proof of my little brother's capabilities."
"What could you possibly say to convince me that the little brat isn't just all talk? I've seen that interview, you know? There's no way that a young Ashford filth could become an adventurer, and actually help people."
He sure is pressed, huh?
Honestly, while yeah, it's definitely a little annoying to hear an old fart yapping about how you're filthy and what not when he's literally a treason, it's not actually that bad. Or rather, at the very least I'm not really particularly offended by any of it I guess? It's kinda like when you're just listening to that one drink homie just spouting nonsense, and you can't be mad because you know their brain just isn't working properly. The only difference is that in the case of the drunk homie it's a temporary matter, while for his Majesty… Well, his brain may not be only temporarily unfunctional.
"Is that so? I'd say he has a pretty good shot at it? You know? Considering the fact only a few days ago, Cael actually taught around 1000 recruits in the swordsmen department how to properly use a sword."
"W-what?! There's no way that's true! To resort to such blatant lies just to save your younger brother's dignity… do you not have any sham-"
"It's true though, Geezer."
He froze. Slowly turning his face towards her, genuinely left speechless. Mio's assist was honestly insane though, so I can't say I don't understand him this time.
"…for real?"
"I was there myself for that matter. It's completely true. Cael Ashford, the Eldest Ashford son was at the Sentinel's Headquarters to teach a bunch of lazy swordsmen Recruits how to properly use a sword. In fact, he even sparred with all of them, albeit with no powers allowed, and he won every single round."
You were there yourself, huh? … is this your way of silently confirming my realization that Luna is you?
It felt a little weird honestly. Not in an uncomfortable way, but yet so uncomfortably comfortable, that perhaps it was indeed in an uncomfortable way after all. It makes no sense, right? That's just how confused I am about my feelings myself though, so you'll have to bear with it.
"So? Was that enough proof, Your Majesty?"
And as Maia smirked to his face, he could do nothing but watch silently… and take it like a good boy.