Chapter 90: Unconditional Justice
"They all know?"
Axel was the first to speak.
If the townspeople knew the truth, then why were they still outside screaming for Forsyth? Why were they still calling that bloated trafficker a benefactor, a savior, a good man?
The old mayor looked at him, faint surprise flashing across his weathered face.
He had expected Issho to ask first, or perhaps the silent Hawkins.
Not the child.
But he understood the question immediately.
After a brief pause, he answered in a low voice, "No. They do not."
He folded his hands together, as though trying to steady something inside himself.
"I never told them."
Axel's eyes narrowed.
So that was it.
He had hidden the truth himself.
Whether it was out of fear that the townspeople would panic, or fear that Forsyth would retaliate, or fear that everything built on this lie would collapse at once, the end result was the same. He had known, and he had kept silent.
As if sensing Axel's thoughts, the old mayor drew a slow breath and continued.
"That is why I asked you in here. I wished to speak where no one else could hear. I want you to keep this secret as well."
He raised his head and met their gazes one by one.
"In exchange, the three of you will bear the blame for attacking Forsyth. I will arrange for you to leave this island safely. No one will pursue you after that."
For a second, the room fell silent.
Then Axel exploded.
"What kind of joke is that?!"
His voice struck the walls like a gunshot.
Even Issho turned his head slightly.
It was not merely the request that angered Axel. It was the absurdity of it. The sheer audacity. This old man was asking them to swallow the crime, protect a dead trafficker's reputation, and cover up a slave trade, all so this rotten town could keep pretending it was clean.
And for what?
Safe passage?
Axel almost laughed.
Even without this old man's help, they could have left the island whenever they pleased. Issho alone could crush every obstacle here into the dirt.
The mayor did not rebuke him. He seemed to have expected that reaction from the start.
Instead, he lifted a hand slightly, as though asking for patience.
At that exact moment, frantic pounding erupted from outside the door.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Someone was slamming on it hard enough to shake the frame.
Voices followed, muffled but urgent. The people outside had clearly heard Axel shouting, even if they had not caught the words.
The mayor struggled to his feet at once. His movements were slow, unsteady, but determined. He shuffled to the door, leaned close, and called out with a strained voice, "I'm fine. Stop banging. Everything is fine."
The pounding faded, though it took a few more seconds before the voices outside finally quieted.
The old man coughed hard after shouting, one hand pressed against his chest. It took him a moment to recover before he made his way back to his seat.
By then, the room had settled again.
Issho spoke at last.
"Why do you want the truth buried?"
His tone was calm, but there was weight beneath it.
He was not defending Axel. He was not defending the old man either. He was asking because he wanted to hear the answer.
The mayor closed his eyes.
Then he sighed.
"Because this town cannot survive without him."
No one interrupted.
The old man's voice had grown faint, but each word came with the heaviness of something carried for far too long.
"This island was once desperately poor. It was barely even a town. Just a miserable fishing village clinging to the edge of starvation. Everything changed after Forsyth arrived. Roads were paved. Businesses opened. Work became plentiful. Food became steady. Families could finally live like people instead of animals scraping at mud."
His face briefly softened, caught between memory and grief.
"That is why they revere him so much. Because to them, he truly did bring wealth, warmth, and a better life."
Then the softness curdled into bitterness.
"But because I was mayor, I had access to records. Supply ledgers. Merchant accounts. Shipping data. At first, I found only irregularities. Then patterns. Then proof."
He opened his eyes again, and the shame in them was unmistakable.
"The man they all praised as a benefactor was a trafficker. A slave merchant. The chamber of commerce, the public donations, the orphanage, the charities, all of it was a facade wrapped around filth."
His fingers trembled where they rested on his knees.
"We had all benefited from it. The cages, the transport crates, the provisions, the warehouse labor, the repairs, the bookkeeping, so much of this town's livelihood was tied to him. To his business. To that trade."
He gave a brittle laugh.
"We thought we were living off prosperity. In truth, we were feeding on human misery."
The words hung in the room.
Axel said nothing yet. Issho remained silent. Even Hawkins, who usually treated everything as fate and little more, did not interrupt.
The old mayor went on.
"I considered exposing him. More than once. I even tried changing the town's operations in secret, adjusting work routes, pushing some trades in other directions, trying to loosen Forsyth's hold piece by piece. Every attempt failed."
He looked older with every sentence.
"The residents were already too deeply tied to him. Like parasites and host, impossible to separate without tearing flesh away with it. If I exposed the truth all at once, the town would not just lose its pride. It would lose its foundation."
He swallowed.
"So I chose silence."
There it was.
Not cowardice alone. Not malice alone.
Complicity.
A compromise rotted into habit.
"I told myself it was for the people," the old man said hoarsely. "That if their lives improved, perhaps I could carry this sin for them. That if I endured the truth alone, they would not have to suffer. I told myself many things."
Then his shoulders bowed.
"But now Forsyth is dead. If the truth comes out, this island will collapse into chaos. Many will abandon the work that feeds them. The prosperity here will vanish. This town will return to the poverty it clawed its way out of."
He looked at them with desperate sincerity.
"So I beg you. Keep the truth buried. Let the people live as they have been living."
As he spoke, he tried to kneel.
Issho lifted a hand slightly.
The old man's body stopped midway, held gently in place by gravity before his knees could touch the floor.
"I understand," Issho said quietly. "I will not force the truth into the open here."
From the side, Hawkins lowered his cup and murmured, "All things follow the path laid out for them. This too is fate."
Axel's face hardened.
"Your choices do not decide mine."
He took a step forward, his crimson eyes fixed on the old mayor.
"I'm not accepting this kind of unconditional justice."
The old man flinched.
Axel did not stop.
"A town that survives only by wrapping itself in lies is already diseased. You say it needs time. Time for what? To heal? To prepare? Then why didn't you use the years you already had?"
His voice was sharp now, clean as a drawn blade.
"You discovered the truth long ago, didn't you? Why did you never report it to the Marines? Why did you never gather the people who might have listened? Why did you never force the town to face what was feeding it? Why did you surrender before you had truly fought?"
The mayor's lips trembled, but no answer came.
Axel pressed on.
"You had time. More than enough. What you lacked wasn't time. It was resolve."
Each word struck harder than a slap.
"What you call protection is just escape. You hid behind prosperity because it was easier than choosing pain. You let more people be dragged into chains because exposing the truth would have made life difficult for the people near you."
The old man's face had gone white.
Issho did not interrupt.
He understood why Axel was angry. More than that, he knew Axel was not entirely wrong.
To the old man, silence had been mercy toward the townspeople.
To the trafficked, it had been cruelty stretched over years.
That contradiction could not be erased.
Axel exhaled once, slow and cold.
"In the end, the people here are no different from the nobles who feast while pretending not to see the blood on the floor. The only difference is scale. They built their comfort on someone else's suffering, then called the man who profited from it a saint."
He glanced toward the door, where the muffled voices of the townspeople still lingered beyond the walls.
"If that truth shatters their happiness, then let it shatter."
His eyes returned to the mayor.
"A happiness built on slaves deserves to be broken."
.....
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