An Unexpected Turn
Across the chamber, faces were visibly contorting — Tribune Duratus and more than a few of the esteemed senators watching from the gallery.
Of course they were.
This was an unexpected variable. Obviously.
"What is this? What in the world is this absurd, ridiculous magic? This is a hearing! A place to deliberate the Empire's most pressing matters, and you're pulling a silly magic trick? You're turning this proceeding into entertainment for the Soul Net communities, aren't you! President of the Senate! I demand you immediately cancel the use of this magic!"
The moment Duratus opened his mouth, I shouted him down without hesitation.
"This is no joke! Nor is it some lowly scheme to entertain the masses! From the era of the Fallen King Gilmore down to this very day, the founding principle of Senate hearings has been that any summoned party may defend themselves to the fullest extent — and may use any magic to do so!"
"President! This is sophistry! This isn't a means of defense — it's a show put on to amuse his little communities!"
"The vast majority of Soul Net users are watching this broadcast live right now! Among them are priests of the major Orders and inquisitors of the heresy tribunals! If this matter involves demon summoning, their counsel is essential! Can you still stand there and call this a show?"
At my ringing voice, and at the blue recording circle spinning tirelessly overhead, the Senate President clicked his tongue, short and sharp, visibly irritated.
"Granted. Elsie Bwenner. I acknowledge that this magic is necessary for your defense."
And with that, the Senate President conceded.
Naturally.
He had no choice but to be wary.
Unlike yesterday, when he'd only been speaking before faces he knew, today everything he said and did was unfolding before the entire citizenry of the Balrod Empire.
No — before every single soul in the Wirod Dimension.
And if he'd ordered me to stop here, it would have looked exactly like a man fleeing from the eyes of the people.
"Thank you, President of the Senate. Then I'll begin. First, I'd like to ask a few questions."
Duratus took a step back wearing the expression of a man chewing dung, and in that gap I turned my gaze toward the woman who had appeared alongside him today — the mother who claimed her child's life had been ruined after attempting a demon summoning while playing the game.
"Madam? Where exactly do you reside?"
The mother glanced around anxiously at my question before answering.
"A residential district near the Imperial Capital. We live near Third Street."
"When did this unfortunate incident of the demon summoning attempt occur?"
"Three days ago."
"How old is the child?"
"Six years old."
At that, a low murmur began to spread through the gallery.
The voices rose, but I paid them no mind and kept pressing.
"Where is the child now? What is the child's condition?"
At my question, the mother abruptly fell silent.
And it was Tribune Duratus who answered in her place.
"Fortunately, there was an Order nearby capable of performing an exorcism, and thanks to the mother's prompt report, the rite succeeded. The child is currently being held in that Order's treatment facility for therapy and punishment. President of the Senate! Isn't this enough already? What matters here is not the child's condition or whereabouts!"
I cut Duratus off mid-sentence.
"No! It matters a great deal! All of you — do you not realize? This was a demon summoning ritual! Of all things, a demon summoning! An attempt to summon a demon right outside the capital! Every one of the Empire's officially sanctioned major Orders classifies this as a capital-level felony!"
At my words, the mother's speech quickened.
"Nothing that even resembled a demon appeared! The boy hurt himself trying to use a sloppy half-finished circle, and that was the end of it!"
"But the attempt itself is a fact, is it not? If it is, then whichever Order's priest performed the exorcism, there should be a record of it. The detention, likewise, cannot proceed as a mere treatment — it must be carried out with the possibility of summary execution in mind. That is what a demon summoning means."
Duratus broke into a hollow laugh at my words.
"Elsie Bwenner of the Black Magic Tower. What, are you a senior exorcist of some major Order now? An inquisitor? The exorcism rites are covert and confidential! How each Order performs its rite — and how it disposes of the attempted summoner immediately afterward — differs from Order to Order!"
"Exactly. Correct. I have no idea how the major Orders conduct their exorcisms, or how they dispose of the attempted summoner afterward. But these people do."
I stretched my Soul Net window wide, expanding it until every person in the hearing chamber could see it clearly.
Chats scrolling upward in a deluge.
The live viewer count had already blown past 400,000.
And among those 400,000...
Senior priests belonging to the Orders were among the viewers.
The Tower Master, along with Alfonso and Carmack — developers of Doom's Hell Slayer — and the other senior mages of the Black Magic Tower carefully sifted through the flood of chats, plucked out every message that looked like it came from Order personnel, and blew them up on screen for all to see.
"The child merely attempted it as a prank! No demon was even summoned! What matters here isn't that a summoning was attempted — it's that the boy was hurt! That he injured himself fumbling with a botched circle! Which is why the priest who performed the exorcism graciously showed mercy, and simply took the boy into the Order's care!"
Duratus scrambled to explain himself, but his words only set the comment section — and especially the reactions from users who appeared to be Order members — burning even hotter.
By now, I didn't even need to say a word.
The comment section was raining down merciless attacks, and the Tower Master, Carmack, and Alfonso were surgically selecting exactly those comments and magnifying them on screen for everyone present.
I lounged back and watched the fight unfold between the comment window and Duratus.
Where I wore a leisurely smile, Duratus was now sweating through his shirt, hiding it no longer.
"I will not dignify those bizarre markings with any further response! Nor will I stand by while this poor mother is attacked any further! Elsie Bwenner! Stop twisting the argument toward these absurd tangents! What matters here is not whether a demon summoning ritual took place!"
"Then what does matter?"
"One unfortunate child was hurt playing your game! That he was hurt making a botched, senseless attempt! That's what matters — nothing else! Your game hurt a human being!"
While the nobles in the gallery nodded along in agreement...
The comment section was growing sharper and more hostile by the second.
"Precisely because my game is accused of hurting someone, we should verify this with all the more rigor! How else can we establish follow-up measures without first knowing exactly how this tragedy occurred? Am I wrong, Tribune Duratus?"
"That's why WE will set the follow-up measures! We'll establish a review board to rate every game served on your Soul Net and prevent incidents like this before they happen! That is the only conclusion!"
"That cannot possibly qualify as a follow-up measure! Do you know why? Because our game never contained a pentagram circle of the kind that could enable a demon summoning in the first place! No such imagery exists in it at all! Saying a child attempted a demon summoning ritual after playing a game that no amount of review board scrutiny could flag is essentially nonsensical!"
"What kind of absurd nonsense is that! Your game contains demon imagery and pentagram imagery! I confirmed it with my own eyes!"
At Duratus's words, Carmack shot to his feet as if seized by a convulsion.
"Everyone, look! This is the pentagram that we placed in the game!"
With illusion magic, he conjured a massive in-game image up into the air of the hearing chamber for all to see.
"Look at that! There's your pentagram! Anyone who saw that could follow it and summon a dem—!......"
Duratus began the sentence and was forced to snap his mouth shut.
And for good reason.
The image Carmack had conjured was a pentagram of astonishingly juvenile quality.
Something straight out of a child's doodle.
The circle had the rough shape of a summoning array, but where the crucial runic script should have been, there was nothing but clumsy, idiotic little drawings — the kind only a five-year-old could produce. A magical circle so pathetic that even a kindergartner would recognize it as garbage.
"Did you really think we were insane enough to put an actual, functional demon-summoning image in the game? It's an idiot-proof circle that produces absolutely no response, no matter what incantation or ritual you attempt with it! And this is the only pentagram that appears anywhere in the game. You're claiming a child attempted a demon summoning after looking at this?"
The mother now hung her head, unable to meet anyone's eyes, while Duratus wiped away sweat and pressed on.
"What matters is that the pentagram appeared in the game! My point is that including imagery which could draw a child's interest toward unsavory subjects is itself the problem! He didn't actually try a summoning with that circle, presumably! But it stoked his curiosity — it led him to look into demon summoning! That's the problem!"
"Tribune Duratus. By that logic, wouldn't every work of literature and every painting that touches on demon summoning have exactly the same effect? Which is to say, your review board is utterly useless. No matter how zealously you censor games, a curious child can develop an interest in demon summoning from a hundred other sources."
"Games are actually played! You cannot treat them the same as other media!"
"So a six-year-old who got curious about demon summoning from that sloppy doodle of a circle then independently researched black magic, attempted a summoning on his own, and hurt himself? Then the game is no longer the problem at all. Isn't the real problem a household environment where a child can actually get his hands on information about demon summoning just because he's curious?"
"Stop twisting the tail of my words! Elsie Bwenner! What matters here is—!"
"What matters is no longer the game. What matters is how that mother's child managed to access forbidden knowledge."
"That's why you keep twisting—!"
"No, Tribune — you're the one dodging. Perhaps you'd care to answer the questions the comments are asking? Is there a mark on the mother's body? Did a genuine exorcist actually come and go? Confirming that is the most important thing. Only then can we determine how the child came to know demonic knowledge in the first place."
At my words, Duratus began to laugh out loud.
Sweating buckets the entire time, of course.
"And how do we know those comments are actually priests of the Orders? They could be plants you rounded up in advance! Soul Net is your personal stage, is it not! I will no longer tolerate these farcical, staged performances you keep using to dodge the core issue—!"
Duratus's words were cut short.
The comments streamed in one after another — and then, at some point, stopped dead.
About a minute passed.
"President of the Senate! Thirteen senior inquisitors are requesting entry into the hearing chamber!"
The very people arguing in the comments had actually shown up.
The atmosphere inside the chamber, of course, erupted into total chaos.
"This hall is protected by the law of the Imperial Crown! Who dares trespass here without the sanction of the Orders?!"
The Senate President roared and shot to his feet.
Yes.
Right.
The Seven Orders and the Imperial Crown were on terrible terms.
Showing up unannounced like this was bound to sour anyone's mood.
But I wasn't worried in the slightest.
"President of the Senate?"
"You! Remain silent for a moment! Elsie Bwenner! This is a blatant disregard for the law of the Crown! Senior priests of the Orders entering the Senate without permission! I shall inform each Order of this outrage and hold them severely accountab—!"
"I would like to register the inquisitors now arriving as my witnesses."
Duratus's face contorted.
The Senate President shut his eyes with the expression of a man fighting back a stream of curses, the nobles in the gallery stared at me with faces caught somewhere between discomfort and sheer disbelief —
but not a single one of them could bring themselves to say the inquisitors had to leave.
"This is hardly the era of the Fallen King Gilmore. You wouldn't chase out witnesses you've been formally petitioned for, I trust? In accordance with the venerable laws of this ancient Senate, I hereby summon these gentlemen as witnesses."
Because they could not very well break their own rules with their own hands.