The Evidence Lay in the Ledger

"Watch your tongue. That wasn't some ordinary intensity. They weren't assigned to me one-on-one, standing right beside me — they charged at that pace from the very start, together with the other knights. What exactly do the rest of you know that makes you so quick to judge?"

As Claire fired off her retort with unshakable spirit, the other nobles exchanged glances and coughed into their fists, feigning indifference.

"And even with all that support, it wouldn't have been enough! He ran himself ragged, injured all over, and still—!"

A wall rose up in front of Claire just as her fury reached its ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠peak.

It was Arcien's warning, backed by the Orb of Judgment.

"Compose yourself, Claire Bagrand."

"But this is nothing but one-sided condemnation—!"

"It is not your place to refute that. It is Karsein's."

"..."

Faced with Arcien's warning, Claire had no choice but to shut her mouth.

Still, it had a considerable effect.

"And the rest of you would do well to restrain yourselves as well. This is a courtroom."

The warning hadn't been for Claire alone — the instigators were swept into it too.

The parties involved all clamped their mouths shut without a peep.

"...Ugh."

Theo, who had been trying to seize control of public opinion, realized his plan had wobbled from the very start — and his face was failing him badly.

Also.

Thanks to that advantage, my Achievement Rate had climbed noticeably higher than before.

As for the choices... they probably don't matter.

Claire had spoken on my behalf and carried the moment along, after all.

"That said, Karsein. Will you offer a rebuttal?"

I answered that I intended to hear them out to the end.

"Go on, then."

"Ah — yes!"

Theo pressed on, straining to hide the turmoil on his face.

"There was more than sufficient cause for suspicion. An inspection for the sake of fairness is a valid basis. In fact, everyone suspected him! And moreover—"

Just as in the game, and just as I had anticipated, Theo Ramstair dredged up Karsein's reputation.

The argument was unanimous: he had committed enough faults to warrant suspicion, and no one in the unit believed such a thing would never happen again.

With a single exception — the fiancée's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠handkerchief.

"Dear me..."

"Good heavens."

"A search and inspection with cause. And measures to prevent unlawful enlistment... if one views it that way, it could indeed be considered justified conduct."

"We'd heard the rumors, but the fact that he actually had a fiancée — that we knew nothing of."

The gallery began to stir once more.

This was clearly a disadvantageous position.

The choices appeared, and the system began urging me to resolve the situation.

But it was fine.

Everything had gone exactly the way I remembered.

"Karsein. Will you contest this?"

"Yes."

Arcien granted permission without hesitation.

The time for the choice had come.

"Theo Ramstair. You seem to regard me as a trainee, but one fact remains unchanged: you forcibly took my fiancée's handkerchief from my pouch. So from that moment on, I was not a trainee. I was Karsein Bagrand."

"...!"

"You know it as well as anyone, don't you? Theo Ramstair. As the son of Baron Ramstair — as a noble — if you believe you can smooth over the crime of seizing a fiancée's handkerchief with some flimsy justification like this, you are sorely mistaken."

At that, Emma stepped forward as if to defend Theo.

"Considering everything the young master has done until now, is it any wonder people viewed him that way? Even allowing for his anger over the handkerchief, this is karma the young master himself accumulated."

"Th-that's right. As I said before, we were all in a state of accumulated suspicion toward the young master."

"Handkerchief or not, he had plenty of prior karma — there was room for mitigating circumstances."

Just as Harnie had said, the moment I asserted my status as a noble before a trainee, Theo must have realized it would be pointless to keep insisting on the trainee angle — so he pivoted to my reputation from before.

Sorry, but I was counting on this.

"Then, Princess Arcien. If someone laid hands on my belongings despite knowing full well the kind of person I am — is that subject to mitigation?"

"No. Unless authorization was granted, laying hands on a noble's property is grounds for punishment at your discretion."

"Then I hereby demand accountability, at this very moment, from the person who touched my things. And that person... is her."

I pointed at one person with my finger, and every eye in the room turned that way.

At the tip of my finger stood Emma, her complexion rapidly draining.

"The head maid touched your belongings?"

"Not just any belongings. She touched items issued directly by the ducal house. It may resemble Theo Ramstair's case, but the head maid explained with her own mouth exactly how she perceived me."

"Hoh. If that is the case, punishing her here and now would not be at all unusual."

Emma sprang to her feet, incensed.

"This is slander! When did I ever touch the young master's belongings?"

"You most certainly did — clearly enough that the evidence remains unmistakable."

"Wh-what did you say?"

"I will submit the evidence."

The moment I produced the document I had prepared, Arcien immediately signaled a servant with a tilt of her chin. After reading it, Arcien tilted her head.

"This is an authorization document from the ducal house?"

"Correct. Only two people manage those documents for the duchy — but if we're limiting it to paperwork of this kind, the head maid holds that authority as well."

"I see. That much I understand. However... hmm."

Arcien tilted her head again.

On the surface, the document appeared to be without a single flaw.

But was that really the case?

A weakness existed.

"I call a witness. To verify whether there are any problems with that record, I will put forward Claire Bagrand as a witness."

"Huh? Me...?"

"Hmm..."

Arcien fell into deliberation.

Naturally — Claire had just been warned moments ago.

"If a witness from the ducal house is required, how about another? Your mother, Duchess Isabella, or your eldest sister, Arina Bagrand, could serve in her place."

"That won't do."

"And why not?"

"Because aside from Claire, no one will be able to spot the flaw in that document."

Isabella and Arina sighed heavily, as if they couldn't comprehend — but there was a reason behind every one of my arguments.

In the end, Arcien cautioned Claire one more time, seated her in the witness stand, and sent the document over.

"How does it look?"

"From that alone, I can't tell for certain. So here — I'll submit one more piece of evidence."

Before long, a single box was carried in by the knights.

"Open it."

At my instruction, the knights nodded and unlocked the box.

Creeeak. Clank!

"Cash, along with gauntlets, bracers, watches, mirrors, precious metals, and jewelry — the sort of things knights would use. Quite the variety."

"All of it came from the old annex storage of the duchy's 1st Knight Order. It was hidden in a place suspicious in more ways than one."

The box was packed full of the very items that had been discovered in the 1st Order's old annex storage.

And then—

Claire, who had been studying the contents intently, swiftly raised a hand to her mouth and began rolling her eyes, thinking furiously.

Claire ran a boutique herself. She had a sharp eye for market prices and a keen instinct for appraising an item's worth — and that boutique was currently the most fashionable establishment in the empire.

Since she ran the place personally, she would have caught whatever was off about this document in no time.

Claire began cross-checking the document against the items in the box, calculating one by one — and not long after—

"...Ha. Fucking hell."

She let a curse slip from her lips, muttered low under her breath.

Fortunately, I was the only one who heard it.

Is that all? One barely audible curse? She held back a lot, for Claire.

After alternating between the document and the box for a long while, Claire took a deep, steadying breath, forcefully suppressing the fire rising within her.

She clenched her fists, her expression suggesting she was one heartbeat away from seizing Emma by the collar.

"The value of the items in that box matches, to the coin, every single entry in this document."

"What does that mean?"

"It's Karsein's allowance."

""Wh-what?!"

The hall was thrown into chaos in an instant.

The inference came naturally, didn't it?

If this was true, it meant Emma had been embezzling the allowance Karsein received at the ducal residence — and that money had surfaced among the knights.

More tellingly still, the amount nearly matched the figure recorded in the ledger. Suspicion was inevitable.

Emma turned deathly pale, as if wondering how this could be possible, while Arcien, half astounded and half dumbfounded, let out an incredulous laugh.

"Wh-what are you even implying?! It could be nothing more than a coincidence!"

Perhaps the itch of staying silent grew too much — Emma stepped forward first.

Dropping into outright banmal out of panic — she had clearly lost her composure entirely.

Thanks to that, I blew my nose without lifting a finger.

"...Did young master Karsein ever once indulge in extravagance?"

"No. Far from luxury, he... he used to wear utterly ill-fitting clothes."

"Wherever he went, his clothes were either outdated or the wrong size."

"I saw it myself. I even heard Lady Claire nagging him to dress properly for once."

"If the reason for all that was embezzlement within the household itself..."

The gallery members were nobles.

Nobles who had always scrutinized Karsein's attire with particular care.

However much they were mere spectators, in this moment every one of them had turned into a witness.

"What does any of that have to do with anything?! If she distributed the money little by little to her subordinates, it makes perfect sense!"

Bingo.

Here, one of the choices activated.

"Emma. If the money you were managing ended up in that place, wouldn't it be reasonable to conclude some manner of connection existed? For instance... paying someone off to keep them silent, or using the money to win people over?"

"Wh-what did you just say?!"

"As witnesses, I summon Radiel, captain of the 1st Knight Order, and Vice-Captain Mark. And representing the regular knights — Carlton."

Before long, the three of them arrived.

Just as I had signaled them in advance, they explained what had happened at the outdoor water station and testified that the entire body of probationary knights had been united in collusion.

When investigators stormed the probationary knights' quarters — where they were being held — and began their search, even items exceeding the wages they had ever earned came to light, producing hard evidence on top of everything else.

"Oh, if I may! Might we also say a few words?!"

"We wish to testify. As servants of House Bagrand!"

Others seized the moment to step forward as well.

The very ones whose Intimacy I had filled up in advance.

Even as Emma's eyes flashed daggers, they did not back down, and when Arcien granted them leave to speak, a ledger hidden away in the ducal house came to light.

...So this was the effect of Intimacy, too?

Who would have thought something I'd searched for endlessly and never found would surface from those very people's hands?

In any case, with the document organizing all of it laid on top, Emma was driven into a complete checkmate.

The ducal house. The training grounds. The embezzled funds.

Those three beats had snapped perfectly into alignment.

"So that's how it is. The rumor that Bagrand's head maid looked after her subordinates had spread all the way to the imperial family — and it turns out that image was manufactured entirely by embezzling her master's money."

"Y-Your Highness, it is not so! I— I—!"

Cornered in checkmate, Emma stammered desperately, trying to claw her way out of crisis.

The one person who could help her in this situation.

She needed Flora.

But Flora was not present in this courtroom.

'Why? Why now, of all times?! Then I have no choice—!'

She shot Theo a glance — I helped you, so do something — but.

"Ah, for the record, this matter has nothing to do with me."

"Wh-what?"

"From what I understand, the two of you merely made similar arguments."

"There is a world of difference between 'similar' and 'the same'!"

Theo had already severed his ties with Emma, decisively.

"Who could have imagined... Everything I received, I will surrender in full. Truly regrettable. To think the head maid of House Bagrand would plot such a scheme and press money into my hands. I believed it was a gesture of kindness, and yet..."

"Theo Ramstair! How could you...! How dare you— how dare you betray me!"

"Hmph. In any case, Emma Urnen swore upon her own word before the Orb of Judgment to speak nothing but the truth. And yet, her lies have just been exposed."

"I did not lie, Your Highness! I— AAAAAH!"

Ssssss—

By the power of the Orb of Judgment, the Brand of Perjury was seared into Emma's face for her falsehood.

"There. Drag that criminal away."

Arcien ordered the now-condemned Emma Urnen to be taken out.

"It's a lie! This is all his cunning scheme! Your Highness! Your Highneeeess!!"

Emma's voice, as she was dragged humiliatingly out of the courtroom, was cut short before long.

The one left behind alone straightened his collar.

"Ahem. I never dreamed the one who committed such disgraceful acts was right beside me. I had thought our views were largely aligned..."

It was an unmistakable cutting of ties.

With the connection to Emma severed, there would be nothing to latch onto — and the commission ordering Karsein's expulsion would quietly sink into oblivion. That was why he had pulled out so quickly.

But. That's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠not pulling out at all.

"Next, I will submit evidence proving that Theo Ramstair is the true culprit in the assault on Radiel."

Rather, you've just walked yourself into a dead end of your own making.

Watching Karsein skillfully probe his opponent's weaknesses and wring them dry, Harnie broke into a smile.

'I thought he might waver and step out early, but he's handling it beautifully all on his own, isn't he?'

In truth, Karsein had been in an exceedingly disadvantageous position.

Raising the past incident meant facing the massive wall of fabricated evidence, and here and now he had to defeat his opponents from an ambiguous stance — caught between trainee and noble.

He had to gather every scrap of evidence himself.

There was hardly anyone around to help him.

Given that the arrangement looked like the strong crushing the weak with the weight of power, and that most of the gallery were nobles, he was easy to blame.

She could help as his fiancée, but even that couldn't dig out the true root of the crime.

Yet Karsein missed not a single one of the key points Harnie had laid out for him.

No — he delivered results beyond them.

He was responding optimally to every reaction, prepared for more contingencies than she had ever taught him.

He analyzed everything meticulously, seized the contradictions in his opponents' arguments, and when a thorny problem arrived, he dismantled it with ease and turned it into opportunity instead.

In a situation that amounted to facing two people at once, he drove one of them into a precise checkmate and cast a net to make certain she could never slip away.

'Really. Just how far ahead did he calculate to set all these pieces in place?'

Her admiration poured out unbidden.

"Young master Karsein claims I am the true culprit — then what of the young master's sword, the one imbued with mana...!"

"That is irrelevant. The gap in ability between the two of you and Radiel was obvious to all. If one insists on examining it, it would have to have been an emergency, or a moment of carelessness. Since his back was slashed, surely the correct reading is that it was an emergency — someone shielding another."

With Arcien, too, already appearing to have anticipated the full course of events, this trial would clearly end in an overwhelming victory for Karsein before long.

And so, as she watched Karsein with a smile upon her lips, the Marquis called softly to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Harnie.

"Hmph. I don't foresee any harm coming to our house, but the engagement — dissolve it yourself. Harnie."

"...Marquis."

"You're nothing but a lowborn mongrel, after all. Even if your bloodline is half-formed, you are still nobility."

"He is my fiancé."

"Tch. Instead of spouting that drivel, you ought to be thinking of ways to benefit the house. Haven't you accomplished nothing whatsoever since that day?"

The Marquis rebuked Harnie, his face brimming with contempt.

"Conceal that you are a bastard child, and live as a noblewoman. Only then will you, and the Marquisate Theresia, continue on in nobility and abundance."

"..."

There was so much she wanted to say.

But she wouldn't.

'A vile man.'

After all — the Marquisate Theresia had long since stopped treating her as family.