The Billion-Gold Villain
"Wow, look at these bastards go. They're mounting my head on a plaque for real?"
Ugh. So I just have to sit here and take it?!
No. Absolutely not. I was not going to sit this one out.
I shoved myself upright and settled into a proper seated posture.
"You little shits. Just you wait!"
Calm down, Celia.
What's the best move? First priority: swing public opinion back in my favor!
I logged into the gallery under the half-ID I'd set up earlier and started typing a post.
Author: AshValleySilverHair
First off: I'm a resident of Ash Valley.
That shopkeeper witch is the purest, kindest small-business owner who could live her whole life without needing a single law.
One look and you can tell they're fabricating charges and flexing power to smear her. smh
The witch is innocent, so quit the slander and take down the "out on business" posts.
Keep it up and you're all getting punished!!
If you disagree, you're just wrong.
"Hmm… that should sell the righteous, hardcore witch-fan cosplay pretty well, right?"
Wearing a smug little smile, I boldly mashed the [Submit] button.
Instead of posting, a popup filled the center of the screen.
This ID has been blocked for [Trolling].
Restriction period:30 days
"Excuse me? I have to sit here and lurk after watching this slaughter? You power-tripping mods! What kind of unfair nonsense is this?!"
…Right! My IP should have changed, so maybe I'll try posting on a temp ID this time?
I sat up straight again, rewrote the same post, and hit submit.
This IP has been permanently blocked for [Trolling].
"Tch. What a filthy world where you can't even post in peace!"
I flung my phone aside and flopped starfished across the bed.
…Right. That's right… This is a prison.
A place where even the most unhinged troll imaginable wouldn't be surprising. Apparently some genuine chaos agent had already permanently banned this IP ages ago. I couldn't even leave replies—all I could do was lurk.
And then, at some point, the comments started going weird.
"No, why are these people suddenly like this? At this rate I'm actually going to become the mastermind."
In the end, I decided to properly borrow the power of the law. The next morning, I grabbed the iron bars and called for the warden.
"Hey, Warden! Please get me a lawyer! I'll hire the best firm in the Empire with my own money!"
At my booming shout, the warden walking down the corridor glanced back at me with pure pity. He stopped in front of the bars, snorted, and shook the phone he'd pulled from his own pocket.
"Witch Celia, is it. When they brought you in, the Knight Commander let you keep your phone. Did your fingers break? Did the screen crack?"
"Huh? No—isn't this normally covered by Imperial administration? I paid my taxes diligently, you know! A lot of them!!!"
That's right! I paid five hundred million in taxes and fees! That should make me VIP material!!
"Dream on. Don't you know Imperial law? If a pretrial detainee has a phone, hiring a lawyer is their own job with that phone. If you want the administrative service of us calling lawyers for you, hand the phone over first."
"Ugh, fine! I'll do it myself before I let them confiscate my phone."
The warden clicked his tongue and walked off. I grumbled my way back onto the bed.
"Fine. Since it's come to this, I'll show them the spicy side of capitalism!"
I pulled the blanket up over my head, opened the Imperial portal site, and started searching "top Empire law firm" and "criminal defense attorney with highest win rate." I blasted direct consultation requests at every star lawyer with a glittering resume that filled the screen.
I set aside about a hundred million for my own use.
Still, 900 million gold should be tempting enough, right?
I patted myself on the back for my clever budgeting and waited for replies. What came back was nothing like what I'd expected.
The moment I read the messages, the consultation chat rooms started exploding one after another.
Panicking, I went full storm-typing mode.
What……?! Money doesn't work? In a capitalist world, how does that even make sense?!
Apparently the Imperial Palace had decided to bury me completely. Stunned, I played my final card.
"Warden! Then at least assign me a public defender! Under the Imperial Constitution, every prisoner has the right to counsel!"
"……Tch. You know the law better than you need to. Not sure if anyone will take it, but I'll put up the notice. No promises—just wait quietly."
I applied for a public defender, and another few days crawled by. Time moved like absolute garbage. I pulled out my phone and refreshed the gallery from page one, hunting for anything entertaining.
Ha… are you kidding me?! What makes them think I don't have money!?
Is there a law that says a witch can't become a nouveau riche?
That 1 billion gold is the gambling pot that came out of all your pockets, you idiots!
And another thing!
I never said "absolutely win the trial," okay?
I just asked them to defend me. Tch.
I was frustrated and wronged, but there was no way to leave a reply. I flipped to the next page and kept reading the board's garbage posts.
Page 1.
Page 2.
…
Page 989.
By now every post on the board looked the same. What good was 1 billion gold in my account if I had nowhere to spend it. How had my dream of a freeloading retirement life ended up in this freezing solitary prison cell.
I suddenly felt miserable.
With nothing to do in the solitary cell except click buttons with my fingers, I eventually started digging into the absolute deepest sewers of the board.
I wasn't just flipping pages anymore—I was shaking down old posts buried in corners from months ago… no, years ago.
Then, suddenly, a bizarre title with only three views snagged my eye.
Long, long ago, there lived a poor child who rang a little bell.
The sound was so small and insignificant that no one in the castle would listen to the child's voice.
But one day, the child found a blood-red mana stone in a deep sewer swamp and hung it inside the bell.
Ding, ding, ding. When the first bell rang, screams burst out from every direction.
Dong, dong, dong. When the second bell rang, gold poured down like a river.
The child who had rung a worthless bell became, in an instant, the master of the greatest tower in the world.
But perhaps greed made them strike too hard.
One day the bell went crack and broke. No matter how hard they shook it, the bell would make no more sound, and the child was going mad.
Then a black-robed dark mage appeared and whispered:
"Place a spell upon the bell. As long as you extract human souls and feed them to it, the bell will keep ringing."
And so the bell, repaired with that vile magic, still rings somewhere unseen even now.
Ding, ding, ding.
Dong, dong, dong.
When the next bell rings… whose soul will turn to smoke?
Lying on the bed with my chin propped in my hands, I frowned as I read.
"……The bell rings, ding ding ding…?"
Wait. Bell… could it be…
The Bell Family…?