The Mastermind and the Genius
A short while later, the visitation room door opened and Trisha shuffled back in awkwardly.
Her glasses were a mess of tears and snot, and her brown hair was even more tangled than before. Clutching her briefcase to her chest like a shield, she perched on the very edge of the chair, trembling violently without daring to look at me.
"I-I... I t-told you I c-can't... I-I'd only be a b-burden..."
I rested my chin arrogantly on my hand at the table and regarded my lawyer.
"Miss Trisha. What exactly are you so afraid of? That the high ranks of the Imperial Judiciary and the noble houses will crush your family and career? Or is it some debt of the heart you owe a past client—something like that?"
"...!!"
Trisha's head snapped up. Behind her glasses, her green eyes shook with raw terror.
"H-how do you... k-know that..."
"How I know isn't important."
I smiled coldly and crossed my arms.
"Listen carefully, little lawyer. Don't worry about your family's safety. I have more than enough funds to relocate them to a safe zone and rent them a few top-tier bodyguard skills."
That was the truth. A billion gold would already be more than enough for that. It was money I'd planned to spend on the retainer fee anyway.
"More importantly, you need to start worrying about your career right now. It's already begun to collapse."
"B-but... my heart... haah... I c-can't get the words out..."
Overcome with sorrow, Trisha burst into tears and covered her face with both hands.
Hmm... Looks like it was finally time to pitch this broken skill rental product.
I snapped my fingers in the air. Above the crimson contract, a hologram of an F-class skill book appeared, pulsing with a steady rhythm: thump, thump, thump.
"You don't need any S-class or A-class skills right now, Miss Lawyer. You never lacked for skill in the first place. That mind of yours is already top-tier in the Empire. The only thing broken is your heartbeat."
I flicked the F-class skill book with my fingertip.
"Do you understand what that means? Starting now, this witch here is going to awaken a genius who will overturn the Imperial Judiciary—with a single F-class skill. Something no one else could do even if you handed them an S-class."
F-class... Just an F-class skill. All that was needed to ignite the S-class—no, even greater—talent she already possessed was this one thing.
"...R-really... will you... save Uncle Mikhail...?"
At that tearful question mixed with hope and fear, I smirked and shook my head.
"Wrong, Miss Lawyer. Why would I be the one to save him? The only one who can save a client in court is a lawyer. So the one who'll save him is you."
I slid the contract on the table toward Trisha.
"You didn't lose because you lacked talent. You simply had no backing compared to those corrupt nobles. If you're worried about your family's safety, I'll take full responsibility for that."
I slipped a quill between her fingers and whispered low, as if casting a hypnotic spell.
"You can do it, Trisha. You're going to get me acquitted, and through a retrial, secure Uncle Mikhail's innocence."
A retrial and not-guilty verdict for Uncle Mikhail.
In that moment, Trisha's trembling fingers stopped. Behind her glasses, the deep, sharp eyes of the genius top graduate—long hidden by trauma—flared back to life with light.
Trisha swallowed hard, then scrawled her name sharply across the signature line of the contract.
F-class Skill Heartbeat of the Metronome has been rented to Debtor Trisha.
Reacting to the debtor's intense guilt and deficiency, output is amplified by 400%!
At the same time, a vast, steady mechanical sound began to resound in Trisha's ears, swallowing every other noise around her.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The moment the regular beat forcibly reined in her runaway heart, Trisha's messy brown hair fluttered. It felt as if her blocked breath was finally opening up. Her inner self, which had collapsed under all manner of fear and pressure, was being perfectly realigned to the metronome's tempo.
The green eyes of the genius legal mind who had regained her inner rhythm grew clear and sharp.
"...Shall we begin, then? My client."
There was no more trembling now.
As Trisha stepped out of the visitation room, the steady beat still struck through her mind.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
It was a strange thing. Just moments ago she had felt as if she would die, her breath choked by guilt and fear—yet now her heartbeat was aligning itself to a perfect rhythm. She could breathe. She felt alive. It had been so long.
Back in the public defender waiting room, Trisha dumped the documents across her desk and picked them up one by one.
"...Prosecution's indictment. Charge: witch who cast wicked magic. This is a classic witch-hunt frame, isn't it? Let's see the details..."
Trisha pushed her glasses up. Her green eyes raced relentlessly across the papers.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
As the clock hands raced toward dawn, Trisha never once stopped her pen. Those lips that had stuttered were now ready to become a blade that would carve out the injustice of the Imperial Judiciary.
The courtroom was no longer the nobles' playground.
At daybreak, packing the perfectly organized outline of her argument into her bag, Trisha murmured low.
"Just wait, Fabian Bell. Next time, it'll be your turn to shed tears of blood in the courtroom."
The trial was tomorrow.
Trisha would have prepared my defense well enough; there was nothing for me to prepare myself. Even so, I couldn't help feeling restless with the trial so close.
"Those little rascals! Are they having another sweet-and-salty party?"
When I activated screen sync, Beatrice and Kkamagi, left behind at the shop, appeared on the other side of the screen. Beatrice was waving a huge cheer picket in both hands—where had she even gotten that? Beside her, Kkamagi was flapping its silly feather and matching the beat with "Caw! Caw!"
Watching their antics lightened my mood considerably, so I turned off the screen sync and headed straight to the gallery. Even if I couldn't post, I had no intention of giving up one of life's great joys: lurking.
I turned on my phone and refreshed the board, and sure enough, the gallery idiots' juicy nonsense posts about my trial were plastered all over the page.
"Hmph, why isn't there a betting pool this time?! Ugh, so damn disappointing! I could've cleaned house again!"
Just then, a guard quietly approached through the bars of my tightly sealed solitary cell.
"Celia, your public defender asked me to give this to you."
What he held out was a letter. The contents weren't long.
My client, you need only maintain that mastermind smile of yours. Please look forward to my defense.
— Trisha
Even her handwriting was clear and neat. To think that the girl who couldn't even introduce herself and had done a runner just a few days ago would send a memo like this.
I smirked and folded the memo into my bosom.
A mastermind smile? That's my specialty!
The next morning, the guards escorted me to the Imperial Criminal Court—specifically, the largest Main Hall Courtroom No. 1.
Towering pillars that reached the ceiling and Imperial crests plated in gold radiated intimidation from every direction.
"...Is this a courtroom or a ballroom? These Imperial bastards are just rolling in money, aren't they?"
Right now, my appearance was no different from that of an unfortunate young lady who'd been lured to a secret ball by Imperial conspiracy and gotten caught. Being tried in a place deliberately plastered with Imperial emblems like this already meant I'd been marked by the Imperial family.
The gallery was already packed with people. There were probably some of those gallery trolls who'd been trash-talking me among them.
Tch. Fine, you bastards! Take a good look. I'm innocent!
Glancing sideways, I saw Trisha, who had arrived at the defense bench first.
"...Huh?"
A small exclamation escaped my lips. Her thick glasses and messy hair were the same, but the way she sat in the chair was completely different. Her always-hunched shoulders and curved back were now straight, and there wasn't a single tremor in the fingertips arranging the documents.
Tick, tock, tick, tock.
It almost felt as if the metronome beat ringing in her ears was reaching all the way over here.
As expected, there's no defective product my power can't fix. And to get that kind of output from an F-class skill... Seriously the best cost-performance ratio of all time!
As I was smiling contentedly, the court clerk rose from his seat.
"All rise."
The judge was entering.
The trial had begun.