Chapter 13
Chapter 13
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 13
Chapter Title: Only the Corpse Knows (3)
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It was truly impressive timing.
Thanks to that furious shout from someone, not only the cadets filling the jury seats but even the professors standing behind Makina were solidifying their conviction in my guilt for murder.
The atmosphere in the courtroom alone seemed to sketch out my future.
A future where magic imbued the restraints binding my wrists, and I would collapse to my knees under the weight of the shackles as they began to exert their power.
*Clap, clap, clap!*
“Silence.”
Makina held no gavel in her hand.
But with just three claps from her, the chapel was once again enveloped in silence.
Now, it was clear without words who the cadets and faculty were favorable toward and who they were not.
“Typically, a person found collapsed in a daze at a scene with a large amount of bloodstains is not considered innocent.”
“I was in a state where I couldn’t commit murder. Cadet Theodore White can testify to that.”
Though suddenly called out, Theodore showed no sign of surprise.
Instead, he slipped through the murmuring cadets like liquid, astonishing the gathered students in the chapel.
Theodore stood before the music stand serving as a temporary witness stand.
“—I swear not to commit perjury.”
His voice was as sweet as if he were singing.
“Today’s oaths are all abbreviated, I see.”
To Makina, the Black Lily Class majoring in theology and president of the student council, our actions might come across as provocation.
Yet Makina offered a calm smile, utterly unshaken.
Theodore lowered his eyes slightly as he replied.
“…Is there a problem?”
“None at all.”
“Yes.”
It was a slightly off-target response, but Theodore moved to continue regardless.
I quickly interjected into his testimony.
“Cadet Theodore White. In addition to your haste, please describe exactly what you saw that day without omission. Time, place, the situation at the time—everything.”
Had this fixed my intentions?
Theodore simply stared at me blankly, showing no particular reaction.
“A little past midnight, the Arma Cruise I encountered in the chapel was unable to support his own body.”
“How did his condition appear to you?”
“He seemed to be leaning against the altar right in front of me.”
Theodore pointed at the altar with his finger and then closed his mouth.
“He seemed to be?”
“I couldn’t see his face. So I approached closer. To reiterate, Arma Cruise was in a state where he couldn’t stand on his own power.”
Makina nodded and stared straight at me.
Just then, the afternoon sunlight beginning to dye crimson passed through the stained glass, creating a multicolored halo glowing around Makina’s hair.
“In other words, he was unconscious? We’ll need to hear more details about that.”
This must have been the part Makina had been waiting for.
Theodore continued slowly in a voice with almost no inflection.
“The term ‘unconscious’ is imprecise. Arma Cruise’s mind was quite clear.”
“Hmm….”
Not the answer she wanted, apparently—Makina rolled her eyes briefly and gazed at the stained glass beyond the altar.
And watching Makina’s expression and actions, I became certain of one thing.
‘This trial isn’t truly about determining guilt.’
Makina had no goal beyond framing me as the culprit and getting me restrained.
Otherwise, there’d be no reason to focus solely on what I was doing at the time rather than searching for Cale Ace’s body.
“Actually, last night and today, I received one tip.”
“A tip?”
“Yes. Rumors that something a cadet shouldn’t touch is circulating within the academy.”
“Is that related to this incident?”
Makina showed no intention of engaging in my line of questioning.
Instead, she pulled from her pocket a small something wrapped in paper, about the size of a finger joint.
“It’s a drug called Angel’s Prank. Apparently, just this amount could dose twenty elephants.”
“Makina!”
*Thud!*
As expected, Makina planned to paint me as a drug addict or the like.
I deliberately caused a commotion, but as per the pattern so far, Makina ignored my reaction entirely.
“It’s originally used as a muscle relaxant, but it’s known for its primary side effect: extreme violence accompanied by hallucinations.”
When Makina emphasized the word “violence,” the cadets in the chapel began murmuring as if a murder sentence had already been pronounced on me.
The mix of excitement and shock in their murmurs grew increasingly hysterical.
Without Judith holding them back now, the few with the weakest self-control or most prone to getting swept up would likely charge straight at me, just six or seven steps away.
“I find it hard to believe Cadet Arma Cruise was immersed in heresy. Given the Cruise family’s reputation, and though the major dorms are far apart, for such a thing to happen in the Wooden Cross House facing the Black Lily House directly….”
The narrative was flowing smoothly in the direction Makina desired.
Makina was driving the idea that I had committed the crime while high on a drug with the ridiculous name [Angel's Prank].
“But drugs change the story, don’t they? We’re investigating the distribution channels now, but this might be our chance to catch the sellers in one fell swoop.”
“I know nothing about it.”
“I didn’t expect you to admit knowing anything. By now, any remnants of the drug in your system would have cleared out anyway.”
“…….”
As Makina said, half a day or more had passed since midnight when it was presumed I’d taken the drug, so no test now would turn up anything.
‘With this, I can’t clear the suspicion.’
The accusation that drugged-up Arma Cruise waited until the effects wore off.
At this point, the jury swayed by mob psychology wouldn’t drop their suspicious glares even if I passed a drug test and cleared that charge.
Whatever the result, it would only serve as evidence that the horrific circumstances and brutality meant the Arma Cruise that day had indeed caused the atrocity while high.
‘Good.’
I didn’t care what Makina Christi thought of me.
I had been waiting for this exact moment.
“—You said it was a muscle relaxant?”
“Ah…!”
At my words, Sherry in the jury seats reacted.
Sherry was whispering something to Judith.
Then, Judith, who had remained silent until now, spoke up.
“—It seems certain that Arma was under the influence of this drug called [Angel's Prank].”
“Exactly. What is going on here?”
The jury seats stirred at the two’s nonchalant exchange.
And understandably so—for among them, these two would rank first and second in closeness if lined up by favoritism.
I quickly rode this momentum.
“Makina Student Council President, I believe your speculation has merit as well. Hallucinations and violence… Now that I think about it, I do recall seeing something like hallucinations.”
“Hmm?”
“Yes, definitely. That was surely a reaction from [Angel's Prank].”
The room erupted in commotion once more.
It wasn’t something the me who had been struggling to clear my name moments ago would say.
“But if I had taken that [Angel's Prank] drug.”
“…….”
“—how could I have walked here to the chapel on my own two feet?”
Finally, Makina—who had been brimming with composure throughout—fell silent.
It was a very brief moment, but in this instant of mutual pressure, it was a fatally telling silence.
“I believe the real culprit trying to frame me in this incident definitely exists within the academy. Theodore.”
“Yes.”
“Please describe my appearance again when you first found me.”
Theodore nodded and repeated almost verbatim what he had told Judith last night.
“—So though I suspected drug-induced frenzy as per Student Council President Makina Christi’s words, the circumstances seemed too contrived for that.”
“Why did it seem contrived?”
“Arma Cruise had been unable to support himself for quite some time based on the situation, and the murder weapon wasn’t a gun.”
“I request verification here of the gun and bullets recovered by the student council from me.”
Makina Christi snapped her fingers.
The smile that had vanished from her lips was back, and now she even seemed to be nodding along, arms crossed, as if highly amused and playing to my tune.
“This is the firearm recovered from suspect Cadet Arma Cruise. In addition to this, we collected two unloaded bullets from him and eight more from his dormitory, totaling ten—all unfired.”
“All ten bullets and the gun were directly authorized for possession by the Chancellor, so they should have separate engravings.”
“Is that so, Chancellor?”
The Chancellor, having personally checked the gun wrapped in velvet cloth and the ten bullets inside the rigid evidence case, nodded.
“They’re all authorized imports, correct.”
“Thank you for confirming.”
Makina directed a student council member approaching with the evidence case toward herself with a finger point.
Now, only I, Makina, and Theodore as witness remained on stage.
“And finally, there’s one more thing I want to confirm definitively.”
“By all means.”
“I assume you brought it as evidence, but I’d like to recreate the crime scene using the clothes and holster I wore yesterday.”
*Snap.*
Instead of answering, Makina snapped her fingers, summoning two student council cadets she’d been directing like limbs.
The two cadets, dressed identically like twins and carrying bags, smartly opened the bags and displayed the contents.
When I was taken from Arthur’s room, I had been wearing clothes borrowed from him.
Naturally, what emerged from the bag was not those borrowed clothes but my blood-soaked uniform from the crime scene.
As the bag opened and the bloodstained uniform came into view, the room—which had been boiling and subsiding repeatedly—showed signs of erupting again.
I spoke up quickly before it did.
“First, the pants.”
The cadet, wearing white cotton gloves and looking displeased, unfolded the pants as I indicated and placed them on the altar.
“Please adjust the position slightly so the bloodstained parts face up.”
As I instructed, the cadets adjusted the clothing’s position bit by bit.
To make the bloodstained parts face up, the pants had to be spread with crotches about shoulder-width apart.
The shirt was folded so both sleeve ends met at the center button, as if placed over the stomach with hands on top, tucked inside the jacket.
Stacking the belt and holster on top gave a rough idea of the position I’d been lying in at the scene.
“At the time of the incident, I must have been lying with both hands over my navel.”
By then, the light outside the window had shifted from crimson sunset to the blue tones of nightfall.
“As everyone here knows, my magical aptitude converges to zero. My only weapon is that revolver, which holds a maximum of two rounds.”
Slowly, I approached the altar laid out with the bloodstained clothes.
“My only usable weapon is a gun, yet the murder weapon wasn’t a gun.”
Then, carefully, I lay down atop the blood-soaked uniform still reeking of blood.
The eerily high ceiling I’d seen just yesterday and the faint metallic scent at my nose seemed to pull me back into that nightmare.
Now it was my turn to question Makina.
“Lying in this position, how could I have slashed someone to death? Is this something only the corpse knows? Or is it truly the prank of an angel?”