Chapter 162
Chapter 162
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 162
Chapter Title: Indictment (1)
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The clue to the incident emerged from an entirely unexpected place.
I couldn't help but let out a wry chuckle.
Whether the situation had molded me this way, or whether I'd lost the mental leeway to spare, I couldn't tell.
“I'm thinking like this. That murder back then—wasn't I supposed to be the victim, originally?”
“Victim? Aren't we gathered here to debate this [Artificial Soul Circulation Device]?”
Makina responded to my words.
She was once the one who'd branded me a murderer, but now with Sir Reynolds as our common enemy, I didn't suspect she'd betray me.
In fact, at this moment, there was no sturdier ally than Makina in the entire academy.
“Continuing the story. Earlier, I mentioned the ‘soothing fresh air’ that was administered to me when I used this machine, right?”
I lifted the tube fitted with a syringe needle, mimicking the motion of injecting it into my arm.
“Ah. No way—”
One cadet who grasped the situation first let out an involuntary exclamation.
But I hadn't anticipated such a reaction.
If anything, it was a good sign.
Once opinions began to align, everything would proceed smoothly from there.
“Unlike other cadets who've built up tolerance from making magic reagents, someone like me with no resistance would experience a massive effect from even a tiny dose of something like [Angel's Prank].”
A civilian body hypersensitive to even small amounts of drugs.
This academy had been ill-fitting clothes from the start for someone like me, forced to live differently from the mages.
“It can't be coincidence that my enemies happened to collude with the Life and Greenery Society. It's more reasonable to assume they followed me here.”
“Look at you, your delusions have gone too far. A future soldier learning demagoguery first thing! What even is that machine to begin with? I've never seen it before.”
Sir Reynolds seemed intent on denying it to the end.
But I hadn't come this far without a plan.
“If it's truly something you've never seen, then I suppose I should explain.”
With one hand, I uncapped the protective cover on the tube I'd been holding the whole time.
Inside was a syringe needle of intimidating thickness, just looking at it.
“Theodore.”
“……Are you really going to do it?”
I beckoned to Theodore, seated in the witness stand at the center of the chapel where he'd once testified for me.
Theodore watched me quietly for a moment before rising from his seat.
“[Wash it with the blood of the saint.]”
It was a simple disinfection spell that sparked with faint flames.
The needle was brand new, unused, but I knew better than most how people could die from the absurd.
Back at the nursing home, we'd scrub with alcohol-soaked cotton, but here, a single phrase sufficed for disinfection—how convenient.
“Thinking about it now, doesn't it seem like I was the perfect constitution to get framed as a murderer? Out of the entire student body, no less. Well, water under the bridge.”
Why me, of all people? Some fateful prank?
At first, I thought this incident meant I was destined to confront a guardian angel, but maybe the trigger was simpler than that.
“That was a disinfection spell just now, right?”
“What are you planning to do with that needle?”
The cadets' gazes locked onto the needle in my hand.
I'd boldly rolled up my sleeve, thinking now or never, but hesitation was inevitable.
‘They don't teach syringe injections at the academy, after all.’
It was a shame Collette wasn't here.
Without hesitation, I plunged the needle into my vein.
For this moment, I'd practiced countless times on my veins while staying at a civilian home, leaving my arm bruised black from burst vessels.
“No, Senior?! What are you doing?”
“Ha.”
Shirley recoiled in shock at the sight, while Judith sighed in exasperation.
‘It doesn't hurt as much as it looks, but saying that won't help.’
Things had come to this; I had to see it through.
Carefully maneuvering my arm to keep the needle from slipping out, I reached for the main switch on the connected machine.
“It's meant for two people working in tandem, but drawing a bit of blood won't kill me. Not with so many—Black Lily House cadets here.”
“……”
Makina simply smiled faintly without replying.
Blood began extracting from my vein, swirling through the transparent tube.
It looked bizarre, like red lines drawn in transparent air.
“Good lord. It's really a machine that draws blood?”
Now coursing through the circulation device's tubes, my blood densely filled one wall of the chapel like intricate knitting.
Soon, blood began spurting from the opposite syringe needle, which should have been in someone else's vein.
-Drip, drip, drop.
The chapel was so silent that the viscous liquid's taps against the floor were audible.
No wonder—someone who'd been clad in burial robes, playing the saint mere moments ago, was suddenly hooked to a massive machine, bleeding out.
Watching such grotesque antics in the dead of night would unsettle even the stoutest stomach.
“This proves the machine draws human blood and is a genuine, functioning article.”
-Drip, drop…
“Arma. That's enough now.”
Judith spoke in a worried voice.
I hated to worry her, but if I planned to back down, I wouldn't have started.
‘Damn. Even after eating plenty, I'm getting dizzy.’
True to its name, the circulation device's purpose was ‘circulating blood between two people.’
With no one to circulate it back to me, endless extraction meant no replenishment—obvious, really.
“What, planning self-harm now? Stop that at once!”
Even the great Sir Reynolds faltered, stuttering in bewilderment this time.
In the opposite tube's end, I hallucinated a young boy's arm pierced by the needle.
‘I still need that decisive blow.’
The cadets' awe at my bloodletting stunt was natural.
But more than anything, I needed concrete proof that Sir Reynolds had used this device.
‘If only I had the actual victim's testimony… But that's not Collette's fault.’
Glancing at Collette's empty seat in the chapel, I pressed on.
It wasn't my ideal outcome, but with a backup plan ready, riding the atmosphere would easily corner Sir Reynolds.
“I sense a kind of fate in this incident.”
Amid all the lies I'd piled up, this alone was sincere.
Fleeing to this remote island, only to encounter the Life and Greenery Society and their cult device again.
And as I'd said myself, it was too coincidental to chalk up to mere fate—it felt contrived.
If my destiny was to circle back to square one…
-Vain endeavor.
…What a vain endeavor, I couldn't help but accept.
“Any Aegis Academy cadet knows well that I teetered on death's door countless times in my youth.”
No one here was unaware of that.
I was the academy's sole civilian without magical aptitude, a parachute dropped from the skies via my parents' wealth.
A frail existence that couldn't help but stand out, a uniquely special status.
“Seeing the very device that once drove me and my friend to death's brink here again—it's deeply moving. Truly, I feel Lady Aegis's guidance.”
Someone gasped as I invoked the goddess.
In this place and time, I was the manufactured saint, the goddess's incarnation.
The venue, the hour, my robes, my paling complexion, and the selectively assembled cadets made it so.
“Surely that's how it was!”
Someone shouted with conviction.
The cry came from the right end of the frontmost pew nearest the altar.
That someone was my follower, Annabelle Lucen.
Annabelle was the cadet who'd asked if the fanatic group ‘Emily Louise Hollis’—who'd tried to kill Theodore for me—had reached paradise, etching her in my memory.
Through Judith, I'd sent her a note with a single Bible verse.
Nothing more.
I hadn't wanted to seduce Annabelle with flowery lies.
And her response to that note was precisely that.
Fervor for Aegis's executor.
Fanatical conviction sufficient to shape opinion spread like wildfire in an instant.
“Of course Lady Aegis planned to guide the Executor here!”
“Exactly!”
‘Aria Janet Vans.’
Led by the two cadets, the chapel's atmosphere peaked.
“What's going on?”
“The Healing Guild targeted the Executor and came to this island, right?”
Once, I'd endlessly toiled to reverse the negative public opinion centered on me, however formed.
Dispelling one rumor required ten proofs, and each proven rumor morphed into another.
But now?
The assembled cadets formed favorable opinion for me without my effort.
“Th-that's nonsense! Ridiculous claims! Who targeting whom? That's utterly absurd—”
Sir Reynolds flew into a rage.
His flushed face boiled red, on the verge of bursting.
What did Makina make of this farce?
Unbidden, my gaze drifted to the altar front.
Makina, invited to the false stage scripted, directed, and starring me—Arma Cruise—spoke with an unexpectedly serene smile, betraying no reaction.
“Are you saying Arma Cruise Cadet was the true target of that incident? And for some reason, Cale Ace Cadet got caught up and murdered?”
“What other circumstances could there be?”
“Indeed. To my limited imagination, it sounds utterly plausible, with no room for rebuttal.”
Makina met my eyes briefly, flashing a more emotive smile before reverting to her usual expression.
Benevolent and warm, yet inscrutably capricious—a new facet of Makina I'd discovered after nearly six months.
It was then, as incensed Sir Reynolds raised both hands.
“Protect the Executor!”
In a flash, the cadets encircled me.
A moment where our military training shone.