Chapter 6 – The Verdict

"In my country, I am training to become a lawyer, which is the upholder and protector of the law. After seeing what happened in this trial so far, I'm not sure if I can accept all of this as fact."

"Yes! Finally, someone who believes me!" Naofumi sighed in relief.

"How could you not believe it?" Aultcray bellowed in fury.

"Who are you helping here! Are you in on this?" Motoyasu fumed.

"In my country, you are innocent before proven guilty, not the other way around. There is barely any evidence to press a case. A piece of lingerie wouldn't amount to anything in my country."

After pausing to give myself time to breathe, I saw the angry looks on everyone's faces, except Naofumi who looked at me in gratitude.

"One inconsistency that I have recognized so far is that Naofumi here was only level 2 at the time of the accused crime, and from what I have gauged so far, he is horribly weak at combat. The shield is the weakest weapon there is in terms of attack, and with those abysmal stats on his end there is no way he would have the strength to force himself upon the young lady here, who is easily a dozen levels higher than him? Also, how can one piece of lingerie be sufficient evidence to press a case? That just doesn't make any sense to me."

"That is quite easy to explain." Myne added. He knocked me out first, using a strange medicine that he slipped into my drink, and only after regaining my consciousness did I see him on top of me. How barbaric!"

"Yeah! He could have done that!"

"There is no telling what that monster could do!"

"True, that could also be a possibility, but we must note that it is quite unlikely that Naofumi here would have had the time to acquire such a substance. He was shopping with us most of the day, and I doubt he would have known where any pharmacies were during his short stay here. For the few hours that we were apart, I doubt that he would have been able to know where to get the medicine. It also seems odd to me that Naofumi would commit such a heinous act without leaving the capital first, as would make it harder to apprehend him if he decided to do such a thing."

I took a moment to take another breather.

"Another inconsistency I have noted is that Naofumi cannot get drunk. He told me a story about a time back in his own world when he walked into a bar with his friends, and the whole group gulped down bottle after bottle, maybe even a dozen or two, of alcohol. After they drank enough alcohol to knock out a few grown men, his friends were all lying on the floor passed out while Naofumi still stood there, unphased."

"Y-Yeah!" Naofumi joined in. "I know I didn't do it, because I can't get drunk!"

…

There was pure silence in the room, with everybody staring intensely at us.

"What do you mean you can't get drunk!" Motoyasu argued. "That's literally impossible!"

"I'm not lying!" Naofumi debated, clearly encouraged by my support of him. "Besides, I said the same thing during dinner when she offered me wine! I declined, since I couldn't get drunk even if I did drink it."

This moving speech had caused Ren to fall silent, stroking his chin while thinking things over.

Myne, seeing this, continued to press her point.

"He's obviously lying! He just doesn't want to admit to his horrible crime!"

"Well, we need some evidence to see who exactly is lying and who is telling the truth. Since you're the arbiter and judge here, Your Majesty, is there a way to test if Naofumi can get drunk or not?"

Aultcray was fuming, furious that I was defending the accused instead of his daughter. This country was a matriarchy, after all, so it would make clear sense why women would be believed over men.

"Are you certain you can't get drunk, Shield?"

"I mean, I don't know what my limits are, but as Satoshi said, I can gulp down dozens of bottles of beer and nothing would happen to me, so a glass of wine wouldn't do anything either."

"You liar!" Motoyasu cried. "Any human being would be dead at that point!"

"How about we have Naofumi here drink the wine?" I contributed. "Surely that would prove the case here."

"Yeah! I'll do anything to prove my innocence!"

"That won't be necessary." Aultcray announced. "Guards, bring me a rucola fruit!"

The nobility and clergymen that were lined up around the room were gasping in shock. They were acting as if Naofumi was going to have to ingest cyanide or something.

A castle knight slipped out of the room in a hurry. As that was happening, I took the opportunity to have a chat with Naofumi, far away from the prying eyes and ears of Motoyasu and Myne.

"Naofumi, you gotta trust me on this one. I'm the law student here, and an amazing one at that. I promise, I will get you out of this unscathed."

"But, I don't even know my own limits! How would you know something that I don't know?"

"I don't. But, since this country is a matriarchy, if you were convicted of raping the princess, who knows what god-awful things would happen to you. Besides, you gotta trust yourself, and me. I've never lost a single mock trial before."

"Well, if you're so sure, I'll tag along. I mean, I really appreciate you stepping up for me when no one else would. You're a real bro, you know that?"

"You betcha. Since there is a lot of evidence supporting your side, I will defend you with the honor of the Sera family, lawyers since the beginning of time. Well, my mother was an aeronautical engineer, but we don't talk about that."

As we were still conversing, a knight walked in, in his hand holding a single fruit the size of a peach pit.

"God bless Melromarc! Is the Shield Demon going to eat THAT?"

"Guard! Squeeze a drop of the rucola fruit into a wineglass!"

The guard, squinting his eyes and turning his head the other direction, carefully twisted the fruit, allowing one teensy tiny drop to fall into the wineglass. Afterwards, the guard ran away in terror.

"Consume that. And if that does nothing, your argument shall be proven."

"Satoshi," Naofumi asked as everybody's gaze was fixed on him, "Should I really drink that? What if you die?"

"Trust me, Naofumi. I bet that you won't die. In fact, why would Melromarc want to kill off one of their holy heroes? That wouldn't be a good idea. If the stories you told me were true, this should be nothing."

"Well, if you say so. Here goes."

Naofumi tilted the wineglass carefully, his whole body shivering as the blood red droplet of liquid trickled down the inside of the glass and plopped onto his tongue.

The audience gasped.

We all waited for a minute, seeing if anything would happen. But nothing did.

"Um, can I try more?"

Everybody stared at him in shock.

"If he asked for it, give him more! Give him the whole fruit, for all I care!"

The audience went into a riot.

"How is this possible! How did he live!"

"Nobody's ever survived ingesting that fruit before! He's truly a demon! A devil, I say! A devil!"

Naofumi, ignoring the words of the audience, tossed the fruit into his mouth.

"Yummm… this is delicious. I don't know what this tastes like, but it's good. In fact, I would say it's great. Do they sell these in markets?"

"Umm… Satoshi… why is everybody staring at me?"

"Well, I wouldn't know, but even Myne is frozen like a statue."

The knights, Aultcray, the minister, the heroes' party members and all the observers had simultaneously frozen, not moving a single limb. Their faces turned white in astonishment, and their teeth chattered in fear. Ren and Motoyasu were just confused, not understanding the apparent gravity of the situation.

"Daughter, why did you say the Shield Hero raped you while he was drunk again?"

Aultcray stared into Myne's eyes, the latter still having not moved an inch.

"Um…Papa, I thought he was drunk! It happened so fast, I couldn't even tell what was going on!"

Yeah, she lost this case hands down. At this point, even nepotism couldn't save her.

"But," I pressed on, "The main point of your argument was that Naofumi was drunk while "committing" the rape. In fact, that was basically your entire argument. Now that that has been disproven, your point is no longer valid."

"That fruit was probably something that should have made Naofumi very drunk, judging from the reaction from the audience." Ren commented.

"This doesn't clear Naofumi, right?" Motoyasu asked. "Surely that isn't enough evidence!"

Ah, the classic white knight. At this point, I'm just happy I made the right call and decided to back Naofumi. The classic Sera gut instinct comes in clutch again!

"One drop," Aultcray said, "Would have been enough to make a normal man drunk. But to eat a whole fruit… would be enough alcohol to instantly kill a whole party of them."

Naofumi looked at me in shock.

"Satoshi! Why did you tell me to eat that! I could have died."

"Sorry, Naofumi. I didn't think such a fruit really existed. Well, to be fair, you would have been horribly punished if you had lost. I'm really sorry that I risked your life, but at least you came in clutch and survived, Ozzy Osborne style. We're still friends, right?"

"Well, if it wasn't for you, I'd probably be tied up in a dungeon somewhere and getting lashed, so yeah, we're best friends!"

Aultcray finally spoke, still appalled by what Naofumi had done.

"I'm sorry, due to the evidence presented by the accused, I cannot hand down a verdict. Case dismissed."

"WOOOHOOOOOOOO! YEAHHHHH! WE DID ITTTTT!" Naofumi screamed as he bounced up and down in joy, hugging me and taking me to the ground.

"Wow there, Naofumi! I can't breathe!"

From the corner of my eye, I could see Myne standing there, baffled.

"B-But P-Papa! He really raped me!"

That complaint fell to deaf ears.

"Just in case I am wrong, daughter, you shall stay in the spear hero's party to protect you from future harm. Sorry, Shield Hero, but you will have to find other party members to help you in your quest. Due to the fact that news of what you were accused of doing is being spread across the kingdom right now, that might be hard, but I will send royal messengers immediately to repair what harm may have been done to your reputation."

"My client will gladly accept that as recompense for his troubles. Thank you, Your Majesty, for handing down this just and fair argument. Befitting of the Wisest King of Wisdom, after all."

"Yeah, I'm all for that. That's pretty fair, I think."

"The trial is over." Aultcray announced. "Court is adjourned. Everybody, begone!"

"Naofumi," I advised, "Myne is clearly not a good person to have around. Maybe steer clear of her in the future."

"You don't gotta tell me twice. She already tried to screw me over once!"

"That's the spirit. Besides, you might get a way better girl in the future! It's a brand-new world! You could even get a cat girl!"

As the room was being emptied by the royal guards, ushering the appalled nobles out of the room, Naofumi and I, accompanied by my party, departed the castle.

"Shield Hero! Here is a stipend from His Majesty, to compensate you for your troubles."

"Thank you very much!"

Upon receiving this pouch of coins, Naofumi quickly checked his pockets, digging around. He was probably searching for his wallet.

"Crap! All my money is gone! Myne did it, yeah, it's gotta be her! That conniving snake!"

"You know, she probably did do it. She went to such lengths to get you convicted, after all."

We continued down the road, talking about the trial that just went down.

"So now, what?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what do we do next? Should we travel together? Maybe go our separate ways?"

"I think we should split up for now. You don't have any party members to attack with, since you can't attack. Your first priority should be recruiting one. Meanwhile, I need to head to that dungeon in Lafan and grind some levels. I promise you, though, we'll meet again when the next wave strikes!"

"That sounds good. Well, once again, I can't thank you enough for everything that you've done for me. Goodbye, and have a nice day!"

I shook Naofumi's hand, and we each headed down a different side street. After taking a few random turns in an alleyway, and onto a main road filled with pedestrians, I noticed a strange man, donning a black overcoat and wearing white pants, crouched on the floor.

"Filolials, filolials! Covers ground fast, and they will last! Purebred, racing filolial eggs, bred in the north, available for only a limited time!"

This certainly piqued my interest. If these were anything like chocobos, I could use them to quickly travel across the land, from dungeon to dungeon, grinding up faster like never before!

"Hello, good sir," I asked the peddler, "What's a filolial?"

"You mean you don't know what one is? That's impossible! It's a bird-like creature that loves to draw carriages! It's so fast it can travel from one end of Melromarc to the other in mere days! These purebred filolials from the north, prized for their ability to run long distance races, can travel days on end without resting, and at a pace faster than any horse can do!"

"That is very interesting, indeed. How much is one going to cost me?"

The man swept his eyes across my body, my 6-foot 2 frame towering above him. Eventually, he set his sights on the iron bow that was attached to my left forearm.

"You're the legendary bow hero! Oh lord, bless me for not noticing that earlier! Our great savior!"

"No worries, no worries." I consoled the man.

"Since you are our great hero, worshipped by all men across the world, I will give you a massive discount on this filolial. Just 150 silver, and I promise this filolial will lead you to victory against the fiendish and devilish monstrosities of the waves! I swear on my family name that there is no better filolial in the entire world! This egg will hatch in a few days, and it takes only a few more for it to be rideable!"

This man, I could tell through my analytical eyes, was clearly not trying to scam me. This guy was clearly a believer of the church, and therefore I was worshipped as a deity by them. Due to that, it was only natural that they'd offer their messiah a discount, especially an avid supporter such as he.

"I'll take it. Thank you for your generosity."

Reaching into my pocket, I carefully counted out 150 individual silver pieces and dropped them into the peddler's hands. I was carefully looking through the eggs, when the peddler sneaked to the back of his wagon and waddled back with an incubator in his hands.

"This is my secret stock. This egg here is the culmination of centuries of filolial breeding, originating from the best of the best. I don't even sell this egg, to kings nor queens. This is only reserved for the most special of individuals, and it only comes around once every hundred years. Since you're a holy hero, and the honorable bow at that, it is only suitable that you are the one to raise this filolial."

I took a closer look at the egg. It had a strange, runic pattern painted on it, clearly different and more complex than the ones that were lying in the box on the ground. I could tell that this egg certainly was a special one.

"Oh, hero, don't worry about ever getting a new crest to apply on this filolial. This is the highest-quality crest you could possibly find, and there is no crest that would be more suitable for a filolial such as this."

"Thank you so much! I couldn't possibly ever repay you for giving me such a good deal!"

"No need. As long as you defend the realm and the world from the terror of the waves, I am happy about entrusting this special egg to you. Long live the heroes, and long live Melromarc!"

With an incubator in my arms, and my party members by my side, the true adventure was finally kicking off. One could only wonder what Naofumi would be up to. I was just happy that he was acquitted of the crime that he didn't commit.