Thanks to Filo I was getting a better handle on the situation. Something definitely appeared to be fishy.
The only thing that Fohl could do was stand there with his eyes downcast. He clearly did not know what to do. And under the gaze of the imposing college senior yelling at him and the pressure of the crowd it was even worse for him. He couldn't even say a word in his own defense. And no one seemed to be ready to take his side- just murmuring about how unruly kids were these days and that they shouldn't have been allowed to be here in the first place.
"Objection!" I said, sounding like an attorney from a rather popular videogame franchise.
The cloud parted as they saw me. "That kid did not do anything. You are the one who sabotaged your own project."
How was I so sure of this assertion? The answer was I was not 100% sure. However, Filo had said that the man was lying. And I remembered how she had said the same for those people that accosted us in the café earlier. In other words she seemed to have a natural instinct to detect people who are lying. I have no idea how her parents deceived her then, but perhaps it was from that experience that she was able to determine people's true intentions. In that way she seemed smarter than she looked.
She was probably glaring at me when she realized I was thinking that. However, that did not really bother me.
I was not doing this solely based off of what Filo had said though, of course. Other things about the incident looked fishy. And from the way the guy reacted when I had said that, it seemed that I had hit the mark. Being a victim of a false accusation myself, I had no desire to see Fohl fall for the same fate.
"What are you talking about?" he asked. "Why would I sabotage my own project?"
I walked over to his stall. It was a project about finding a new better way to grow mushrooms- a part of agricultural engineering, if you will. I pointed to the shattered case as I picked up a piece of glass. "This is too sturdy to have broken unless someone forcefully dropped.." To demonstrate I dropped a piece of glass myself and everyone watched it fall on the floor without cracking. "Not only that, I heard the sound of the glass falling quite a while after Fohl had bumped into your table."
"That doesn't prove anything!" The man said. "Do you have any other proof?"
"There is a maxim in law which says that the burden of proof lies on he who accuses not he who refutes," I told him. "For any further prove would you mind showing us a photo of your booth? We will be able to see where that case was before that kid came."
He showed us a photo of the booth and, as expected the case was in such a position where it would not have initially been knocked down.
After this the whispers in the crowd had changed. I had managed to sow enough doubt that people my theory was possible. After some more pressing the guy finally caved. It turns out that their project was a failure, but they didn't want this publicized, and destroying part of their own experiment would hide it. There was a bit more to the story, with them likely having appropriated some funds from their university to do this, but I no longer cared for these details as Fohl walked out with no one blaming him.
"Thanks for that," Fohl said. I could tell that it was hard for him to say something like that, he was quite overprotective of his sister and those types didn't like it if their sister was smitten with someone, but it looked like he was a good kid at heart.
"No need to mention it," I told him. I did not like it when people ganged up on one person in public. Even if the person was innocent the pressure of having so many people around them and the way that mobs tended to think would make it difficult to reach a correct conclusion. I had seen a man being accused of groping a woman on the train. I did not know whether he was guilty or not-but he ran away without even letting his side of the story being known. I thought he was rather stupid for that at that time. However, after what happened to me, I think I know why he reacted that way.
Without someone to stand up for you, it was hard to stand up to a crowd. Especially when everyone was going to deem you guilty from the get-go. Fohl scampered off, probably to keep an eye on Atla. And I honestly prefer to wait with him keeping an eye on her. A very close eye so that she never came to us again.
I went back to our own stall.
"That was incredible!" Melty said. "The way you presented all the facts so that they were exactly in his favor was amazing. "
"That's right!" Eclair exclaimed. "If I was every accused of murdering someone, I would 100% want you to be my defense lawyer, Mr. Naofumi!"
"That... really doesn't sound like a compliment," I replied. She made it sound like I was the kind of scumbag who would get anyone off so long as they paid a decent amount! Also, I found it kind of suspicious that her mind jumped right to murder... come to think of it, she did have a gun, didn't she? Nah, I was probably just overthinking things.
"Yeah, Phoenix Wright- who? Am I right bro?" Shindo asked.
"Also, Eclair, how is it that you know him?" I asked Eclair.
"I... am really not in a position to tell you that," Eclair said after thinking about how to answer for a while. It seemed Fohl didn't really want to talk about it either, so it was hard to tell what was going on between the two of them.
"Alright, well, let's get back to business," I said before being interrupted by a voice.
"Sorry I'm late!"