The girls Erna was with were not hiding their revulsion. They were close enough that the man could hear them, and they were fully aware of it.
“……………”
That, too, had become a familiar sight to Erna.
The majority of the students who went to St. Katraz were daughters of aristocrats or members of the bourgeoisie. You couldn’t even enroll without making a substantial donation. It was very much a school designed for the rich and powerful.
The only emotion the girls who went there felt toward the masses was antipathy.
None of them criticized each other for it, either. To them, it was a natural way to feel. There wasn’t even any true malice behind it. In their eyes, the fact that they had to look at something unpleasant first thing in the morning made them victims.
Erna passed the man by, just like all the other girls.
“………I’m sorry.”
She only just managed to get the words out.
The rest of the group gave her a set of quizzical looks. “Huh? Did you just—?”
Erna shook her head and quickly denied it. “Yeep! I didn’t say anything.”
One of the girls let out a shrill “Eeeeeek!” without missing a beat.
“Did you hear that, everyone?!” “It was a ‘yeep’! We got to hear one of those oh-so-precious yeeps!” “Oh, what an auspicious day!” “Yeep! Yeeeeep!”
“…………………………”
As her classmates cheered, Erna sank into silence.
“Yeep” was something she’d unconsciously started saying to make herself seem more childish. Presenting herself as an innocent young girl and leaning into the misfortune that followed her was how she made her way in life.
However, Erna was sixteen now.
Every day, she reminded herself that it was high time she sealed the yeeps away, yet every so often, one sneaked out all the same.
Nightfall was when Erna’s true work began.
Attending St. Katraz was nothing more than a way to mask her identity. It was while attending the job she kept a secret from the school that she finally got to do some proper espionage.
The job in question was through a Lylat Kingdom attorney’s office. She worked there four times a week.
“I must say, I don’t know what I’d do without you. Ever since you showed up, I started finally being able to get through my paperwork.”
“I’m happy to help.”
Gabriel Mash, Esq. clapped his hands together in appreciation, and Erna gave him a respectful bow.
Gabriel had opened his own practice at a young age, and he was a generous man who was famous for taking on any case, even ones where he didn’t stand to make money. His track record was hardly stellar, but his refusal to turn down a client meant that he was offered new work on the daily. That, combined with his inability to keep things tidy, meant that his office was constantly a complete mess.
Erna nodded as she bound some documents together with string. “And thank you for keeping this a secret from my school.”
“Yeah, of course. What’s the harm, I say? You came here from abroad, and now you’re working your butt off. That’s the exact kind of kid a guy wants to root for.”
Gabriel hummed a little tune as he read through a court record. He was a thirty-four-year-old redhead with a beard that didn’t much suit him. Once again, he’d taken over a case that another attorney had thrown in the towel on. Gabriel and his wife often got into fights over the man’s disregard for money.
Erna showed him a document. “Which file did you want these materials in, Mr. Mash?”
“Hmm?” Gabriel took a quick look at it, then let out an understanding laugh. “Ah, these are from that thing last week. Our guy got prosecuted for seditious conspiracy just because he had a hunting rifle in his storehouse. I’ll plead his case, but I don’t think I’ll be able to get him off the hook. Someone got thrown in jail last month for the exact same thing. I have to wonder, what is it the royal administration is so afraid of?”
The man’s brain worked quickly, but he always laid out his thoughts plainly. He readily revealed the relevant details.
That was the reason Erna was working there.
Piles of case files made their way to Mash Law every day, the majority of them cases that had been rejected by the courts—in other words, disputes between commoners and members of the aristocracy. Due to his kind nature, Gabriel accepted the kind of cases that other law firms wouldn’t touch.
The court records Erna got to handle contained all the details of the events.
On May 2, the Mon Ange Books publishing house on the second block of Tungten Street was ordered to cease operations. The Royal Censorship Bureau had determined that five of their publications contained language that constituted a “disturbance to public order.” The president and directors were all arrested, and it looked like the prosecutor was going to push for prison time.
On February 8, there was graffiti found on Lieutenant-General Gigogh’s house over on the west side of the capital. Its message was critical of the administration, and it was assumed to be the work of the anonymous artist Maxim. A local man was arrested, although he denied any involvement. The offense normally only carried a fine, but in an unusual move, the prosecutor advocated for prison time.
On April 7 and 8, twelve students and professors from Toulk University were arrested for treason. The professors launched a series of criticisms against the administration during their lectures, and the group had allegedly been producing films with anti-establishment themes.
There were battles raging in Lylat between people who resented the government and those who sought to control them. Gabriel didn’t harbor any anti-government sentiments himself, but his willingness to take on work that other attorneys avoided meant that such cases constantly found their way to him nonetheless.
What’s more, those case files contained the personal information of the relevant parties. In order to represent someone, an attorney needed to know not just their name, age, and address, but sometimes even details about their background and interpersonal connections.
As a result, Mash Law had a huge amount of data on people across the kingdom who had problems with the government, and Erna was all too happy to secretly copy that information for herself.
I’ve been gathering it up slowly. Little by little, bit by bit.
She’d been working there for over six months, and in that time, she’d compiled quite the list.
She was carrying a stack of documents and wondering how she could get the intel to her teammates when her foot landed on a stray sheet of paper.
“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP?!”
“Yeep?”
The paper slid out from under her, and she tumbled to the ground in a spectacular fashion.
Gabriel came rushing over. “Are you all right?” he asked, to which Erna gave him a pained smile from down on the ground. “You’re great at your job, but that clumsiness of yours is a force to be reckoned with.”
“How unlucky…”
Erna let out a sigh and brushed off the papers that had landed on her head.
Due to how bad of a spill she’d taken, the documents she’d just finished sorting had landed everywhere. Papers of all sorts had come spilling out of the nicely bound files.
She seized the opportunity to grab one of the papers and show it to Gabriel. “Which case does this go with, Mr. Mash?”
“Oh, here, let me show you.”
Gabriel readily explained the situation. The man was affable and had a sharp memory, but his adherence to his professional duty of confidentiality was shockingly lax.
Thanks to him, though, Erna’s intelligence work went that much more smoothly.