A giant set of scales emerged from the pink.
They were a heavenly gold color but tinged with an ominous layer of red rust.
The two hanging pans each looked large enough to hold a person.
They were magically floating in midair.
“What…the heck…?”
The scales appeared from below me and floated upward.
They rose right in front of my eyes, almost grazing my nose.
No, they’re not rising… I’m falling.
I then realized I wasn’t standing. I kicked my legs, but they found only empty air.
My body was falling slowly.
Some other power besides gravity was controlling my descent.
Where…?
I pulled my eyes from the magical scales already above my head and peered below.
I could see where I was about to land.
The ground was about thirty feet away.
I saw a long, large desk and the silhouettes of two people.
“Let’s just pronounce him guilty already…”
“We can’t do that…”
I heard them talking.
Are they holding a trial?
As I was observing this, an object giving off a bright pink light appeared from above me and blocked my view.
I stuck out my arms without thinking.
It landed in my arms, and I ended up holding it in a kind of bridal carry.
Somewhere, a voice said, “A person! From the skylight!”
The people below buzzed noisily in surprise, confusion, and curiosity…
I landed with a thud.
“Um, where am I…?” My vision began to clear.
I’d been dropped in a huge, round chamber.
By my guess it was the size of ten classrooms, and its walls looked made of austere gray granite.
“This place looks like…the Supreme Court…”
I had visited it once on a school field trip.
At that time, I only got to sit in the gallery for a minute before we had to leave.
Now I was able to look over most of the room. I seemed to be on the judge’s bench.
Am I having some kind of dream based on those memories?
While I stood there dumbfounded and confused, someone spoke to me.
“Wh-who are…?”
I turned around to face the voice. It had come from the judge’s seat—from a girl in a pink maid outfit.
“Princess Ecstasia, it’s dangerous! Stay back!” cautioned a woman who seemed to be the girl’s retainer. She wore glasses and a suit-like outfit and stood to stop the girl. I recognized now that she was the one who’d wished to pronounce someone guilty.
“He could be a trespasser attempting to interfere with the Hero’s trial!”
“Hero’s trial?” I felt something instinctual spark inside me at this key word. I quickly looked around the courtroom.
And there he was.
An older man lay on his back on a bench set between the witness stand and the gallery.
He was in handcuffs and old leather armor and had a long, shaggy white beard. His face was a drunken red as he snored. Empty bottles and scraps of food were scattered around him as though he’d been here for many weeks, like some kind of drifter.
That guy’s a hero? And he’s on trial?
I looked around again.
A few spectators watched from the gallery.
Looking up, I saw the ceiling had a large hole burned into it.
Floating there were the giant balance scales that I’d seen while falling.
Some kind of magical VR windows floated around the magical scales. On them were the words:
The Hero’s Party Homicide Case
Court in session
Please be quiet ☆ while court is in session ☆.
The pink text floated in the air lightly.
This is what they consider “court in session”?
Honestly, I had no idea what I was looking at.
“Princess Ecstasia, it appears that the summoning spell has failed.” Behind me, the retainer-like woman spoke with the girl who seemed to be her master. “Even if the summoning itself was successful, there’s no way that we were meant to have a boy and girl like this.”
Then I remembered I was carrying something in my arms. It had lost the bright pink sheen covering it. Suddenly, it felt heavy, like whatever magic that had been carrying it wore off.
And without the pink glow concealing it…
“Huh…?”
…I saw I was holding a beautiful girl with large, attractive eyes and an innocent face.
She wore the same clothes she had at the pub.
“Tsukasa turned back into a teenager?!”
You’re kidding, right?
“Right! And there’s no way that a real Japanese judge could be such a young girl!”
I felt the person in my arms stir.
The girl, who looked a whole lot like my sister, jumped down from my arms and onto the floor behind the judge’s bench.
“Who the hell do you think you are, talking down to me like that?”
She struck an intimidating pose and glared at the retainer ferociously.
Tsukasa had shrunk to about five feet tall, and her unbuttoned blouse threatened to fall off, dangling precariously over her chest.
Her breasts were still almost unfairly huge for her slender body. Her imposing aura despite her small frame made the suited retainer flinch with an “Eek!”
Taking another look, I realized the retainer’s ears were long, and they flapped as she cowered.
Maybe she’s an elf…or a half-elf.
Following Tsukasa’s lead, I got down off the desk and continued to observe our surroundings.
“Oh, I get it. Are we inside one of your dreams, Akky?” She spoke so nonchalantly while looking around. “I mean, look, there’s not supposed to be a witness stand in the Grand Bench.”
“You noticed that before the giant scales floating in the air? Now I know for sure you’re Tsukasa.”
It was definitely her.
“I usually have dreams with you in them when I drink too much. Hic!”
“I’m pretty sure I’m awake, though.”
“Well, dream or not, hic! I won’t put up with some kid’s disrespect!”
“Tsukasa, you realize you’ve turned into a kid yourself, right?”
Maybe she needed to see it to believe it.
“Hmm…? ‘Court in session’… What exactly are you…? Huh?”
At the same time, we both noticed something strange about the judge’s bench.
A pink magic circle had been etched into it.
Could this be some kind of summoning magic…that also changed Tsukasa’s body?
I was pretty sure I saw something similar in the pub.
“There’s graffiti all over the bench… And what’s that red ball on top of it?”
Tsukasa pointed to a sphere resting on top of the desk.
“It’s the Lie Detector Orb!” The girl in the pink maid outfit peeked out from behind the retainer to deliver her answer. “It turns red in response to falsehoods. But it’s been stuck for a while, so we haven’t been able to continue the trial!”
“Princess Ecstasia!” the retainer with elf ears chided, shooing the girl back.
So they’ve been conducting trials with the help of magical devices.
“You don’t need a lie-detecting device on the judge’s bench,” Tsukasa declared. The judge in her had been awoken. “A trial must reflect the truth accurately. Truthfulness as revealed under the law is not something that can be placed in the hands of some lie detector. Modern law doesn’t require trial by machinery. The very idea of relying on such equipment is preposterous.” She asserted her point eloquently.
Then she set her sights on the deep red orb. “Even if this is just some strange dream…”
She raised her right hand high above her head. “I will not allow such impropriety in the courtroom!!” And brought it down like a gavel.
Crash!
The Lie Detector Orb was smashed to pieces.
“Akky, did you see that? Hic! Wasn’t that cool?”
Tsukasa gave me a dazzling smile.
“The royal family’s…super-rare, magical n-national treasure…d-destroyed…by some girl who suddenly appeared out of nowhere…” The retainer was agape in disbelief. “Arrest her!”
Before the order finished leaving the half-elf’s mouth, a ninja-like figure moved through the room like a shot.
“Eep!”
They knocked Tsukasa down on her behind…
“Tsukasa! Whoa!”
…and did the same to me. I didn’t even realize my legs had been swept out from under me until I was lying on the floor.
I was quickly forced into a hands-up position on the courtroom carpet.
While lying on my back, I saw a rope drop from above and bind my lower body. It all struck me as more magic.
“I have judged you to be a danger to the royal family. Thus, I will restrain you.”
My wrists were already pinned beneath the ninja woman’s peculiar, metallic-soled boot. Her other foot held down Tsukasa’s.
The soles of her boots looked specifically designed to restrain people by stepping on them.
The ninja-like woman, upside down from my perspective, held both ends of the rope and looked down on me.
“Wow, a maid with dog ears… You’re like…some kind of different species…”
Her beautiful snow-white skin showed through her uniquely designed and revealing maid attire. Her face resembled a doll’s, with blue eyes the color of thin ice. Her head sported thick, fluffy white hair and cute dog ears.
“Princess Ecstasia. What shall I do with them?” She watched us unwaveringly as she spoke. “I could finish them right here and now.”
Perhaps the sharp canines in her mouth were for bringing down her prey.
I got the impression that she would easily kill anyone on her master’s order.
And it sounded like she was requesting final confirmation to do so right now.
“No! That person is…Miss Judge!”
The girl in pink’s reply sounded overly cheerful given our situation.
“Princess Ecstasia, what are you…?” said the retainer.
Rather than explain, the princess marveled at something overhead. “Oh, look, the Rust of Doubt…”
Something about the floating scales was changing.
The ominous rust that had covered them started to glimmer, peel off, and dissipate.
“Princess Ecstasia, the rust on your body…”
The same glimmer was coming from the girl in pink. I craned my neck to see that some of the red rust stuck to the princess’s body was also disappearing.
“It’s all thanks to Miss Judge for bringing our doubts to justice!”
“Wait, Princess Ecstasia. Teenagers can’t become judges in Japan! It’s dangerous to trust her! This is all a mistake…”
While I listened to the discussion, my sister seemed to finally sober up.
“Wait, the shards from that broken orb are stinging my hand… Does that mean…this isn’t a dream?”
“Uh, excuse me,” I said, spotting Tsukasa’s bag that had dropped into this place with us out of the corner of my eye. “My sister is a judge. In the wallet in her bag over there, you’ll find her staff ID that proves it. You’ll also find proof that she’s actually twenty-eight…”