“I’ll reverse them now.”
I inputted the same words as were written on Tamamo into the cancellation window and made them disappear.
“How did you reverse more than ten thousand—?!”
“It’s the same method I used just now. While you were going at Lyra and the Judge, I copied enough of the reversals for ten thousand people. Then I just applied it to all of the gallery members displayed on the mini map.”
“To accomplish such an act…in such a short amount of time…”
“Please don’t act surprised at something so simple as this. There are plenty of Japanese people who are far more skilled than me. Though with your whole thought process, I’m pretty sure you’d just want to execute them too just for being otherworlders.”
It was easy to duplicate the windows by imagining it like copying a computer file.
Once I had inputted the phrases into a window, I copied it into two, then copied those two into four. Then copied those four into eight… Do that fourteen times and you make over sixteen thousand windows. I was just doing that using small windows and directing them with swiping motions so that I didn’t get noticed.
I say it was easy, but it did make me feel like I popped a few blood vessels in my brain.
It seems that when using the Judgment Spell for anything more than a standard trial, it sucks power from its user. It had felt like the blood in my brain was starting to boil, and my body was totally exhausted.
“Bwaaah! That felt terrible! Why is the back of my head so itchy?!”
Tamamo seemed back to normal after having her brainwashing reversed.
“That terrible vomit smell from the penance chamber is clinging to my beautiful, noble tails! How will you compensate for this damage?! You fool!”
She bounded around and then pointed at the gallery.
“That’s right! I saw from the penance chamber! That man! And that man! Every day that Gilvert boy came to give him rotten eggs and sent him to the scene of the incident! He told him to interfere with Miss Judge’s investigation! You dirty trickster! I’m glad I decided to betray you!”
She rattled on for some time.
“I’m glad you seem to be feeling better,” said Tsukasa.
The men Tamamo was pointing at responded in apology to Tsukasa:
“I-I’m sorry!”
“I was brainwashed!”
“Everyone has really had their brainwashing reversed…”
“Besides Tamamo and Lyra, almost everyone had the same words imprinted on them, so it was easy. That goes to show that you think everyone besides you are all the same, Gilvert. You just want them to obey you. And you’ll get rid of anyone who doubts you. It’s so simple. So simple it verges on childish.”
I was starting to lose control of the overflowing contempt I felt.
“‘Man creates man above man itself’? Maybe. Maybe that is how society’s system works. And you created that system, too. So how do you feel now?”
Tsukasa and I stepped out to the front of the arena and faced the accused.
“You know—having fallen from ‘above’?”
“C-c-cu-cu-…” Gilvert was making a sound like an angry cockatrice. “Curse yooou!”
Everything around us was suddenly bathed in gold.
“Eek!”
“Tsukasa!”
I immediately moved to guard Tsukasa and pulled us to the ground.
I heard a whip cut through the air just inches above our heads.
“Akuto Satou! You bastard! You’re nothing but a little brat!”
The Holy Scourge whipped wildly. Just as we had taken cover, it smacked against the magical windows opened around us and caused a bursting sound like firecrackers—
“Maybe I pushed him too far.” Though I had been interested in seeing what his true nature was like.
In my arms, Tsukasa looked up at me with a haggard expression and a worried look in her eye.
“Akky, you’re bleeding!” she said, touching my cheek.
Drops of my blood started to drip from my face. It must have been cut from the wind pressure caused by the whip.
“Now I have to punish him for hurting you, too!”
“Give it a rest, Tsukasa. You yourself said it would be ridiculous for a judge to sue someone for some minor damage like this.”
“But!”
“You have to stay calm, Tsukasa. Just focus on handing down the correct verdict.”
As we spoke, Gilvert’s attacks were getting fiercer.
I could hear his whip slashing mercilessly at the windows protecting us as I looked down at the window at my fingertips.
Our trust points were displayed there…and they were going down.
We had more than 1,500,000 before, but now it’s down to less than 10,000…
The standard Cleansing Prayer was twenty-four words in total. That required 48 trust to cancel. I had canceled the Cleansing Prayer on more than ten thousand people, and now even more trust was being used to defend against the Holy Scourge’s attacks…
“God shall…expunge you…from this world!”
The clergyman had completely lost himself. I peered at his face through the space between the windows.
His eyes and mouth were warped into a dark smile. The way his white hair whipped around while he swung the whip made him look like some kind of evil spirit.
“I will judge you, even if it takes every ounce of mana from every one of my disciples!”
His violence would continue even as it consumed the power of ten thousand people as its energy source.
We can’t let him do that.
I tasted something metallic. The blood flowing from my head had dripped into my mouth. I was injured, and I didn’t have any particularly useful attack spells. What could I do…?
Just as the worry crossed my mind, the message I had been waiting for ran through my brain.
<<Master—I’m coming to assist you now!>>