Chapter 17 – House of 20 Corpses (7)
After wiping her face in Sieri, I let her go, appeasing my regrets. She wants to try more things, but it’s still the first day. It was fun if it was fun to eat slowly by one person in the market where wine was also aged.
And so the night passed. I spent a few moments thinking about what fun things to do with Sieri in the future.
Since morning, Aira has been sweeping and wiping the hallways of the mansion. After the March of Atonement, she was afraid to even leave the playground of her mansion, Ira, and shook her body. So she gave her the task of cleaning the first floor of her mansion. Ira swept and mopped the first floor as diligently as a janitor by profession, and at night she served me like a courtesan by vocation.
The attendants in the mansion seemed to have no complaints as others were doing their jobs for them. She came in as a ‘maid’ in the first place, so rather, it seemed natural to see her cleaning. As punishment, cleaning was also a very suitable job.
Aira, who is adapting to her mansion much more than expected, made me feel proud as a religious person. Wasn’t she a swindler turned into such a wonderful and honest person? Today, she was scheduled to do ‘service’ for me under the desk in her office when Ira finished cleaning her.
“Lord.”
As I stood in the middle of the hallway for a while watching her clean up behind, Robin started talking to me. Pretending I hadn’t done anything, I calmly fixed her expression and looked at Robin.
“Why, Robin?”
“I have something to report.”
“Please speak.”
“There was a murder in town last night, and the suspect needs to be tried.”
The lord had jurisdiction over everything within the territory. Troublesome matters were dealt with appropriately by distributing decrees from the knights or guards, but for large-scale cases such as murder or bandits, the lord himself went to trial. Since the Peta estate was small, trials did not take place, but it was a law to pay attention to trials every once in a while in such a territory. If you show a gap, people will cunningly dig in.
I had to try not to show her signs of being an annoyance in front of Robin. If it was ‘Lucius’, it would be right to make a sad expression and say this at times like this.
“Sorry. Murder. Who the hell committed such a terrible crime?”
“Do you remember during the march of atonement? There was a man who interrupted Miss Aira’s march and beat her.”
“Yes. I know.”
It was something I had to do because I was that kind of guy. Of course I knew. When he said he had committed murder, I naturally nodded my head. Even when I hit Aira, I actually went to the point where Aira died several times. If I wasn’t a healer, he would definitely have killed me. Thanks to that, the plan went well, but he wasn’t the right person for my estate.
“It is said that he beat his wife and he ended up killing her.”
“It’s a pity. Did you beat her wife from time to time?”
“Yes. He was a bit of a bad person that way… Thanks to him, it is said that he had frequent friction with the people around him.”
The guards in this worldview did not have the authority to sanction other people’s family affairs. In the first place, it’s a yagem worldview. Assuming that I was married to Sieri, whether I had anal intercourse with Sieri or played SM, the guards would look down on me, but they had no authority to tell me not to do it.
As another example, even if I beat Sierri to death, if Sieri didn’t die, the guards wouldn’t have the authority to come out and arrest me. It wasn’t a matter of letting her wife die after being beaten by her husband. It was a case in which the law that could only give a ‘personal warning’ not to do it from the point of view of the guards was a problem.
“So, are you ready?”
Even in such a rural estate, the trial needed a structure. The ‘sinner’, the ‘lord’ who punishes, and the witnesses who testify. Robin said.
“There are already five people who have gathered to testify about the criminal’s crime.”
He said that he usually causes trouble, so he must be trying to kill him this time. It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand it.
“Then let’s go.”
I left the mansion with Robin. The scene was already noisy. The villagers raised their voices, leaving the question of who would testify to the lord first. The guards, whose duty was to control the witnesses, were admonishing nicely, but they didn’t even listen.
The commotion only subsided when I arrived at the scene. I looked around. In the corner, the killer who had murdered her wife was chained to a rope and whimpering.
People gathered in a clearing with a sign saying [Witness], And many people huddled together to watch the trial. The guards greeted me as soon as I arrived and quickly stood up. After congratulating them for their hard work, I decided to hold a trial in earnest.
“Guard. Describe the incident.”
“Your lord! Yesterday evening, John, who lived in the village, ran to the village patrol officer and said, ‘I hear a scream coming from Henry’s house. The person seems to be dead, so please go with me.’ I went to the house of Henry, and when I went to the scene, Henry’s wife had already been beaten to death with a club, and Henry was drunk and sleeping with a club.”
“Are you sure your wife died at the scene?”
“That… If you look at the body, you can be sure that the lord is also dead.”
Incidentally, the corpse the guard was talking about was now lying in a corner of the courtroom as evidence. His face his was not visible because he was covered with a straw mat. The guard slightly lifted the mat and asked me.
“Hey, can I show you?”
“What did you do after you found the body?”
“We returned to the guards with John, the witness, and Henry, the criminal. Then, we organized additional personnel to clear the scene and recover the body.”
“Didn’t you investigate separately? Evidence of a certain crime may remain at the scene.”
“Th… I thought that Henry’s crime was certain… That…”
“When I heard about the incident, the only thing the guards could be certain of was that ‘a scream was heard’ from Henry’s house and that ‘Henry was knocked down with a club.’ I can’t tell you more than that. Are there any other grounds for your conviction that Henry is the culprit besides what I’ve been reported to you?”
“That…”
The guard was speechless. I have the feeling that the case is being carried out somewhat in a hurry. Under these circumstances, it did n’t really matter when his wife died. I put off checking the body for now and looked at Henry.
When Henry saw me, he gave me a puzzled look, and he immediately lowered his head. I asked Henry.
“Henry. Did you kill his wife?”
“…I do not know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t know if I killed him or what happened. I remember trying to get into the house while drinking, but I can’t remember anything after that.”
This was a typical pattern of stigmatization. There was a possibility that Henry really beat his wife to death while the film was cut, but on the contrary, there was no doubt that someone framed Henry. He was a man with many enemies, to the extent that 5 people from one village rushed to testify about the murder that happened in the middle of the night.
It was natural for such a human being to kill his wife, and it was also natural for him to frame such a human being for killing him.
“I heard that you beat your wife on a regular basis.”
“…Yes.”
“How did you usually hit it? Did you swing it with a bottle? Or with a tool?”
“That…”
Henry closed his mouth and rolled his eyes. He didn’t seem to have the courage to confess his sins in front of so many people. I said.
“Speak Henry. The lord is asking.”
“Mainly… Kicking… Punching…”
“Why did you do that? Did you mean to kill your wife?”
“That… I was so angry… I did it. Losing my job, so so… Nothing happened…”
A roar was heard. There were also words cursing Henry, calling him a scumbag or an incorrigible human being. I said.
“If I hear one more noise in the courtroom, I will search out the speaker and strike a bell.”
Only then did the courtroom calm down. I looked back at Henry.
“You lost your job. What were you originally doing?”
“He was originally a carpenter, but he was injured while working and was unable to work.”
“What kind of injury was it?”
“I hurt my arm, so my right arm has no strength. That’s why I can’t hammer…”
“You were right-handed.”
“Yes. Even now I mainly use my right hand, but I can’t lift heavy things or exert myself.”
I looked at the guard again. And asked
“In which hand was the club Henry said was holding in his hand?”
“It was in my left hand.”
The guard replied. It was an incident that happened yesterday, so it was easy to remember which hand it was in.
“So, considering the testimony of the guards, Henry, and John, the character Henry had a previous conviction for beating his wife from time to time, and his whereabouts on the day were unclear, and he did not remember, and when he came to the scene of the screaming No one was there except Henry and Henry’s wife. In this situation, you would think that Henry had beaten his wife to death.”
“Yes, it is.”
The guard nodded and replied. Henry lowered his head. But I shook my head. Weird. Unnatural. Something was very unnatural. I asked Henry.
“Henry. Did you use only your left hand to beat her wife?”
“Probably…Used both hands.”
“Have you ever rehabilitated to use tools with your left hand after losing your job due to a right arm injury?”
“… No. Her wife has a job, and he’s busy drinking…”
The audience was looking at the scene of the trial with anxious faces wanting to open their mouths. Her pursed lips and dissatisfied expression she showed her wish to kill Henry quickly. But I didn’t mean to. This case. It was definitely strange.
A right-handed person who has become unconscious after drinking, and an alcoholic right-handed person who has never undergone rehabilitation training with his left hand, rationally judges that his left hand will hit harder and picks up a weapon with his left hand? Even he succeeds in beating her wife to death with it?
Something was strange. Surely.
