The following day, I headed into the city with the maid Gigi in tow.
We wandered about at a leisurely pace to take in the local atmosphere.
Nisir, the capital of Almeria Province.
Living up to its status as a provincial capital, it was several times larger than an ordinary town.
It was divided into four distinct districts, and the mere fact that it required four separate magistrates—one each for the east, west, south, and north—spoke volumes about its sheer scale.
To be frank, even though a fair amount of time had passed since I arrived in my fief, I still hadn't explored all of Nisir.
I took these strolls through the streets precisely to gain insight into the daily lives of the common people.
"Master, it looks like there's quite a crowd gathered over there."
"Hm. I wonder if there's some kind of show going on."
Looking where Gigi pointed, I saw the quintessential atmosphere of an incident that had drawn a swarm of rubberneckers.
I walked up to the edge of the crowd and called out to a nearby man.
"What's all the commotion about?"
"An execution! They're beheading a filthy rapist and murderer today, so everyone came out to watch."
The man answered with unvarnished excitement.
I see, I thought.
Executions were often carried out in full view of the public.
Traitors were publicly dispatched to serve as a warning to others, while perpetrators of crimes that incited public outrage were often executed openly to appease popular fury.
This was clearly the latter case. If the criminal was a rapist and murderer, a public execution made perfect sense.
Now that I understood the situation, there was no need to linger.
I was the Imperial Prince Minister of Justice, holding final authority over the annual consolidated executions.
Having held that office for several years, I had neither the duty nor the morbid curiosity to spectate executions in my spare time.
Just as I turned to leave with Gigi, however—
In the plaza surrounded by the onlookers, a group began ascending the scaffold erected for the execution.
One after another, the magistrate, the executioner, the criminal, and the guards restraining him stepped onto the stage.
The magistrate was dressed in full formal attire, as strictly mandated by imperial law for carrying out capital punishment.
The executioner was a burly, bare-chested man.
He carried a well-honed blade whose deadly edge was obvious even from a distance.
With hands bound tightly behind their back, the limp and exhausted criminal was dragged onto the platform and forced down onto their knees.
A barrage of jeers and curses erupted from all directions.
Knowing the condemned was a rapist and murderer, the crowd mercilessly pelted this public enemy with vitriol.
The magistrate stepped forward and raised both hands.
The shouting gradually subsided.
Once silence fell over the square, the magistrate turned toward the criminal and spoke in a clear, resonant voice.
"You are Craig Hall, correct? Do you have any last words?"
"——!!"
Forced onto their knees with their head drooping, the condemned looked up upon hearing those words, desperately trying to speak. Yet only muffled groans escaped their throat—no intelligible speech came out.
"None, it seems. Very well, then."
The magistrate signaled the executioner with a glance.
The guards on either side shoved the prisoner down, forcing their neck out low.
The executioner raised his broad blade.
"――――!!"
The prisoner let out another frantic groan, clearly desperate to say something.
"...Bahamut."
『Yes, Sire.』
"Can you translate?"
『Child's play.』
Following Bahamut's reply, the prisoner's muffled groans were translated through Bahamut into clear words in my mind.
『I am innocent! I was framed!』
"—!"
The executioner hoisted the blade high—and brought it down!
"Hold it!"
I roared, kicking off the cobblestones and shooting straight toward the scaffold like an arrow.
The executioner's blade didn't waver.
Drawing Leviathan from my bracelet, I unleashed a flashing slash.
Clang!
With a crisp metallic ring, the executioner's heavy blade snapped cleanly in two.
The neck of the prisoner—the one desperately claiming innocence—remained completely untouched and intact.
"Who goes there?!" the magistrate barked, demanding my identity.
Much like Pascal, it seemed he had never seen my face.
"Who I am doesn't matter. That person is innocent."
"An accomplice attempting a jailbreak?! Guards, to me! To meeee!!"
Strictly speaking, this wasn't a jailbreak, but the magistrate shrieked in a flustered panic regardless.
Instantly, ten armed soldiers surged onto the platform and lunged at me.
"Hah."
With a single fluid sweep of Leviathan, I sheared straight through every single one of their weapons.
Following through on the return stroke, I slashed across their thighs and shoulders just enough to instantly neutralize their ability to fight.
"Wha—?!"
"Whoaaaaa!!"
The magistrate froze in utter shock, while the surrounding crowd erupted into roaring cheers.
"Did you see that?! That was insane!"
"Ten against one, and he took them all down in a split second!"
"I couldn't even follow his sword!"
Bathed in the deafening cheers of the mob, I turned back to the magistrate.
"Halt this execution."
"Y-You... do you have any idea what kind of punishment awaits you for this?!"
"That person is not the culprit."
"What absurd nonsense are you spouting?! The verdict has already been finalized—"
"I have proof."
"—What?"
My voice boomed with commanding authority.
The sound rang across the plaza, and the sudden, dramatic turn of events instantly silenced the gawking crowd.
How convenient. It saved me the trouble of hushing them myself.
I scanned the onlookers.
Standing right at the front of the crowd was a middle-aged woman who practically radiated the aura of a gossiping neighborhood busybody.
"You there, ma'am. I need a favor. Step up onto the platform."
"Who, me?"
Looking thoroughly baffled, but wearing an expression that suggested she found the spectacle far too entertaining to pass up, the woman climbed onto the scaffold.
"What is it you want me to do?"
"Examine the prisoner. Their body, specifically."
"Huh...?"
Though completely in the dark, the woman cautiously approached the condemned prisoner.
The magistrate tried to intervene, but I leveled Leviathan straight at his throat, freezing him dead in his tracks.
The woman leaned in close and spent a few moments inspecting the prisoner.
"Good heavens! This person's a woman! She's a woman forced into men's clothes!"
The instant the woman cried out, the crowd erupted into a wild uproar, while—
"............"
The color drained entirely from the magistrate's face.
"My word, young man, how on earth did you spot that she was a woman? That's incredible!"
Having confirmed the truth, the woman showered me with praise in full busybody mode, exactly as I had expected.
Ignoring her chatter, I fixed a piercing glare on the magistrate and pressed him.
"A woman could hardly be the culprit behind a rape and murder, now could she?"
"T-That... that doesn't necessarily mean—"
"The criminal's name was Craig Hall, wasn't it? No matter how you slice it, that is a man's name."
"That is..."
"Well, swapping in a scapegoat is an old trick. Nothing rare about it."
When you've served as the Imperial Prince Minister of Justice for years, you become well acquainted with the underhanded tricks practiced on the ground.
When a condemned criminal belongs to a wealthy family, they often bribe the presiding officials to swap themselves out with an innocent scapegoat.
Naturally, you couldn't pull this off with treasonous rebels or high-profile figures, but otherwise, it was an all-too-common occurrence.
And of course, the magistrate overseeing the execution was always among those who took a cut.
Glaring at him with even greater intensity, I demanded, "Did you take a bribe?"
The magistrate let out a choked gasp, his face turning an even paler shade of white.
The entire atmosphere of the crowd shifted.
The hostility and righteous fury previously directed at the rapist and murderer—the enemy of society—gradually pivoted toward the magistrate, who had likely let the true monster walk free.
Feeling the oppressive weight of their gaze on his skin, the magistrate was backed into a corner.
Even so, he couldn't very well admit to it.
"N-No! I know nothing about this!"
"Are you certain?"
"Yes! I know nothing!"
"Then what is this?"
With a flick of Leviathan, I sliced through the magistrate's robes.
Without leaving so much as a scratch on his skin, the clean cut caused an object to slip out and clatter onto the wooden platform.
It was a small glass vial filled with liquid.
I already knew what it was thanks to Apophis.
"This is poison—the exact same toxin used to rob that woman of her speech."
"I-I know nothing of such things—no, wait! That is my personal medication!"
"Oh? Then drink it. If you drink it right now and suffer no ill effects, I'll believe you."
"Urk—"
The man choked on his own words.
The crowd instantly seized on his hesitation.
"Yeah, drink it!"
"It's your own medicine, isn't it?!"
"Prove your innocence in front of everyone!"
The magistrate stammered in sheer panic.
"Hmph."
Snorting in disgust, I stepped forward, pinned him down, and poured the vial's contents straight down his throat.
Apophis was a master of poisons.
Through it, I had already confirmed that this concoction merely robbed a victim of their voice for a few days without causing fatal harm.
That was precisely why I forced him to swallow it.
And sure enough—
"Guh... cough... hack... ugh... ah-wah..."
The magistrate instantly lost the ability to form words.
"He really is a corrupt magistrate!"
"Seize that bastard!"
"Where did you let the real killer go?!"
Now fully convinced of the magistrate's guilt, the mob unleashed the full brunt of their fury squarely upon him.