Chapter 137: End of the Trial

Royal Banquet Hall, conversation just before dinner.

1. Prime Minister:
   “I didn’t expect Your Majesty to arrive first. More importantly, the wine is darker than usual. The aroma is deeper.”

2. High Priestess:
   “That’s because the priestesses personally crushed and aged the grapes harvested this year. It’s a devotion offered to the gods. The aroma escaped the moment the bottle was opened.”

3. Captain of the Knights:
   “Indeed, the wine’s aroma is special since it’s made with such devotion. I almost… overlooked even if it had poison, simply admiring the aroma. Haha, I apologize. It was a joke.”

4. Court Painter:
   “Before Your Majesty drank the wine, you briefly looked into the glass. The red color was so beautiful… I almost reached out to touch the glass, wanting to capture that color more deeply. Haha. Of course, I didn’t. I was holding my brush.”

And the king collapsed immediately after drinking the wine.

Senior Ciel clicked her tongue as she read the stone tablet.

“The Captain of the Knights. What kind of joke is that? That’s a death sentence for lack of tact.”

“So it wasn’t the Captain?”

“Unlike the Captain, I have tact. Making it so obvious, ‘Look at me, I’m suspicious~’ is actually setting a trap!”

She stared intently at the stone tablet and snapped her fingers.

“Hmm… then who… I say it’s the Prime Minister!”

“Do you have any basis for that?”

“Look. My name is Yuzuha Ciel. Detective. He arrived before the king? That means he secured time to tamper with things.”

Senior Ciel equipped a pair of glasses, seemingly from thin air.

I said quietly,

“…It says the king arrived first.”

“…Really? I thought the Prime Minister arrived first… Strange. I’ll read it again.”

She laughed awkwardly and then looked up.

“Anyway! Anyway! The wine’s aroma. He said it was ‘deeper.’ Usually, when poison is mixed in, the smell changes. Him saying it smelled good… is him deliberately covering up that something was off.”

I slowly shook my head.

“That poison changes the smell… isn’t always true.”

I continued without taking my eyes off the stone tablet.

“Actually, most poisons are odorless or tasteless. The more readily absorbed through skin or mucous membranes, the less smell they have. And in many cases, they dissolve into liquids without a trace.”

I glanced at Senior and added,

“This happened on the front lines against the demons. Poison was mixed into stagnant water, and there was no smell. No one noticed. Two of the scouts… collapsed on the spot.”

I paused for a moment.

“That water was meant for the troops to use while on the move. The scouts were the first to drink it.”

“That’s because it’s fantasy, isn’t it?”

“It’s not fantasy, it’s something I experienced… and the wine itself has a strong aroma, so if the poison was strong enough to change that… wouldn’t that be too risky for someone attempting to poison someone?”

“Th-that’s true.”

Senior quietly removed her glasses.

• Detective Wannabe down!!

• It’s not the Prime Minister, Ciel

• Leah even studied poisons…

• I’m going with number 2

• No, 444444

• 2222222

• 333333

• Stop spoiling it while they’re trying to solve the mystery

• How do you know what the right answer is lol

“Besides, the Captain of the Knights also complimented the aroma… I still suspect the Court Painter.”

“Actually, I was thinking the same thing! I was just testing to see if you were following along, Sister.”

As I stared at her, Senior’s voice trailed off.

“No, but… honestly, my second guess really was the painter…”

I shifted my gaze to the stone tablet and said,

“He’s the only one who mentioned the glass. And he himself says he almost touched the glass. And… he adds, ‘I was holding my brush.’”

I turned my gaze back to her.

“Someone offering an alibi before being asked. That’s… usually what happens when you know you’ve done something wrong.”

Senior nodded.

“And… that admiration was strange too. ‘The color was beautiful,’ ‘I wanted to capture it,’ that might not just be admiration, but an impulsive desire.”

“The brush!”

Senior exclaimed, clapping her hands. It was so sudden and loud that I almost drew my bow.

“Your volume always goes up when you get excited, Senior. Earlier, it was ‘Kwaaaaa.’”

“Why are you bringing that up now! And that was the stone soldier’s sound!”

Senior jumped.

• Lol

• ‘That incident’

• Let it go… Leah

• Bringing it up again is just evil lol

I smiled slightly and then asked calmly,

“So, about the brush…?”

Senior cleared her throat, trying to regain composure.

“Ahem. The brush was the murder weapon. He dipped the brush in poison and lightly touched the king’s glass. And then he subtly covered it up with ‘I didn’t touch it~ I was only holding the brush.’”

I nodded.

“That’s possible. He emphasized too much that he didn’t touch the glass with his ‘hand.’”

Looking closely, four of the many stone tablets…
had the images of the four witnesses engraved on them.

I approached the Court Painter’s stone tablet.
I was about to reach out, when something suddenly caught my attention.

My fingertips stopped mid-air.

“…Senior. How did the Court Painter definitively identify the king’s glass?”

“Identify it? The one the king was looking at must have been his glass.”

“Then that means he applied the poison with the brush while the king briefly looked away. He’d have to predict both the king’s movements and gaze. And even consider the other people present.”

“Uh… is that not possible?”

I shook my head at Senior’s question.

“But that’s too risky.”

“What’s wrong with being risky? He succeeded, didn’t he? I guess he was really quick.”

“That’s possible. We can’t rule out the possibility that the painter was incredibly skilled.”

• Assassin painter lol

• Blackened art student lol

• Super-speed sketch artist lol

• They should put such painters as assistants for manga artists who take long hiatuses…

I lowered my head slightly and looked at the stone tablet.

“But… if we start assuming possibilities like ‘it might have been,’ the answers become endless. All we know are the words of these four people. There was no information about the ‘painter being incredibly quick.’ So… we can’t start from there.”

I took a step back. I felt like if I didn’t organize my thoughts now, plausible hypotheses would tangle together and become indistinguishable from the truth.

Admiration. Glass. Hand. Brush.

All the words intertwined in my mind, then aligned into a single sentence.

“Ultimately, it’s reasonable to assume there was no tampering at the point when the painter expressed his admiration. If it was done before that… there’s no guarantee it was the king’s glass. Only at the moment the king looked into the glass did it become clear that it was his.”

“Since it was the king’s glass, it must have been the biggest and fanciest, right? Maybe it was easy to identify beforehand.”

“It’s the same as the painter being quick with his hands. It’s possible, but we shouldn’t make such assumptions.”

Senior, repeatedly sitting and standing in front of the stone tablet in Voxel Craft fashion, expressed her frustration.

“Ugh! Then who is it if not the painter? Time out! My brain is melting again!”

• Ciel’s only good at nonsense…

• The carry is over.

• I kind of want to see her get something wrong… lol

• What will Leah’s choice be?

“Senior. Calm down. We practically have the answer.”

“Really?”

Senior jumped up.

“Now that I think about it, the testimonies aren’t the only clues. The king collapsed immediately ‘after’ drinking the wine. That means the poison had to be in the glass before the king drank it.”

“…So?”

“But we’ve already established that the glass wasn’t tampered with. There’s only one possibility left. The poison was in the bottle. From the beginning.”

At my words, Senior started reviewing the testimonies again. I had already moved to the stone tablet I had chosen in my mind.

“The one who said something only the person who opened the bottle could say. The one who had a brief moment, naturally and undetectably, to administer the poison…”

The High Priestess.

The moment my hand touched the High Priestess’s stone tablet, the stone floor vibrated quietly.

With a low, resonant gong—, one of the four stone tablets, the High Priestess’s, slowly began to glow gold.

The other stone tablets instantly lost their light, and the light converged on a single point.

The glowing surface cracked, and the High Priestess’s stone tablet quietly crumbled.

Then, the murals on the walls surrounding the banquet hall shimmered and came to life.

The king’s glass, the High Priestess’s fingertips opening the bottle, and – her gaze fixed on the wine.

Everything flowed like silent fragments.

At that moment, the far wall cracked with a bang, opening a new path.

• Amazing deduction, Leah

• Staying calm until the end made the difference from Ciel…

• Why is she cool? Why is she a brainiac?

• Shouldn’t she get a <Detective> job or something lol

“I’m not smart. I simply maintained my composure.”

The rewards were… [Lens of Truth] and [High Priestess’s Pendant].

The Lens of Truth was a relic item that tracked specific quests, items, and traces.

The High Priestess’s Pendant slightly increased stats but came with the description of being “tainted by evil.”

“You use the pendant, Senior. As a hero, I don’t want to carry such an item.”

“Sister. I’m a saint, you know?”

“…Try to purify it. That’s also a saint’s duty.”

“There are no saints in your RP stories, Leah. You just made that up, right?”

“…It’s the duty of all clergy.”

And so, the pendant went to Senior. I took the Lens.

…But does Senior watch my streams too? How did she know there haven’t been any saints so far?

---

As the door to the next room opened, a completely different atmosphere began to flow.

A soft, glowing blue light emanated from the ceiling. Ancient script patterns covered the floor. The names of forgotten gods were faintly engraved on the walls.

The air settled, calm and heavy, and a faint, holy song, like someone’s breath, filled the background.

In the center, there was a transparent podium, as if a refined crystal had been implanted in its head.

An inscription in front of the podium slowly materialized.

『You have passed all trials without fail.
With eyes that see the truth, and an unwavering heart, you have crossed the abyss.
Thus, the Forgotten Temple grants you its most noble title.』

📜 [Available Job: High Priest]
A mediator of truth with spiritual insight,
reading the hearts of allies, purifying hidden evil,
the last successor symbolizing absolute ‘good.’

“Me, me! High Priest, the name itself is holy!? Isn’t this fate!?”

She looked as though she was about to dash to the podium.

“…This is definitely for me, the saint –”

Then, she suddenly glanced at me.

I didn’t say anything. I just stood still.

“Ah…”

Senior gave an awkward laugh and looked at me cautiously.

“…Sister, you practically cleared the temple. Especially that last deduction…”

She coughed slightly and tried to act cool.

“Sister, do you want it? Well, I got a decent amount of rewards and contribution points on the way here. And I’ve been RPing as a saint for a while, so even without the job, I have the emotional high priest vibe, right? I can find another job later.”

I listened to Senior’s offer and pondered for a moment.

Should I accept? Or would it be better to pass?

What should I do?