I swallowed.
From the dozens of jury seats on either side of the dark courtroom, the Disaster Management Bureau agents of Se-gwang Special City looked down at me in the state they were in when they died.
A chill crawled up my spine.
Their eyes did not suit the modifiers so often attached to agents—“convicted, steadfast, gentle.”
...A ghost story.
Contaminated.
The real agents... would already have been annihilated across Se-gwang Special City during rescue operations.
Already dead, yet bound to this court by some force, those figures.
For the sake of this meaningless selection of rescuable persons....
They stared at me.
[Those who will testify regarding candidate for selection no. 202■Management 370614, raise your hand and speak.]
Of course, my party swiftly raised their hands.
But I saw it.
Others raised their hands as well.
Here and there in the dark jury boxes, grotesquely dead figures were lifting their hands.
“......!”
[Juror no. 5, state your testimony.]
Only pinpoint lights remained on the numbered jury seats.
Someone whose body was in pieces.
An agent from whom only organs and limbs remained in geometric fashion within the dark looked at me and whispered:
This person is wanted by the casino.
...!!
They are a criminal currently wanted. Even though they earned many coins there, among the many addicts in the casino they helped no one.
I stumbled back.
If you rescued gambling addicts and it caused problems, who would take responsibility? Get a grip—not rescuing was the right choice. I couldn’t help it and turned my head elsewhere.
A strange guilt pressed on my chest.
What is this?
[Juror no. 17, state your testimony.]
Another rose from the jury box.
A swollen, pale face.
With unfocused, milky eyes, they looked at me yet seemed to see somewhere else.
He is someone who already attempted suicide.
I swallowed.
He hanged himself in the woods near City Hall. Having once abandoned his own life, humanitarian execution is more fitting than rescue.
...This.
That’s what I did at the stations of Se-gwang Special City.
There was no time to stop those attempting suicide or to collect the bodies; we had to keep moving... be quiet!!
I planted my feet, swallowed, and endured the strange mental shock....
And I repeated a cold realization in my chest.
They’re testifying to my sins.
All the choices I made at each station.
Every action that could be judged socially and morally wrong.
Refute,
I had to refute it.
But a weird guilt glued my lips shut. What are these feelings? These strange thoughts? Where does this resentment and grief even....
[Those who will testify regarding candidate for selection no. 202■Management 370614, raise your hand and speak.]
In the thick of it, a new juror was selected. A raised hand. Ah....
[Juror no. 32, state your testimony.]
Far off, a dead person in agent uniform rose. That one....
Was blackened to a crisp.
So thoroughly burned that even the features had crumbled. Even the agent uniform had blackened into powder, leaving only the outline distinguishable....
.......
Ah.
My chest went cold.
A dire premonition rose to the point of suffocation.
I testify.
Wait, wait....
Arsonist!!!
I reeled.
He set the residential district on fire many citizens who wanted rescue burned to death they died they died because of you take responsibility die die die
“Guh.”
An enormous pressure crushed my heart; a bizarre burden and guilt scrambled my head.
I felt like vomiting.
I barely kept from collapsing by gripping the lectern. When I imagined the countless people who died in the residential district, my heart felt like it was tearing—a sob—the resentment stabbed through my head; I watched that sight until I died—uurk—
Whose memory is this?
“—Hff!”
[Those who will testify regarding candidate for selection no. 202■Management 370614, raise your hand and speak.]
“Eek.”
The pressure eased for a moment.
I straightened. Something hot streamed down from my eyes. When I wiped it, it wasn’t tears—blood.
When I barely lifted my head, another in the jury box had raised a hand.
The Bronze Agent.
[Juror no. 37, state your testimony.]
“I question the subjectivity of the prior testimonies.”
The jurors’ gazes turned to the Bronze Agent. But the Bronze Agent, with a dead person’s pallid face, continued.
“Therefore, to objectively verify the truth of the testimonies,”
Their gaze came to me.
“I propose we weigh them on the Scale of Malice. ...As per the original regulation, by hanging ‘motiveless murder’ as the weight of sin.”
...!
“If the testimonies are accurate, it means this person committed an evil deed worse than motiveless murder—so the scale should be able to discern that!”
The Bronze Agent’s voice rang in the courtroom.
“Please use the Scale of Malice in the manner it was originally used.”
The original purpose.
Only those who committed a crime greater than killing without motive would be classified as evildoers.
If one proves they are not that evildoer, then as a decent citizen—
Not requisitioned as a scapegoat by a ghost story, a normal person—
One qualified for rescue.
.......
Ah.
“We must not judge people by the current method. It’s contaminated and distorted—a method the Bureau would never have used if it were intact....”
“No.”
I wiped nosebleed and saliva and pushed myself up.
“...Agent Podo?”
“That’s not it, Agent....”
I looked over the jurors’ faces.
Those ruined forms.
“The present method you judged as ‘distorted’ was, in fact, likely the Disaster Management Bureau’s decision.”
“...Excuse me?”
“By the original ‘Scale of Malice usage’ regulation, there would have been no way to sort rescue priority.”
“......!”
“In a citywide catastrophe of annihilation class, with countless dead and manpower limited... in the end, they had to choose.”
Whom to rescue.
If you rescued gambling addicts and it caused problems, who would take responsibility? Get a grip — not rescuing was the right choice. I couldn’t help it and turned my head elsewhere.
There was no time to stop the people attempting suicide or to collect the bodies; we had to keep moving.
When I imagined the countless people who died in the residential district, it felt like my heart was tearing — a sob; the resentment stabbed through my head. I watched that scene until I died.
The traumatic overwhelm poured over me.
...That would surely be the immense burden and guilt the agents felt before dying.
“Whether to pick the most virtuous, the most useful, the weakest.... They probably proposed all kinds of plans.”
“Then,”
Deputy Eun Haje asked.
“Whom would they have picked as targets for rescue?”
.......
“The least dangerous person.”
“...!”
“They would have seen that as the way to save the most people.”
One who would not cross the line.
More bluntly, in this unprecedented disaster, they would have screened out the person who wouldn’t abandon principle and “troll.”
Someone who, in a crisis like this, wouldn’t make sudden moves and endanger those around them.
...Someone who does not prioritize what they love over ethical standards.
“Isn’t that why ‘what you love’ goes up on the opposite pan of the scale?”
A silence flowed as if time stopped.
“Yeah... that tracks.”
Deputy Eun Haje nodded.
“Then shouldn’t we invalidate this trial altogether?”
...!
“Since they rescued no one. The principle was useless.”
In the silence, the courtroom trembled.
Dozens of pin spots shook, and the agents’ shapes flickered in the dark....
“By what authority did they freely judge rescue priority in the first place. The Scale of Malice? I understand wanting to rescue good people rather than bad, but establishing that as a principle is something a state agency must not do.”
The balance pans quivered.
A friction sound rang from the metal floor touching the bench.
“Civil servants choosing to rescue whomever their hearts lean toward—that can happen; but the very act of setting a rule and conducting selection like this is wrong....”
[Cease your statement.]
Deputy Eun Haje’s pin spot went dark.
“...!”
“In the order of jurors’ statements, juror no. 38 does not have the floor.
Juror no. 37, continue.”
The light returned to the Bronze Agent.
With eyes crushed under fatigue, he spoke again.
Faintly at the edge of the light, I caught Deputy Eun Haje at the adjacent seat motioning, as if to egg him on.
But—
“...I have no amendments. Please verify the testimonies on the Scale of Malice.”
“...!”
“‘Let agents decide individually’... civilian, I’ve heard that often myself, and it’s a topic I’ve thought about a lot lately. But....”
The Bronze Agent looked, steady, toward Eun Haje’s seat in the dark.
“In that case, all responsibility falls back on the individual agent.”
“.......”
“Along with the guilt. And the deaths.”
The Bronze Agent looked at me.
“If something that seems unfair is nonetheless necessary, sometimes it is better that it be a principle—and that keeping that principle be on the individuals’ side.”
“.......”
The Bronze Agent had said something similar before.
But it sounded far deeper now.
The words of someone who had experienced much and thought hard.
“In that sense, I understand why the Scale of Malice’s rules were altered, but even so, in the current situation they are distorted and without utility all the same. As a stakeholder, I formally recommend returning to the original principle.”
And the Bronze Agent stood, as if he would not sit until his words were carried.
But the trial simply flowed on.
[Those who will testify regarding candidate for selection no. 202■Management 370614, raise your hand and speak.]
So—
“I will.”
I raised my hand.
“...!”
There was a method I’d thought of based on what we’d undergone so far. It felt like sparks firing in my head.
“May I testify about myself?”
In a normal criminal trial, no.
A witness matters because they are a third party who bears perjury—so the tried party has no qualification to be a witness.
But this isn’t a real criminal trial.
It’s a selection process, and the Disaster Management Bureau’s Scale of Malice in a contaminated form.
Even the form of trial is only to the extent Deputy Eun Haje demanded.
So if we can persuade this Scales Court ghost story, it might be possible.
All the more if it has emotions and a self enough to be swayed by my words to this extent.
“I am the party receiving selection, am I not? As that party, there is something I wish to state.”
.......
[Testimony permitted.]
“Yes.”
I drew a deep breath.
And spoke.
The sentence I’d been forming since earlier.
“Do not rescue me.”
“......!”
“No—not just me. Do not rescue anyone waiting here for selection. That is correct.”
A tremendous stir surged from the jury seats. The lights sizzled and it felt as if anger guilt despair resentment hope compassion altruism hatred erupted in a boil.
A hot something welled up from heart to nose and mouth.
“Because!”
But I clenched my teeth and said the next part.
“Because the Se-gwang Special City branch of the Disaster Management Bureau no longer exists.”
[Oh!]
The uproar died.
“...You all know this city is sealed. This place is already in a state where neither recognition nor access is possible, and naturally the Se-gwang branch no longer exists in any official sense.”
I forced the words out.
“This is a fact even without my proving it. Anyone can infer it. Therefore....”
.......
“There is simply no longer any duty to rescue anyone.”
I raised my head.
“So not by a special designation from the branch, but based solely on the Bureau’s original principle—!”
I shouted.
“Through the Scale of Malice, if I prove only that I am not an evildoer....”
I forced the close.
“Then with neither execution nor rescue—just let me go.”
.......
.......
The gazes vanished.
Click.
All the pin spots came up normally.
And one more appeared.
Right before the bench on which the gigantic ash-gray Scale of Malice rested.
[Candidate for selection no. 202■Management 370614.
Place the weight of sin upon the Scale of Malice.]
Good.
On trembling legs, I left the lectern and moved forward.
Is this right?
Somehow, I feel like I’m flatly denying all the agents’ desperate toil....
No, keep going. Endure.
As I walked, I saw my party’s faces.
The Bronze Agent’s slightly relieved yet tense face, Deputy Eun Haje’s complicated and pensive face, and, strangely, Agent Choi’s profile looking off somewhere else....
Passing all of them, I stood before the scale.
And I saw the black weight that had appeared.
A strange weight, embossed with the faces of screaming people.
[Hang the scale’s weight as ‘motiveless murder,’ and if heavier, classify as a requisition target.]
It was the object described.
I picked it up. Lighter than expected, it stirred a strange unease.
And then—
Carefully stepping onto the bench, I set it on the opposite pan from my silver heart.
“.......”
One pan descended.
The pan with the ‘motiveless murder’ weight.
“...!”
As it lowered smoothly, the balance collapsed with a clean glide.
Thunk.
The weighted pan touched the floor with a soft sound.
My silver heart remained on the opposite pan, floating up there in the air, gentle and steady....
.......
[Pass.]
My legs nearly gave out from the colossal relief.
It really worked.
Even in this odd state, I did it. I’m fine. It’s solved now!
I just have to walk out like this.
Then I’ll be treated as having cleared it, gather information, and the Dream-solution potion....
“.......”
At that moment.
I saw it.
A single hand.
Someone else in the jury seats had raised a hand.
The one seated right in front of the scale.
[Juror no. 1, state your testimony.]
They rose.
Weirdly, they looked intact.
I could tell they wore a familiar agent uniform, but even with the pin spot falling on them, their face was strangely not visible.
Only—the silhouette felt oddly familiar....
Their mouth opened.
Objection.
“...!”
The defendant’s evil cannot be discerned by the Scale of Malice.
What?
The unseen gaze of the agent seated in the jury turned toward me.
Because he is shifting his own sins onto something else.
......What?
He has passed his distorted desires, distorted thoughts, extreme emotions, every abnormal judgment—off to other personalities, separated and isolated within himself.
“.......”
He is an empty shell.
And they pointed a finger at me.
No—
The real one is in there.
At my tattoo.
I looked down at the “contamination-organizing” tattoo on my chest with a face gone bloodless.