"Tell me, Private Nero Grant, the greatest Neophyte alive, is it true that after you defeated Private Arter, you left him there, unconscious, within the cathedral? Is that not the same as condemning him to death?"
Nero turned his head and looked at the prosecutor oddly, which everyone knew by now meant that Nero was questioning the man's intelligence. Nero tapped his finger on the railing in front of him, before suddenly snapping his fingers.
"I've got it! It must be my mild mannered appearance and temperate character that has given you some kind of misconception. Let me tell you something, since you're not just asking questions around the main topic, shy of getting into the meat of things.
"If I wanted to kill Arter, he'd be dead. If I wanted to sabotage people, it would happen. If I had ulterior motives, or wanted to take advantage of others, it would not be an issue of timing and hiding. No one would even suspect me of such things.
"It's because I do things in an open and above board manner that you think you have a lot of circumstantial evidence linking me to various crimes. In truth, if I really harboured unapparent motives, no one would ever suspect me. There would be no evidence. There would not even be anyone who could conceive that I might have anything to do with it. Covering one's tracks in the most basic rules.
"You think you have witnesses who saw me commit a crime? Wrong, you just have people who think they know what they saw? You think that if I wanted to commit a crime, I'd casually do it in front of multiple witnesses? You think I'd leave a string of evidence lying around for someone to find? From the day I would walk I've trained to fight and kill.
You think I'd make a mistake as simple as leaving witnesses around to tell on me later on?"
Nero shook his head, the casual smile on his face slowly vanishing as the look in his eyes deepened and became more severe.
"Don't insult me with these paltry accusations," Nero said, his voice suddenly much deeper than before, carrying across the room with new weight. "I am a Kolari warrior, born into a family of warriors, trained from birth to be the best. Until such a time that I am convicted, I am still a Kolari warrior, no, a soldier who has served in war time.
I have stood in front of my comrades, using my body to shield them from the ancient horrors of Lumina, and I have used the blood of monsters to grease the wheels of success for Kolar."
Nero was suddenly reminded of the evil, insidious blood he saw in the library - of the feeling it gave him.
"I have looked death in the eyes, bubbling, boiling, greedy for the meat and bones of my body, and I have pushed it back. I am not the 'greatest Neophyte', I am a weapon, shaped by my parents, forged on an anvil of curses thrown at me by this accursed world.
If I want something dead, be it man or curse, then I will see it dead, and if I want something alive then even an ocean of cursed blood will have to part way before my steps.
"So no, I did not leave Arter to die. If I wanted to kill him, I would crush his neck. In fact, I have saved his life time and time again - but I can't really tell you about that, since it was during my confidential service to Kolar. So please, just get to the point. My time is more valuable than you think. Every day I miss out on training, all of Kolar suffers."
The last line was a little arrogant, even for Nero, but it was exactly the kind of thing that resonated in Kolar. In a nation founded on the principle of war and combat, every single soldier was believed to be directly contributing to the welfare of the entire state.
In a state where every single person in their professional life was a veteran, or someone who had seen some kind of combat, weaklings were not appreciated.
Only someone who had the guts to stand out could resonate with the people. Someone with guts and an impressive service record, as well as the iron will to improve even more? If Nero kept this up, he could imagine the day he made a guest appearance in the cartoons made on Commander Dagon.
He could feel the change in the room. There were countless soldiers standing in the courtroom, and all of them had looked at Nero with a hint of disdain and aggression when he came in. Yet all of a sudden, that had changed.
It would be too farfetched to say that everyone had a favourable impression of him now, but at least the negative impression had reduced. There was even a bit of curiosity, and even hints of approval in them.
The prosecutor also looked at Nero for a little longer before asking the next question - his actual thoughts completely imperceptible.
Nero found the man a little odd. He was completely unreadable, giving Nero the impression that he was dealing with someone formidable, yet his line of questioning had been too weak. How could he be someone impressive and simultaneously someone incompetent?
"You have made a lot of claims, young man - oh, wait, my bad. You have made a lot of claims, weapon-forged-on-the-anvil-of-curses, but then answer this for me. Why did you kill Herald Herbert within the research facility? It is true that, at that time, the few witnesses to your murder could have easily been silenced by you. In the chaos of battle, no one would have suspected it.
"In fact, the few witnesses to your murder of Herbert weren't even willing to testify against you until there was a court order, going as far as stating that you saved their lives, so they could not speak ill of you - or that they had been suffering from hallucinations. But the fact remains that we have confirmed, through various means, that you did, in fact, kill him."
Nero snorted.
"Of course I killed him," he said, plainly and boldly. "Like I told you, if I want to kill someone, why would I be shy about it? But at the same time, why would I find the need to kill my own ally in a time where we are being besieged by a swarm of cursed monsters, and survival is not assured?"
Nero let the question hang in the air for a moment.
"It's because he tried to assassinate me first. It was not an accident, nor was it a misunderstanding. He waited till a moment he thought I was completely vulnerable, and then struck with the intention to kill. You yourself acknowledged that he was a Herald, which means he is not someone who was not aware of the consequences of his actions.
If I were not in the midst of such a dangerous battle already, I would have subdued him and then interrogated him
"But as it was, circumstances did not allow me to take such risks. After all, who knew if he would do something desperate to avoid capture? It was not a risk I could take, so I killed him, in full plain view of everyone. I did not try to hide it, nor did I intend to keep it a secret.
Circumstances later on did not allow me to report to my superior, but I had full intentions of delivering a report to major Liam, as I believed at the time that the assassination attempt was to prevent me from completing the missions the major had assigned to me."
"You were not the only one assigned that mission, private. Why did you think you were being singled out?"
Nero snorted.
"I wasn't the only one assigned, but I was the one who completed it, didn't I? If you want more details, you can gain permission for me to discuss my final mission in the research facility."
Afterwards, the prosecutor continued to ask Nero a few questions, but he could tell that most of the tough questions were behind him, which is why he allowed his thoughts to focus on one particular fact that he picked up on!
Apparently, the witnesses who saw him kill Herbert didn't want to testify against him! In that case, how had Nero's murder been revealed to begin with? Someone else must have done it. If he could find out the identity of whoever reported on him back at the research facility, he could gain some clues about whoever was targeting him - or at least get a lead.
After all, even before he went to the library, Ascendant Oana hinted at the fact that accusations against him had already been made.
There was one other thing that Nero kept thinking about this entire time. He was standing in court, with aether handcuffs on him, yet no one questioned why he had his Eldrim cards with him. Why was that?