Even after hearing Elef’s story, people seemed to be skeptical.
If they took him at his words, it would mean that the prophecy was wrong, so it was difficult to believe him easily.
"That means!”
Then, Yura jumped to her feet.
As she turned red, she alternated between pointing at Elef and Rosa.
"Are you saying I lied? I'm a saint!”
"You being a saint doesn’t mean you can’t dream.”
Rosa said it indirectly.
She wasn’t saying she was lying, but that she mistook her dream for a prophecy.
Not only Yura, but also Conitel, reacted furiously.
"So, you're trying to convince me it was a lie!”
"How can you dismiss a prophecy as a dream? You're making use of your devil's tongue.”
This was what Rosa wanted.
She knew something they didn’t know.
How would their reaction be perceived by the nobles of the Helios Empire?
This was not the Holy Kingdom.
Meaning that this wasn’t a place where anything was possible just by mentioning the name of God.
So, she took this opportunity to mention Caligo to make them more flustered.
"My father and you ...….”
"Wait!”
Theodore put up one hand.
Then, he interrupted Rosa suddenly and said something out of the blue.
"Caligo.”
Silence flowed.
Not only the audience, but also the nobles on the platform did not dare speak up immediately.
They were darting their eyes as if they were overwhelmed trying to follow this confusing situation where the tables repeatedly turned.
Then, belatedly, a soldier stammered and loudly shouted,
"Now, bring him in…!”
* * *
Finally, Caligo, who had been waiting outside, was summoned to the courtroom.
Elef went back to his seat and Caligo now stood side by side with Rosa.
His face was very pale, as if something had happened in the past few days, and his clothes had the occasional bloodstain.
Caligo's voice, however, was clearer than anything else in response to the barrage of questions from the nobles.
"If only the plan had been successful, you would have been crushed under my feet. It's ridiculous to see you looking down at me like this.”
Caligo's remarks stunned people.
It was an outright confession of his sins.
Not only Rosa, but Yura and Conitel also looked at him with wide eyes.
‘What the hell is he thinking? No matter how cornered Caligo was, I never thought he’d confess so casually.’
"They don't even know that their position was built on lies and the blood of others from the very beginning...…. Clueless fools.”
Caligo's words turned bitter.
He looked like a villain plotting something, planning something for the future.
After a glance down at the people, Caligo tried to open his mouth again.
"You guys are stepping on...….”
He was quickly blocked by Theodore.
"Now I will stand as a witness.”
At first, Rosa wondered if he had changed his mind because there had been no signal, contrary to what Theodore had said to her.
But had he been aiming for this moment?
The point where this story would naturally come up as they all gathered together...….
"Someone recently told me. The first God, as we all know, was Harmonia, but she didn't have only one child.”
Conitel, whose smile had completely disappeared, exclaimed urgently,
"Your Majesty! What do you mean?!”
A commotion began.
Regardless of whether they were commoners or nobility, they gazed at Theodore and Conitel with open mouths.
Conitel continued to shout the word 'blasphemy', but Theodore didn't care.
"There is me and the Holy Land, but what about the dukes who also have special abilities?”
"Your Majesty!”
"I hope the Pope will tell us. We have God’s blessing, but what about them?”
He was right.
No one questioned the power of the four dukes.
They had been extraordinary since their inception, so it was taken for granted.
No one had ever openly questioned it.
"That’s because… their ancestors were faithful, devout, and were loved by God...….”
"Oh, then the power to curse belonging to the Estella family is also a gift from God, but then I don't know why everyone describes it as filthy.”
"Oh...….”
Conitel's face turned white.
Yura, who was beside him, also trembled with a pale face, knowing that something was going wrong.
"Your, Your Majesty."
Theodore coldly looked away, even though he must have heard Yura's call.
Then, he asked Caligo,
“Caligo Estella, was this what you were about to say?”'
“Hah! You’re going to admit it first?”
It was a very small whisper.
But Rosa could hear the murmur because she was close.
Caligo was furious.
By unveiling it first, Theodore had turned it into a form of repentance rather than exposure.
Rosa’s realized it intuitively.
Now was the time to play the recording from the magic tool that was obtained with the help of so many people in the North.
So, she called him quickly.
“Enoch!”
She saw Enoch's face, beginning to smile faintly, as if he had been waiting for the call.
He slowly rose to his feet.
Then, regardless of who was in front of him, he stepped over their seat and leapt all the way over to where she was.
"Here you are."
Enoch took a glass bead half the size of his first from his chest pocket and handed it to her.
This was the reason he had to only accompany her to the outskirts.
Aside from keeping Enoch from being identified, there was also something that needed to be kept safe.
There could be no safer place than this.
"Well done.”
There was not a scratch on the magic tool.
You could tell at a glance how well it had been stored.
Now, she would be able to clear up any misunderstandings involving her and return to a calm life.
A faint smile of relief lingered on her mouth for a brief moment.
She said to Enoch,
"Now stand back.”
Enoch never lost his butler-like demeanor as he retreated.
Watching him, she naturally turned away. Then, she cautiously distanced herself from Caligo.
She stepped forward a little and raised her bound hands toward Theodore.
Of course, while holding the glass bead tightly.
"Your Majesty, if you don't mind, could you release my wrists?”
In an instant, chaos broke out.
The reactions were all the same, criticizing her along the lines of, ‘How do we know what you’re going to do!? How shameless!’
"Quiet!”
Theodore put up one hand.
Then, like an orchestra moving at the conductor's beck and call, they all shut up.
"Release her. I'll place a few soldiers by your side, so you’d better not do anything reckless.”
"Thank you.”
Of course, he wasn't saying this because he didn't trust her.
In order to have her wrists released as requested, he had to make the situation believable.
As a result, she was able to be released from the chains that were weighing down her wrists while being kept in check by the soldiers.
She lightly stretched her wrists.
Then, without hesitation, she pressed the point near the center of the glass bead.
It was a kind of start button.
A pale light leaked from the glass bead as the conversation they’d had at the time began to flow.
"Huh.”
"The dead Duke Estella!”
"He really was alive.”
The beginning played the voices of the northerners, who were surprised to see her father.
After that, her voice followed.
" I won’t fall for the same trick twice. You seem to still see me as a child.”
A series of loud noises were heard, as if a fight was going on, which anyone who heard it would have thought was a disaster.
Boom, bang.
"Didn't I tell you? Never twice.”