It was another bright and beautiful day.
The great Lady Furina had just finished enjoying the latest play at the Opéra Epiclese and had returned to her loyal Palais Mermonia.
“Neuvillette!” Furina pushed open the doors to the Chief Justice’s office, walked up to his desk, and said, “Regarding that missing persons case…
still no news?”
“Lady Furina, I have said that if there is any new information, I will notify you,” Neuvillette sighed upon hearing this, putting down the document in his hand.
“But unfortunately, the Marechaussee Phantom has not yet obtained any valuable clues.”
“It’s been years!” Furina frowned upon hearing this.
“Still can’t catch the culprit…
can’t even find a single useful clue?
Are the Special Security and Surveillance Patrol and the Marechaussee Phantom actually doing their jobs?”
“…Regarding that, I believe Lady Furina should know better than I do,” Neuvillette shook his head and replied, “as to why.”
Clearly, the person behind this most shocking murder case in twenty years must have a significant status.
The investigations by the Special Security and Surveillance Patrol and the Marechaussee Phantom were fraught with difficulties; they couldn’t find any useful information.
Occasionally, they would grasp a lead, but by the time they arrived, the criminal had already vanished without a trace.
Obviously, they had their people in the Special Security and Surveillance Patrol, the Gardes, and even the entire Fontaine government system, tipping them off and destroying evidence…
Yet at the same time, they were well-hidden, hidden so well they were like…
the shadows of Fontaine.
“Do you know, Neuvillette,” Furina lowered her head, her expression unreadable, “just after today’s opera performance, when I was leaving the Opéra Epiclese, I happened to overhear a conversation between two troupe members.”
“Their troupe leader has gone missing, the rest of them had a huge argument, and the entire troupe is facing the crisis of dissolution.”
“Another young girl has vanished from the land of Fontaine, and yet we can do nothing.”
“You are the Hydro Archon,” Neuvillette’s eyes dimmed slightly, but his expression remained unchanged.
“And I am merely the Chief Justice.
All I can do is conduct trials based on existing evidence.”
The meaning was quite clear: You are the god of Fontaine.
If you really can’t stand it, then use your divine power to suppress it.
In the age of gods, no matter how vast the shadows under the Fontaine government were, they were not worth mentioning compared to the authority of one of The Seven.
Neuvillette believed that the reason such shadows had grown within the Fontaine government was entirely because Furina, as the Hydro Archon, had not displayed her authority for far too long.
On the contrary, as the God of Justice, she had completely confined her authority to that opera house, which looked large but was infinitesimal compared to the entirety of Fontaine.
How to put it—there were pros and cons.
Because the god never abused her authority, at least for the last hundred years, Fontaine had been peaceful and prosperous.
But because of this century of peace, some people had developed ideas they shouldn’t have.
After all, relying on legal trials would never be able to bypass one thing: evidence.
As long as there was no caught-in-the-act, on what grounds could you call me a criminal?
For ordinary people, completely erasing evidence was as difficult as ascending to heaven, but what about those who already possessed money and power?
The serial disappearance case of the young girls was the best example.
Neuvillette knew exactly where the problem lay, but he was only the Chief Justice.
With a web of interests woven together by low-level thugs, mid-level Gardes, and high-level officials, all covering for each other, the rigid Hydro Dragon could do nothing.
Normally, a proper government should have a specific self-inspection and error-correction mechanism, and the Marechaussee Phantom was one such entity.
But this web had grown increasingly vast over the centuries, and the Marechaussee Phantom had met with setbacks everywhere.
Of course, Fontaine still had the greatest error-correction mechanism: the Hydro Archon standing right in front of him.
Thinking of this, Neuvillette glanced at the Furina before him, then sighed.
Oh Furina, Furina, what is your situation exactly…
You clearly should have divine power and authority…
but why…
in my eyes, are you no different from a mortal?
If I hadn’t witnessed it with my own eyes, if it weren’t for the fact that a mortal couldn’t possibly live through five hundred years as easily as you have, I would have thought that you, the Hydro Archon, were a fake.
Now, as the Chief Justice, I am bound by rules and regulations in this position.
As the Hydro Archon, since you are dissatisfied with the status quo, why don’t you change it?
You are one of The Seven, you are the Queen of All Waters, People, All Regions, and Laws.
The legal principles of the entire nation of Fontaine are established based on your existence.
As long as you want to, as long as you act, those shadows gathered under the Fontaine government would be vulnerable!
Why have those shadows gathered together to form a web of interests?
It’s because you are too adherent to this set of justice, to the point that you haven’t even used your divine power to interfere with any trial for hundreds of years to achieve justice!
But why do you just watch?
Why do you come to complain to me?
Use your brain!
Can I do this kind of thing for you?
A descendant of the Dragon Sovereigns who once rebelled against the Heavenly Principles becoming the Chief Justice of Fontaine is already rebellious enough.
If I were to reorganize the Fontaine government from top to bottom for you…
what kind of behavior would that look like to the other Archons?
They would probably think I’ve usurped your power, and then they would come to take a look and go, “Oh, this Hydro Archon has nothing but a title and not a shred of divine power…
She must have been completely usurped by the Hydro Dragon!”
Although the other nations shouldn’t know my identity yet, there will always come a day when paper cannot wrap up fire.
This step must not be taken under any circumstances.
But Furina was bitter inside, too.
She had things to say as well.
“I do it?
Do I have the ability to do it?”
“You don’t even look at what kind of situations the other Archons face versus what I face.
Even if their nations have been chaotic, they themselves are gods who are invincible throughout their nations; they can suppress anything with divine authority.”
“And me?
Five hundred years.
Do you know how I’ve spent these five hundred years?
I wake up every day trembling in fear!
Terrified that my identity as a fraud will be exposed!”
“If I really had divine power, would it be these petty villains’ turn to act so rampantly?
I don’t even have a Vision!!!”
“Relying on a mortal brain to maintain this five-hundred-year lie is already my limit.
Now, the prophecy is approaching.
Furina wishes nothing more than for Fontaine to remain unchanging forever, to peacefully welcome the future promised to her by another version of herself.”
“Drastic reforms or whatever—perhaps she would have done that hundreds of years ago, but now, if something happened that required divine power to stabilize the situation and she couldn’t produce anything, wouldn’t everything just fall apart?”
In short, the Fontaine government is currently bugged.
Because of the attitude Furina displayed of keeping her power in a cage to justify not using her divine power for hundreds of years, people believed she was doing so to showcase her justice.
Consequently, some within Fontaine began to harbor wicked intentions.
In the shadows beyond the reach of the law, they quietly wove their web of self-interest.
Later, when the Traveler arrived in Fontaine and dealt with Lyney’s case, the Gardes officer who was able to show his face and handle the case in front of the Chief Justice and the Hydro Archon was actually one of them.
Neuvillette had the power to resolve this matter, but was constrained by his position and could not do so.
Now, the only one capable of dispelling these shadows was the Hydro Archon herself.
Yet, everything Furina had built over the past hundreds of years was piled upon lies.
Now, the bitter fruits of those lies were beginning to manifest.
If only she were a normal god, this kind of thing would never have happened.
Just look at how authoritative the Electro Archon is.
“This is bad, this is bad!” Just then, a panicked figure burst through the door of Neuvillette’s office with a bang, shouting anxiously, “Lord Neuvillette, Lady Furina, she…
she…
Huh?”