KRRRRRUMBLE―!
My declaration had served as the final wedge.
The Toller had invoked the law itself, but once a hole appeared in its logic, it could no longer endure. It was forced to bear the full backlash with its own body.
《G-gh, oooh…… aaaaargh―! My law, my authority of execution!! It is dis, appear…… ing……!》
The creature released an agonized scream.
It was the death cry of one whose existence and mind had been eroded and denied.
[The trial of ‘The Absolved’ Ash Gray, ‘Turnabout Trial’, activates!]
[The laws of ‘Execution Trial’, the trial of the ‘Toller of Execution’, are invalidated!]
[The Domain’s owner, the ‘Toller of Execution’, suffers the backlash of a critical ‘Logical Error’!]
[Authority Change : Demoted from [Executioner] to [Criminal]!]
At last, the Execution Judgment Domain declared by the Toller of Execution began collapsing before the golden turnabout, like a fragile sandcastle swept away by the waves.
The pitch-black veil covering the sky receded, and the floor of the gallows shattered. The ruined streets gradually returned around us.
“……Ha, you insane little schemer. What in the world did you just show me?”
Ravenwood, who had watched everything unfold beside me, let out an incredulous laugh.
The situation had been completely reversed.
Ravenwood and I, who should have become sacrifices upon the gallows, had survived.
The creature’s strength had diminished, but it still refused to surrender.
A sudden sense of foreboding passed through me.
With its power restricted, the Toller lowered its head and sank to the ground.
Only for a brief moment.
A murky, dark-crimson energy began rising from its body.
《K-kill…… you. Ex, exe,, execute…… you.》
It repeated the same words over and over, never ceasing its advance, as though forcing its way through a raging current and crashing waves.
Was it madness that had surpassed even obsession?
Ravenwood and I both froze.
‘This is insane……!’
Its ability to carry out executions had already been nullified.
This was nothing more than its oppressive presence.
Yet every time the goat’s head atop its body exhaled and moved closer, terror pressed directly against my mind.
Both Ravenwood and I understood that we needed to move.
“This is complete shit……!! Listen, you madman! Don’t you have another method?!”
“Be quiet! I’m trying to think!!”
Apparently affected in the same way, Ravenwood’s legs trembled as she demanded an answer from me.
However, I had none.
Death was approaching.
I had never experienced a pattern like this.
It was a final struggle that had never existed in the first place.
《I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking… kill you!!》
Murderous intent.
There was no other way to describe it.
Execution was nothing more than a pretext.
Although losing its Authority had weakened it, its gigantic body began twisting grotesquely.
Its blackened muscles vomited blood as dark-crimson, tentacle-like appendages slowly crawled out from within them.
The goat-headed giant was transforming.
This was no longer the ‘Toller of Execution’ I knew.
The chaos that had distorted its rules was descending into its body.
‘A method. I need a method……!’
My thoughts accelerated as though time had stopped.
Only a few seconds remained before the creature reached us.
“Objec…! Urgh―!”
I instinctively attempted to shout, but the pure murderous intent emanating from the creature seemed to constrict my throat, preventing my voice from emerging.
[System : ‘Objection’ cannot be activated because no ‘trial’ is in effect!]
“Damn it, take this!”
Unable to continue watching, Ravenwood pulled another flask from inside her coat and threw it.
However, before the violet smoke could even touch the creature, it collided with the rampaging madness surrounding it and dispersed uselessly.
The being that had once been the Toller lowered its shoulder and charged at Ravenwood, who had committed the bothersome act.
“Guh!”
Ravenwood’s body was thrown into the air as the creature struck her with its shoulder.
“Old woman!! Damn it!”
After removing the obstruction, the creature turned its gaze toward me.
My body could feel it.
As though an invisible wall stood before me, my feet refused to leave the ground.
‘What should I do?’
The chaotic being raised the executioner’s axe clutched in both hands.
Dense death approached until it stood directly before me.
At that moment― I saw something alien within its maddened eyes.
This was not the dignity of an ‘Executor’.
It was different from the overwhelming Authority of a higher being.
The true source of this terror was the desperate final struggle of one who had lost everything.
It was the scream of an abandoned ‘Criminal’, lost and rampaging without direction.
That was right.
This creature was no longer something capable of judging me.
My verdict had stripped away its authority and invalidated even its own law……
It was merely a powerless criminal.
Then what was I, standing before such a criminal?
‘I am ‘The Absolved’.’
I was one who had been absolved of responsibility for sin—the only being in this absurd trash game capable of disregarding its laws.
‘Then move…….’
I disregarded the rule that said fear had consumed me.
I disregarded the rule constricting my throat and preventing my voice from emerging.
The moment I understood that, the pressure crushing me vanished like a lie.
My fear disappeared.
Conviction.
The will that nothing could bind me enveloped my entire being.
“Listen, you little schemer…… How are you moving?!”
Ravenwood, who had been sent flying by the creature’s attack, barely managed to rise and questioned me in astonishment.
I did not bother answering.
The creature had already drawn close. Without hesitation, it brought down its executioner’s axe.
《D-die, di. D-die. Die.》
The axe descended alongside its distorted voice, dark-crimson tentacles writhing across its surface.
However, I made no attempt to evade it.
The Judgment had not yet ended.
“Criminal.”
This was not an Objection.
It was the final sentence delivered by the one presiding over a trial that had yet to conclude.
“Every justification for your crimes has been refuted in court.”
The creature stopped moving.
It was as though time itself had frozen.
I stared into its eyes, which burned with madness.
I have to purify the chaos buried deep inside it―
It was not as though I had consciously formed that thought before speaking.
My mouth simply moved first.
“The law that twisted your reason has collapsed, and the shackles that made you an Executor have vanished.”
I quietly tightened my grip on the broken chair leg and pointed it toward the creature.
“Therefore, cease your frenzy… That is my final verdict.”
Words possessed no physical power of compulsion.
However, there was a concept capable of calming the madness the creature had concealed until the very end.
The Final Verdict.
The golden radiance of nobility possessed a will of its own.
I had not commanded it.
Brilliant light spread from my fingertips and gradually erased the murky, dark-crimson energy flowing throughout the creature’s body.
“Be free from your unending duty, noble one.”
……I did not know whether it had ever truly been noble.
However, the will borrowing my mouth had spoken those words.
That would bring an end to its maddened wandering.
《Ah, aah.》
For the first time, a weary sigh rather than words filled with murderous intent escaped the creature’s mouth.
The executioner’s axe it had raised so high slowly fell to the ground.
The heavy axe struck the earth and rolled aside. Cracks began appearing across its grotesquely scorched muscles, as though a plaster statue were breaking apart.
CRACK― SNAP.
The dark-crimson tentacles protruding between its misshapen muscles gradually forced their way out of its body.
They writhed uncontrollably before finally ceasing all movement.
“What in the world is that……!”
Ravenwood pointed at the Toller’s splitting body and spoke in horror.
‘I never imagined this would happen.’
In the game, the Toller of Execution was ordinarily defeated through brute force, so this development had never occurred.
My memories and my mouth had responded naturally before I could think.
This was the result.
《Ugh, uuugh…….》
Before long, the Toller released a distorted groan. Its body split in half from the crown of its goat head downward, shedding its outer shell.
Within the discarded shell was a middle-aged man slightly larger than half the creature’s size.
He was bound in transparent chains, and his expression was utterly exhausted.
The accumulated grime covering the rusted bell around his neck peeled away layer by layer.
As the chains wrapped several times around his body vanished one after another, the knight clad in silver-white armor finally wore an expression of relief.
“Th…… ank you, thank you…… Absolved.”
His pupils had already faded and lost their light, yet I could sense the emotions of someone who had finally been freed from a festering resentment that had endured for more than a decade.
The middle-aged knight carefully opened his mouth to express his gratitude.
“You have freed me, not from my sins…… but from the twisted duty that bound me…… Thank you, truly…….”
As the knight spoke, system messages I had never seen before appeared.
[The Outer God’s Decree binding the ‘Toller of Execution’ has been broken!]
[Hidden Truth : You have obtained information concerning the cause of the ‘Lower Court’s’ corruption and related clues!]
[The liberated soul ‘Old Knight William’ expresses his gratitude and passes down a portion of his Authority!]
[BOSS MVP : ‘The Absolved’ Ash Gray]
[Synchronization : 5% ―> 7.8%]
These messages had never appeared in the game.
The information was entirely different from everything I knew.
The knight’s soul placed a hand over his chest.
Two radiant fragments of his soul appeared above his palm.
One shone with a sharp, silver-white light like a sword. The other radiated a weighty golden light resembling a Code of Law.
“Absolved, my power originally took two forms. The Knight’s Sword, which embodied my pride, and the Executor’s Law, which bound me…… Please choose the power your path requires.”
I did not hesitate.
My hand reached for the weighty golden light without the slightest pause.
“I’m not a swordsman. I’m the Absolved.”
The moment I grasped the golden light, the remaining silver-white radiance was drawn toward me as well and flowed into my hand.
[Eligibility Confirmation : You are ‘The Absolved’. You disregard the rule requiring you to choose only one.]
[You have proven yourself qualified to inherit both Authorities.]
[General Skill : You have acquired ‘Knight’s Swordsmanship’!]
[Linked Skill : You have acquired ‘Brand of Sentence Enforcement’!]
One of the skills was familiar.
The other was something I had never encountered even once while controlling Ash Gray.
“I see. So that is your choice…… Please, I beg of you…… Protect the things I failed to protect, and set the tilted scales of the law…… right…….”
With those final words, Old Knight William scattered like sand swept away by the wind.
He became a cluster of light and disappeared.
Once William had vanished, information concerning the truth seeped into my mind.
“Now I know which path I must take.”
It was a direction entirely different from the game.
I finally understood what it meant to protect the world as the Absolved.
When I had played the game, I had merely destroyed everything in my path and continued forward.
That was no longer the answer.
I had to correct the distorted laws of Salus……
That was the reason I had been chosen as the Absolved.
The donor must have believed that only someone who had seen the ending could accomplish it.
The true objective of the person who had summoned me into the world of Gray Judgment, and the path I was expected to follow.
I felt as though I had finally grasped the faintest clue concerning them.
Then, one final and somewhat familiar message appeared.
[Judgment : You are not guilty…….]
It was the familiar sentence displayed whenever a boss was defeated in the game.
* * *
It was silent.
The monstrous cries and deafening explosions that had shaken heaven and earth only moments ago had vanished as though they had never existed.
Only the bleak night wind passing through the shattered ruins of the buildings brushed against my ears.
“Is it…… over?”
Perhaps the aftermath had drained all strength from her legs, because Ravenwood had collapsed where she stood.
She muttered to herself in a daze.
Beyond the red lenses of her raven mask, I could sense astonishment and disbelief, along with the faintest trace of awe.
I did not bother answering her.
Instead, I quietly reflected on the skill that had taken root within me.
‘To hold them accountable…… huh.’
I could feel its nature within my mind.
It was a skill that forcibly imposed punishment upon those who lost within my Domain, with the severity of that punishment corresponding to the weight of their crimes.
It felt as though I had absorbed the strength of a powerful enemy and assimilated it into my own privilege.
The flow of power I had felt when William’s bell merged into my body still filled every part of me.
“Listen, you sly young man. You saved my life, but I have something to ask.”
Ravenwood quietly placed a hand on my shoulder.
“What exactly are you? That power of yours…… It seemed as though you rewrote the very rules of the trial.”
Proving herself every bit a University researcher, Ravenwood cautiously offered her own interpretation of my power.
Instead of answering her question, I stared at the empty space where William had disappeared and asked one of my own.
“Old woman, do you know anything about the Lower Court?”
The clue William had left behind……
Perhaps the corruption had begun in the lowest reaches of the city.
“You refuse to answer my question and then demand answers from me…… Well, I suppose it does not matter. It is currently sealed. More than a decade ago, an unknown law twisted Salus. The Lower Court has been a forbidden zone with restricted access ever since. Shouldn’t every citizen know that?”
“I wanted to see whether your information differed from mine.”
“Of course, scholars from the University attempted to explore and investigate various parts of Salus, but few returned alive.”
I quietly nodded at Ravenwood’s answer.
I still lacked information.
Would I learn more by defeating the other powerful enemies one by one?
‘I still…… don’t know.’
There was no other path regardless.
If I abandoned my resistance against these twisted laws, I would simply die.
“Then we’ll have to prepare, old woman.”
“Prepare? What are you talking about?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
I lightly tapped the chair leg against my shoulder as though massaging it and answered.
“We should go and convene the next trial.”
The moment I declared our destination—
DONG―
A faint bell rang once in the distance.
It sounded distinctly different from the bell that had hung around William’s neck, like an ominous portent echoing from somewhere deep below.
It seemed almost as though it were offering us a clue regarding the road ahead.
Ravenwood and I simultaneously turned toward the lingering sound.
It had come from the road leading into the urban district of Salus, the City of Law.
Beneath the night sky, the hideously distorted city whispered to us through its sinister silence that it had not yet revealed its full form.
The day was not over yet.