Chapter 263

Seeing the gangsters' ruthless attitude, Folinic was slightly intimidated. Since Nana hadn't given her instructions on whether to surrender or run away, Folinic hesitated, unsure of what to do.

So, in the eyes of the gangsters, the girl, fully armed in a short-sleeved shirt with Rhodes Island insignia, after being stared at for a while, climbed over the stone railing of the clock tower, looking as if she was about to jump.

Now it was the thugs who were at a loss... The height of just five stories might be insignificant to some races, but it could be deadly to others. It was quite subtle, since most people wouldn't know that what Folinic had on his waist wasn't a scabbard, but a 3D maneuvering and pneumatic projection system filled with compressed air canisters.

The standoff between Folinic and the thugs ended only with the arrival of the judge wielding the Thorn Codex, bringing an end to the chaos.

"Alright, this lady was in this tower the entire time the victim was murdered; she's not the killer. But... Rhodes Island, your presence here is rather awkward. On behalf of the Siracusa Court, I need your cooperation as a partial witness to the investigation... Could you please not remain in such a dangerous place for now?"

PS: Waaaaaaah!

Today's Doctor, while still powerless compared to those five hundred years from now (laughs) ↑

8th Spring of Siracusa: 296 Back in jail again?

After observing through the sniper scope and using Folinic's uninterrupted communicator for a while, and confirming that the 'court' indeed had no ill intentions towards Folinic, Nana shifted her attention back to Typhon.

Because he was inexplicably drawn into the investigation, and because Typhon is not good at hiding in situations where there is a third-party perspective, especially in densely populated urban environments.

Compared to Folinic, who was simply being questioned, Typhon's situation, where he frequently questioned himself about why he ran away, was truly worrying.

Even more critically, although Nana's mountainside platform offered a commanding view of the city below, the urban environment was still like a forest of reinforced concrete... leaving little room for sniper rifles to operate. Typhon quickly jumped into Nana's blind spot.

Although continuing to wait for the client's response while acting as Typhon's environmental observer can also play a certain auxiliary role, compared to having a good relationship with the surrounding merchants, and even being able to hear someone calling the little hunter to take shelter from the rain during the communication, (I) Neighbor Ichis's wine ba Nana is indeed more worried about Folinic appearing in the family's spotlight.

A choice flashed through Nana's mind again... Should she continue waiting in the safe house? Who should she support with her gun while she waits? If she doesn't wait, who should she rush to? These binary choices always remind Nana of bad things.

As the leader of the action team, it is my duty to minimize the risks during the operation... But when I see Kal'tsit's comment on my mission report that I have 'suspected PTSD', Nana sometimes wonder if I have developed a controlling tendency that makes others uncomfortable because of the Rosemary incident.

"This land... it always seems to throw some unexpected things at me..."

She gave a negative answer to the previous question because she could still make a rational judgment on similar questions... and more often than not, she was probably just avoiding situations where she had to choose between two options.

Putting away her sniper rifle, Nana made the same decisive move when it was time to retreat.

"Let's go, we're going back to support Folinic."

"What about Typhon's side...? (The rest of the text appears to be a series of seemingly unrelated characters and symbols, possibly a corrupted or incomplete sentence.)"

"For now, everything is fine. Even if something happens, Typhon's fighting strength should be enough to buy us enough time to send reinforcements... But the reverse is not true. Folinic's fighting strength is not yet at the level where he can ignore the family and the Siracusa Court."

Faced with her captain's blunt assessment and the reason why she could obtain support so quickly, Folinic's expression even crumbled a little... But in order to deal with the questions from her family and the judge, Folinic clearly did her best to manage her expression.

While it was good to get help from her captain as soon as possible, the fact that she was judged as the weakest member of the team... well, maybe not the weakest, but definitely the weakest among the front-line members, clearly made Folinic very unhappy.

After being taken to the local court and disarmed, but then served tea and made to sit down, he approached Folinic with the Thorn Codex in one hand and a plate of Little Biscuit in the other:

"Hello, I'm the judge stationed here... Hmm... Your expression is quite serious."

"... I thought you would ask more direct questions after you arrived... instead of what you've done now... tolerant?"

Looking at the black tea and cookies in front of her, although the milky aroma of the baked goods was currently attracting Folinic's attention, she still remembered Nana's admonition to "be careful in everything"... Feline, who had only been Regular Operator for a few years, was sitting there in such a precarious situation, as if she were being interrogated.

In contrast, the judge, with his gray hair tied up in a shoulder-length style, his tail the same color as his hair, glossy and smooth, and who even rubbed his tail in his arms while eating, looked quite relaxed.

"Tolerance? No, no, no, I just know you're definitely not the murderer... After all, that person was openly stabbed in the heart by a hooded man during a mass ceremony in full view of everyone..."

Watching the other person recount the horrific scene as if it were none of their business, Folinic, with her medical background, wanted to say something. However, remembering that she had no right or need to get involved in the local family's messy affairs, she forced all her questions and rebukes into mere doubt.

"So, since you know I have nothing to do with the murder, why are you detaining me here?"

"We already explained this from the beginning, didn't we...? It's suspicious that Rhodes Island is here at this juncture... Do you know anything about the deceased?"

Seeing Folinic shake her head as if it were the most natural thing in the world, the judge, wearing a brown wool coat that was slightly stuffy but absolutely dignified for spring, holding her tail, and smoothing her long gray hair, which was just past her shoulders, down to her shoulders with a codex decorated with metal thorns, coughed.

Then, another trainee judge, also of the Lupo but appearing remarkably young, entered the room with a serious expression and neatly laid out a document on the table:

"Thank you for your hard work, Lavinia. The case is very clear: due to the rain, a large number of citizens flooded into the church, and under the watchful eyes of countless people, a priest attempting to preach during Mass was brutally murdered in the church by a blonde woman wielding a dagger... Citizens then screamed and fled, and a few minutes later, the judge and local family members maintaining order entered... and took away this Rhodes Island medical staff member who was inexplicably present at the scene, fully armed... Do you have anything to add?"

"Prior to this, as a teammate in the Contingency Contract and the Catastrophe Messengers, I didn't see anything suspicious about constantly being on a mission."

"Throat..."

At first, Folinic thought it was her imagination, but when she saw the gray-haired judge sitting in front of her chuckle, Folinic, who had previously held the most basic respect for the Siracusa judiciary, suddenly felt her eyes twitch.

The judge clearly understood the problems with her actions, but she simply smiled, conveying an attitude of "I know I'm wrong, but I'll never change."

"Sorry, you should talk to the family responsible for maintaining order... it won't do any good to me."

It seemed the gray-clad lady herself disliked leaving people guessing about her intentions, much like how she would shout "I'm done playing!" and then reveal the answer when everyone was tacitly discussing a riddle. The judge, holding a teacup, offered further explanation to Folinic in a listless, indifferent tone:

"Now the family suspects Rhodes Island of interfering with the order here, so they've ordered me to keep an eye on you... And judging by the flashing of the communicator light on your collar, I'm afraid the real person in charge of Rhodes Island will be meeting me soon."

"... What... is your purpose?"

Hearing Folinic's somewhat timid and clumsy question, the judge first showed a somewhat familiar expression of thought, then looked at the intern standing guard at the door behind her as if suddenly enlightened:

"This child's personality is a lot like yours~ Both of you are very serious... Lavinia ~"

"... Please be serious for once..."

With Lupo's dismissive "Okay, okay~", Folinic felt that her action of putting the battlefield recorder into her pocket without turning it off and continuing to record had been completely seen through... But, why?

"You're wondering... well, let me guess? Are you wondering why I, as a judge, am so indifferent to the dead? Or are you wondering why a judge, as the representative of the Siracusa order, would obey the orders of local families... or even small families whose titles are merely borrowed from outside?"

"If you can't even understand these things, then what I'm doing now is actually protecting you... After all, it's quite difficult for outside companies or tourists to understand the order of Siracusa, that thing cloaked in the guise of 'law'... Don't look at me with such a scary gaze. I have no demands of you... I have no demands of you. Those who doubt you and entrusted me to control you were all commissioned by the Sicilians families... Blame yourself for provoking something you shouldn't have."

"You yourself are the judge, the embodiment of upholding judicial order and justice, yet you've entrusted the maintenance of this city's order to your family gangs?!"

"Yes, that's right. After all, Siracusa has been like this for thousands of years... it's become a habit. And... it seems you have some misunderstanding..."

She crunched the last cookie clean as she spoke, then picked up her teacup and gulped it down. The judge, with a satisfied expression, still wore that seemingly approachable smile, yet upon closer inspection, it seemed to keep people at a distance.

"Even in pre-Sicilian times, the twenty-two city-states of Siracusa were not without order... Aside from the 'Gray Table' order that we judges now need to maintain, this region has always operated according to the customs recognized by local families... You could even call it 'Family Customary Law,' right?"

Seeing the gray-haired judge burst into laughter, seemingly having said something funny, but the girl behind him Lupo appeared to be a judicial intern, seemed hesitant to speak, Folinic recalled Nana's methodological advice and steered the conversation back to normal:

"Please leave the history and evolution of local laws to history professors; I just want to know, since I'm not the murderer, please return my equipment and let me leave..."

"Of course that won't do. After all, the perpetrator is that lady... and her daughter recently contracted Oripathy. Rhodes Island has also been making statements in the city that the mission target is a certain Vulpo... It's perfectly normal to suspect that you're colluding with the murderer."

"... But Judge, you don't look like you're going to interrogate me."

"After all, all I need to do is stall you... Whether it's a heated debate or sitting around a round table drinking tea, it doesn't really matter."

Seeing the other party's leisurely movements, Folinic's slightly furrowed brows completely betrayed her suspicion that the murderer who had dragged her into the case was the person who had commissioned this mission.

After all, Folinic isn't someone who's particularly good at hiding her expressions... Rather, once the seed of doubt is planted, it will involuntarily take root and sprout in a person's heart... No one can change another person's opinion out of thin air; even Nana can't do that.

Just as Folinic was Folinic because of Nana's order to 'not discuss mission-related topics,' the trainee girl who had been watching the judge and Folinic's exchange took a step forward:

"Now that the killer's information has been identified, I might as well go and arrest him."

"No, that won't work."

The slightly drawn-out voice was almost unbearable for Folinic, and the intern called Lavinia was so restrained that she clenched her fists.

"Senior...no, Judge Vittoria! As the symbol of Siracusa's law, how can you be controlled by your family?!"

Hearing his junior's words, the gray-haired Lupo widened his eyes in feigned surprise: Two

"No, no, no, it's Lavinia who's acting strangely... You don't actually think that becoming a judge means you don't have to worry about the family anymore, do you? Judges and courts, these things were created to serve the family."

Is this something I can hear? (Part 3)

Despite these doubts in her heart, recalling the history of Siracusa that Nana had explained to her on the way, Folinic nodded in agreement with the judge's statement.

In this country as barbaric as Ursus, even if you work hard to get into university and complete your studies... becoming a judge working in the courts doesn't mean you've escaped the pervasive entanglements of your 'family'.

On the contrary, the judges were the most violent family in Siracusa... a symbol of the Lady Sicilia's authority.

Their job was simply to monitor the Gray Hall families in the twenty-two cities of Siracusa to prevent civil war and to ensure no one offended Lady Sicilia.

As for the city hall and even the courts handling civil or family cases, and the messy legal provisions submitted every year but amended annually by those families... all of that is a declaration of Lady Sicilia consolidation or a demonstration of her actual control over Siracusa.

For some reason, finding herself able to decipher the judge's illogical arguments, Folinic suddenly felt a guilty sense of having become complicit with him.

Adding to the frustration was Lavinia's patient glance at her, and the fact that the judge was becoming increasingly involved, making the situation seem as chaotic as a fog... It was truly frustrating.

Just as the judge was giving his intern irresponsible explanations like, "Keep an eye on the suspected family members, and we'll handle the rest of the thugs. Besides, they're not even the head of Rhodes Island," footsteps approached from the courthouse's temporary detention center.

Having lived together for a full year, Folinic immediately recognized the sound of her senior, Medic, walking on the marble floor in his steel combat boots.

"Oh... so you're the one in charge of Rhodes Island here?"

"Yes, hello, Rhodes Island Medic... my student has been under your care."

"Well, it's alright, it's just cheap tea bags... but the cookies are my masterpiece! Although your kid didn't give me any face at all, didn't even try a single one."

Seemingly refuting the judge's statement, Nana, dressed in an old Rhodes Island uniform, sat down next to Folinic and immediately picked up a cookie and started munching away... Well, in this old society where people like to show off their wealth through the sweetness of sweets, the fact that they could grasp the idea of 'sweetness not being sweet,' which is considered the highest praise for desserts, makes Nana assume that the other party is trying to build a good relationship with Rhodes Island by 'detaining' them.

As Nana picked up the newly placed teacup in front of her and took a sip, the gray-haired judge smiled and withdrew her cup, a gray mist enveloping the entire doorway of the room.

"So... where should we begin?"

Having used magic to isolate all external sounds and all recording equipment inside the room, the judge, holding a teacup, directly omitted the process and gave her conclusion:

"Although it seems unlikely, let's give up on her... Family feuds are not allowed to end with the entire family; this is a rule established by Lady Sicilia to bring this country into the path of civilization... No one can overstep this rule."

Seeing Nana holding her teacup and remaining silent, the uneasy Folinic, still harboring a nagging thought that 'maybe you've made a mistake,' tentatively asked:

"... What nonsense are you talking about...?"

"Huh? Haven't I made myself clear enough? That girl whose daughter became the Infected because of family affairs is beyond saving, abandon her. This victim is the last member of that rival family... He had already renounced his family fortune, become a monk and converted to the church, and was under the protection of Guns and Order. But that woman still killed him... Now that things have come to this, Lady Sicilia's dignity cannot be offended, and the judge will initiate Judgment against that woman. Of course, you can take that little girl with Oripathy with you as you please... I quite like Lisa, I don't have the heart to let her witness her mother's execution."

The judge shook his head, then looked with a bright smile at 'Medic,' who resembled himself and also had someone standing behind him:

"So, it shouldn't be clearer than that, right?"

PS: Waaaaaaah!

PSS: I still didn't sleep well yesterday, and today I'm completely exhausted and have no sleep... I feel like I might suddenly die at any moment...

One more thing to add is that Lavinia is the real name of the Rhodes Island operator 'Penance'... Although I don't know her actual age, I assumed she was still an intern before the official Siracusa storyline began... Actually, I could write an original story here, like a righteous intern judge, but using a character from Arknights would definitely give people a more three-dimensional impression.

Since it's a "naive newbie" mode, please don't think the character is out of character... After all, for her, this is just a very early and not in-depth exploration of the rule of law in Siracusa.

It will take her several years to truly understand what she needs... Let her develop her own storyline on her own; she's just there to get acquainted with Nana.

8th Spring of Siracusa: 297 Strange Feelings

Even though Nana had previously emphasized to Folinic Siracusa, due to its historical reasons, although it was also a modern nation that had completed the Originium Power Revolution, was still subtly different in nature from those 'modern nations' that occupied the core of the earth.

Unlike the Sami region, which is simple, isolated from the world and has preserved a relatively primitive appearance, Siracusa's culture, people's lives, and the stark contrast between its 'fairness' and 'rule of law'—which most clearly distinguish it from modern states—seem like an alien entity.

Ursus, Great Yan, Victoria... Even though the traditional powers in the core of this land have their own unique historical characteristics due to their specific environments, the 'progress' of many countries is ultimately aimed at maintaining the greatest possible continuation of their ethnic groups, protecting the rights and interests of their citizens, and enabling them to devote their energy to national development as much as possible.

In comparison, Siracusa now looks as if it has been distorted by some unknown force.

The Lady Sicilia, highly praised by the ICA's Eternal Constant and hailed as a "heaven-sent genius," founded the Gray Hall and introduced the "law." However, the Gray Hall merely mediated the bottomless feuds within that distorted family, and the law differed from the broader concept of a nation protecting the majority of its citizens.

The judge before him bluntly stated a fact that even the local trainees behind him could not accept: Siracusa's 'justice' was not a simple pursuit that was widely present in people's hearts, and even this fragile order itself was only built on the absolute violence controlled by the Lady Sicilia.

Even though Su Sulo is now a member of 'borderless', she, who hails from Siracusa, still cannot help but feel sorrow for the country's abnormalities.

However, while most people in the room were lamenting, "How did this country become like this?", Nana was more concerned about the reason why the gray-haired Lupo kept emphasizing, "This is what the Sicilian Family made me do."

"Well, as a judge, you must have something you wish to ask of us... Miss Vittoria."

"Oh, so I actually made it pretty obvious, right?"

Seeing that the judge in front of her was still stalling for time, speaking erratically and always avoiding the main points, Nana interrupted her directly:

"It is indeed wrong of you to assume that outsiders will know and abide by your own private judicial agreements. If you really just want to stall Rhodes Island, you only need to detain Folinic and do nothing else... Just like a judge's duty is to uphold the authority of the Lady Sicilia, the law and the affairs of local families can actually be ignored."

"There's no such thing as an ideal job. For the family, judges who refuse to cooperate are killed... There will always be those willing to collude with them. And speaking of which, I have to mention you again, Lavinia ~"

"If you continue to focus too much on the legal code and fail to learn how to deal with your family, I really can't approve your internship report... You'll die in a car accident within a week of taking office."

Watching the other party seize every opportunity to educate the junior, and seeing the person's slightly agape face filled with indignation and self-doubt, Nana put down her empty teacup:

"While what Vittoria said is the norm in Siracusa ...and the actual situation may be even worse than you described, because when a family targets a judge, his relatives and friends are also targeted by members of the family...but, the death of Siracusa judge is not in vain."

"As far as I know, the Maw of the Great Wolf has been secretly working on this phenomenon... Although there are too many similar cases in the twenty-two city-states, killing a judge is an offense against the dignity of the Lady Sicilia, and the murderers and their families that are found will mostly be crushed by the violence of higher authorities."

"In this mutual attrition between judges and families, the number of casualties has been steadily increasing, and it has now probably replaced traditional family feuds... as the biggest source of loss in the power struggle within Siracusa."

Looking at Lavinia, whose brows were slightly furrowed, Nana propped herself up on her arms and interlaced her fingers. Despite being just a small girl in an ordinary company uniform, when discussing Siracusa, a topic that ordinary people couldn't even get a word in, her aura was stronger than that of her teacher in the eyes of the trainee judge.

"Even though the public authority in Siracusa is still subservient to the 'family' today, it has been established and is operating stably, and the concept of justice has been recognized by the people... Sooner or later, either the family will abolish the government and the courts and take back control of the city-state of Siracusa... or the courts will become a true state organ, and judges will be able to uphold true 'justice' and 'fairness'."

"... Clearly... judges are still constrained by family ties like those in Sicilians, preventing us from advancing the case. As judges and the falsely accused parties, we are currently imprisoned in a dark room?"

Clearly, unlike Rhodes Island, which completely trusts Medic and whose words are never contradicted by Folinic and Su Sulo, the intern behind the judge seemed genuinely resentful.