Chapter 170 – Charges
Her face became as red as a tomato.
“Do you think you can insult me like this without repercussions? You’re just a lowly rank 0!”
“Insults? I don’t do that. I only speak the truth. If you took those as insults then there’s something wrong with you. As expected of a nauseating loser.”
“You’re going too far!”
She rushed at me, her fist ready to strike me.
“Halt! No one moves!”
Right then, two women in police uniforms ran our way through the crowd. They must have been attracted by the commotions as their gazes were fixed on us from the start. The woman charging me was startled, forcefully stopping her attack and putting her hands behind her back. The two rank 3 policewomen arrived in front of us, their breathing slightly disordered due to running at full speed.
“What’s going on here?”
They glared at us accusingly. The rank 2 woman stayed silent while biting her lips but I had no reason to imitate her.
“Thank you for saving me, officers. I’d like you to arrest this woman for the crimes of obstruction of business, intimidation, defamation, crowd enticement, and murder attempt.”
Everyone gawked at me but that didn’t faze me in the least.
“W-what do you by murder attempt, you insane girl!”
“What else do you call a rank 2 sorceress trying to strike a rank 0 in the head at full power? If these police officers didn’t arrive on time, I’d already be dead.”
“What nonsense!”
“It seems you don’t realize the depth of your crimes. Unfortunately for you, we have tens of witnesses here.”
The policewomen looked at the crowd to confirm my words
“Is what she’s saying true?”
“No, that’s ridiculous!”
“Nothing happened at all!”
A few of the woman’s supporters tried to help her while most of the people remained neutral. However, a certain number still nodded to the question.
“It seems there’s at least some level of truth to it.”
“What? Ma’am, that’s absurd!”
“We’ll know if that’s absurd or not when we get the testimonies. And you should be careful about what you say from now on.”
She turned toward the crowd and shouted.
“Everyone here is to head to the police station right this instant. Don’t worry, we’ll only get a quick testimony out of you before you can go.”
“Tila…”
Suuru was still clinging to me insecurely. I tried to give a reassuring smile.
“Don’t worry, they’re the ones in the wrong here, not us.”
“Hmm…”
I was surprised by how strict the police were compared to what I expected. They were certainly not taking this lightly. Most of the people around gave a resigned sigh but still headed toward the police station together with us. Just like the officer said, they were swiftly interrogated to get their version of the facts before being let go.
When this was done, the rank 2 woman, I, and Suuru were all questioned separately. Eventually, we were placed in the same room to get a verdict.
“Userc Param, you’re accused of an attempt of violence against someone two ranks lower than you. Considering the difference in ranks, this isn’t a light offense. On top of that, you’re accused of uttering false accusations and illegal assembly of a crowd.”
The woman’s face paled.
“There’s no way! This is wrong, officer!”
“Enough. We’ve heard everyone’s testimonies already. And about the people who were together with you and gave false testimonies, we’ve got their names. We’ll catch them later.”
The woman began trembling in distress.
“N-No… We’re just merchants trying to make a living…! What wrong did we even do?”
She then turned our way and stared at us with pure hatred.
“It’s all these two’s fault! That swindler and that taboo child!”
One of the policewomen frowned while the other glanced at Suuru with disgust. The one who frowned was the one to answer.
“You’re only making your situation worse. Their business has already been inspected by the trading department. Our archives even say it was at your request. They were found to be a normal stall without any issues.”
“There’s no wa…”
“And!”
The officer cut her in the middle of her sentence.
“Having a child outside of the baby field is a crime but being born in that manner is not an offense, much less a crime. I told you to be careful about what you say. This will be added to the list of your offenses.”
The woman seemed shocked for a moment before losing all her steam, deflating like a balloon.
The policewoman turned toward us.
“Would you like to settle this here or go to court?”
I checked Suuru’s expression but it was clear she had no idea what to answer.
“We’d like to settle this here.”
“All right. What about you?”
“I… I… I also want to settle this here.”
“Good. How much do you two want?”
“100,000 lods.”
This made everyone scowl, and tears now appeared in the woman’s eyes, who had lost all her spirit.
“Tila Urtek. Be reasonable.”
I didn’t feel like being reasonable but also didn’t want to stay here for too long. I wanted to go back home and console the unstable Suuru.
“Sigh. What’s a reasonable compensation?”
“For something like this, between five and ten thousand lods.”
This still made the rank 2 woman shiver.
“Then ten thousand lods. With one additional clause. I don’t want her to approach us ever again. And also her comrades too, if possible.”
“Understood. Userc Param, you are to pay Tila Urtek and Suuru Ableo ten thousand lods. You are forbidden from approaching them less than ten meters from now on. You’ll receive a much more severe punishment if you fail to comply.”
“B-But… there’s no way I have that sort of money…”
“That’s not our problem. You can pay in installments as long as you pay everything. If you can’t even do that, you’ll be heading straight to jail.”
“Ugh…”
She now seemed fully depressed but I didn’t feel a single bit of compassion for her. This annoying episode concluded like this but we were far from the end of our worries.
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