Chapter 60 Inside the opera house, the vest was nearly hit by a water hose...
These two have such a good relationship.
In the arms of the Water Dragon King, Mainkun relaxed his muscles, which had been tense from the tension.
[Huh? What am I afraid of?]
[Afraid that Furynna will be exposed and dethroned? Isn't that a good thing? It's better than living in constant fear and being overwhelmed by negative emotions...]
"Wow—Naviette! You're becoming more and more humane!"
Looking down at the top of the girl's head, her white ahoge (antenna-like hair) bounced around lively:
"I'm so touched—I'm so touched I'm about to cry, sob sob—"
Well, whatever, let's leave it at that.
"Human touch?"
As she shifted the arm holding the cat, Violet gently sniffed her sleeve.
"My scent doesn't seem to have changed much."
"Oh, that's not what I meant."
Funina leaped forward, light and agile:
Anyway, sir, see you at the opera house later~
"Wait, you haven't answered my question yet..."
"Ah, there is indeed another problem."
She paused, then quickly retreated back to the Water Dragon King's side, stretched out her hands, and with a "snap," pulled the cat out of Navelette's arms.
"Meow?"
"......"
The Water Dragon King's expression turned solemn.
"Even if someone is a god, it is wrong to forcibly take someone else's student."
"Oh dear, how can you say such things, Violet? Defamation is a crime."
With a smug air, she hoisted the large cat onto her shoulder, as cheerfully as a farmer carrying a piglet. Funina patted the cat's hind legs and winked at the Water Dragon King.
"We're such good friends, what's wrong with letting the students play with me, cough, for a few days? I love Cat God!"
[...Furina, you're being too overjoyed.]
The cat silently extended its paw toward Navelette.
[Teacher, you wouldn't hand me over to this woman, would you? She's got a lot of bad intentions towards me right now...]
"Um..."
The Water Dragon King was indeed hesitant.
"Navilet, you don't know this—in human society, entrusting children, cough, or younger generations to each other is a way of expressing trust and enhancing relationships!"
Funina was determined to get her hands on the half-demon.
"The deepening of our feelings, between me as a god and you as a judge, is a beneficial and harmless thing for the entire Fengdan!"
"but......"
Water Dragon glanced at the boastful Funina, then at the cat god who was reaching out his claws at him, and gave her a look of distrust.
"I have a feeling that your motives aren't as pure as they seem."
"Navilette".
The gods decided to use their trump card.
There's a law you might have forgotten.
"What?"
"That's the Opiclie Opera House, a sacred place of judgment where everyone, including you, is forbidden from bringing animals in—"
Funina suddenly revealed a smug smile:
"But the gods have special privileges!"
......
[Wait, Vilette!]
"Cat God usually lives in Fontainebleau, so it's inappropriate to suddenly place him outside an unfamiliar opera house."
Navelette gently pinched the cat's paw that it was desperately reaching out to him, and slowly nodded to Funina:
"Thank you, I'm entrusting my student to your care."
"Meow—"
[This is outrageous! It's like lambs to the slaughter!]
Mainkun immediately noticed the pleasant smile on Funina's lips.
[Take care of them? More like persecution!]
"Don't worry, Navisette, just focus on your work!"
After dismissing the judge with a few words, the god gave Mainkuhn a dangerous look.
"Hehehe, little kitty, we finally managed to swindle your protector away~"
She suddenly felt a desire to perform for the big gray cat with airplane ears.
"I'm going to use every trick in the book to shut you up in no time!"
Mainkuhn was speechless: [。]
This is what they call being carried away by success, right?
If you do that...
I miss the moments when you rode on my back, my legs trembling.
"I never imagined that your true owner was Lord Navelette."
As soon as the deity moved, a purple-haired girl naturally followed behind him.
Clarinde gasped softly, muttering to herself:
'...In some ways, he's far more capable than Lady Funina.'
Mainkuhn: [。]
So, what are you trying to say?
"Sigh—even if Navia and I work together, we still can't beat them at all."
Claude sighed and regretfully pinched the cat god's outstretched paws:
"To become rich and powerful."
"Let us not forget each other."
[...]
A strange urge surged up the cat's paw pads.
Perhaps it's because of embarrassment, perhaps because of shame, or perhaps something more complicated.
Whoosh!!
The cat grabbed Funina's shoulder and took off.
I can't stand this awful place for even a second longer!
"Whoa! Don't help me catch it—it ran away! Why did it suddenly resist? Clorind, what kind of spell did you say to it!?"
"A blessing that applies to both yourself and your friends?"
Claurind added innocently:
“From the neighboring country of Liyue.”
"I don't believe it! I should have just locked him in the bedroom—oh dear, how am I going to explain this to Vilette now!"
*
"Huh!?"
The goalkeeper, Melusin, couldn't see the gray shadow rushing past overhead.
"illusion?"
[Opicalais Opera House.]
This is my first time here.
Mainkun licked his paws and silently stepped over the human shadows to enter the arena.
[Amélie, where were you sitting at the time?]
The light movements went unnoticed by any human.
"Who is being tried today? What crime did they commit?"
They remained nonchalantly anticipating the drama to come.
"You didn't know? This case is quite famous."
"Famous? A lynx? I've been focused on him these past few days. Alright, alright, what case is it?"
“.
Mainkuhn walked away uninterestedly, looking for a quiet place.
"The murderer was a divorced father."
But a soft, playful laugh reached the half-demon's ears, and he grabbed his severed tail.
"In order to please his new lover, he tricked his two children away from their mother, and then pushed them into the yacht, where they drowned."
...
Huh?
The cat suddenly turned its head, its vertical pupils widening in surprise as it looked at the two humans who were talking.
"Oh, is it really that ruthless? Let me take a closer look."
The man turned the pages of the newspaper with his fingertips.
"Oh my god, oh my god... look what's written here!"
A series of gasps rang out, accompanied by an uplifting emotional surge.
"No sleeping pills were detected in the body! What does that mean? It means—the children were thrown into the sea by their father while they were still conscious. How tragic, tsk tsk."
"......"
Cats cannot distinguish the specific components of these emotions; they only know that the one that makes up the largest proportion is definitely not sadness.
"Hey, keep reading, the children's biological mother is even more tragic! She prepared a meal for three, but the people who were supposed to eat it are gone. Sigh! I haven't seen such a tragic case in a long time!"
"What's so tragic about it? Look at what's written here. If the mother hadn't been so strict with the children, they wouldn't have been so eager to run off to play with their biological father. If you ask me, they deserve it..."
"......"
After chatting for an unknown amount of time, a thin young man suddenly walked slowly towards the two men who were engaged in a lively discussion.
"!"
The conversation abruptly ended, and a strange sense of unease arose in the hearts of the more composed individuals.
"Look, what a strange person."
"Little friend, are you from abroad? Let me guess, the Mount Sumeru Desert?"
His friend spoke flippantly and didn't seem to care at all:
"I heard that people there are used to going barefoot and wrapping themselves in cloth, looking similar to you?... But why does the style of this cloth look so much like Fontaine curtains?"
"......"
The boy didn't speak, but the fur trim on his clothes swayed like a wind chime.
"Alright, that's enough."
The other person looked at his face, which was surrounded, and then at his strange, beast-like eyes, like a hare facing a lion, and instinctively cowered.
"Um, is there something you need? If not, could you please move aside? The performance is about to start, and you're blocking the view."
"......"
The boy stood motionless before them, his ears pressed tightly together and his gaze lowered.
'What's going on? Did you offend him?'
The two began to communicate with their eyes.
"Huh? I thought he was here to get revenge on you!"
'Huh? People who come to the opera house are all respectable people, there wouldn't be any lunatics there, would there?'
".....Give"
They watched suspiciously for a long time before the boy made his next move.
A bare, pale right arm, covered in layers of scars, trembled as it was lifted from the heavy fabric.
Huh? This—
"Give..."
"What? You want this?"
In surprise and disbelief, the human instinctively handed the boy what he was reading—a newspaper detailing the case—with both hands.
Overly sharp black fingernails spasmed and pierced through the brown paper.
Snap!
"...I."
Before the sound of tearing paper could be heard, the two humans sat uneasily, staring at each other.
"Young man, your hands are shaking badly."
After a long while, one of them tentatively asked.
"Is it an injury to your arm that damaged a nerve?"
".... .."
"All right."
The frivolous one would roll up the newspaper and carefully slip it between the boy's trembling fingers.
"Take it."
After thinking it over, he took out some more Mora from his pocket.
"Here, take this too. Fontaine's medical technology is quite excellent..."
*
Humans are really strange.
Mainkuhn didn't take Mora's hand. Instead, he took the newspaper, found a secluded corner among the chairs nearby, and crouched down discreetly and carefully.
They can talk excitedly about a horrific, inhuman tragedy, or give a stranger a pitying look.
What exactly is the difference?
After flipping through the first page featuring a photo of a god and a giant cat, and then to the next page depicting a lynx, and after countless scraps of paper spilled from between the spikes, Mainkun finally found the report on the case.
...What?
The beast trembled at the sight of human writing.
Aren't the children a thousand times worse off than me?
Isn't this mother a million times worse off than me?
"Silence! The trial is beginning!"
So why do you look at your teacher with a bored expression?
"No reversal? The defendant hasn't said a word."
"There was no reversal. The case was investigated very clearly, and the father had no room to struggle."
"Tsk, what a bland performance."
Don't say that, friend.
The two were clearly having a normal conversation, but Mainkuhn couldn't understand a single word.
"At least it's tragic enough, isn't it? Look, Lady Funina is secretly wiping away tears."
"Haha! A tragic drama."
Even as the verdict was handed down, they maintained expressions of boredom and annoyance.
"As expected, it's Petersburg again."
"Seriously, I think it would have been better to let the lynx kill it."
"......"
I can't figure it out.
I can't figure anything out.
"You can leave now, the verdict has been delivered..."
The two humans, who were talking boastfully, suddenly saw the strange boy return.
"death penalty?"
Intermittent sounds squeezed out from under the cloth covering her face.
"Death penalty? Huh? You're not asking why that man wasn't sentenced to death, are you? Looks like you're not from Fontainebleau."
“Hey, keep your voice down... He hasn’t stopped shaking.”
"Okay, okay, hey kid, look over there, see that?"
Human fingers are raised high, pointing to the creations of the gods:
"In name only, Fontaine does indeed have the death penalty."
"But this judicial body, which has instructed and adjudicated the cardinals since birth—"
"And we've never sentenced anyone to death!"
"!?"
"I thought there might be a turnaround this time."
The person's voice changed from passionate to calm.
"Nothing came of it. Sigh, how boring."
"......"
A strange force pierced the half-demon's spine, forcing him to raise his head, stand up straight, and stare intently at the massive scales on the judgment platform.
The imperial edict ordered that the cardinal not be sentenced to death?
If I smash it...!
A pair of fiercer, sharper vertical pupils met the half-demon's gaze, defying his destructive desires.
Navelette, standing beneath the Cardinal of the Proclamation, was struck by the murderous intent emanating from the half-demon and immediately began to investigate.
"!"
The majesty in his purple eyes instantly turned into disbelief. The Dragon King bent his knees, lifted his leg, and stepped over the high railing!
BOOM!
The high judge's platform exploded with a cracking sound, and white and blue shadows shot down into the audience like cannonballs!
"Mainkuhn?"
The Water Dragon King strode swiftly between the seats, his sharp gaze sweeping over the terrified faces.
"Where are you?"
"Th-then Lord Vilette!? Why did you jump down?"
Until the audience snapped out of their daze and looked at themselves in confusion, Violet still hadn't found the lost wanderer.
"Mimi, Mimi—!"
One cat was so frightened that it huddled under the seat, its fur puffing up like a ball.
-----------------------
Author's note: The storyline of Collapse Iron gave me a heart attack.
No more worrying about whether you've drawn a dead person.
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