By Zephyria “You asked if that was ‘also’ his thought, and he answered yes.”
Flynn, who was holding the desk with his hand, muttered while staring beyond the glass. Shorendo, who had been watching the same place with his arms crossed, barely took his eyes off and asked back.
“What did you say before that?”
Flynn, who had been watching the conversation in the interrogation room subside and Hugo getting up, turned his head and replied.
“If it was truly the Company Commander’s will. If there was not even an inch of selfishness or agreement.”
“Ah.”
As Shorendo briefly sighed, the door to the interrogation room burst open just in time.
Hugo’s figure, maintaining an indifferent expression through the desolate air gap, was revealed. Flynn, who had relieved his serious expression, quickly approached him.
“Are you done?”
“Not yet.”
The metal door frame made a loud noise as it closed again due to Hugo, who had left the heavy door as it was.
It seemed like a natural situation, but the friction sound of the door frame echoing throughout the monitoring room was as sharp as scratching nerves. To the point where Flynn hesitated.
Hugo, who had confirmed the tightly closed door, threw the bundle of documents, including the statement, onto the empty desk as if throwing them away. Chwaak, it wasn’t thrown that hard, but the paper that hadn’t been organized slipped out and slid down to the floor.
Added to his cold energy as he swept back his hair, the atmosphere in the monitoring room became noticeably stiff.
“Hoo….”
Only Flynn, who had been rolling his eyes, bent down to gather the scattered documents and put them back on the desk as if nothing had happened.
Hugo looked down at him with cold eyes and loosened his tie. Shorendo, who had been rubbing his palms on his back pockets, carefully approached and spoke.
“How was it?”
Blue eyes turned to the statement-taker sitting blankly beyond the glass. The man who had been talking until just now had a dazed face as if his soul had left him after a long interrogation. He also looked relaxed as if he would soon slip under the chair.
A calm anger settled on Hugo’s face as he persistently chased him. He closed his eyes tightly and opened them, suppressing his emotions and opening his mouth.
“It’s going to take longer than I thought. The credibility of the statement is low.”
“Um, it certainly seemed like you thought so.”
“Excessively specific time, evasion of responsibility, and normalization logic that inappropriately defends a specific superior.”
A deep disappointment was buried in the enumerating voice.
“When I asked about the accomplice, it might have been a little more credible if he had answered that his superior was an honest person and would not do such a thing. Instead of emphasizing common sense as if objectively considering it from another person’s point of view.”
Hugo looked at the other doors lined up along the hallway and asked.
“Marcus Servan. Is he waiting?”
“Yes, but he won’t open his mouth. It seems like it will take longer as you said.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
As he gestured to guide him, Shorendo raised his hand to add something. Then he soon realized that it was meaningless and guided Hugo, saying, ‘This way.’
The interrogation related to the incident continued for half a day, changing the subjects and questioners. Among them, the most uncooperative person was Marcus Servan, who appeared as the key mastermind in the previous statement.
At the end of the hallway in the monitoring room. Servan, who had been urgently arrested and was waiting alone in a quiet solitary room, looked extremely anxious, like a person driven to the edge of a cliff when Hugo first faced him. However, he soon let out a snorting breath as if he would do as he pleased, and showed a resigned expression. He also spent a long time leaning back in his chair with sharp eyes, lost in thought.
The right to remain silent was a means of responding to the interrogation, but a Council Commander would know that the choice would work quite unfavorably in a situation where suspicion was cast. Hugo did not urge him or apply physical pressure in front of him.
From the beginning, it was different from the character of the suspect who had been transferred after the facts of the crime were confirmed, and the person being interrogated was also older, so he was only doing the best he could as a colleague and superior. Of course, cynicism and anger boiled inside.
Servan, who had been given his own consideration in such a suffocating silence, took a long time to open his mouth.
“I instructed him.”
There was no big difference from the statement of Castiel Bain, who had accused him.
“I sent the damaged restraints to the Workshop for repair, and at the same time, I smuggled in old-fashioned handcuffs and told him to take them to the equipment management office.”
“The reason?”
“I judged that it was necessary to do so in order to prevent the difference in quantity from being noticeable. Furthermore, since Leonardo Blaine was the only S-Class Mage who was the subject of intensive management within the Council at the time, I thought that if only the S-Class exclusive handcuffs were replaced, he would be likely to wear the old-fashioned handcuffs without affecting other prisoners.”
Hugo’s eyebrows furrowed slightly at the answer that seemed to target only one person cleverly.
“Are you saying that you ordered the work solely to cause his Magic Power control instability?”
“That’s right.”
“Then what’s the reason?”
When Hugo asked briefly, another meaningless silence followed. The watches on the wrists of the two people ticked every second, creating a subtle dissonance.
“I’ll change the question. Is there any benefit to you if Leonardo Blaine gets into trouble?”
It was a more ordinary question than before, but it seemed to be a considerable pressure for Company Commander Servan.
“That’s my, my family…”
He barely opened his mouth several times, but he couldn’t continue speaking easily. Then, he eventually put his fingers between his own hair and gripped it so hard that his forearms trembled. His emotional swings seemed severe.
He suddenly met Hugo’s eyes, who was relieving his helpless anxiety with self-harm. His whites were bloodshot with fatigue.
“What good is any of that now? The rumor that I have ill feelings toward Leonardo Blaine has already spread far and wide anyway. That I directed everything, too.”
Hugo’s eyes narrowed. His grip tightened, but it wasn’t outwardly visible.
“That sounds strange. Rumors circulating are ineffective. Only a statement that you make directly in this room is valid. I am giving you ample opportunity to make that statement.”
Servan’s lips twitched before closing firmly. Hugo, who had been watching, leaned back against the backrest, lifted his chin, and continued.
“Frankly, I don’t understand the situation well. The risk is too great to have orchestrated this out of mere personal animosity. I’m not condoning your ideology and actions, but at the time, Leonardo already had negative perceptions following him like shackles due to the uproar in the Grand Plaza and the past judgment. He was already in a sufficiently disadvantageous position, even if no one intentionally intervened.”
“I understand what you’re saying. But… in the end, he was released, wasn’t he?”
“Are you saying that the goal was to manipulate the situation so that he would remain detained?”
“……”
“What would change if he truly became a lawbreaker according to your wishes? The satisfaction that your ideology was correct? Was that worth abandoning your honor, career, and colleagues?”
Servan’s statement was hesitant. Unlike Bain, he couldn’t mention a clear cause-and-effect relationship, and above all, the logic of his claims didn’t add up.
“I don’t have any particular feelings toward Leonardo Blaine now. Rather… hmm. It is true that I colluded with a workshop researcher to embezzle old-fashioned handcuffs and profit from them. Please punish me promptly.”
“…I’m curious whether this was your personal will, or whether you received instructions from someone.”
“Personal will.”
This time, the answer was firm. Hugo asked about the mastermind several more times, but the answer remained consistent on that point.
“I gave the orders to my subordinates. I ask for leniency for the members of our 9th Company who followed the unjust orders.”
It seemed he now understood the advice Shorendo had tried to give him before entering the interrogation room. He hadn’t obtained any significant information from the conversation with Servan. It was as if he were listening to a repeated recording coming from a wind-up doll.
“Do you have any desire to apologize to him?”
Hugo suddenly asked after a moment of silence. The questioning investigator should exclude personal feelings except for questions necessary to understand the truth of the case. Hugo had been mindful of that fact all along, enduring and enduring, but he wanted to ask this no matter what.
“Do you still truly think the victim is the criminal?”
Servan sat with an insolent posture, not seeming like a suspect sitting before the Legion Commander, and replied.
“I refuse to testify.”
Hugo bit his lip in frustration. Before long, another subject of interrogation sat before him.
Noel Presentia, the commander of the unit to which the previous testifiers belonged and the person in charge of the equipment management office at the time of the incident. He was the commander of the 11th Battalion of the Central Branch of the Council.
“It’s all my fault. I was inadequate and failed to lead my subordinates on the right path.”
Noel, who had risen from his seat and suddenly knelt beside the desk, lowered his head with a desolate expression.
“I will take all responsibility and step down from my position as battalion commander. But please reconsider the expulsion of Company Commander Servan. What he did is unforgivable, but I ask that you give him the opportunity to atone for the rest of his life while remaining in the Council.”
He had always been calm and rational, but at this moment, he appealed to emotions with only a desperate voice.
Hugo rubbed his forehead as if tired. Shorendo, who had been watching from outside, entered the interrogation room at Noel’s intensifying plea. With a troubled expression, he barely managed to lift Noel up, and the chaotic situation was barely brought to an end. Nothing had been gained.
And that evening, news came of an emergency that Company Commander Marcus Servan had bitten his tongue and committed suicide.