“Miss, AHM123,” Suijin addresses the panther girl, representative of the Adventurer’s Guild, as he walks back and forth in front of her on a water wave. “Please, tell the Court, who are you, and what you do?”

“I am the Senior Assistant Branch Manager at Adventurer’s Guild, Incorporated. I am in charge of overseeing the funds, adventurer management, credits, loan sharks, behavior within the Guild’s building, and greeting new costumers at the entrance.”

“Sounds like a lot,” Suijin says. “How do you manage all that while standing at the entrance?”

“Objection! Relevance,” Naunet protest to the judge.

“Goes to show the eyewitness’ competence,” Suijin explains to Aphrodite. “And to prevent the defense from arguing that the witness was too busy to see anything.”

“Overruled,” says Aphrodite.

“Answer the question,” Suijin says to AHM123 in a calm, but an intimidating voice.

“It’s all in here,” the panther girl taps with her finger on her temple. “I am second to none when it comes to observation and analysis. Anything more than that is classified information.”

“Very well. Can you tell us what happened on March 2?” Suijin asks.

“Of course! Ahem. ‘The Town’, and our Guild building, was attacked by several water dragons.”

“And what was the cause of this attack.”

“I have no idea.”

“… Pardon?” Suijin froze in place as if the temperature dropped to minus five billion degrees.

“I do not have the slightest idea why the water dragons attacked us,” AHM123 calmly repeated her statement.

“Permission to treat the witness as hostile?” Suijin asks Aphrodite.

“Permission granted—knock yourself out,” Aphrodite says, highly amused.

“Did you not see the defendant, Lilith, go out of the Adventurer’s Guild’s building and summon the water dragon that attacked ‘The Town’?”

“No, I did not see that,” the panther girl is adamant, despite Suijin’s rising voice and temper. “In fact, most of the dragons appeared while the girl was inside our building.”

“That’s because of the way her spell works!” Suijin shouts impotently at AHM123.

“Objection!” Naunet says barely holding back her smile. “Outside the witness’ scope of knowledge.”

“Sustained,” Aphrodite says, not bothering hiding her smile.

“This trial is complete horseshit,” I finally snap, grimacing at the realization of how ludicrous the whole thing is.

“Hush,” Naunet ‘shushes’ at me, holding a finger to her lips, but doesn’t deny my allegations.

Of course, she doesn’t! The whole thing is a farce! If they are gods (and everything I’ve seen so far suggests that they are) then they obviously know everything I did! I’m not going down in some weird, godly dick-measuring contest, slash, betting game!

“Isn’t it true” —Suijin continues questioning AHM123 loudly as watery veins bulge on his head made of water—"that the defendant, Lilith, trashed your Guild’s building and endangered everyone, killing thousands in 'The Town', some of which were members of your Guild, just to skip the line?”

“Objection!” Naunet says calmly. “Argumentative.”

“Sustained,” Aphrodite says.

“D-did the Lilith…” Suijin speaks, stumbling in his words while gritting his teeth, literally fuming from his ears in anger and clenching his fists, barely containing his rage. “Did the defendant, Lilith, benefit in any way in your Guild’s registration process from the chaos and destruction that was caused.”

“It hurt her more than it helped her,” AHM123 answers shrugs. “Both the registration and the membership fees were increased substantially to cover the damages that the Guild sustained. And due to the chaos, she was not even able to finish her registration for a quest. Though there were still more forms to fill out, not to mention the processing of the registration itself would take—"

“So what you’re saying is, that all those deaths that the defendant caused were meaningless?” Suijin interrupts AHM123 with a question.

“I did not see the defendant cause any deaths,” AHM123 answers calmly. “If anything, she seemed eager to rush out to deal with the horrible attack—"

“Unlike you, who simply ran away along with the rest of the Adventurer’s Guild?” Suijin jabs at the robotic panther girl.

“Objection!” Naunet speaks up. “The witness is not on trial here.”

“Sustained,” Aphrodite says through a yawn. She then turns to the golden pyramid on her right and adds, “The jurors will disregard that comment from the prosecution.”

Aphrodite then looks at Suijin and says, “And since it is obvious that the prosecution no longer has anything relevant to ask, the witness is excused.”

Suijin is visibly trembling in fury and changing colors to slight shades of red. He probably has to actively cool himself to not blow up like a water heater and disintegrate as steam in all directions.

AHM123 meanwhile simply pops her scalp open to the side again, grabs on to the metal rods that pop out along with the propellers and chuff-chuff-chuffs away. Why did she help me and screw with Suijin’s case? Was she payed-off by Naunet? Is it simply in the nature of the Adventurer’s Guild to be as big of dicks as possible? Perhaps we will never kn—

“The prosecution calls Dungeon-chan to the stand,” Suijin announces with conviction in a strong and firm tone. Looks like he managed to get it together. Unfortunately. Also, wait!

“Dungeon-chan?” I ask out loud in disbelief. Did I mishear? I look at Naunet. I gulp when even I can clearly see a genuine surprise in her expression. “What the hell is that even?”

My questions are answered when a crystal-clear water whirlpool manifests on the stand that is the top of the bronze pyramid, where all the other witnesses were summoned. The whirlpool lasts for only a couple of seconds. When it subsides, it reveals a petite girl standing on the platform at the top of the pyramid. She has a bob haircut in purple color. She wears a simple leather outfit befitting of a rogue, but is revealing enough to be enticing, yet covers enough to somehow be modest at the same time. The only jewelry she has is a simple silver bracelet on her left hand. Combined with the girl’s timid posture and expression as she looks around bewildered and confused, one thing is certain—this girl is trouble for me. Suijin’s devious smile confirms it.

“Can you please tell the jury who you are?” Suijin asks the girl calmly, almost kindly, which raises even more alarm bells.

“I-I suppose” —the girl stutters and looks around again, holding her hands close to her little chest—”My oro-original n-name… I-I mean... For so long, e-everyone’s been calling me… Dungeon-chan.”

“I understand,” Suijin says and nods his head. Then he gestures at me with his hand and asks the girl, “And what is your relationship with the defendant.”

“Ehip!” Dungeon-chan squeaks like a mouse when she sees me. Her eyes water. She swallows and, with a trembling voice finally musters an answer, “I-I-I… Was… I was… Abused by that monster!”

“BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” all the spectators ‘boo’, roar and jeer immediately and all at once, and with such intensity that the pyramids themselves tremble.

“Oh boy,” Naunet sighs.