abcnovels
Chapter 12
Chapter 12
Chapter 12: 4 Halls 1 Court
Translator: StarveCleric Editor: StarveCleric
All along, the options in the system’s quest page were in a gray and inactive state, thus I inferred that it would only be activated when the events in the game walkthrough begins.
I have been waiting for the main storyline to start for a long time but I didn’t expect it to offer me two choices at this point.
But after giving it some thought, it was something to be expected.
In this world named Eich, which was made of countless dimensions combined together, the species on it are innumerable.
This world and its greatest piece of land is named after its creator, Goddess Eich, but somehow, there are no traces of her in this world. It was said that due to exhaustion from creating this world, she fell into a state of eternal sleep. However, before she went to sleep, she left all the responsibilities for the world to her two daughters.
Goddess Astrya, the Guardian Goddess of Order and Daybreak, she created the High Elves, Metal Dragon tribes, Angels, Titans and similar Golden races.
Goddess Cynthia, the Dictator of Chaos and Night, she created Demons, Elemental Dragons, Yellow tribe (??(?)) Blood tribe, the Elemental tribes and other Sulfur races.
The two Goddesses represent the two main factions the Gods and countless other races belong to. The elder sister, Astrya, hopes for all races to be bathed under the warm sunlight and believes that each race should be attributed a certain role by the Gods and walk the path decided for them. She believes in hierarchy and her creations tend towards order and kindness.
As for Cynthia, she hopes that her creation could metamorphose through competition. As the creator, she tries not to interfere excessively and does not enforce her own rules upon her people.
For mortals, the difference in beliefs may only be a verbal argument but for the true gods who are the incarnation of those concepts, a clash in beliefs means questioning the meaning behind the other’s existence, thus both parties would naturally explode into a battle.
The two Goddesses, equally strong, fought each other to the point of exhaustion and went into a long rest. Their creations then continued their endless war for them. After the Golden tribes and Sulfur tribes went extinct due to war, the Moon Elves, representing the Silver tribe, and the fallen Giants, representing the Mercury tribe, continued their battle.
The war has never stopped ever since its inception.
When the Order managed to suppress the Chaos, the onset of a relatively stable Order era starts. On the other hand, if the Chaos managed to claim superiority, an orderless and chaotic era begins. A change in era represents the rise and fall of countless races.
In current times, it is the Iron era belonging to the Order faction, otherwise known as the Age of the Mortals. The previous dominant species, the Great Demons of the chaotic faction gave up their positions and passed the baton to the current dominant species, the Humans of the Iron tribe.
TL: Just to clarify, Great Demons and Demons are different beings.
Order and Chaos fighting and taking over each other’s position have always been the main movement of the Eich continent. My Codex of Law, being recognized by the Origin of Order, has become a part of it as well. Thus, many other Holy Knights who belong to the same Order faction have come forward to learn it.
From my view, there is nothing incredible about it. Within Order exists Chaos and even for the leading races of the Chaos faction, the Devils and Undead, the strict power hierarchy and the superior and underling relationship, isn’t it also a special kind of Order?
In my eyes, it is about which side you choose. It is a simple question of deciding whether you want to mingle with the Gods of Order or the Gods or Chaos.
If I choose to allow Ann to inaugurate as the new City Lord, I would have to take on the role of a senior and a teacher. Then, as planned, I would gain a new physical body and start again from scratch. Such a decision is sided towards the Order faction.
TL: Meaning, if he chooses this decision, he would become a part of the Order Faction.
After all, living humans are the backbones of the Order faction no matter how you look at it.
On the other hand, if I were to choose to become the City Lord myself, the system would restore my powers back to the moment when I was at my peak. However, a SemiGod Lich, no matter how you look at it, is a King of the Undead, a leader of the Chaos faction.
This may look like a normal choosing process, but it is an important choice that would determine the road I walk on from now.
“Hey, what is there to hesitate about. Walking on a road that I walked on before? I choose... Epic mission, Revival of the Phoenix. I want to come back to life!”
That’s right, my previous experiences have proven that simply brute power won’t resolve the problem. The bunch of idiots in the Chaos faction lack order and live as they please. The internal conflicts would never end as long as they live and they are destined to never accomplish great things. If so, why would I still commit the same mistakes. Besides, without a proper body, a Lich can only reach the level of a SemiGod.
Yup, yup, it definitely isn’t because undead can’t taste delicious food, can’t date, can’t enjoy the pleasures of the physical body. I don’t want to be an undead!
“Fine, let Ann become the City Lord, I will give her a hand. Right, her full name is Annie, right? I thought you called her Ann in the past?”
“Ann is, after all, just a nickname. Furthermore, it could be used for both sexes. Margaret helped to come up with it. Actually, I have always thought that Annie.Han had a nice ring to it but somehow she ended up with Margaret’s surname.”
“Annie.Layde huh?”
Somehow, I felt that this name was somehow familiar.
“Da!” With a snap of a finger, a large book with black cover opens and the pages flip continuously until it finally stops on a colorful page.
That is a picture of a mature woman with a heroic aura looking at the distant with a sword in her hands. Her entire body screams of fiery red. Her scarlet battle robe has an embroidery of a phoenix on it and her vermilion sword generates a field of inferno. It was obvious that it was the Blessing of the Phoenix that belongs to the idiot in front of me.
“The Fire Phoenix of the East, Annie.Layde. The Great Commander of the Alliance against Demons on the East defense line. The hero who personally killed the Dark Warrior Emperor Roland.Mist.”
You teacher and student must have a grudge against me! How deep is your hatred!
The student is going to kill me in the future despite me going through so much just to change the future. Furthermore, the father had already killed me once! Am I really going to get chopped the Blessing of the Phoenix once again?
Killing me once wasn’t enough and just when I finally changed the future, I am going to be killed once more?
No wonder, I thought it was weird how Ann was my nemesis. So, the one which fate chose to get rid of me is you rascal!
“Don’t dream of it! You bunch of bastards, get out! Incantation of Law: Expel!”
Unable to suppress the howling in my heart, I used all my power in the spell.
After the sacred light of Order scatters, somehow, the SemiGod Adam got ejected out of the room, confused.
“Pah!”
He lands heavily on his butt. Immediately afterwards, a book strikes him squarely on his face.
The words on the book have been translated and Adam, who had received secret martial arts manual from Roland in the past, reads out slowly.
“Sunflower Bible? What is this. ‘To practice this sacred art, direct your knife to castrate’?”
(Refer to chp 3)
“Go and learn this, I think it is suitable for a ball-less person like you!”
———–
It isn’t the first time that the lad got me angry. He is probably used to getting thrown out. After rubbing his bottom, he walks away.
After he leaves, I fall into a state of confusion. What is fate? Just what kind of a life did he plan out for me? Am I really destined to become a Demon King from birth, and furthermore, a Demon King with a tendency for suicide? After grooming Adam into a hero who killed me, do I have to groom another hero who ‘used’ to kill me?
“If I didn’t come here, Annie wouldn’t have met Adam and thus, wouldn’t receive Adam’s inheritance, the Blessing of the Phoenix. So, I am the reason for their meeting? Is the crusade against me long decided? Or, am I fated to be hunted down by the wielder of the Blessing of the Phoenix, whether it is Adam or Annie.”
A pity that my study of the patterns of cause and effects are a mess and I didn’t even try to learn divination. But then, such a deep philosophical question of cause and effect, it would be weird if I can make sense out of it.
“Forget it, I will stop thinking about it. Since I have already decided on my goal, so let me think about it after finishing my quest.”
Since this problem can’t be resolved by thinking, then I shan’t think about it. This has always been one of my strong points. The most important thing now is to finish my current quest and come back to life!
Thus, after thinking over it for a moment, I press the bell on my table.
“Call the head of the 4 Halls to come to meet me.”
Initially, I created the court to judge sinners and earn myself those Evil Points. Wouldn’t I be abandoning to primary objective if I were to tire myself over this?
Thus, I built an organization whose system and mechanism allows it to be self-sufficient, thus, allowing me to spare the effort sustaining it on other pursuits.
Sulfur Mountain City’s judicial system was created by me personally. Following the other world’s model of splitting up the authority of the judicial system using the principles of checks and balances, I divided the judicial system into 4 independent blocs.
Firstly, it would be the Supreme Court, the dominant bloc of the judicial system. I am the head of this bloc, giving me the power to approve the passing of new laws and the final say in the judging of criminals, effectively making me the big boss of the entire judicial system.
The 4 subsidiaries under the Supreme Court are the organs and backbone of the entire judicial system.
The Hall of Enforcement, responsible for the enforcement of criminals and maintaining order. Yup, it plays the role of the villain, maintaining discipline through patrols, managing those street peddlers and such, all of the troublesome jobs are under them.
As for the Town Order Security Army, shortened as Town Security, it is one of their subsidiaries. Different from the security team in the other world whose main targets are street peddlers, the Dark Elf Knights goes at all sort of criminals, making their jobs similar to the responsibilities of a police.
Their head would be the tall and buff masked man in front of me — Tauren Xueti.Edta.
Yes, it is that perverted Tauren Xieti who likes to go nude running...
Name: Xueti.Edta/ Race:Tauren
Job:LV60Warrior/ LV20Justice Knight/ LV7Guard of Order (Total LV87, Fighting Power Evaluation: Legend, 2nd Job Advanced Great Warrior)
Title: Guardian of Steel
Fortunately, perhaps it is to imitate the silver-masked Wumianzhe, in order to show that they have given up individualism to deliver the law impartially, my judicial team have all decided to wear masks. Otherwise, I really don’t know how to face this ‘despite being the head of the Hall of Enforcement, but lands in jail for soiling social values’ underling of mine.
Luckily... Every time he goes to enjoy his ‘hobby’, he consciously tries to hide his identity. Even when he is surrounded and bashed up by the Town Security due to nude running, even when he is thrown into the dark prison, he never used his Power of Law and expose his identity as a law enforcer.
The second subsidiary would be the rarely seen Hall of Law.
Hall of Law, they are a department that specially analyses the law and the legislation, but at the same time, they are the location for job advancement for Law Incantationer, Justice Knights and Judgementor. The minimum requirement for job advancement into a law job is at least a gold rank. Although it is not well-known to outsider, this hall is actually the strongest among the 4.
But these strong people serve as the rookie judges that are mainly responsible for the primary hearing. Through encountering more cases and judging them, they are refining their understanding towards the Power of Law.
Under my system, only those who earned the recognition of the Origin of Codex and succeeded in their job advancement to become a part of the judiciary can have the authority to judge others individually. Thus, not many people know that even the weakest of those seemingly gentle scholars are at least a gold-rank.
Their leader is an old scholar who is on the verge of sleeping in front me, the High Elf Kale.Diya, one of the politicians in the country of Huanfa, he is also the strongest Mage in Sulfur Mountain City other than the Great Saint.
TL: Huanfa means circular magic
Name: Kale.Diya/ Race: High Elf
Job: LV60 Mage/ LV30 Guardian of Knowledge/ LV10 Guardian of Law/ LV5 Law Incantationer (Total LV115, Fighting Power Evaluation: Worldly Saint, 3rd Job Advanced Mage)
Hall of Legislation, its name may seem awe-inspiring but once the role of writing new laws and governing it is thrown to the other departments, what it needs to do is mainly doing logistics and help keep the subordinates of other departments in check. For example, for a meeting for the approval of a new law, it would gather the other departments together and help to gather the proposals for the law and such.
As a logistics department, the Hall of Legislation doesn’t need much strong people. What it needs is the flexibility and attentiveness in getting things done. Thus, a large portion of its members are rookies in probation or female law enforcers who are unwilling to get on the front lines.
Their head — Lilith.Milan... Yes, that Frenzied Wild Lily, the Moving Obscenity...
I can’t help but feel glad repeatedly that our judicial team have to put on mask and give up their individuality otherwise I really don’t know how to face these two comrades of mine in the Gentlemen Alliance and the endless despise from the citizens.
I even questioned myself countless time where exactly did things go wrong for these two perverts to climb up to become the top brass of the judicial system...
Alright, let’s not talk about these depressing matters.
Last but not least, the Hall of Judgement. It might sound very mighty but when the responsibility for the primary hearing is left to the Hall of Law and the final verdict is dependent on the Supreme Court, what is left is probably all kinds of appeals. Once the Town Security finds someone they are unable to deal with, that is when they strike.
Responding to complaints, defending the defendant, finding the true culprit and capturing the criminal are part of their job scope. This is the kind of troublesome job that gets on people’s nerves, and somehow their nerves are especially easy to get on. So, the hall is also known as the Hall of Quarreling and Hall of Fighting.
One thing worth mentioning is that the Sulfur Mountain City’s prison is under their jurisdiction and before the Town Security was built up, they are the only fighting power of the judicial system on the surface and of course... If we were to measure their internal battle power, they can be safely said to be the second from the back, just slightly stronger than the Hall of Legislation which is in charge of logistics.
Their head, Kelvin, is an ideal role model for Holy Knights. Middle-class power, a stable personality and average looks. What is unique about him is how ordinary he is, his strength is how ordinary he is, and his weakness is still how ordinary he is, but in the judicial system’s top brass, he is the rare to come by normal person...
I don’t know why, at this point, sadness seems to well up... Why don’t I have more normal people in the midst of my judicial system, why do I have so much perverts! Is it because I am a pervert myself?!
Cough cough, back to the topic...
This 4 Halls and 1 Court became the outline of the entire Sulfur Mountain City’s judicial system. It also serves as the cornerstone to its stability. Once everything is put in place, what I have to do every day is to go to court and earn some points.
Since, I have decided to help Annie to become the next City Lord and stabilize her position, then the 4 Halls and 1 Court under my possession must start moving.
“The reason why I gathered you all today is to prepare for the future.”