Death, Devotion, Dissonance

But even with the chairman taking on the friendliest attitude available, the Countess' stance was firm.

"There is nothing to misunderstand. I've heard what the spectators saw, and it's clear to me that there was an attempt on Decatur's life. As you know, an attempt at a noble's life has quite the severe retributions," the woman said slowly, "In fact, putting the boy in prison could only be considered a slap on the wrist."

"You insist in that narrative, but the vice-chair, as the one who was closest to the incident, explains that it was all an accident. The boy also seemed quite shocked by the outcome, isn't that right?" the chairman said, nodding towards Evin.

"It is so. I was only trying to create a bigger fire, I didn't think… it would create something like that," Evin replied as the voice instructed him to beforehand. "Since I couldn't match your son's fire in its longevity, I thought I should gather all the Fire energy in one place and light it afire all at once."

Evin once again found himself in that state of calmness and alertness… the same eerie tranquility in his heart he felt when he was sharing the stage with Decatur.

Although he was a panicking mess of emotions a few minutes ago, before he even knew it, he found himself in a different state of mind. He had so much more to think about the sights and sounds around him. He knew so many things he hadn't heard of before. Even the words he used seemed foreign to him.

And every time he fell into these sparks of wisdom, time seemed to slow down just for him, so he could take his time and properly conclude his thoughts.

"No! I saw your face before you set that spell free. You were smiling sinisterly at me while you did it!" Decatur offered his view of the situation.

But it seemed to Evin that the Countess really didn't like her son talking all that much. She sent another death-glare to the boy and the latter immediately went silent after a moment. But it didn't seem like it was just that. From what Evin could tell, the Countess looked slightly embarrassed by her son's behavior. She looked quite similar to how his dad looked whenever a guest or a customer brought up Evin's supposed insanity near him.

'Or maybe she just doesn't like the way he acts?' Evin concluded leisurely.

<Just deny it. Tell them you were too busy holding all that energy in one place to be smiling sinisterly. Try to say it matter-of-factly.>

"I was not smiling in any part of the process. My head was full with trying to keep the spell together."

"I can confirm this statement," the vice-chair added, "Before the explosion was ignited, Evin was barely keeping himself standing. As far as I was aware, he was on the verge of Mana exhaustion."

"Of course. He was too tired. That must be why he walked behind you right before he let loose a shot at my son," the Countess stated, "Doesn't really sound like the symptoms of a boy on the verge of collapse now, does it?"

"What do you have to say about that?" the chairman asked Evin with a smile.

Evin understood that the question was directed towards him, but he couldn't help but focus on the falseness he found on the man's smile. The smile was inviting and easy on the eyes, and perhaps it might've even fooled Evin if he wasn't in this highly alert state of mind. In fact, Evin was sure it would've fooled him. But today, Evin could see very clearly how much the chairman tried to make this smile look natural.

He could see the man's pupils shivering ever so slightly with his smile. Him hiding his bottom teeth so the smile didn't look over-exaggerated, and an array of wrinkles appearing on the man's forehead and cheeks. All crystal clear signs of a genuine smile in display.

But what gave it away was the consistency of it all. Every time the man smiled, the same process occurred: his lips formed a smile, then came the eyes and then came the muscles. All happening with the same rhythm as before.

Again, Evin didn't know how he knew these things.

"Evin?" the chairman asked with a concerned tone, noticing that the boy seemed quite dazed.

"Oh?" Evin snapped awake.

<Say you don't know why you did that,> the voice urged.

"I… I actually don't know why I did that."

"You mean to say that you don't know why you walked behind the vice-chair?" the chairman asked.

<Tell them you don't really remember things that well.>

The highly alert and intelligent Evin noticed that saying this would be like offering the countess a chance to rip him to shreds, but when he thought deeper about the answer, Evin started to see how this answer could solve the problem once and for all.

"Yes… Maybe I was just trying to stay away from a potential fire?" Evin murmured, "I don't really remember things that well."

Like Evin expected, the countess immediately smelled the weakness in Evin's statement and she didn't hesitate to attack Evin.

"Quite a weak argument, is it not? You just happened to create an explosion randomly, you just happened to not know what you were actually doing, and you just happened to evade the worst of it without really knowing what you were doing in actuality. All in the presence of the local county's heir," the Countess said and laughed mockingly. "I find it laughable that such a sloppy job actually came so close to succeeding, when I compare to all the assassinations I had to defend my sons from."

The words' implications were clear. This wasn't the first time the woman was facing a situation like this, so she was quite well-versed with how these things went. Evin found it a bit hard to believe, but it was definitely a good explanation to why he was being questioned in a trial of some sorts because of a random duel.

"Madam Alix, please don't jump to conclusions," the Chairman smiled. "There are many explanations for Evin's suspicious actions. Just to name two, his instincts could've guided him at the time, or he knew what was going to happen deep inside and subconsciously avoided the worst of it."

The chairman's defense sounded somewhat wrong to Evin, and the Countess agreed as well.

"That only serves to prove my point further, no?"

"No-no. There's a difference between doing things with intention behind it and doing things subconsciously. In the first case, you know things because you've learned about them beforehand, but in the second case, you know things because… you just know them. You don't know when, or how you learned of these things before, but you definitely know it," the chairman struggled to articulate his thoughts.

"Like how one can inherently tell the difference between good and bad," the Vice-chair added.

"Yes! Just like that!" the Chairman flashed his fake smile once again. "Let's say that a newly born child was left inside a jungle. And let's also suppose this child somehow survives to become old enough. And let's suppose that eventually, the child would grow up to be a man and reenter society," the Chairman was narrating before he was cut off by the Countess.

"Stop going on unrelated tangents, please."

"No-no. This is very relevant to our case here," the Chairman reassured and went back to the story, "So, the man reunites with society, not really knowing what society is in the first place. And, if you murder someone in front of that man, he'll for sure think that there's something wrong with what they just saw. Without even knowing the implications of what occurred in front of him, the man will feel fear, confusion, and perhaps even go into shock."

"Still, how is this related to the case here, again?" the Countess sounded unimpressed.

"What I'm trying to say, is that people are born knowing certain things. This is especially prevalent with children with mana-cores, awakened or not. You must've felt the same as well, as you've raised two mages already."

The words seemed to resonate with the woman as she looked towards her son with a thoughtful expression. She then glanced towards the smiling Chairman and allowed herself a slight smirk.

"You also mentioned something about the boy doing this instinctively. Are you going to tell me that's also something unique to mages?"

"Of course. If I send a punch towards a normal person and a mage, more often than not, the mage would be the one to dodge. It's actually quite interesting when you see it happen in reality," the Chairman laughed.

Evin felt panic rising in his chest, hearing these ridiculous defenses the Chairman was making for him.

The Countess stared at Evin… and Evin found a trace of pity appearing in her eyes. Then, she stared at the small, insignificant-looking middle-aged man and her smirk turned ice cold in a second.

"You have no intention to take this seriously, do you?"

"What might you mean?" the Chairman smiled back.

The Countess sighed softly and pushed herself off the couch.

"I came here, trying to find the mastermind behind an assassination… but now I must leave this place, feeling sorry for the assassin. Odd how that works…"

"Mother?" Decatur asked, confused by the events. "Their defense makes no sense! Arrest this boy!"

"Indeed, two completely meaningless responses," the Countess murmured. "I'm sure the Chairman, praised for his wisdom and cleverness, realizes that as well..."

"Then-"

"Since he's acting like this, it means he's not planning to take this affair seriously at all," the Countess said. "It's a statement, you see? Even if we try our best to take things seriously, he'll just make a joke out of it... Well, you'll spend your evenings pondering on why things turned out this way and why I decided to give up. Now, we head home."

'This is turning into a lecture,' Evin thought with a sigh. 

"But he tried to kill me!" Decatur bellowed. "He smiled as he did it, and I'm sure he killed many others before me too! Have you heard of what his neighbors say about him?"

"Don't exaggerate events like this, Decatur. It's unsightly… and unbecoming of a noble. And the more I see things, the less guilty the boy looks," the Countess sighed. "Since my head's clearup up slightly, I can start seeing the holes in your story. Have you paid those… "witnesses" of yours to cook up a nice little story for yourself?"

"No, of course not!" Decatur denied, but the Countess was having none of it.

"Cut the crap. I'll talk to them and teach you again that money does not overpower authority."