I Level Up Dragons with My Evolution System-Chapter 92: Evidence against him

Edward sighed. "It was difficult. But you, principal, are not ignorant like the one who brought this accusation against me," he said.

His words were met with fury by three men in the distance. "Bastard, who are you calling ignorant?! You are a criminal murderer!"

General Lawyer, Instructor Kael, and an unknown face covered by a dark blanket.

"They are the ones who presented all the evidence," said the principal. Since he was the accused, he should know who his accusers were. "General Lawyer and Instructor Kael were the ones who initially suspected. Finally, the Silver Oracle."

’Silver Oracle? A fortune teller?’ Edward frowned. ’No, it must be some kind of information mage.’

Edward looked away from them. He didn’t understand what Kael was doing there, but he suspected it had something to do with the magic that had struck him that day during training, so he didn’t give it much thought.

"I don’t believe you are as ignorant as those who brought this accusation." Edward said it again, this time with more confidence. "You know all the missions we have completed in such a short time and everything we discovered on our first mission. You, principal, know better than anyone about our capabilities as a group. Do you still find it far-fetched that we survived that?"

"Nonsense, you bastard!" Lawyer roared from afar and stood up to pound the table. "I personally fought those undead, killed several Death Knights, and none of them were as strong as those from the Cursed Lands!"

The Silver Oracle at his side also scoffed. "Who the hell would believe that nonsense, knowing that the undead and silver don’t mix? What would such intelligent undead be doing in a silver mine? You’re taking us for fools."

"Besides, what about the fact that you forced Lander to go on that first mission when he clearly didn’t want to? You sent him to the front lines as bait, that’s vicious!" Kael roared afterwards.

Edward was shocked and didn’t know who to look at among them all. He heard so much nonsense in one moment that even finding an answer was difficult.

He only knew that his system wasn’t going to lie; those guys were from a Cursed Land. Still, he stared at Kael.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "When did I force Lander to do something like that?"

"You clearly forced my son to go on that mission! My little boy was so scared, he came to me and didn’t want to do it, but since you had him under threat, he had to do it to avoid affecting us!" Mrs. Konan shouted.

"You sent our Lander as bait on the first mission, what makes we think you didn’t do the same on this one?!" Gunter couldn’t help shouting either, tears welling up in his eyes as he remembered his son...

Edward was speechless.

"That’s a load of nonsense..." He spoke, almost losing his composure.

"Silence." The principal slammed his fist on the table and signaled to the soldiers next to Edward to gag him again. "In our kingdom, there is a clear law that says: Anyone suspected of being a criminal is guilty until proven innocent. And we don’t have time to deal with criminals."

"We are a distinguished and prestigious academy; we are the strongest Provincial Academy in the kingdom! We have no time to play around with the nonsense of a criminal. Therefore, you will be tried before your accusers and must present your evidence in your defense tomorrow. If your innocence is proven, you will be released. If your guilt is proven, you will be sentenced to severe punishment." The director gave his verdict, banging his gavel on the table.

Immediately, Edward was pushed out of the room by soldiers who showed him no mercy, throwing him into the academy’s dungeons with no chance of escape or saying anything.

Edward was completely speechless.

Was this really the distinguished Provincial Academy, which he had heard so much about? It was always said that the justice of the Provincial Academy was even better than that of the Castle of Laws in the Capital. Where did that shitty justice go?

They didn’t even let him speak beyond what the accusers wanted to hear!

Suddenly, a few words echoed in his ears and in his mind: The wounded have feelings, but they also have flesh and weight...

Those words of Aurora make sense now. They referred to the fact that the Academy or the military should not have time to deal with anything other than their strength, progress, and the defense of the kingdom.

Time to save someone? That didn’t make sense, unless it was a mission. The mission objectives required you to give your life to save them, perhaps because they were the ones paying for it. But what about your friend? Who would pay for him? Many of the students are useless and only take resources away from the more talented ones; it’s not worth saving them.

The same rule applies in justice.

The justice system at the Provincial Academy is better because it looks after resources, above and beyond the accused. In a world of scarce and increasingly necessary resources, it is necessary to take care of those resources.

It is necessary to avoid wasting time. It is necessary not to spend hours on meaningless trials and situations that are resolved in 10 sessions, when you can simply blame the accused or blame the accuser in 1 session.

Who cares if it was right or wrong? When you are strong, none of that matters.

And the problem is that the accusers are stronger than Edward...

’What a shitty world...’ He clenched his fists.

Just then, the sound of heels echoed in the dungeon and someone threw a document into his cell.

"That’s all you’re accused of," said the man.

Edward looked up in shock and stared at the man’s face. "Elder Owen." 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"Read it and tell me," he said.

Edward grabbed the document and read it in the dim light... Then he shook his head.

"Elder Owen, you can ask Arnold, Aurora, or all the miners about what was happening when Lander died. I was on the ground, in pain from internal injuries, and Arnold had to move to save me from a terrifying attack, which was what injured Arnold so badly."

"At that moment, we let our guard down, and when we looked up, Lander was burning."

Owen stared at him and grabbed the document Edward was handing back to him. "Was his whole body burned?"

"No. Just his head."

"Your words match Arnold and Aurora’s perfectly," Owen said. "And also those of one miner."

Edward frowned. "One?"

"Ninety miners were saved, 89 claimed you killed him. One said exactly what you said." Owen sneered. "Who should we believe?"