Jared lifted his head slightly, eyes red, the binds creaking as he moved. For a second, I thought he was going to stay silent, then, with a voice that sounded scraped raw, he spoke.
"...I admit it, I was pretending to be an NPC," he said.
This was the only time that the room was completely silent.
"I disguised myself," he inhaled and continued, "To make them lower their guard. To get close enough."
The crowd shifted uncomfortably, a few people muttering, others gasping.
That alone was enough to break the room’s balance. Olga’s testimony that the NPC was fake and attacked everyone got validated. I turned toward Olga, and she was just standing there with pride in her eyes, possibly very happy that her name got cleared somewhat.
The six ex-Destiny members that sat facing her, though... they looked pale. I caught one of them mouthing something under his breath, while another clenched his jaw, staring daggers at the floor.
"Why?" A juror near the center raised her hand. "Why would you do that?"
Jared’s mouth trembled. He looked at his hands... And laughed.
"I was hired," he said. "A member of this guild... someone I’ve known since the PC version... offered me a deal. A thousand gold upfront, and another thousand for each person I killed. So, naturally, ten thousand if I wiped them all out."
The room exploded in noise.
People shouting, gasping, pounding the tables. Someone cursed out loud, and Pearl had to raise his voice to calm them down, a few table got so agitated they started saying words not repeatable when that was revealed.
And me? I just stared at Jared, unable to help the frown twisting my face. Something wasn’t adding up... This motherfucker was lying.
"Wait," I said, standing up from the bar and stepping forward a little, approaching him from behind. "That’s not what you told us yesterday."
The noise died down a bit.
Hailie blinked at me.
"What do you mean?" she asked quietly.
I turned to her, then back at the crowd, announcing loud and clear.
"Yesterday, when Olga and I questioned him in the cellar, he said something completely different. He told us that his friend was, specifically, ex-Destiny, yet he didn’t mention this now. And that supposed person hired him to target Olga specifically. The rest of the group was supposed to attack her after he did."
All eyes turned back to Jared.
He didn’t answer, just lowering his head again, letting hair falling over his face.
Olga crossed her arms and nodded.
"It’s true," she said flatly. "He said all that yesterday."
"That means," Pearl stepped closer to the middle, "his testimony is inconsistent. By principle, it can’t be trusted."
Before I could even breathe, one of the jurors stood up abruptly, followed by five others spread across the room, after stumbling each other’s words, wanting to question something, they looked at each other for a bit, before the one in front—a tall woman in chainmail—spoke for them.
"So you, CJS69, claimed that yesterday, during the supposedly private interrogation, Jared told you that everyone in the dungeon would attack Olga once he made his move, correct?"
I nodded, and Olga nodded.
"..." The juror’s eyes narrowed. "Does that include Hailie?"
It took me a second to realize what she was implying, and she added:
"Isn’t Hailie supposedly a third party that was involved in the party but not on either side, though she had a testimony that accused ErikDop of attacking her?"
"What?" I said, the word half a laugh, half disbelief. "No, she... no way!"
"Ah?!" Hailie shook her head with haste beside me, waving her hands frantically, "I wasn’t part of it! I didn’t even know what was happening!"
"Then which story should we trust?" The juror woman added.
"Wait, I uh... That’s not-" I tried to speak again, but Jared lifted his head slightly. ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs, ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ᴠɪsɪᴛ 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝•𝖿𝗂𝗋𝖾•𝘯𝘦𝘵
"Jared?" Pearl asked him, "
"I don’t know," he muttered. "I was just told to kill everyone, I didn’t say anything like that yesterday..."
Hailie froze, Olga let out a scoff of disgust.
"Tch," she frowned with a balled fist, "This proves his story’s useless. But it also proves he was trying to kill us, I was right to decapitate him in that cave."
I could feel the tension twist in the air like wire.
"Let him speak!" Then another voice called out
"We want to hear more!" A juror spoke.
"What?" Olga frowned. "You heard him. He’s already contradicting..."
Yet even more voices joined in.
"Maybe they’re the ones lying!"
"Yeah, what if you’re silencing him?"
"You could be the one lying, Olga!"
"Yeah, let him finish before we can decide which story is to be believed!"
Even the six ex-Destiny players started nodding, whispering among themselves.
Pearl hesitated, but then raised a hand.
"...We’ll let him continue," he said finally.
Olga sighed and rubbed her forehead.
I stayed silent, though something about it all made my skin crawl... There was a sickly weight in my gut, the kind that tells me shit was going to hit the fan, I just have this weird... Sensation on my shoulders.
Misinformation was poison, seed of doubt, and we were letting it flow right back in, because of god-damn democracy.
Still, Jared looked at the crowd again. He took a slow, shaking breath.
"I stand by what I said," he spoke. "A friend from New Destiny hired me to attack everyone in that dungeon, and that’s the truth."
"Who?" a juror demanded from the back. "Who hired you? Just give us a name! They must be ex-Omnitetris then because that’s literally seven out of nine people there!"
The question froze him solid.
His shoulders tensed, his hands clenched, you could almost see the fear crawl up his spine.
Pearl started to say something, but Mei interrupted, her voice gentle but commanding, as if she had picked up on Jared’s emotional cues.
"Jared," she said, "Would you like protection? We can have the support players cast shielding spells so you feel safe."
"..." He looked up at her slowly, eyes glimmering with something between terror and relief before a whisper came, "...Yes,"
"You heard me people!" She cup both hands over her mouth to make a fake megaphone, "Shield him!"
A few people from the crowd stood, murmuring incantations under their breath. One by one, shimmering barriers began stacking around him, translucent domes of pale blue light overlapping, a dozen of them forming like glass around a frightened man.
When they were done, Jared’s trembling seemed to calm.
"The person that ordered me to kill everyone in that dungeon..." He took another breath. "It was..."
A thunderous crack tore through the mountain.
The entire tavern shook, bottles rattling off the shelves, and the doorway to the New Destiny hideout bursted open.
The shockwave hit before I could even react, glass shattering, wooden beams splintering into the air. Someone screamed, then another.
Flames licked through the opening, smoke pouring in like a living thing.
A chain of explosions followed, more roaring doom echoed throughout.
Someone shouted something about running, attacking, but it was drowned out by the roar of collapsing timber and the shriek of panic.
"WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!"