Chapter 257
Adelaide found herself standing in darkness.
She was not bound in any way, and her body was free to move, but a blinding white light glimmered far above her. Everything else around her was enveloped in darkness, and she could not even tell if a wall was right before her or an unending abyss stretched ahead.
Adelaide’s last memory was of that fearsome dragonian grabbing her by the neck and lifting her up. That was all she could recall, and there was not a shred of memory left in her mind of how she had pleaded for her life desperately.
As Adelaide contemplated her current situation, wondering if she was caught in an illusion or something else, a piercing screech resounded and sent shivers down her spine.
Suddenly, she sensed countless breaths in the darkness around her. These huge, sacred, and peerless superior beings were indubitably in this very place with her. They were existences so far removed from the petty bounds of social status and even the ranks of all living things.
「The trial shall begin.」
The voice was deep and imposing, like the grinding of huge boulders against each other, as it echoed into the darkness. A single word from it seemed capable of crushing Adelaide lifeless. The voice seemed to jostle against the darkness, pushing it aside to expose seats aligned on steps like a staircase surrounding her. On these seats were countless strange and amorphous shapes perched on them.
Someone like Adelaide, an extremist of pure human supremacy, would not even be allowed to raise her eyebrows at these odd shapes. These existences that surrounded her and gazed down upon her were supernatural beings that ordinary folks would never be allowed to witness; they were feared and revered as gods.
Adelaide was trembling as though she had a fever, her mind surging with confusion about how she had ended up in such a place. Before her, a man with a hulking build sat solemnly. The lower half of his face was covered in a glossy black beard.
「Adelaide Verginten, thou hast fallen into the underworld. Shall thou be returned to the mortal world as thou art, or bestowed with death in the afterlife? I, Enma, hereby summon thee to the court to be judged.」
Enma! One of the three noble gods of the underworld, the great god who judged the virtues and sins of the dead before determining their fates in the afterlife. Adelaide knew that she had been cast into the underworld despite being alive.
Adelaide tried to scream; she tried to proclaim that she was not dead yet and plead for a chance to return to earth. However, she soon realized that she could no longer make a sound even if her mouth was moving. Without Enma’s permission, she was not allowed to speak.
After Enma’s declaration, Adelaide noticed the countless gods seated in the courtroom. The thought of those gods delivering judgment on her stirred a violent urge within her to vanish from this spot.
Enma fixed his steely gaze on Adelaide and then looked behind her. The gods around them followed suit, focusing their eyes on something behind Adelaide, and Adelaide did the same.
Adelaide was taken aback by the familiar faces among the attendees of the third courtroom situated behind Adelaide and the rest of the gods. Her maternal grandparents, her elderly relatives, and a childhood friend who had died from a fever at a young age were present behind her; all of them were individuals who had lost their lives before Adelaide had and departed for the underworld.
But these people were not the only ones behind Adelaide. There were many others glaring at her with dark, murky, and furious eyes. The hatred and murderous intent in their gazes terrified Adelaide to the bone, almost eliciting a scream from her. Yet, she merely flinched violently under their stares.
「Adelaide, this crowd shall state thy sins and thy merits. Thy fate shall be determined by their testimony, as thou hast fallen into the underworld as a living soul. Until judgment has been passed, thou shalt remain silent in thy place, open thine eyes, and wait.」
As Adelaide remained shaking uncontrollably, those who had died before her parted their lips one after another. At times, they would gesture to the gods present in the courtroom as they spoke of Adelaide’s sins and merits.
Yet, Adelaide heard not a word they said. That was probably because she had no need to do so.
Adelaide’s grandparents, who had once embraced her tenderly as a young girl; her childhood friend who had played hide-and-seek and tag with her, as well as laughed with her; and her relatives who had praised her for her beauty and her bright future as a resplendent lady were her only hope.
More strikingly, Adelaide could not take her eyes off those who were stating her sins.
Was that the maid who had been flogged and died from a fever caused by her wounds because Adelaide was annoyed by her attitude?
Were those men from a foreign race who had been made to kill each other when she promised to save their families who had been taken hostage?
Were those the third-class demi-humans who had died in droves from overwork and malnutrition after being forced to continue working on the plantations because she had declared that livestock like them need not rest?
That’s, that’s, that’s, that’s… The faces of those whom Adelaide had stolen the lives of and the innumerable deeds she had done to them now made her heart tremble with fear.
How many sins had been mentioned?
How many merits had been mentioned?
The accusations of the witnesses which seemed to go on and on finally ended in silence, and the gods turned their gazes back to Adelaide.
A light shone down on Adelaide from the heavens, though all she wanted to do was disappear. She was afraid of divine judgment, a particularly rare situation in the underworld.
How could they even believe that she had not sinned? The thought of being judged for the sins she had committed made Adelaide shudder as fear consumed her from the depths of her heart. She wanted to lose her wits and go insane.
In no time, the gods in the courtroom began voicing their opinions on Adelaide’s sentence one after another.
「Adelaide’s heart is heavier than a feather. The scales has titled toward sin. She is a sinner.」
「Cast Adelaide’s soul into the river. If she sinks, her soul will be deemed as guilty. If she floats, then her soul bears no punishable sins.」
「There are more clay discs indicating her sins than her merits. The balance between sin and merit has been shattered. As a sinner, she must be sentenced with a deserving punishment. There is no reason to return her to earth without any punishment.」
The voices of the gods resounded like a chorus, and each time they spoke, Adelaide’s soul continued to tremble with fear. She even wished she could be eliminated instantly instead of suffering this imposing terror. Eventually, Enma looked up from the ladle in his hand and straight at Adelaide’s face.
This very god with the authority and duty as the presiding god passing judgment over the dead began stating sternly.
「Adelaide, as a living soul, thou art in no position to be judged by the underworld. However, in this trail, I sentence thee according to the sins thou hast committed in thy life thus far. From this moment forth, thou shalt be forbidden to die or lose your sanity, and thou shalt be condemned every instance you enter sleep until the end the end of thy natural life. The punishment that thou shalt receive will be equivalent to that of those in the Avici hell, the hell of those who kill, steal, commit adultery, indulge in liquor, speak lies and evil, toy with insidious thoughts, taint the holy precepts, commit patricide, and slaughter saints.
However, the duration of thy punishment shalt last for one subjective day during each instance of sleep once you arrive in Avici. When thou hast reached the end of thy life, a new trial shalt commence. This is the judgment thou shalt receive during thy life. Once thy soul returns to thy body, any further sins committed shall increase the severity of thy punishment, while merits accumulated will reduce thy condemnation. Be mindful of this. This judgment has been passed in accordance to thy past deeds. Thy actions from this moment forth shall continue to bear weight.」
Adelaide was clueless as to the treatment awaiting her in Avichi, but she had no doubt that the pain and horror would be beyond her imagination.
She was still forbidden from speaking, but she was dying to yell out loud that she had done nothing wrong. She had only behaved in a manner befitting a noble of the Romal Empire, just as her grandparents and parents had educated her. Despite being mocked because she was a woman, she had stood on the battlefield and fought to protect the land of her forefathers and her subjects and to keep her people fed.
She had worked assiduously to seek the glory meat for the Romal Empire, even if she had overthrown and subjugated those unworthy, irreverent foreign tribes and races. Everything she had done to those foreigners—conquest and enslavement—were just part of laying the foundation for the empire’s prosperity.
Even if she had committed other wrongs, why should she be accused of sin because of this?
She… She had only tortured an alien race. What was it to make them suffer? She could not be made to bear guilt for such an act. As a noble of the Romal Empire, she was born with the right to do so.
If she were to be penalized for any sins, then it had to be an act she had committed against the fellow Romal people and first-class subjects of the empire.
Gods, Gods of the underworld, you are wrong! This judgment is wrong and a mistake! This trial is null and void!!
The arrogance with which Adelaide had declared the judgment of the gods to be erroneous was so unprecedented that Gwandan would have been at a loss for words if he had been present and overheard Adelaide’s inner thoughts.
As a matter of fact, the thoughts of all accused sinners in this courtroom were conveyed to the gods, but Adelaide’s indignation and protests were not surprising for them. After all, it was not rare to have individuals reject and oppose judgment that had already been passed.
This retaliation was so trivial that it did not even warrant the fury of the gods.
More than anything, the underworld was a busy place; busy was probably an inadequate word to described how occupied these gods who presided over the trials were. They had no time to waste with someone who had already been judged.
Adelaide steeled her eyes to dispel her fears. She was about to protest further despite her inability to speak, but robust arms in blue and red reached out from behind her to grab her shoulders.
The piercing pain in Adelaide’s shoulders shot straight through her nerves. Her face was white from terror as she whipped around. Only then did she realize that the dead souls who had just spoken of her sins and virtues had vanished.
Adelaide had been returned to the darkness from before. In this abyss, two terrifying demons, prison guards of hell, reached out to drag her to the Avici hell.
These were the most vicious creatures Adelaide had ever seen and a stark indication of the brutality awaiting her. She let out an inaudible scream, but no one was there to hear her call for help.
All Adelaide could do was resign herself to the judgment that had been handed down to her.
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