0% Maximilian was no fool.
He was fundamentally arrogant, had a dirty personality, and was an idiot full of self-righteous conviction that he was doing the right thing, but he wasn’t particularly a person with deficient intelligence issues. In some ways, that was more problematic.
Therefore, immediately after the mysterious masked woman appeared, Maximilian realized her identity and thought.
This isn’t a bad opportunity.
For Maximilian, this action wasn’t particularly some grand conspiracy.
Eliminating bandits and villains of the city was one of the main tasks of the Patriotic Youth Group.
Since his tournament schedule was free and he had time to spare, he had simply moved upon hearing that there was some villain worth beating up.
It didn’t matter that the villain had already been eliminated by others, and those present now were innocent people busy cleaning up the aftermath of what the villain had done. To begin with, someone who cared about such things wouldn’t go around asserting themselves as justice.
A simple stroll. Amusement. Killing time while raising fame.
That was all this was supposed to be, but at this moment, it was elevated to a valuable “incident”.
All thanks to the sudden intrusion of a masked girl.
Maximilian, feeling rather pleased with this situation, spoke in a glib tone, “Misconduct? Are you calling this misconduct? That’s truly surprising!”
With exaggerated intonation and gestures as if performing a play, Maximilian looked up at the masked girl, “This is judgment! Punishment for an evil company that sucked the blood of innocent people and filled their own pockets! Yet you deny this by calling it misconduct? Are you now ignoring the suffering of the victims and siding with the villains!? Surely you haven’t received dirty bribes, have you!”
At Maximilian’s words, the gazes of the surrounding people all converged on Ad—the mysterious masked girl.
The masked girl rolled her eyes under her mask.
W-what should I do now?
To begin with, she hadn’t jumped out here with any particular thought.
She had just moved, flustered after being unable to resist the advice of her taciturn and overflowing with gravitas Tin—teacher.
The masked girl’s politics and debate skills were at the level of beans grown by kids for a school project, and while she might receive an evaluation of “Oh, you tried quite hard!” it lacked the impact to win over an audience.
It was clear as day that she would be miserably defeated if she engaged in a war of words with Maximilian, who, although violent and authoritarian, at least had an incredibly loud and confident voice.
Therefore, the masked girl stopped thinking.
Instead, she began to appropriately translate and then speak out loud the words of the Tin—taciturn, solemn, and dignified knight echoing in her head.
“Answer me! How dare you call this righteous judgment—“
“Be quiet! I have nothing to say to a villain!”
Maximilian’s perfectly reasonable rebuttal of “But you spoke to me first,” didn’t come out.
How could they when the masked girl’s words were faster?
“First! The crime of barging into a store conducting legitimate business, not only causing a disturbance but also not hesitating to threaten them for their assets!
“Second! The crime of ignoring the authority of the Thracus Guard and the Lord, who have the proper right to punish criminals, and attempting private sanctions!
“Third! The crime of trying to escape responsibility by not touching the money yourself but scattering it to others, so that only those who received money would be punished if issues arose, while you and your companions slip away unscathed!”
“What nonsense is this!? This is absurd—“
“A’s wrongdoing caused harm to B then C, A’s workplace colleague, punished A and provided compensation to B! But then X, who has no connection to this incident, beat up C and tried to seize their property for their own gain! If this isn’t villainy, what is!? If this isn’t evil, what is evil!? If you truly want to seek justice, instead of harming innocent people based on personal speculation and claims, you should wait for the guard to arrive and clearly establish guilt and innocence!”
The masked girl didn’t really know what she was saying.
The constant ding-ding-ding sound of her teacher kept ringing in her head. She was barely managing to convert them and speak them out loud. Frankly, it was a miracle she hadn’t bitten her tongue.
Maximilian was dumbfounded.
The opponent’s words were full of all sorts of distortions, exaggerations, fabrications, and speculative statements.
Listening to claims that were closer to a child’s tantrum than proper logic, he was at a loss for words, thinking, “What the hell is this?”
In fact, what Maximilian usually did wasn’t much different, but he wasn’t the type of person who was good at objectification and putting himself in others’ shoes. Originally, mirror therapy was only meaningful for humans with at least a minimum sense of shame.
Unfortunately, there was one more thing he hadn’t expected.
Murmur, murmur. Whisper, whisper.
“Come to think of it, it sounds right...”
“What if we get in trouble later for accepting it without thinking?”
“Now that you mention it, that’s true. They’re yelling at the wrong place when the one who actually did wrong is someone else, right?”
Usually, it was difficult to understand the sound of many people murmuring at once, but Maximilian, who was unnecessarily superior in this one spec, could hear the content clearly.
Maximilian shouted indignantly, “Don’t be deceived! Everything that girl is saying is just nonsense!”
“My lord is right! How can you be fooled by such sophistry when we’re trying to resolve the grievances of the victims!?”
“When we’re trying to bestow wealth, even if you do nothing, instead of being grateful...”
The young men of the Patriotic Youth Group tried to change the atmosphere by agreeing with Maximilian’s words, but people weren’t easily persuaded.
It wasn’t that they were truly convinced by the masked girl.
No, while there were some like that, the overall trend was different.
They didn’t want to get involved.
They weren’t sure which side was right.
It was troublesome, so they merely wanted to be told the conclusion later.
Indifference, lack of response.
To begin with, the people gathered here weren’t particularly filled with great enthusiasm or sense of justice.
They were just watching because an interesting situation had occurred, and they were only excited because Maximilian said he would scatter some benefits.
If they were told they’d get free gifts, they might accept with little thought, but if there was a possibility of suffering some disadvantage for receiving those gifts, they couldn’t help but hesitate.
“So which side is right in the end?”
The masked girl’s unnecessarily long and verbose speech also contributed to dampening their enthusiasm.
People didn’t want to get involved in a long debate and seriously judge who was right or wrong. Unless they had nothing to do and were bored, but right now, Thracus itself was in a constant state of festival, so there was plenty of entertainment wherever they went. With so many other fun things to do, few people wanted to use their brains on something troublesome.
Seeing this, Lorentz Halder quietly let out a sigh of relief.
When the masked girl first intruded, Lorentz had been anxious about how things would turn out, but fortunately, it seemed the atmosphere was somehow resolving.
It seemed that spreading words subtly agreeing with the masked girl’s statements through planted individuals had some effect.
After glancing at the Tin Knight nodding his head satisfactorily with his arms crossed, Lorentz asked his subordinate, “Is the guard not here yet?”
“We’ve already reported, but due to various small incidents scattered throughout the city, it seems it will take a bit more time for them to get here.”
“Tsk. It can’t be helped, but it’s frustrating.”
If this were the southern part of the continent where the Halder Company’s influence was strong, they would maintain close relationships—mostly through bribes—with the lords of various regions, so the response to these kinds of situations would be faster, but not in Thracus where their foundation was still lacking.
Still, they had at least prevented public opinion from flowing in a dangerous direction, so if they could somehow stall for time , either the guard would arrive and resolve the situation, or the other side would give up and retreat.
Lorentz prayed that Maximilian would choose the latter if possible.
Although they had to fight back this time because Maximilian made excessively outrageous demands, Lorentz didn’t want to become enemies with the Haidern Marquis family either.
The opponent’s weight class was too large, and the fact that this drug incident became famous and rumors were spreading was a loss for the Halder Company.
The problem was that Maximilian was a much more self-centered person than Lorentz thought.
He was enraged at this situation not going as he wanted, enraged at the crowd showing a lukewarm response even though he said he would bestow grace, and enraged at the masked girl who had thrown ashes on his almost-cooked rice.1
Rationally speaking, retreating here would be the best option, but like a troublesome customer who thought backing down to an employee’s persuasion was the same as admitting defeat, Maximilian started to shout, “Adelaide von Lennart! Do you know what you’re doing right now!? You must know what it means to shield merchants who spread toxic drugs to people and extorted dirty money! Or is this action itself the will of the Lennart family!?”
For a moment, the murmuring stopped.
The spectators who had been whispering around merely started to glance around cautiously, but the young men of the Patriotic Youth Group all had pale, ashen faces.
While it wouldn’t be a big problem to act recklessly against a mere merchant company, involving the Lion Duke’s bloodline was a completely different matter.
To this provocation, the masked girl answered, “Adelaide von Lennart? Who’s that? I’m just an ordinary righteous vigilante who admires the Lennart family, the Lennart Mask.”
Um... no, isn’t that a bit...?
While the surrounding people were united in feeling dumbfounded, the Tin Knight, who had no relation to the masked girl, nodded in satisfaction.
1. ED Note: You can probably tell from the context but this is an idiom that means to ruin something that was almost complete or successful