Chapter 93 : Chapter 93
Chapter 93. Acting
Sylvia’s tone was gentle, but her words were as sharp as knives.
“I propose the establishment of a ‘Northern Territory Security Mutual Assistance Contribution’ program.”
“Any noble who accepts protection from the guard must bear the corresponding costs according to the size of their manor and the extent of their territory.”
“Please rest assured, the pricing will be absolutely fair. No one will be deceived.”
At that point, she could not even be bothered to pretend anymore.
This was naked extortion.
Blackmail.
Not only were they sending people to watch you, but you also had to pay out of your own pocket to feed the very people watching you.
A hot-tempered baron instinctively tried to stand up and object, only to be firmly held down by the person beside him, who shook his head at him frantically.
Did he have a death wish?
Herman’s corpse had not even gone cold yet.
In the end, amid a deathly silence, the nobles swallowed their shattered teeth and blood together.
One agreement after another was delivered before them, and with trembling hands, they signed their names.
From that day onward, Sylvia’s army entered the territories of every noble in the Northern Territory with full legitimacy.
The Northern Territory had, in the truest sense, welcomed its queen.
The news of Herman’s entire family being wiped out left the nobles of Winter City collectively sleepless.
When Sylvia used the excuse of “protecting your safety” to place her own guards inside every noble household, this group of people finally understood reality completely.
Resist?
Then you would be the next Herman.
Before absolute military force and an even more absolute refusal to reason, every scheme and trick became a joke.
At this point, the power structure of the Northern Territory completed its final reshuffling.
But a new problem quickly followed.
The next day, inside the Council Chamber of the Governor’s Residence, the financial officer Grayson pushed up his glasses with a worried expression.
“The position of Chief Judicial Officer cannot remain vacant forever.”
Herman might have been rotten to the core, but while he was alive, the judicial system of the Northern Territory had at least been able to function somehow.
Now that he was dead, he had taken that decayed yet complete system with him into the grave.
In an instant, half of Winter City’s judicial institutions became paralyzed.
Towering piles of case files went unreviewed.
Newly arrested criminals could not be sentenced.
Everything was in chaos.
Complete chaos.
Sylvia lightly tapped the tabletop with her fingertips, her silver-gray eyes sweeping across the core members present.
General Victor?
He was fine for fighting wars, but if asked to judge a case, he would probably only ask one question: “Beheading or hanging?”
Grayson?
His abacus clicked loudly enough, but asking him to read legal statutes would be even more painful to him than killing him.
As for Esmeralda…
Her profession existed precisely to make other people need judicial officers.
“We do not have anyone among us who understands the law.”
Sylvia felt a headache coming on.
It was not as though she had absolutely no candidates.
But on the list her subordinates had submitted, nearly all of them were either disciples of that old bastard Herman or relatives of some noble house.
In this era, legal education was practically monopolized by the nobility.
Anyone who could become a bachelor of law was either from an old noble family or, at the very least, the son of a wealthy merchant.
And they were supposed to preside over a new judicial system of fairness and justice?
Dreaming was more realistic.
Sylvia’s thoughts drifted farther away.
When she had studied at Saint Arcadia Academy, she had spent quite a bit of time researching the systems of various nations.
Her old enemy, the Valeria Empire, had long since begun military judicial reforms, making everything serve warfare, with an efficiency so high it was terrifying.
Across the Eastern Sea, the United States of Meriga had prospered through a commercial code, where money itself was justice.
Even the Tyrenia Kingdom, far on the other side of the continent, was carrying out something called a “Unified Procedural Decree.”
Everyone was desperately running forward, trying to liberate productivity and become stronger.
Only the Astrelia Kingdom was still clinging smugly to feudal laws from several hundred years ago.
The Northern Territory could not continue like this.
It had to change.
It had to be completely transformed.
But who would lead this reform?
Sylvia’s gaze unconsciously fell on the sofa in the corner of the Council Chamber.
Logaris was sitting there with one leg crossed over the other, holding an ancient tome he had dug out from some ruin and reading it with great interest, as if the surrounding troubles had nothing to do with him.
This man…
Though he was unreliable most of the time, he had more than once displayed a way of thinking far beyond the age.
Whether it was his theory of progressive taxation or his planning for the Heart of Winter Industrial Park, both had proven that he possessed the ability to reconstruct an entire system.
A thought began to grow wildly in Sylvia’s mind.
Forcing a duck onto a perch might actually work.
“Logaris.”
Sylvia’s cool voice rang out.
“Hm?” Logaris did not even raise his eyes.
“I have decided to appoint you as the Acting Chief Judicial Officer of the Northern Territory.”
“Pfft—”
Logaris sprayed out a mouthful of hot tea on the spot.
Fortunately, his reflexes were fast enough that he immediately blocked it with a protective spell, otherwise Grayson, who was sitting opposite him, would have gotten an unexpected face wash.
He sprang up from the sofa so abruptly that even his glasses were crooked.
“What did you say? Say that again?!”
“I said,” Sylvia repeated, her voice calm yet carrying unquestionable authority, “from this moment onward, you, Logaris West, will temporarily assume the position of Chief Judicial Officer of the Northern Territory until we find a suitable candidate.”
A question mark seemed to appear slowly over Logaris’s head.
He looked at Sylvia in utter confusion.
“Have you lost your mind? Or are you still not sober from yesterday’s celebration banquet?”
“Sylvia, I am a mage, not a judge!”
“You want me to become a judge? You might as well ask General Victor to do embroidery!”
General Victor, who had just been named, twitched slightly but said nothing.
Faced with Logaris’s protest, Sylvia merely picked up her teacup at an unhurried pace.
“Your ability in logical analysis is greater than that of all the judges in the Northern Territory combined.”
“That is a completely different matter!”
“You were able to find thirteen flaws in the design of the Magitech train system within half an hour.”
“That is because the idiot who designed it was a fool!”
“Then you can also find the flaws in the Northern Territory’s judicial system within half an hour,” Sylvia said lightly.
“I believe in you.”
“I do not believe in myself!” Logaris was nearly going mad.
“I have never even read a single legal code!”
Logaris simply started playing shamelessly.
“Find someone else! Whoever wants this job can take it!”
Sylvia set down her teacup and raised her eyes, a trace of cunning flashing through her silver-gray gaze.
“You will do it whether you want to or not. The appointment letter will be delivered to your desk shortly.”
She paused, then added one more sentence.
“Besides, do you not think you would look very handsome in a judge’s robe?”
Logaris choked instantly.
In the end, under Sylvia’s forceful gaze, the genius Archmage Logaris was forced into the judge’s robe he disliked and made to sit in the office of the Chief Judicial Officer, a place that made him uncomfortable all over.
Looking at the mountain of files piled before him, Logaris felt as though his migraine was about to flare up.
But he was, after all, Logaris.
Since he had been forced to take the job, then he was going to make something of it.
Logaris did not read page by page like an ordinary judge.
Instead, he directly cast several large-scale spells for information classification and logical analysis.
Countless case files rose into the air automatically, forming a massive vortex of information before him.
Data, names, precedents, money trails…
Everything was being processed at astonishing speed inside his mind.