Chapter 649: Side Story 2. Dance of Flame and Shadow - 8
It came out of the blue. Ron and his mother were all happy thinking about seeing Nolan after a long time. When a call came, and the ID shown was the military base, they even grinned before Ron’s mother took the call.
But all they heard was a notification that Nolan was arrested by the military police and awaiting trial.
"They said all kinds of things, but I know that’s not the father we know," Ron frowned. Stuff like neglecting people’s safety was the furthest away from the man, the father that he knew. "We tried to see him; going to the main base, the district base, to the administration office...we tried going everywhere we could to see him, but..."
Agni clenched his fist. "Military personnel on trial aren’t allowed to receive visitors."
"Yeah..." Ron lowered his head; the reddened eyes gazed at the box wistfully. "The next thing we knew, we received the verdict..."
Agni closed his eyes tightly as the kid’s story brought him back to his bitter experience. Unlike Nolan, who always tried to remain calm, and the other two, who didn’t really care, he was filled with anger--perhaps the same as what Ron had at this point.
The waiting time had been short, and the trial had been swift. It was clear that everything had been predetermined, and it wasn’t hard to guess why: the one who falsely reported the dungeon level was the son of a general, and the one who ordered a public bombardment was the major. In the first place, the only one with the call recording was the major, and a tampered one was easily made, incriminating them.
Funnily enough, the charge was reasonable. ’Running away’ from the dungeon was one of the premises of ’negligence’, especially if there was no report about false reading. It wouldn’t be seen as a mistake if they were all dead inside the dungeon, but since some managed to escape, it was counted as running away.
As for disobeying an order, that went without question. The questionable order was being covered and modified as a reasonable one. The prosecutor also argued that they could bring more harm from disobeying the order--after all, they had no guarantee that they would be able to take care of the dungeon break. If Agni hadn’t burned a bit of his life force at that time, they wouldn’t be able to kill the boss and...
In the worst case, the beasts would kill all the citizens and spread to another territory.
It was so reasonable that even Agni couldn’t refute it. In fact, the only reason his request to set off the death sentence by sharing the punishment was granted was because he managed to kill the boss. If not...