No freaking way…

  I was summoned to Tolten’s court of law and justice the very same day I received the letter–Obviously, this meaningless piece of paper had been what had called me here… As much as I would have liked to ignore it, I couldn’t really do that, even if it would definitely be best for my nerves.

  Just standing inside this place made me want to break something–Or someone. My grasp on the armrest of my seat was so tight that it would definitely fall apart the moment I let go, and that was with me doing my best not to damage anything.

  The reason why I was surprised was to be found all over the room. First of all, Eleanori’s lawyer was a well-known one… The damned guy who was part of the king’s court to give legal advice. This man knew everything about every law of dozens of countries off the top of his head. The simple fact that he was here to represent her was proof that she did have a whole stack of money left from what Leton had given her, and the best use she found for it was to invest them into a court case to get more money?

  This is utterly disgraceful. She deserves to die.

  She needs to die. She needs to die. I don’t care how much Leton might have loved her at one point. I am going to-

  “Miss Nebulo?”

  My own attorney tapped me on the shoulder. An elderly gentleman who had been a part of the business from nearly the very beginning. He had aged quite a bit since then, but he was still just as sharp, and even if not as renowned as the guy on the opposite side, it didn’t change the fact that I had the advantage here.

  The will was very clear. The rules of inheritance were very clear. I had checked everything over several times. Eleanori couldn’t get me by accusing me of any crime… But the court was a rotten place that should be burnt to the ground. She could still plead on the emotions.

  There were many excellent reasons to despise the way ‘justice’ functioned at the lower levels. It was nothing more than a pile of junk put together to give the commoners the impression that they could receive retribution, and in a way, they were correct. Only that this mess worked made it so that the truth and law were far less important than they should be.

  The main reason? The jury. A bunch of random people selected to give their opinion on something they knew nothing about. The idea was nice and all, but the average person? Absolute moron. No redeeming qualities. The average person could literally be convinced of anything. As long as you aren’t an idiot yourself, you can make them eat up whatever you want. They don’t have the capabilities to truly think for themselves, or at least, not enough resistance to persuasion.

  I didn’t even need to pay attention to what was happening to know that Eleanori was just going to pull on the heartstrings of the jury by pretending to be a poor widow who lost her beloved husband and whose inheritance was stolen by her evil step-sister. These idiots were very likely to fall for it, so I was going to have to pull some acting of my own, and also leverage my good reputation throughout the city–Let’s see who can abuse this idiocy of the jury the best.

  For now, though, I was letting my attorney battle it out with the other guy. The old man seemed quite happy about having a joust of words with someone so renowned… I personally paid more attention to Eleanori, who was accompanied by her lover.

  I honestly found it insulting, Joffi–Her lover–had nothing on Leton. Literally, he was worse in all aspects other than perhaps physical strength, but it is comparing a naturally frail and sickly man to just… An average Joe who happened to have trained to become a guard. There was frankly nothing good enough about this guy for it to even make sense that Eleanori would cheat on my brother with him.

  Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. She must have realised that rats should stay in their lane and thus decided to get herself a piece of trash to reproduce with. Regardless, I would rather be working on my new location or doing paperwork in my office instead of being here… The first court session literally amounted to nothing but establishing the circumstances and detailing what I was being accused of. I could have been sleeping at home, and nothing would have changed.

  I swear, making people lose their time like this.

  …Hold on a minute. While the two attorneys were arguing about the semantics of something I hadn’t bothered paying attention to, I looked around the courtroom. To really maximise the emotional play, there was even an audience. People starved for something of interest. Nothing more than hyenas fighting over a half-rotten carcass.

  However, while looking through this crowd, I spotted something abnormal.

  …Is no one noticing this guy…?

  The prowler was here. He was looking directly at me. His white mask cracked. His clothes dark… He looked less human than I remembered him. His body seemed almost smoke-like… Or flame-like, perhaps? It was hard to tell, but looking at him, it was like he was simultaneously closer than he should be and further away than should be possible. It felt like I had no sense of depth perception when staring directly at this creep.

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  I felt like saying something, but looking around, it was pretty damned obvious that no one other than me was seeing this thing. There were people walking past him, and even through him without batting an eye, and as far as I was aware, dark spectres wearing masks weren’t exactly a common enough sight that no one would care about the presence of such an entity.

  His head twitched around uncontrollably. It felt as though something was being whispered to me… But I did not listen. I couldn’t hear it properly. I did not have it in me to care about being potentially haunted.

  Dealing with this bitch is way more important than a ghost. You want to haunt me? Then I’ll be your guest! Go ahead and see if I care! Why would I be scared of a ghost when I can just devour them by touching… What the hell am I thinking?

  I felt a piercing headache rising in the distance…

  I was able to get through the court session and head back home. The headache disappeared along the way, replaced by hunger. It felt like I was starving for some reason. It was to the point where I found myself unconsciously chewing on my fork. With my knightly physique, the poor thing was left mangled and unusable.

  Am I going insane…? No. That’s not like me. I am perfectly sane. There is no one more sound of mind than I… A lot has been going on lately. This must just be a little bit of stress. I’ve never found myself in such an annoying sequence of events before–Yes, just a little bit of stress, nothing more.

  …And lately, there is only one thing that calms my mind. Work!

  I descended into the workshop, and immediately, taking a seat here, where Leton used to work, I felt much better. I had no idea why I had suddenly become so much more knowledgeable and capable about machines, but it was a blessing. It felt like I was continuing Leton’s work in a way. Keeping his presence by my side.

  Alright. I already did what I needed to do for Red, Blue, Yellow, Pink, White, Black, and Brown… Now, I needed to work on a gal specifically intended to interact with customers, and children in particular–Violet, she was going to be about as tall and energetic as Yellow. A youthful presence that the younger patrons can more closely relate to as a peer rather than a bigger-than-life figure to look up to.

  Her job would be simple. She would spend most of her time in a corner where candy was sold, and sometimes take to roaming the restaurant, distributing free snacks and drinks. While doing so, she would be performing a similar function to Red, monitoring the guests to see if any suspicious individual was to be looked out for…

  I remember that Leton had been against allowing the automatons to take direct action against such individuals due to several factors–The bots were heavy and had steel bones, if they ‘stopped’ someone doing a bad deed, they were likely to deal a lot of damage, which wasn’t great in such a familial setting.

  Taking care of a threat was great, but doing so by scarring the younger patrons for life wasn’t great at all. Also, Leton was not completely confident that the MI of the automatons was good enough to trust them without something so important and delicate. If they were mistaken about what was happening, it would be catastrophic.

  However, I believed that it was a great idea to permit my clown girls to do some heavy lifting under certain circumstances. I had already planned to make Red imposing, but I was thinking that Violet could be given the option to run faster than most. I could probably do the same thing for Yellow, actually.

  It made sense for their respective character, and if some tried to run while paying, they would have to outrun my clown gals.

  I quite like the idea, and I feel confident that the MI I will eventually put into them will be perfectly capable of analysing situations accurately.

  In any case, there was also a trio to go alongside Violet–Orange, Cyan, and Bubblegum Pink. They were going to be much smaller automatons compared to the rest, only larger than Pink’s puppet… They were meant to be of similar height and build to young children, fulfilling the same peer-like impression as Violet, but for an even younger audience.

  As a trio, they would stick together, do circus tricks, and encourage children to play games in the playroom, which I was intending to make into a very large portion of the new location. I really wanted this place to be a wonderland for children, to truly convince parents that they could and should leave them here rather than anywhere else.

  There are a bunch of blueprints Leton had left behind that I could use to really make this new location into something special. It would be a lot of work for me, but that was a positive, really. The more work I had, the more I could distract myself from the gaping wound left in my life and the various maggots trying to crawl into it.

  …Let’s not forget the last two automatons.

  Pastel Red, and Pastel Blue… I really needed to find proper names for them.

  These two were going to be a pair of Jacks-In-The-Box. They would share the same box, in fact. They were going to be tall, thin, jester-like characters. And by thin, I mean really thin. They might look a bit weird, but I wanted them to look less human and more mystical.

  Their main purpose would be to wish and sing a happy birthday, give gifts ranging from those parents would have prepared themselves, to some offered by the establishment, and also say hello and goodbye to people as they would be right by the entrance.

  With little pointy hats and a sibling dynamic, I am sure that everyone was going to love these two odd-looking gals.

  And here we go. All thirteen beautiful clown girls. I'm going to start actually building them while preparing for the sister location to be built. I am very excited about this project. Excited enough that I am willing to overlook the fact that the first thing I saw when I exited the workshop was the masked figure staring through my window.

  The second I approached, he disappeared into a dark haze–Definitely a ghost. I’ll have to ask Maarkus to see if he can exorcise this one after I get him to look at the automaton at the main restaurant.

  …Now that I was done working, the silence of my home felt quite heavy.

  Damn it. I really need to find myself a man.