They had expected at least a representative to show up, but until there were about two minutes left, no one entered.
‘What a waste, staying up all night preparing.’
Just as a strange sense of grievance crept in.
Bang, the courtroom doors flew open urgently, and a middle-aged couple in flamboyant attire rushed in.
They had unusually thin builds and fussy-looking features.
Their clothes all looked custom-made at a tailor’s, and while they were not wearing many accessories, every single item was high-end.
‘So they must be living comfortably off swindling others.’
In contrast, Lady Rovans was dressed simply, in an old dress with a slightly outdated design.
The contrast was stark.
To an outsider, the neatly dressed couple would have seemed far more favorable than Lady Rovans, who looked shabby by comparison.
As the man who appeared to be the husband tried to sit in the defendant’s seat, one of the clerks stopped him.
“Excuse me, but are you Crystal Gaol?”
“No, I’m her husband. Why do you ask?”
The man frowned slightly, looking uncomfortable.
The clerk asked as a matter of procedure,
“Have you applied for a representative?”
“Isn’t it possible to apply on the day of the hearing?”
“It is almost time for the presiding official to enter. Registration has already closed.”
“No, he has not even entered yet…!”
Just as the man, looking flustered, was about to protest.
“The presiding official enters!”
A booming heralding voice rang throughout the courtroom.
Liselotte and Lady Rovans rose from their seats and paid their respects.
The door beside the dais opened, and an old man covered in a white beard entered.
Even his eyebrows were stark white, and they were so long that his pupils were not visible.
In fact, the only places where skin could be seen on his face were his nose and cheeks.
‘Can he even see ahead…?’
No sooner had the doubt arisen than the old man, while climbing up to the dais, slipped, his body tilting.
“Ahh, High Administrator!”
The court employee who had announced his entrance hurried over to support him, but with both arms stretched straight out, the presiding official suddenly steadied himself in a strange way.
“It is nothing. I did not fall.”
With both arms still stretched out, the old man fumbled and laboriously sat down on the central dais.
There was not a trace of dignity to be found in his appearance.
He roughly rubbed his white beard with his hand and went “ahem,” clearing his throat.
“This time, um… What was it again? The compulsory… What was it that Anne Rovans filed?”
Cold. A chill ran down her spine at the presiding official’s attitude.
Liselotte hurriedly murmured the words to him in a low voice.
“It is an objection to a claim regarding the enforcement of a compulsory auction.”
“Mm, yes. That one.”
Senate positions were filled by those who had reached a certain level of mastery in their respective fields.
She had always heard rumors that some of them were a little eccentric, but Liselotte felt that the rumors were very, very wrong.
‘It is not just a little, is it?!’
The Gaol couple seemed to be thinking the same thing, as their expressions were far from pleasant.
The presiding official leaned his head slightly down from the dais and asked the man,
“Who might you be, that you are standing here so brazenly even as the trial is about to begin?”
“I am the husband of the defendant, Crystal. I wish to apply to act as her representative, but the clerk would not accept the application.”
It was a confident attitude, as though he believed it would naturally be accepted.
By the rules, it was an application that would have been accepted if only he had kept to the time.
‘Crystal Gaol seems to be his wife’s name, but why is he stepping forward?’
No matter how roughly she looked, Crystal’s husband did not appear to be a lawyer.
Of course, since he was family, it was not strange for the husband to step in.
But for some reason, Crystal herself, the central figure in all of this, had not said a single word since entering the courtroom.
‘Could it be… that the husband used his wife’s name to make the winning bid?’
Since spouses shared joint property, there would be no problem unless they divorced.
At a glance, Crystal clearly looked unfamiliar with the courtroom itself.
Unlike her husband, who openly knew that applying for a representative was possible even on the day of the trial.
Liselotte first examined the presiding official’s expression.
In a trial, understanding the presiding official’s temperament was also important.
Staring straight up at the dais, Liselotte cried inwardly.
‘…I can’t tell because I can’t see his eyes!’
The presiding official, who had been quietly listening to the husband’s words, nodded and swallowed a thoughtful hum.
‘So the presiding official is a rather careless person.’
Just as that thought crossed her mind.
The presiding official asked Crystal’s husband again in a friendly tone.
“The time has passed, has it not?”
“…Pardon? We arrived before the trial began!”
“One minute before, I suppose. Enough time for the clock to tick past even if you only wrote your name on the application form.”
“That’s something you wouldn’t know unless I actually tried writing it…”
The man spread both hands as well, speaking in a tone full of disbelief as he poured out his grievance.
But the presiding official merely nodded and leisurely gestured toward the guards as if calling them over.
“If you feel wronged, you should have kept the time properly. Would it do to overlook it just because it was only a few minutes?”
“Presiding Official. It is one minute. One minute!”
“According to internal regulations, if you do not enter the courtroom five minutes beforehand, the application cannot be accepted. So will you take a seat in the gallery, or will you step outside cozily with the guards?”
‘What…?’
Contrary to her expectations, Liselotte widened her eyes at the gentle yet firm resolve of the presiding official.
She took back what she had thought about him being an eccentric.
He felt rather good, better than expected.
When her request for a representative was not accepted, Crystal became visibly flustered.
A moment later, the man let out a sigh, bowed his head briefly, then strode angrily toward the gallery.
Just before passing the defendant’s seat where Crystal was sitting, his quiet whisper could be heard.
“It’s just a pleading date. Just say what you practiced.”
“I understand.”
The man sat down slightly behind the defendant’s seat, a bit slowly.
Only then did the presiding official return to his inscrutable attitude.
“Now then, let us take a look at the gist of the claim… Ho, ho, so you are dividing a single estate neatly in half?”
He skimmed through the contents of the complaint that Liselotte had carefully written and submitted, whisk, literally just brushing past it in a cursory glance, then asked.
“Looking at the gist of the complaint, the plaintiff is asserting that Hezela, who claims to live in the estate in question, was already sent away long ago, is that correct?”
Liselotte rose from her seat and nodded.
“Yes, that is correct.”
“Presiding Official. We have already received a written confirmation that Mrs Hezela is living there, and we have personally confirmed with our own eyes that she is indeed residing there.”
No sooner had the words ended than Crystal cut in.
Liselotte kept her gaze fixed squarely on the presiding official and replied clearly and calmly.
“Honorable Presiding Official. There is no contract or evidence showing that Mrs Hezela is still residing at the Rovans estate.”
There was no evidence.
‘A trial is built on evidence.’
This meant that while it was not evidence favorable to House Rovans, it could not become evidence favorable to the opposing side either.
Crystal repeated like a parrot that there was a confirmation letter.
“Presiding Official. There is a letter stating that Mrs Hezela lived in the hut she had stayed in at the Rovans estate because she had not received her severance pay.”
These were documents the Gaol side had already submitted when the property was turned over for compulsory auction.
The presiding official, who seemed uncertain whether he was listening properly, merely sat still like a doll.
Then suddenly, his head dropped with a thud, and he jerked it back up in surprise.
‘…Was he dozing off?!’
Ahem. After wiping his drool, he asked back perfunctorily.
“That was all included when it was sent to auction. Is there anything else?”
As if she had been waiting for this, Liselotte rose from her seat and appealed earnestly.
“Honorable Presiding Official. House Rovans has never once received an auction confirmation notice.”
“The auction did proceed, so wouldn’t they have signed it?”
“We have attached the auction confirmation document bearing Mrs Hezela’s signature as Exhibit A-1 to the complaint.”
At this, Crystal’s face brightened.
“Presiding Official, this is precisely the evidence that Mrs Hezela was living at the Rovans estate.”
It was clearly the very letter that Baroness Ezel had mentioned.
It seemed that Matella had obtained the confirmation notice in order to hand the property over for auction.
Even if it had been submitted under Hezela’s name.
