Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 159: Interlude Patrick

The courtroom was … unusual, to say the least. On the surface, it was just like the one the school had dragged him to in eleventh grade that one time, only bigger.

A place for the judge to sit at the far end of the room, with the two members of the jury besides him and the court stenographer off to the side. Near the back of the room sat the benches for reporters and the general public to observe the goings-on from.

And on the left and right walls sat identical benches, one for the prosecution, one for the defense and one for the prosecution.

Traditionally, the defense and therefore the defendant were located on the side opposite the windows for fear of the accused committing suicide and that was where the serial killer had been put here. However, the reason for that had changed. Nowadays, the problem wasn’t the accused splatting on the pavement outside, it was them getting up afterwards and cutting through the closest civilians like a farmer went through wheat.

But even though the accused was well clear of the window, the glass had still been reinforced ad absurdum. Not only that, Patrick had layered on a good three dozen separate yet mutually reinforcing wards, able to stand off a full artillery barrage for several minutes. Kinetic shielding, thermal dispersion, spell disruption … the list went on and on.

It had taken a good long while to cast and even longer to design, yet the ability to create something like this alone, in a matter of hours no less, was precisely why he’d picked [Arcane Polymath] as his third Evolution. It doubled down on the analysis and copying powers he’d gained with [System Researcher] and improved upon with [Research Mage]. Sure, if he didn’t have the right spell for the right situation, he’d be in trouble, but his spell list was already long enough to fill a good third of an average encyclopedia.

So, when the Leipzig courthouse had needed some security holes patched, Isaac had volunteered him and yes, Patrick had had spells for almost all the spells needed ready to use.

Even with the magic, none of these things were the issue, they just made this a regular courtroom in this [System] world.

No, that honor went to the fact that this place was a total zoo.

People shouting at each other, spectators yelling insults at the defendant, others trying to shout down those people because they felt that Arianne Krebs hadn’t done anything wrong.

And then there was the gaggle of old retirees just watching, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that you weren’t allowed to eat in the courtroom, Patrick was certain they’d have been munching popcorn. If the guy who’d been giving his class the tour back then hadn’t been talking out of his ass, that wasn’t an uncommon sight, bored senior citizens deciding to toddle over from the retirement home to watch court cases.

“[Order in the Courtroom].” The judge announced, not raising her voice, not banging a gavel (which weren’t even a thing anymore), just announcing that it was time for everyone to shut up … for the fifth time in as many minutes.

The [Skill’s] spoken name reverberated through the room, silencing conversations, shouting people being reduced to furiously opening and closing their mouths without making a peep, and one man who was half-leaning over the banister was forced back into his seat.

This was a courtroom, every [Judge’s] seat of power, and their [Skills] suffused it so thoroughly that Patrick’s [Aura] could barely pick out anything other than it. Yet the [Judge] was still only at Level 26, too low to restrain higher-Level people for long even with the increase in power that came with being in her own courtroom.

Mind you, if anything dangerous happened, there were police officers with the required Levels standing by, but that didn’t really help much against those who were “just” being rude. All in all, a good twenty-thousand eurosof fines had already been handed out for various “in contempt of court” offenses, but that hadn’t really helped. There were ever more people who had something to say, who felt that it was worth it eating the fine just for a chance to sling some insults.

And because in Germany, trials were public, locking the doors wasn’t really an option. At the end of the day, there was a very good reason for that, transparency was vital to the process, but by God was it a pain in the ass right now.

“… these vile, senseless acts of murder …”

“[Objection]!” the defense lawyer snapped. Normally, this was where he would have continued to explain what was the problem, yet when he’d shouted that [Skill’s] name, there had been more to it than just the single word. Countless additional pieces of information echoed within it, informing all those who heard it just what the problem was. In this case, the issue was that murder was legally defined as the killing of another human for “lesser reasons” or in “inhumane ways”, which was yet to be officially ascertained.

The reaction … inspired no confidence in the justice system. The whole affair looked more like a bunch of actors playing at being officers of the court, and once who barely knew their lines, at that, constantly looking to each other for cues. Sure, this was probably everyone’s first major trial under the [System], but still, sheesh. What a mess.

Really, this was how today had gone from the beginning. Everyone might have gotten used to utilizing [Skills], but not clashing them against other people’s supernatural abilities, especially ones on their level. Hence, utter pandemonium.

If he was honest, the whole affair reminded him of those glorious chaos anime his colleagues couldn’t know he watched. You know, the ones that had ludicrously insane powers or settings that were insanely fun to watch but if you tried to explain it to someone else, you’d sound like an escaped mental patient. The kind that, when you wanted to recommend them to another person, the most you could say was “it’s really good, just watch it”. Anything else … escaped mental patient.

However, as funny as that was on the other side of a TV screen, it was utterly horrifying to behold here and now. In a very real sense, the [System] had broken this world, and as fantastic as parts of it were, it was also horrifying in ways beyond just the dangers posed by the monsters.

After a long moment of awkwardness, the prosecutor used a [Skill] of his own, one that seemingly brushed off the effects of [Objection], albeit after an uncomfortably long moment of silence.

“It is an indisputable fact that several of the killings the defendant is accused of were conducted in such a brutal manner that veteran police offers were sick upon seeing the scene. Therefore …”

“Cut it with the weasel words and say it straight out you cowardly fuck!”

For what had to be the fiftieth time, someone decided to scream at one of the people amidst their heated discussion. But this time was the first one where someone had unleashed their [Aura], a crimson glow manifesting and threatening to squash the people sitting next to him.

And then, the [Aura] promptly vanished into nothingness as Patrick crushed it into nothingness. Auric suppression was a part of why he was here, after all.

His [Aura of the Hungry Mind] had been spun into a series of thing strands that built a lattice which filled the entire room in a way it couldn’t in its standard, spherical configuration, its touch light enough that no one would feel it, but ready to tear apart any new [Aura] that was activated as it would intersect it from the very beginning. Coupled with the fact that he could easily smack it into the [Aura’s] wielder to break their concentration and the fact that his own [Aura] was strengthened by his Level, utterly erasing hostile [Auras] was a piece of cake.

The technique was something that Isaac had taught him for just such a purpose and worked exactly as intended. And as for why Isaac wasn’t taking care of this himself, well, he wasn’t allowed in the courtroom. As a witness in the case that was currently ongoing meant he’d only be let in when it was time for him to give his statement. From that point onwards, he’d be able to stay, but until then, he wasn’t allowed to observe.

So now Isaac was cooling his heels halfway across the city, well out of even his hearing range. But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t listening in.

If Patrick hadn’t known where to look, he wouldn’t have noticed the tiny strand of [Aura] protruding from the top-right corner of the room seemingly doing nothing at all. What it was doing was, well, sucking in every bit of information that was available.

At the end of the day, light and sound waves were just other bits of information that could pass through a sensory [Aura] and be recorded. Then, with enough practice, apparently, around ten years of it, one could actually use one’s senses through the [Aura].

Touch was easy, part and parcel of this kind of [Aura]. Smell and taste were essentially the same thing, amounted to a specialized kind of chemical analysis and were useable through the [Aura] but could be tricky. But seeing and hearing? That seemed like an impossible goal, though thankfully, Isaac seemed to think that it would be easier to teach than try to learn on one’s own.

“Bailiffs, arrest that man.” The [Judge] announced, voice cold as liquid nitrogen “[Immediate Arrest].”

Anything the man might have tried, any [Skill] he might have activated, it wouldn’t have mattered. And two seconds later, the bailiffs had dogpiled on him, their own [Skills] layering on, suppressing the man’s mana, Stats and [Skills]. Such anti-[Skill] abilities usually grew stronger when back by a legal authority, and further boosted by such things as cooperation and happening in a courtroom that was enhanced by a [Judge].

“What the hell? I didn’t do anything, I just showed my [Aura]!”

“One can also wave around a gun without firing it, that does not mean it won’t cause any trouble.” The [Judge] replied.

“That guy was also doing that!”

The man tried to point at Patrick, but there was literally someone sitting on the arm he’d have used.

“And ‘that guy’ is here for that precise reason. I’m fining you one thousand euros for contempt of court, and placing you in the courthouse jail pending a hearing about your endangering of others with you [Aura].”

The [Judge] fixed everyone in the room with steel in her eyes.

“This is not a circus, this is not a zoo, this a courtroom. I understand that tempers are running high, but this. Is. Enough. From this point onwards, anyone seeking to enter this room will first tell the officers at the door that they do not seek to disrupt these proceedings while they are using their truth-telling [Skills]. In addition, anyone who so much as steps a toe out of line will be banned from the courtroom. In this country, trials are fair and open to the public, but that does not mean we have to put up with disruptions and disrespect. [Implement Ruling].”

And just like that, the decision was implemented and anyone who was going to be affected by it and was within a kilometer of the courthouse was immediately informed of that fact.

Things were calmer after that, for a certain definition of the word, but still chaotic and people’s lack of experience with disrupting [Skills] was still being rather obvious.

But when things finally got going, the first thing the defense did was give a list of what many of Krebs’ victims had done, who they had endangered, statistics about summoned monsters destroying and/or ending lives.

“And now, my client has asked me to read out the following statement:

‘My name is Arianne Krebs, and the media has dubbed ‘the monster killer’. One might pretend that all of this is the result of a broken mind, an mental condition that qualifies for the descriptor of ‘insane’.

Yet there is far more to it. We’ve just heard testimonies on how many people nearly died due to unsafe summoning, of how careless many of those who ended up murdered were. Monsters summoned near public spaces, unprotected camera crew and other support personnel by streamers, many, many human beings have already died, and many more would have likely joined them.

I did it. I confess to it, on the record, I killed every single person on the list that my lawyer will provide. And if I had to do it all again, the only thing I would change is I would be more careful.

I did make some mistakes, went after some summoners who were more careful than it seemed at first glance, and I do regret those mistakes. But this isn’t about what a lonely widow feels, this is about the survival of the human race. Because there are people on that list who got others injured, even crippled, for the simple reason that they didn’t care enough to take the needed precautions.

I am aware of my mistakes, and I will pay for them as many of my victims would have if the law and justice system had been up to snuff. But it wasn’t, so idiots summoned monsters, the monsters maimed or nearly killed others, and I killed the idiots.

If this situation isn’t brought under control, there will be more like me, careless summoners will get additional people killed, and maybe one day, there’ll be an actual monster killing people in the same manner I did.

So yes, I will take my punishment and rot in jail, secure in the knowledge that even if the world goes to shit, the precautions needed to keep me in will be enough to keep the monsters out. ’

Ho-ley-shit.

When the courtroom exploded into noise once more, even the [Judge] was dumbstruck, [Order in the Courtroom] only arriving after the noise had begun to die down naturally.

That certainly took things in an interesting direction. And it was incredibly convenient, staggeringly selfless for a serial killer. Sure, she’d, at a minimum, been caught on several bodycams trying to murder police officers. The chance of her walking out of this were basically nil, and given that she’d killed literally hundreds, she’d likely die in prison.

But it was still odd. Oh so incredibly odd.