Our day in court arrived soon after, and the entire lot of us were brought in front of the monarch.
The Heroic King of the dwarves.
Now that I see him in person, I can sense his deep aura.
The king Gazel Dwargo closed his eyes and sat deeply upon his throne, He was stocky, dwarflike in appearance, and his exposed armor-like muscles positively radiated energy. His skin was a deep, dark brown, and his black hair was pulled back on his head.
He exuded pure strength, that's the first person I have seen in this world, who actually poses quite the danger to me.
Two knights were stationed near him, one on each side. They were equally muscle-bound, no doubt, but they still looked wispy compared to their ruler. Seriously this guy this guy looks quite powerful. I'd been planning to force my way out if the trial was rigged but looks like it won't be that simple.
With my current power, I don't think I can defeat him now.
A man knelt in front of the king, checking over something with him. After receiving permission, he stood up and read the affidavit.
"We will now begin the trial! Silence, everyone!"
For the next hour, both sides presented their cases. As criminal suspects, we weren't allowed to speak—in the royal court, that right was reserved for those with a rank of earl or greater. Otherwise, you needed the king's express permission. If you did speak out of turn, that apparently proved your guilt on the spot and earned you a bonus contempt-of-court charge.
Whether you were innocent or not, that was the way this place worked. We were stuck having our representative speak for us. He had paid us a few visits during our two days in custody, discussing the nature of our case. Our kind-of lawyer, basically.
But, I got a bad feeling about him, hope I am wrong.
"So there Sir Vester was," vester's representative continued, "sitting back at this club and enjoying an alcoholic beverage, when this gang pushed their way into the place and exposed him to dreadful violence! This is not the kind of behavior that should ever be forgiven!"
"Is that the truth?"
"It is, my liege! I heard it from Kaijin himself, and I also have written testimony from the owners of the club. There can be no mistaking the course of events that night!"
And sadly my hunch was correct, our representative was on vester's side.
I shot a look at Kaijin—his face turned bright red, then slowly began draining of color.
I'll bet. Our lawyer wasn't even bothering to make excuses for us.
It went without saying that representatives for the accused weren't allowed to lie in court. If they were found out, that would be another hanging. It was impossible to think any would-be lawyer would attempt it, barring extreme circumstances, and yet ours was doing it right in front of us.
"My liege!" Vester exclaimed, egging him on. "You have heard it for yourself! I beg of you to deal with these miscreants harshly!"
He flashed us a smile of supreme confidence
Maybe I should have been the one to hit him afterall.
The king remained motionless, eyes closed. In his place, one of the guards beside him spoke.
"Order! I will now give the verdict! Kaijin, the mastermind behind this crime, is sentenced to twenty years of labor in the mines. His accomplices are sentenced to ten years of labor in the mines. With that, this court is hereby—"
"Wait," a deep, quiet voice interrupted.
The king opened his eyes and looked at Kaijin.
"It has been a while, Kaijin. Do you remain in good health?"
"…Yes, my liege!" came the instant reply. Presumably he had the right to speak now. "It gladdens me that you remain so as well!"
"Yes. Now, do you and your friends"—looking at us—"have any desire to return to us?"
The audience in the royal court murmured among themselves. It must have been an unusual development. Vester immediately blanched. Our traitorous representative, meanwhile, had developed a deathly pallor.
"I beg your forgiveness, my liege, but I have already found a master to serve! I have made my vow, and it has become my treasure. A treasure so fine that, indeed, not even the direct order of my liege could make me part with it!"
This clearly angered the audience. I could see the guards staring daggers into Kaijin's forehead. But he stood strong—chest puffed out, the picture of dignity.
The king, seeing this, closed his eyes again. "I…see."
Silence ruled for another moment.
"I have made my decision. Listen well to my sentence! Kaijin and his friends are hereby exiled from the kingdom. After midnight tonight, when the new day comes, they are officially no longer welcome in my lands. That is all. Begone at once!" Opening his eyes, the king made his proclamation in a loud voice.
He has the dignity of a born leader, his presence is quite powerful.
So there we were, after the trial, back at Kaijin's shop. That little celebration ended up getting us in trouble, Now we had to pack up and leave.
At this time, we remembered gobta, didn't we leave him tied for three days now. We hurriedly entered the punishment room.
"Ooh! Welcome back, sir! Did you have fun? Gee, sure hope you take me with you next time!"
There he was, leaping up off the sofa to greet us! How did that happen…? He couldn't have gotten out of the binding that easy!
Taking another look, I realized that the cushion Gobta had been using on the sofa was actually a tempest wolf. He actually summoned the guy?
"Uh, Gobta, how'd you get that wolf in here?"
"Oh! Right! That! I just thought to myself, 'Hey, can you come on over, please?' And he did, sir!"
He made it sound so easy, None of the other hobgoblins had managed the feat from a lomt range before. The simple-minded ones sometime give us a surprise.
Kaijin and his bodies were frozen by the sight of the wolf as rimuru urged them to start packing.
"W-wait a second!" the panicked Kaijin replied. "What on earth is a black direwolf doing in here?!"
"Yeah! You need to run! That's a B-ranked monster!"
And now they were panicking.
They looked so ridiculous, I was actually amused.
"Oh, he's fine! Really! No problem! He's like a big dog, really! We keep him indoors and everything!"
Rimuru's attempts at calming everyone's nerves met stony silence.
Black direwolves, by the way, were a somewhat advanced version of regular direwolves. If they evolved in a more magic-oriented fashion, their fur would turn black. The coats of the tempest direwolves were black as well but with a uniquely colored sheen.
Direwolves weren't really supposed to evolve toward the "storm" element in the first place—that was just a side effect of the name rimuru gave out.
In volcanic regions, direwolves would evolve with a fire element and become red direwolves. Near bodies of water, you would find blue direwolves. In the forests would be green direwolves. In other words, adopting elements was a fairly common evolutionary pattern for these guys. The magic-infused black ones, meanwhile, were apparently a notorious threat to any nearby humans and humanoids. The tempest element gave the wolf pack an ever-so-slight purplish shine to their black color, something you wouldn't notice if you weren't paying attention.
After hurriedly pressing the dwarves to put on their best traveler's outfits, Rimuru pushed them out of the shop, went back in by himself, and proceeded to swallow up the entire contents of the building.
Once our preparations for the journey were complete, we made our way to where Rigur and the other goblins were waiting.