Chapter 295
Chapter 295
The date of the trial was soon announced . It was an important issue, and the public was very interested in the case . Keeping that in mind, the trial was going to take place in public, and it would be broadcasted to the world .
However, the trial wasn’t the most important issue right now .
“I see! We have to recapture Armstrong city . ”
“Yes . ”
The Mayor nodded at Plu-El’s words .
Plu-El had been very helpful . All the countries were satisfied with her cooperation . She wasn"t alone in cooperating with the people of Earth; the other Moon people did so too . However, Plu-El was a descendant of the ruling cla.s.s . Her knowledge surpa.s.sed that of the others, and thus, she was more useful to the people of Earth .
Moreover, she was the wife of Jungb.u.m, an earthling . She had a better grasp of Earth"s languages .
Therefore, she was frequently called forth for advice on matters related to the Moon and the labyrinths . Of course, the person who sought her the most was the Mayor .
“We"ve created a basic stratagem . Well, it isn’t much of a stratagem . We’ll conduct a surprise attack on Armstrong city . After we chase out the monsters, we’ll use the defensive weapons inside the city that are still intact . When we have successfully driven out the monsters, we’ll start construction . We’ll turn Armstrong city into a fortress . ”
Of course, the details of the plan had to be fleshed out to increase the probability of success .
“Then why are you here to see me? If you need the portal, you can ask me anytime . I’ll open it for you . ”
“Is there any way we can make Armstrong city more secure?”
“Mmm . ”
Plu-El pondered the matter for a brief moment .
“I think the only method is to synchronize the four cities . I can think of nothing else . ”
“So there is a way?”
The Mayor had been grasping at straws . He had thrown a hail mary . So when he received a positive answer, he felt as if the bells were ringing in heaven .
“I don’t know for sure . This information was pa.s.sed down through the generations, but a lot of it was lost in the process . It was said that an unbreachable domain could be created if one awakened the capital city, the fortress city, the holy city, and the mage city . Of course, it"s useless against Grenoid . ”
“Basically, it"s a legend . ”
The Mayor couldn’t hide his disappointment .
“It indeed is . However, I believe there is a high chance that it"s credible . ”
“I guess it"s better than having nothing . Now, the problem we have to solve is acquiring the four cities . Don’t we only have three of them?”
“Yes . Mr . Sungyoon has the capital city . I possess the holy city . Aruwen possesses the fortress city . ”
“What about the last one? Do you know where the Mage Gem is?”
Plu-El shook her head from side to side .
“I"m sorry . We don’t know the whereabouts of the Mage Gem . Either it went missing before our people came up to the Moon, or it was lost after we brought it up to the Moon . ”
“I see . Thank you for answering my questions . ”
In the end, the Mayor hadn’t earned anything meaningful from this meeting . His shoulders drooped as he exited the room; it was almost a pitiful sight .
The mayor exited the room, but Sungyoon didn’t follow him out .
“I heard you met my mothers-in-law . ”
“Yes, they came a couple of days ago . ”
“How was it?”
Sungyoon was called the Knight, and he had gone through all kinds of hards.h.i.+p . Yet, he became nervous when asking the question .
Thankfully for him, a smile appeared on Plu-El’s lips .
“As expected of the women he chose, they were good people . ”
“It seems you had fun . ”
Sungyoon relaxed his tense shoulders .
“Hoo-hooht! Yes . We talked a lot about him . They told me about the Jungb.u.m I didn’t know, and I told them about the Jungb.u.m they didn"t know . In many ways, we talked a lot about his various sides . ”
“I’m glad that you got close to them . ”
It wasn’t just Plu-El . Things going well put Sungyoon’s mind at ease too .
“Is Soyoung doing well?”
Now, it was Plu-El’s time to ask the questions .
“She is . My wife and my mothers-in-law are taking good care of her . She"s also getting along very well with s.h.i.+nhae . The two girls have become inseparable like best friends . ”
“That"s good to hear . ”
With her personal matters resolved, Plu-El only had a few worries left in her life . One of them was Soyoung .
“Well, the family tree is a bit messed up . ”
“Family tree… is messed up?”
Plu-El repeated his words . She wasn’t used to the Korean expression, so she looked worried .
Sungyoon quickly clarified himself .
“It"s nothing . It"s just that s.h.i.+nhae and Soyoung are close in age . s.h.i.+nhae refers to my mothers-in-law as her grandmothers, while Soyoung refers to each of them as her mother . This is causing a bit of confusion . s.h.i.+nhae calls Soyoung Unni, but on paper, Soyoung is her aunt . ”
“Ah . I see! That"s indeed a problem!”
Plu-El now understood what it meant for a family tree to be messed up .
“That’s the extent of the problems we face . The only other problem is that Soyoung sometimes gets sad without you . However, that’ll be solved soon . It"s only a matter of time before you are released . ”
“I am causing you a lot of trouble . ”
“I don’t mind it . ”
Sungyoon had gained beneficial information from Plu-El . Above all else, she was one of his mothers-in-law .
“The trial against Fabion will start soon . ”
Plu-El"s smiling face stiffened in a moment .
“Most probably, you will be called in as a witness . Please don’t hold anything back . Let everyone know what you suffered under Fabion"s hands . You can"t lie, but at the very least, the truth will—”
“Don’t worry about it . ”
A cold smile appeared on Plu-El’s lips .
“I don’t have to make anything up . Their actions were so rotten that I don’t need to embellish them . I kept a list in my head . I have all of it down . ”
***
The day of Fabion"s trial arrived . A lot of reporters had gathered around the courthouse . Even foreign reporters had come . No one wanted to miss out on such an event .
Sungyoon sat in the audience with Hweeyoung, Aiin, and Jimin . It had been very hard to get a seat in the public seating area . Fortunately, the government had reserved seats for him and his group .
Hweeyoung and Aiin looked extra fierce today . They were pressing down on it right now, but their hearts were filled with anger . It looked like they were about to explode .
On one hand, they didn’t want it to be true; on the other, they felt resentment toward the men on trial . These contradictory feelings clashed within their hearts .
The judge overseeing the case called the court to the session, then he laid out the crimes charged against Fabion . The audience either groaned or cussed in low voices when they heard the detailed explanation of the charges .
Dongin, Hyunwoo, and those intimately related to the crimes were in the dock .
Hweeyoung and Aiin didn’t even blink as they glared at Dongin and Hyunwoo .
“Defendant . ”
The judge spoke in a low voice devoid of emotions .
“Do you accept these charges leveled against you?”
“h.e.l.l no! This is all bulls.h.i.+t! I’m innocent!”
Dongin yelled .
The curses coming from the public seating area increased, and they contained venom now . The judge stopped the trial to call order to the spectators .
The lawyers representing Dongin laid out their defense . Since Dongin was filthy rich, he had hired an all-star lineup of lawyers . The lead lawyer was eloquent and charismatic, and he used these characteristics to the utmost as he defended Dongin .
The battle between the prosecutor and the lead lawyer went on for a long time . Soon, the time to call the witnesses to the stand arrived . The prosecutor brought forth Plu-El, and the media immediately focused their interest solely on her .
She was an alien who had lived on the Moon . This fact was enough to make her the center of attention .
The prosecutor asked Plu-El some questions, and she answered all of them .
However, she refused to even look at the members of Fabion . Just seeing them made her insides boil .
Dongin and the other accused strongly reacted against her words, and their lawyers heard her answers with all their attention . They were trying to find any weakness in her testimony .
In stark contrast to all of them, Hyunwoo was silent .
The judge picked up on this abnormality, so he called him out .
“Mr . Sung Hyunwoo . Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
Hyunwoo quietly stood up from his seat . He looked at his surroundings as if he were searching for someone . His eyes briefly stopped on Hweeyoung, Aiin, and Jimin, then fell on Sungyoon . Their eyes met .
Grin!
Hyunwoo smiled . It was out of place, but he displayed the smile of a prankster .
“Respected judge . ”
As if he were reading lines in a play, Hyunwoo spoke in a slightly exaggerated manner . He then pointed toward the prosecutor .
“He got it wrong . ”
The prosecutor"s face distorted, and all the accused nodded .
However, Hyunwoo’s next words shocked everyone .
“I guess he isn’t wrong, but he doesn’t know much about what we did . Do you really think that was all Fabion did?”
“W-what?”
Dongin couldn"t say anything . He just kept opening and closing his mouth . The spectators became noisy once again, but Hyunwoo remained calm as he continued .
“Did we attack the Moon people? We did . If their story was spread across Earth, our business of gathering moonstones would"ve been adversely affected . Did we kill Jungb.u.m? We did . He knew the truth, and he was trying to reveal all the information to Earth . We had no choice but to kill him . ”
“You . . . you crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Stop that right now!”
Dongin rushed toward Hyunwoo . However, Hyunwoo possessed the supernatural body of a Connector, and he had put his life on the line to fight battles over the years . Of course, Dongin, a normal middle-aged man, couldn"t stop him .
“The place where we reported Jungb.u.m had died was not the right one . Jungb.u.m indeed died in the tunnel of the Great Labyrinth, but it was the Great Labyrinth that"s currently under Fabion’s management . Woo Sungyoon was searching the wrong place . He wanted to find Jungb.u.m"s traces, but it was in vain . Fabion had illegally entered many tunnels . ”
Jimin’s hands shook, and Sungyoon firmly gripped them .
“We also did human experimentation . We wanted to create something like the Flesh Gems of the Moon people . So we used the corpses of the Moon people we hunted down as ingredients for our experiments . We sometimes also ambushed other Connectors to acquire corpses . Ah! There was a pretty big story two years ago where an entire party of Connectors went missing . Well, we were behind that . At the time, our experiments had progressed very far, so we needed a lot of corpses . ”
Plu-El"s eyes turned bloodshot as she glared at Hyunwoo .
“Mmm! This might not be considered much, but we also interfered in the business of Hahn Jimin, Hahn Jungb.u.m’s daughter . The brat wanted to find traces of her father, and she was tenacious . She became a thorn in our sides, so we used the trash named Kim Soobin . Soobin was to kill Woo Sungyoon, the Connector affiliated with her company . However, as expected of the Knight, it didn’t work against him . ”
Sungyoon’s face started to harden .
“The terrorist attacks that have been considered the catalyst for the downfall of Armstrong city, we carried them out . When Woo Sungyoon seized Plu-El, we were worried that she would spill the beans . So we diverted the attention of the entire world . We made it so that Armstrong city"s defenses were extremely weak . We did it because we wanted an opportunity to eliminate Plu-El . ”
In this maelstrom of shock and surprise, Hyunwoo looked at peace as he grinned .
“That’s all I can remember right now . ”