Somehow, the empire had become even more chaotic than it already had been over the last few days. Nobles left and right were being arrested for a laundry list of different crimes: rape, slavery, kidnapping, embezzlement, and everything else under the sun. Nobles were terrified, afraid to be the next ones outed to the public.
All of their arrests came out of nowhere. One moment the nobles would be enjoying their days drowning in their own riches, the next the royal guards would be at their doorstep with documents of their crimes, sent directly by the Ministry of Justice.
There are numerous rumors circulating throughout the entire empire about the identity of the person who provided the information. But regardless of who the informant was, for the convicted nobles, the real terror came when they were presented to the court. Without fail, the crown prince himself would always be present during the trial, spearheading all the trials personally. With Yoo Joonghyuk going after the contractions in their stories, merciless in his interrogations, the nobles never stood a chance to get away with their crimes.
"His Royal Highness, Yoo Joonghyuk, Crown Prince of the Seoul Empire has arrived!"
When the door opened, Joonghyuk stride into the courtroom and took the seat at the very front of the room to face the onlookers that sat on both sides of the room. In front of his podium was a line of the nobles who were standing trial, all kneeling down in chains as guards stood behind them, watching their every move.
"His Majesty, The Emperor has fallen ill, trials from this moment on will be presided over by me until his recovery.Raise your hand if you disagree." Of course, no one dared to do so, unless they wanted their tongue to be cut off."As expected..." he said, after glancing around the room
"The trial shall commence, starting with Lady Rose..." The woman looked up at him, her hands in chains and huge tears threatening to spill from her eyes as her whole body trembled.
"Y-yes, Your Highness?"
"It's stated here in the documents that you killed your sister and her son. Since the release of this document multiple of your own knights and servants have come out to say that you did so to get her husband, who had been the royal treasurer at the time" he announced to the room while reading the documents in his hand "You then ordered your servant rape her daughter?" he said, staring coldly at the woman.
"I- It's not true your highness, that's ridiculous, it's libel is what this all is. How could the crown prince listen to such nonsensible writings!?" the woman spat out at him. Unfazed, Yoo Joonghyuk moved on to the next noble who knelt beside her.
"And you..." the man flinched as Joonghyuk turned to face him, "It says here that you used white kill to rape your servant and kill them. In another instance you used the white kill to force another servant to kidnap children off the streets and sell them off as slaves to territories outside the empire, is that true?" Joonghyuk glared at the man. When
the courtroom caught wind of the white kill, the room was lit up with buzzing whispers.
"White kill?"
"What's that?"
"This is the first I've heard of it."
Joonghyuk ignored useless clamoring as he continued to pin the man down with his glower, casting the fear of death upon him. "N-no, Your Highness, I'm being framed," the man cried out in despair.
Joonghyuk snorted, "Really? Then would you like to explain why this was found in your chambers?" From his cloak Joonghyuk brought out a small bottle filled with white pills. While they looked innocent, anyone privy to their true effects would know the amount of damage even a single one of them was capable of inflicting.
"T-that..." the nobleman sputtered, his eyes wildly darting around the room as he tried up to come up with anything her cold to escape this situation, " y-you see, Your Highness, those are simply pills that were prescribed to me by my physician, yes! They're just harmless supplements that allow me to get through the day, is all they are, I swear!"
Knowing that was all the information he was going to get from the man, Joonghyuk moved down the line of nobles.The process of a repetitive one, Joonghyuk presenting the person with their crime only for them to pathetically deny it and uselessly plead for the prince to believe them. The others down the line hadn't committed crimes any less heinous than the two that came before them.
One had started a drug ring in the slums of the empire, taking advantage of the miserable lives of impoverished citizens to make them become addicted returning customers, disregarding how their dead bodies piled onto the streets. Another had forced the maids indebted to them into prostitution rings to pay off their dues. The last one had put their own children into their personal coin farms, where they and other nobles betted on which children would win in brutal fights.
Joonghyuk brought an inquisitive finger under his chin, his other hand tapping rhythmically on the arm of his chair as he carefully considered their words. Suddenly, an idea popped into his head.
"Hyunsung..."
Standing beside him, Hyunsung turned to face Joonghyuk, "Yes, Your Highness?"
"Those pills, make everyone kneeling in that line swallow one.
"B-but, Your Highness, about that…"
Without looking at Hyunsung, he added, "Go, I don't like repeating myself." Knowing that the prince wouldn't proceed with the trail, Hyunsung sighed and walked over to the aristocrats who had been detained. While the knights behind them held up their heads and made sure they didn't squirm around too much, Hyunsung was able to make them swallow the pills as ordered.
The court's onlookers studied the nobles closely. In front of him the nobles' bodies tensed up, the muscles of their bodies contracting and uncontracting uncontrollably like they had lost all countenance. Just as their eyes started to bug out of their sockets and foam started gathering at the corners of their mouths, their bodies became completely still. They stared ahead with unfocused, hooded eyes; their eyes misty. Joonghyuk was intrigued by their reaction, but went on to ask them
"All the crimes I've described to each of you thus far, tell me if you're guilty of committing them."
"Of course I killed off that bitch! She dared seduce my Ethan. He was supposed to be mine, but that whore got to him first and just had to pop out that disgusting child to rub it in my face!" Lady Rose screeched out, incensed.
"Yes, I am." The man next to her proclaimed proudly. "Who cares if a servant or a few street cretins are killed off?They were put in their lowly positions because that's what the star of the Seoul Empire deemed their destinies to be.If they deserved a good life, our god would've given them one. I'm simply doing my duty as a follower by making sure they watch themselves in this life."
As the other nobles continued to confess to their crimes and their lack of regret, the courtroom looked on in horrified silence, disgusted by the utter cold-heartedness that was being displayed in front of them. To think that any of them held influence over any part of the empire was appalling. Infuriated, the courtroom erupted into cries for justice, wanting to see the nobles receive a proper punishment for their inhumane crimes.
"Looks like those confessions are all we need..." Joonghyuk murmured to himself. Scanning the courtroom as it devolved into a greater state of chaos, he spotted Dokja leaning against the wall next to the entrance. Like the prince, Dokja had also been observing the courtroom but looked up to meet his eyes. Dokja just gave him a sly smirk and a wink before going back to his observation. Restraining his own smile, Joonghyuk focused his attention back onto the trial.
"With the nobles admitting their crimes before the court, I will now proceed onto the sentencing." With Joonghyuk's announcement, the courtroom got impossibly louder as the audience in the stands started yelling out
"Death, give them death!"
"The deserve to burn in hell for their crimes!"
"Only when trash like them is gone will peace come to the empire!"
"As the ruling class of the empire, nobles are supposed to uphold their duty to the people and be a shining representation of the empire's competence and sophistication. For such heinous crimes to be committed under our empire's flag by nobles like yourselves is unacceptable, and thus all over you will be held to a higher degree of severity, to ensure all nobles understand there will be zero tolerance for voraciousness. I hereby sentence all the criminals present to the death penalty. Tomorrow, at dawn, they will be beheaded at the front of the royal plaza for all the public to see…"
The second part of Yoo Joonghyuk's sentencing could barely be heard of the mass cry of cheers that erupted the courtroom as soon as the onlookers heard that the nobles would be killed for their crimes. It was also at that moment that the nobles had snapped out of their drug induced haze, welcomed back by the joyful cries of both commonfolk and aristocrats alike at their death sentencing, the public thrilled at their timely deaths.
As they processed what was happening and what was being said, their dazed expressions turned horrified as they began sobbing for mercy, flinging down their bodies onto the floor as they tried to beg the prince to change his mind, with other nobles started yelling cursed at him.
"Please, Your Highness, there must be a mistake, this is wrong!"
"I don't want to die, my land, my wealth, I've worked too hard for it to be snatched away like this!"
"Who dare let this bastard prince of all people decide our fates, I'll drag you down to hell!"
"You better watch your back after this, I have connections and they won't hesitate to go after you after what you've done to us!"
Joonghyuk pretended he hadn't heard them and ordered them to be sent back to the dungeon. As the royal guards hauled them up to their feet and started dragging them away, they were still yelling in outrage and the court's audience mocked their desperate attempts.
With court adjourned, the attendees started trickling out of the room, satisfied with the trial's outcome and having their fair share of drama and gossip for the day. Joonghyuk stood up to do the same, walking out to the hallway outside the Grand Council Hall with Hyunsung following behind at a distance. When a hand grabbed his arm, he stopped in his tracks. He turned around to be met by Dokja, who wore a mischievous smile. Further behind him was his own personal knight, Joonghyuk recalled that her name was Jung Heewon. He'd often heard Hyunsung singing her praises to him.
"I thought you wouldn't come…" the prince muttered.
Dokja snickered at that, "Why not, it's the first time I could see my little prince oversee court all by himself like a big boy, no way was I going to miss out on the show!"
Joonghyuk huffed out a chuckle before hooking Dokja's arm around his own, the both of them walking out the building with their personal knights following from the distance. Heewon and Hyunsung strolled side by side in silence as they carefully watched over their respective masters. In the past the only encounters the two had had were when they had to separate their masters before they could kill each other. Heewon had developed a rather negative view of the prince from those encounters, thinking him to be a cold and ruthless bastard for always trying to kil
Dokja (even though Dokja had often instigated those fights, though she gave him his fair share of lectures for that).Because of that, she hadn't been able to get much of a read on the knight. Though right now her personal opinion of him rapidly declining. It hard to walk with how much the man kept side-eyeing her. He was probably judging her and her master, thinking of all sorts of nonsensical gossip and rumors. Just thinking about it made Jung Heewon's blood boil, but she calmed herself, she wouldn't explode in front of her master.
Poor Hyunsung simply admired her fighting skills and thought she looked beautiful up close, the two of them never being at this proximity before. He wanted to initiate a conversation with her, but he was too nervous to speak up.Both their masters had been enemies until recently, and he feared he'd say something wrong.
Up ahead Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk were blissfully unaware of the awkwardness that their knights were experiencing at that moment.
"I'd pay money to see how pissed your step-mother is right now"
"Hmph, I can't disagree with you there."
-----
The queen hurled a book at one of her maids, the corner of it hitting her painfully on the crown of her head. Caught off guard, the maid fell to the floor. Reaching her hand up to clutch her head, the maid could already feel her skin swelling up as a bruise formed. As the other maids went to help the woman up, the queen paced back and forth across the room, anxiously biting her fingernails.
Left and right the families under her domain had been getting arrested and publicly exposed for their crimes and illicit pasts. And at the heart of all the recent development had been Yoo Joonghyuk, personally overseeing each trial and punishment. She wasn't stupid enough not to connect the fact that that bastard had to be involved in the information leak somehow. She swore to herself that she'd make him take responsibility for causing this mess.
Just thinking of her stepson made the queen even more enraged. She let out a hoarse shout as she shoved everything off the table in front of her, the loud crashes of teacups and ceramic plates shattering onto the floor followed by a rush of maids to clean up the new mess in the room.
Outside the room rapid footfalls made their way towards the door. The door then opened to reveal the second prince sporting a worried look on his face as he took in the ravaged state of the queen's parlor room.
"M-mother?"
The prince quickly went forward to hug his mother, rubbing her back reassuringly. Letting out a tired sigh, the queen also set a warm hand on his back. Pulling back from the hug a bit, the queen looked her son in the eyes.
"My son, remember that you will be the emperor," the Queen had a loving gaze as she looked at her son.
The prince nodded along with her words "Of course, I know mother."
"Yes, I will clear the path for you, no matter what…" she pulled her son into her arms again, holding him close.
-----
Citizens came from all parts of the capital had come to witness the public execution. While a substantial amount of people had already come to witness the trial, after it concluded the other day word spread like wildfire throughout the city of exactly what happened. The crimes that the nobles had committed had been so cruel that even the gossip had no need to embellish their severity. Thus, an overwhelming crowd had showed up to the royal plaza, so big that streets and alleys were blocked from movement. People fought over better viewing spots for the executions, and a good amount had taken to sitting on the building roofs just to witness it.
The accused nobles were kneeling down on an elevated platform which guards situated at every angle, lest the unruly citizens try to end the criminals' lives with their own hands. One guard was assigned to each of them, pushing their heads down to the ground as the executioner came out. At the sight of the executioner's hefty axe, the crowd roared in delight as their anticipation only heightened. Unfortunately for the nobles, they couldn't share the sentiment. As the executioner dragged his weapon to the first noble in line and started lifting it above his head, the criminals started pleading once more, crying out for anyone to save them.
"Please no! Arg—"
"I-I...don't—I don't want to di—!"
"No—!"
Each decapitation was punctuated with loud cheers from the onlookers. In that moment the only form of mercy granted to the nobles was a quick death, though as they died the rest of the nobles waiting for their turn hot mor an more desperate, screaming out for their families, for anyone to help as they saw their allies killed before their eyes.
Though their screams were drowned out by the audience. To be the last one down the line was the most unfortunate position to hold.Even after the execution was finished, the crowd continued to linger in the area, cheering the crown prince for getting rid of the filth of their empire.
----
Satisfied from the scene in front of him, Dokja turned around and started walking away from the royal plaza, contemplating visiting the three forest creatures after going so long without them, plus he'd have to thank them for helping out him and Joonghyuk when they were lost in the forest. Maybe he could convince Joonghyuk to. As he started contemplated the different ways he could make it up to the creatures, Dokja was immediately startled from his thoughts when someone ran into him, the both of them tumbling over with the armful of food the stranger was carrying also scattering all over the ground.
"Oh, sorry about that!" Dokja hurriedly apologized and started gathering up the food to hand over to the stranger.
The person seemed nervous, lowering their face as he muttered out a quiet thanks. Curious what they were so nervous about, Dokja tilted his head a bit to try to catch sight of their faces, his widening at what he saw. While his stark white hair had Dokja almost confused the stranger for Kim Namwoon for a second, his skin was almost as pale as his hair.
Even more surprising was his eyes; his irises were red, while his sclera were pitch black, not even a speckle of light reflecting off of them. Right above the crown of his head was a small nub of a horn that peaked from his hair. Dokja was about to question him on in when an imposing voice rang out from a distance.
"There he is, get him everyone!"
They both turned to see a group of angry looking commoners heading in their direction, some of them holding knives and pitchforks. Dokja leapt to his feet, grabbed the man by the wrist, and started running as fast as he could as the stranger got dragged behind him.
"Hey, where do you think you're taking me?!"
"There's no time to explain, let's just run!" Dokja shouted as he didn't slow down for even a second. The two weaved in and out of the alleyways as they tried to lose the commoners.
----
Joonghyuk was looking eagerly at the crowd, his eyes searching for a certain squid-like figure that had disappeared a few moments ago when his personal knight approached him.
"Did you find Kim Dokja?" the prince asked, not taking his eyes off the crowd.
"I'm afraid not, Your Highness, though the other knights are still searching the area."
With a grumpy sigh, Joonghyuk glared at the ground. Hyunsung, wary of the prince's strange reaction, was just about to return to searching for the Underworld's heir when he was stopped.
"Let's just go, I'm sure that rat has other business right now." He then proceeded to his carriage.