Chapter 98: Second Quarter (Public Opinion)
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On the fourth day of the week. Seeing that her efforts bore no fruit, Mira Hoggs decided to take her protesting outside the Academy, to the town. For the past three days, she along with her group were protesting on the Academy’s grounds claiming that Soma has harassed them and that the Academy should do something about him. Those students were claiming that Soma has acted violently against them for no reason and there were some girls who were laying down the details of how Soma sexually harassed them and raped them, and they were even crying.

 

This was Mira’s plan. She intended to move the opinion of the student body with those claims. But to her surprise, her plan didn’t work. The students making those claims were well known in the Academy for being Mira’s lackeys, and they were known as the most harmful amongst the students, and they were effectively hated by everyone in the Academy including the teachers and staff members. Those students are the type to do whatever they wanted in the Academy under the protection of a noble Mira. They have never been punished for their actions and that made everyone (not on their side) in the Academy hate them, that is until Soma started working in the Academy.

 

Mira tried to move the student body but failed. She spent a whole night racking her brain trying to figure out why, and the answer she came up with is that the students were brainwashed by Soma using that library of his. She couldn't come up with any other reason why didn’t the students believe her words, a Noble. At the end of the day, Mira Hoggs is still under the illusion that everyone would believe her no matter what she says since she is a Noble. And almost all the nobles in this country are the same, they believe that their words are the ultimate truth, the ultimate evidence.

 

And since the students were brainwashed, she decided to take her claims to the general public, to the poor people who have no time or money to read in that cursed library. So… early in the morning of the fourth day, she took her lackeys and stood atop a makeshift stage she prepared beforehand placed at the busiest spot in the town, at the intersection between the guilds, open market, and the commercial district. She and her group standing atop the stage started calling out to the people saying things like “Come, and we will tell you the truth about the Academy!!” “The Academy is hiring criminals with the intention of harming the students!”.

The more people assembled around them the wider the grin on Mira’s face became without her noticing. For some time now things stopped going her way, but today things seemed to go her way and that led to the grin.

 

Noticing that a lot of people are assembled, the town’s guards couldn’t leave them alone and that’s why they came and stood there keeping an eye on the people in case things became dangerous. Seeing the guards, Mira became vigilant thinking that they were here to ruin her plans, but seeing that the guards had no intention of doing that, made her feel as if she has won. She saw the guards’ inaction as them showing her respect and supporting her, failing to notice that all of their attention was on the people and not on her.

 

Mira and her lackeys started narrating their claims with passion, and as more time passed the more people assembled around them. Seeing more and more people assembling around her gave her energy and she went on and on about how dangerous Soma was, and how the Academy was helping him commit his crimes. But there was one more change other than the increase in the number of people, but she failed to notice that one. It’s the increase of the people’s hostility towards her. The people were becoming angry and frustrated with her the more she talked and that wasn’t because they didn’t believe her, but it was because she has presented no evidence to support her claims whatsoever. At this point, the people of Akud became way too familiar with the nobles’ ways of doing things, they have been lied to for more than five years now and only just recently they learned about these lies and how to tell them apart from the truth, and that by looking at the evidence supporting one’s claims.

 

But Mira presented no such evidence, she was just lining her claims to the people expecting them to believe her no matter what she says. But that means that she believes that the people are stupid and ignorant, which is what the people assembled started thinking, especially since some of the things she was saying conflicted with what some of her lackeys were saying. She thought that to add more credibility to her claims she can add the time the “crime” committed by Soma happened, and she made sure to tell her lackeys to do the same. But the times started overlapping each other without them noticing, even if she added the time of the crime to add more credibility to her claim, she still expected the people to believe her right away since she is a Noble thus she never put any effort into choosing the times expecting the people to not pay any attention to them.

 

Seeing that this girl was allowed to say whatever she wanted for long enough, one of the people there raised his hand…

 

“May I ask you a question?”(Man)

 

“…Go ahead”(Mira)

 

“What proof do you have to support your claims? Do you have any evidence?”(Man)

 

That one question was enough to cause Mira and all of her lackeys to stop talking, and all of her lackeys were looking at her as she glared at the man.

 

“What do you mean by that? I am Mira Hoggs, you know”(Mira)

 

“…”(Man)

 

“…So what? Or did you really think that you’ll be believed just because you are a noble?”(Woman)

 

“And by the way, a lot of your claims are outright impossible! Going by the times those alleged crimes happened, Soma will have to be at three sometimes four places at the same time. And in case you didn’t know many of those times you guys mentioned Soma was actually walking around the town helping us deal with the thugs you guys sent our way!”(Old Woman)

 

Those three were merely the start. Following the lead of those three, the people started debunking Mira’s and her lackeys’ claims with evidence the people have from them actually seeing Soma doing his job all over the town. Mira’s personal guards enraged they started lashing out at the people and threatening them only for the town guards to stop them and arrest them on the spot. And to help to clear this whole mess, one of the town guards went to the guards' station and brought with him a number of files. Those files contain a complete record of Soma’s actions since the time he started working in the Academy. Soma was hired by Leona following the advice of her dear friend Alf El Elk the Lord of the town of Elk, but not everyone around her was ready to trust an outsider especially considering the town’s situation. And that’s why she placed a group of the best guards she had to monitor and record all of Soma’s actions whenever he went out of his place of residence.

 

The files were openly presented to the people, so they can read them and compare what’s written on them to what they themselves knew and to what Mira’s group claimed. In the files, there were records of people being asked about what was Soma telling them, and what they said was perfectly recorded in there, and some of those people were present, and they confirmed that what’s written in the records is the truth. Going through the records, all of Mira’s and her lackeys’ claims were proven to be nothing but bullshit.

 

This whole thing led to the arrest of most of Mira’s lackeys for the outrageous claims they made especially the girls who claimed to have been raped by Soma. And the rest of Mira’s group were placed under house arrest until the Law Enforcer, Soma decides what to do with them.

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