Chapter 21:
Inmate 4001
evening, in the warden's office.
"Ah, I see..." After listening to Aiden's account, Veronica lowered her head and said, "It seems the chances of a retrial are quite slim for now."
Once again she was brought to the warden's office to talk with Aiden, and listened as he explained the current situation.
"At least for now, I can't think of any way to break this deadlock," Aiden sighed.
Veronica fell silent for a moment. Suddenly, she let out a breath as if finding some peace within herself, then forced a smile and said,
"It's alright, Warden. You've done your best. I've come to terms with it. I'm an orphan, without family or friends, so there's not much for me to hold on to. Meeting a kind-hearted warden like you in my final moments is already a good thing."
Aidan furrowed his brow and stared at Veronica for a while, then suddenly remarked, "you just have been here for a few days and already gone a bit daft?"
"Huh?" Veronica was bewildered.
"No, I mean, how can you possibly take this situation lightly? Being wrongly accused and sent to the gallows, how could you not seek vengeance? You must have those responsible for this to pay, even if it means haunting them from beyond the grave!" Aidan glared at her.
"At the very least, prepare yourself for filing a retrial application, even if tomorrow was the day of the punishment!"
Once he was completely certain of Veronica's innocence, he was determined to help clear her name.
Having devoted two lifetimes to being a prison guard, he still had some feelings for his profession. The duty of a prison guard was to manage and rehabilitate criminals, and having an innocent person endure punishment was as unbearable as swallowing a fly for him.
Furthermore, today this antagonist had the audacity to mock him, trampling over his dignity. Anyone with a bit of temper would absolutely not stand for it.
"But..." Veronica was stunned by this unpredictable man, momentarily forgetting her desolation. "You said you couldn't think of a way. Even if we don't give up, what can we do?"
Finally, arrived at the bottom, a huge dark room with nothing except for a door can be seen.
A massive cell door, crafted from mithril, occupied an entire wall.
It was adorned with various defensive measures, and inscribed with several kinds of forbidden runes.
All of these were offensive runes, meant to detect the moment a prisoner inside broke containment. They were designed to completely destroy the said prisoner and this underground space, burying her along with this dungeon.
This dungeon was located directly below the warden's office. Frankly, Aiden had serious doubts about the rationality of this design.
Even though the higher-ups at the Inquisition Bureau emphasized to him that this place's foundation and the dungeon itself were reinforced just as much, that even if the dungeon exploded, the prison above would be fine. Aiden was still worried that one day when he sitting, doing some work like usual, suddenly there's a loud noise and huge explosion blasting his ass.
What's more, he believed that these so-called forbidden techniques most likely wouldn't be enough to kill that woman.
The mere existence of the prisoner locked inside was already a taboo in itself.
He undid the locks on the door one by one, and finally, he pricked his finger and smeared the blood into a groove on the door—a door that only he had the authority to open in this prison.
With the sound of gear turning, the door made of mithril opened layer by layer, and the strongest Cell of the rose prison finally appeared.
The entire cell was made of mithril just like the door. The woman with floor-length hair was bound to the execution frame at the end of the cell. Strange-shaped long nails pierced her palms, the tops of her feet, and the joints of her hands and feet. She tilted her head, eyes tightly shut, and appearing serene as if she were a lifeless corpse.
The moment Aiden stepped into the cell, the slumbering woman slowly opened her eyes.
"Good evening, Inmate 4001," Aidan greeted her expressionlessly.
"You've finally come to see me again, my dear warden."
Inmate 4001 smiled at him, her silver-gray eyes reflecting the figure of Aiden holding the lantern.N0v3lRealm was the platform where this chapter was initially revealed on N0v3l.B1n.
