As I was power-walking towards him, Olga herself held me back, and a few others from the seats also came in to block me from approaching them.

"Not like this, CJS69Real." Olga said.

"We do this democratically." another added.

"Let him talk."

I nearly spat at the word. Democracy? This wasn't justice, this was fifty cowards hiding behind procedure, in every zombie shows I've seen, democracy would often lead to the survival community all dying because of incompotency and splitting sides, this wasn't a real life government, so they should just promote someone to be a dictator and get over it.

For one wild moment I considered cutting them all down, Pearl, the jury, the testifiers, every single one of them. It would be so simple, clean. My blade didn't ask questions, of course, a few of them here might be high-level with good gear, so it would take me 5 seconds instead of 2 for each of them... But… no.

I exhaled, forcing my grip to loosen, my rage to settle into something colder, killing them wouldn't get me anywhere, so I sat down.

"I want that bastard to tell me why he tries to kill my friend!" I tell them, mixing myself something random I pulled from the bar shelf.

"No." Pearl said, "We'll go through everyone by order, Olga haven't tell us her side of the story. After Olga, he'll have his chance."

"Urg......…"

I squeezed on the glass so hard I almost broke it, but then I just down a cup of whatever I just brewed and nodded for them to continue.

It was Olga's turn last.

She rose slowly, her greatsword leaning against the table.

"The NPC wasn't normal," she spoke, both arms crossed against her muscular chest. "He asked us to guide him, that everyone agreed, then when we were arguing over if we should help him or finish up this dungeon, I saw him conjuring up mana… It was red, and flowing in the air into his palm like threads, forming an orb. If I understand correctly, that's a Sorcerer magic or something else."

Her eyes flicked toward Pearl for half a second before snapping back to the crowd.

"When I told him to stop doing that and tried to ask what is he doing, he raised his hand at me. His fist was alive with magic, so I decapitated him."

The room buzzed with restless discussions, to which Pearl told everyone to calm down to allow Olga to keep going, her tone remained flat, almost dead.

"After that, the others turned on me, I didn't have to time to assess who is who, I tried to talk while defending myself, but they were already swinging."

"..." No one said anything while Olga took another breath.

"About the Hailie girl and if ErikDop attacked her… I don't know anything about that, I was looking at the NPC, while she was behind me closer to the exit. So my focus was only on the weapons drawn against me, and I only cut those I knew had intentio to murder me, that is everyone."

"Granted, it took me a bit of self-restraint not to cut down the Hailie girl, too. Considering that I didn't know who's who at the time, and I don't know if she's capable of doing damage, after all."

The last part she added was unnecessary and ultimately just painted her in a worse light, and it infuriated me, of course. The fact that she thought Hailie was any danger.

The tavern erupted.

The people were split, there were theories throwing around, at least 10 of them, but the most prominent was that at least one of the sides was lying, and it didn't look good for Olga. Who had all the evidences against her.

The seven who had respawned roared the loudest, slamming their fists on the tables, accusing her of twisting the story, branding her a 'murder hobo' who needed to be exiled from New Destiny, some even drawn their weapons, but was ultimately stopped by the people of the jury.

Chairs scraped, boots stomped, voices overlapped until the air was nothing but chaos.

CRASH

I slammed my hand on the table, snarling until silence clawed its way back into the room. My glare pinned the seven who had testified, daring them to keep mouthing off.

"You bastards tell me to keep it down and civilized while you do this?"

For once, they shut their mouths.

But even with the noise gone, the puzzle still didn't fit. No corpses remained to identify, of course, both NPCs and players despawn when they die.

A sorcerer NPC who tried to attack the party unprompted after asking for help? Yeah, Olga's side is not making sense right now.

That dungeon was an abandoned mineshaft, moderate level, too, so chances are, there's not any mind-bender or hallucination enemy that caused both sides to turn on each other.

But what if there were?

Olga and Hailie must be the only two affected, then… Considering how the other 7 got their stories straight and together. While Olga saw the NPC charging up Sorcerer magic, then the party turned on her, and Hailie saw one of the members attacking her… But if it's a hallucination type of thing, who gains from this? And how?

"ErikDop." Pearl spoke, pulling me out of my trance, "Did you try to kill Hailie, the priest?"

"No I did not." He spoke.

"H…He's lying!" Hailie yelped, but Pearl ignored her.

"Did you have any intention to at all?"

"No."

"Did you charge at her at all?"

"I did not."

"That makes sense." Olga added, "If he wanted to kill her, she'll be dead, if she's really just a Priest, how could she defend herself against ErikDop and his gear at that level?"

This bitch is agreeing with someone who's on the opposite side of her, what the hell, Olga????? I pondered to myself.

The jury murmured, agreeing to that.

So, now they think Hailie's lying.

"I- I can explain… Um…"

Hailie looked at me, trying to get permission to tell everyone that she's invulnerable, but I shook my head.

Even if she's branded as a liar pants on fire, I couldn't tell people she's invulnerable… So it's only me and her who knew the truth.

The question is… What do I tell them?

"Go ahead, Hailie." Pearl spoke, "We're waiting for your explaination. How did you protect yourself against ErikDop if he, alledgedly, tried to kill you? A spell? A piece of armor or item we need to know about?"

"I… Um… I-"

"You don't have to say." I spoke as I approached the middle of the bar, grabbing everyone's attention, "I can vouch for her honesty, she's too dumb to lie. The absent of evidence is not the evidence of absent."

"That's not how you use the term…" Pearl coughed, "We will rule Hailie's statement about ErikDop's intent to murder invalid."

But something gnawed at me, crawling up the back of my skull, refusing to let go.

And then, it clicked.

I'd been in that dungeon before in the Early Access VR version.

I knew its layout, I knew its mobs.

And I knew one thing for certain: there had never been an NPC there, not in Early Access.

Not in the PC version either, since the dungeon itself didn't exist there to cross-reference. Sure, the devs could have slipped it in for the full VR release… but it didn't make sense for a Sorcerer NPC to be there, especially one with illusional abilities.

I stared around the room, at every face frozen in the tension of the moment, at Olga still gripping her blade, at Hailie trembling in her seat, at Pearl watching me carefully with those unreadable eyes.

And then I asked.

"How do you guys know it was an NPC?"

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