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Since Justice Points were now an important currency, the wood spirits quickly learned to use it to make the adventurers do their bidding. The wood spirits sold their special fruits that could permanently increase one’s base stats at incredibly high prices and issued various quests that paid out in Justice Points. This made the “greedy” adventurers eagerly work for the wood spirits.

At first, perhaps there were a few quests or items that paid out or were priced in an unbalanced manner, but I believed in the self-correcting power of the market. As long as there was a sufficient amount of Justice Point exchanges, things would balance themselves in the end, just like my original world’s international markets... and if the Justice Points exchange system didn’t balance itself and ended up going bankrupt, then it wouldn’t be my fault!

By the time the market was flourishing enough to balance itself out, Ayer’s faction that had the sole power to “create Justice Points” might even become like the United States of America, using petroleum and U.S. dollars to indirectly control the entire world. That would depend on our morals, however. Of course, the prerequisite for everything was that the Ayer faction needed to have sufficient power to protect our Justice Points system. Enemies and competitors were many.

Actually, not long ago, a new competitor arrived for our Justice Points: the Holy Church’s new “Holy Points.”

Perhaps the automated God of Holy Light calculated that it wouldn’t be a good idea to allow Justice Points to continue developing, or maybe it was an idea that came from his Follower Gods. Anyhow, the Church of Holy Light came out with a Holy Points system that imitated ours, awarding Holy Points for participating in the Holy War. However, they were in far too much of a rush to establish their system, which meant that there were glaring problems with their Holy Points. For the time being, it wouldn’t be much of a threat.

The Church of Holy Light lacked the “Hero’s Armlets” crafted personally by the Smithing God Benny, there was no guarantee of fairness by the God of Contracts, and how many Holy Points one earned depended solely on the proof that adventurers provided and what they claimed to have done. Not to mention, those awarding the Holy Points were the priests of the Holy Light, which meant that points received could be altered based on personal greed, judgment, and morality. There would be huge inconsistencies in both obtaining and paying Holy Points. It was simply just another way of hiring mercenaries.

The most obvious difference was that the Holy Church viewed this as a way to encourage more people to join the faith of the Holy Light. What one could exchange for were mostly items like cultivation manuals left by Holy Light job class members or ultra-pure Holy Water and so on. And even those that became “Holy Light Warriors” were mostly only the Holy Church’s members or close allies to begin with.

Although this didn’t seem like it was an issue, it was repeating the problems of the past. These rewards would only help those who were close to the Holy Church and wouldn’t motivate anyone not already a fervent believer in the Holy Light. The Holy Church didn’t understand the true goal of our Justice Points: to make everyone stronger, in a way that anyone could participate, finally creating the equivalent of a game player army.

Of course, it was possible the True Gods in the Holy Light faction had realized all these problems. However, since it was up to the Holy Church to administer their new Holy Points system, they did so with an attitude of “benefits should be kept to one’s own people.” Of course, maybe even Pope Caloma and the other leaders of the Holy Church knew the problems with their own system as well, but the people responsible for the basic administration of Holy Points were at a much lower level and had outdated ways of thinking such as, “How can we possibly give these treasures to outsiders?” or “Those evil heretical items need to be eternally sealed away in our vault of forbidden items.” There was even the idea that “How can we possibly keep people loyal to us with temporary hire contracts? It needs to be a contract for life.” In the end, their Holy Point warriors simply became a new type of Holy Knight made up of some Holy Light-believing adventurers and mercenaries. Yet while the Holy Church succeeded in keeping out the unfaithful, they lost the most important trait: it needed to be accessible to everyone.

“Hmph, how foolish. With how they’re running things, it’s completely unfair and imbalanced. No matter how much they invest into their Holy Points system, it’ll only benefit the few who believe in the Holy Light in the end.”

Since the Holy Church had far too many believers, they probably wouldn’t even end up noticing the problems with their system for quite a while to come. The number of people joining up as Holy Light Warriors would be equal in number to our Contract Heroes due to the large number of Holy Light branches scattered throughout Eich. Yet, our system was destined to become much bigger than theirs; it would leave them in the dust.

After all, no matter what they did, they were merely acting to improve their own faction’s strength, while we were borrowing strength from the entire world. Their own faction’s strength would be limited, while the entire world’s strength was limitless.

What we now needed to do was properly manage our Justice Points system, which would automatically help all of us out. We definitely couldn’t treat this Justice Points system as a tool to be used. Once the Justice Points system finally had enough of the overall market share, it would mean we had finally become influential enough in the world. That was why we were so willing to invest so much into this Justice Points system. Yet the Holy Church was being stingy as always as they were afraid of wasting their resources or giving them to their enemies.

The game’s “history” had already proved that being stingy was foolish to the extreme. Once Armageddon arrived, the True Gods finally brought out their treasures and equipped their believers, but it was already far too late.

“The most important resource in this world are humans. Most people actually have potential but simply never received a chance to take the first step. As long as the base population is high enough, there will be plenty of geniuses and eccentric talents among them. This isn’t something that will happen overnight, but we have plenty of patience.”

On this topic, I saw further into the future than even the True Gods. As long as enough people participated, there would naturally be heroes and geniuses that rose up amongst the Contract Warriors. A very long and difficult era of darkness would soon be upon us—this era was destined to give birth to many heroes. And what we needed to do was make Justice Points into something that all these heroes used and trusted in.

Once these heroes believed that the Justice Points system also represented the concept of “justice,” our Ayer Faction would have the greatest amount of influence possible. Our strength would be unparalleled.

In just a few days, I was planning to make an announcement that “Holy Light Warriors” were also free to sign up as Contract Warriors. Although this was technically providing resources to our enemies, it was also a way to hire people out from under them. I would just have to wait and see if the Holy Church would be willing to allow their own Holy Light Warriors to simultaneously work for us. A refusal would likely cause complaints within their ranks as everyone would want a chance to exchange for what they wanted.

Of course, not everyone was that stupid, so perhaps there were those within the Holy Church who also noticed the problems with their system. Still, judging by their current policies, such voices would be the minority. And when the higher-ups in the Church of Holy Light finally noticed the problems, it would be too late for them to fix things.

Cough—cough—I seem to have gone off topic. Let’s get back to what’s on hand.

There were disadvantages to what we were doing as well. With our low requirements—anyone could join—it was indeed difficult to ensure loyalty to our cause. Especially at the very start—there would be all sorts of people joining with nefarious intentions, so spies and so on would be very common. If we added a function to our Justice Points system that could keep constant surveillance, we wouldn’t be much different to the Church of Holy Light, even if that would help us to ensure their loyalty.

But as long as we found any spies or traitors, we simply needed to protect the Justice Points system and judge them fairly according to the law by using Law job class members to do the job. Not only would these spies and traitors forever lose their identities as Contract Warriors, there would even be a “pleasant surprise” waiting for them.

In normal situations, would it be easy to find a spy?

Of course not. If someone casually pointed at another person without sufficient evidence, not only would this put the spy on high alert, it was quite easy for conflicts to arise as long as the spy refused to admit anything. This would negatively influence the frail relationship of trust that the wood spirits had finally managed to establish with the adventurers.

But who was I? I was the legal expert who created the Concept of Law in this world. I was the Judge... Famous Detective Roland!

“Roland’s Fingerprint Lifting Spell.”

A casual wave of my hand caused a silver light to shine on the letter and envelope, lifting the fingerprints and clearly marking them on a blank piece of paper. They would most likely belong to the letter writer, the high-ranked adventurer spy. Apart from my fingerprints on the envelope, the only other fingerprints would naturally belong to the letter writer and the letter deliverer.

From the fact that there were two distinct sets of fingerprints, it was evident the letter writer had companions. The writer and deliverer must have been different people.

“Then let’s investigate the recent medical records and see if there’s a thief around here that was recently injured. If not, start investigating from the snake-shaped dagger and dark job classes. Investigate everything thoroughly... there’s no need to worship me, I’m a professional!”

I proudly waved ‘no’ to Samantha when I saw that she wanted to speak. I was quite confident in my abilities when it came to solving and investigating cases. No matter if it was detective work or identifying the culprit, I was more than three hundred years ahead of the time!

Finally, Samantha shook her head and didn’t say anything. However, Jill was unable to bear things any longer.

“Idiot Father, what Big Sister Samantha wanted to say was that we already received news that there was only a single black-caped thief who went outside by himself last night. Not to mention, he just happens to match the exact description of the spy. Have you forgotten that we have the ability to watch everything that happens around us, twenty-four seven, through the magical vines?”

Alright then, so these two Virtues already knew who the spy was. It must have been that they wanted to be filial for once and find an excuse to give me some Justice Points.

“Well, even so, it’s thanks to your fingerprints that we have tangible evidence. As we wish to remain neutral in the eyes of the adventurers, I hope that you can be the one to stand up and do the accusations.”

“Of course. There’s this line that I’ve been wanting to say for so long.”

“Line?”

“There’s only one truth! You’re the murderer!”

I was already making a pose of pointing at an imaginary murderer. Unfortunately, the wood spirits were looking at me with blank expressions. The most pitiful thing in life was to make references that nobody understood or commented on.

[What murderer are you even talking about! Nobody directly died because of this spy! Are you the legendary elementary school student who’s a God of Death? Just how ancient is this reference anyways? It’s so outdated. System Notification: Commenting service, just for you. 5 Justice Points deducted from you as payment.]

“Hah, you actually provide such a service!? Wait a moment, you’re taking Justice Points from me, not Fate Points? Why do you even need Justice Points?!”

[I have beauty products I want to exchange for as well. Did you really think that I wouldn’t be able to exchange for items with other systems? Hmph, this is racial discrimination! No, this is system discrimination! You actually dare to discriminate against your System? Would you like to challenge an ultimate Quest with failure being punished to death?]

“Haha, what would a System like you need beauty products for? Aren’t you forcing me to comment back at you?! Let it be known that I shall also charge a fee for my commenting services!”

“‘Poison Dagger’ Fain, Silver-ranked thief, the fourth squadron’s team leader of the Wind of Kass adventuring group. Possesses the Elite tier weapon, ‘Snake’s Curse’ poisoned dagger. Skilled at stealth and assassination. No famous accomplishments or crimes known. However, it’s said that Fain is quite fond of gambling despite having poor luck and that he owes a lot of money.”

I received a report on the identity of the letter deliverer. However, I didn’t rush to capture him.

In this spy incident, the most important person wasn’t Fain, the letter deliverer, but rather the letter writer.

It didn’t seem like much of a difference? Actually, there was a huge difference. Based on my past experience in trying cases in my first life on earth, it was incredibly difficult to find any evidence on the wrongdoings of devious criminal masterminds. Such criminal masterminds were highly skilled at hiding their involvement and only ordered other subordinates to do the dirty work for them. The lower-ranked subordinates would often make mistakes and get caught, but they might not even know the purpose of their mission as they were only working under orders. Perhaps they would deliver a letter, or a verbal message, or draw a strange shape on a wall, or order a strange meal at a particular restaurant.

In fact, this letter deliverer might just be some bait scattered by the real culprit. The moment this letter deliverer was captured, the real culprit would immediately erase all evidence of any connections and deal with any middlemen by eliminating potential leads that might expose their identity, before vanishing without a trace.

That Fain’s love for gambling made him an easy target to take advantage of. As long as the culprit was willing to pay off his gambling debts, or perhaps the culprit was his debtor to begin with, it would be quite easy to have Fain work for them.

So directly capturing Fain in this situation would be unreasonable. We had to start by keeping watch over his every action, investigating everyone he came into contact with, and then consider capturing him after fully making our preparations...

“Someone reported that Fain is the spy! We now know who the spy is!”

Rosa happily came in to inform us that she discovered the spy’s identity, but she suddenly took a large step backwards when she saw my expression. My expression must have been quite distorted and scary.

“...How can this be! Being reported so easily? What do we even need famous detectives for, then?! Can’t we all just play by the rules and take things slowly? What happened to the criminal mastermind culprit and the sly hoodlums? This is far too second-rate. Can’t we all just have fun playing together?”

“Pfft, famous detective? You’re more like a confused detective.”

Alright then, I soon received the report about this as well. The person who reported Fain was also someone familiar to me: the leader of the super mercenary group Westwood Guardians, “Black Guardian” Kaise Elowen’s... subordinate’s subordinate.

“I’m Mulain, a Bronze-ranked thief. Our boss sent out a squad of thieves to patrol around the area, and I noticed that guy acting suspicious and going out by himself. So I followed and witnessed him secretly meeting with the undead. Then, we beat him up and he confessed everything. It turned out that he owed money, so a black-clad man threatened him and forced him to carry a letter to be delivered to the undead. That black-clad man was captured as well. He’s a Bronze-ranked undead mage named Dean.”

“Impossible, I swear in the name of my grandfather [1] that he’s definitely not the true culprit! Someone else must have pushed this Dean out to take the blame! The most obvious murderer is never the real murderer—that’s how all detective stories go!”

“Haha, why don’t you just admit defeat, confused detective Roland?”

Note:

[1] TL/N: Kindaichi reference.