The Iudex's day off

Side Story 10 - Intrusive Thoughts's day off

Part 1!

~

~

Wriothesley's POV

 I dropped my work and showed up a Palais Mermonia quite early today.

 Not an hour ago I got a letter from Sedene saying that Neuvillette was having a horrible day and I might want to come by if I want the staff to survive.

 And so I came.

 I walked past a few groups of deadly pale people whose eyes lit up as if they had finally seen the light as soon as they laid eyes on me.

 That bad?

 "Your Grace, please save us!"

 "This is horrible!"

 "He shouted! Monsieur Neuvillette never shouts!"

 "It was just a minor mistake but..."

 They all collectively shuddered and the speaker did not continue.

 What kind of traumatizing thing happened here?

 I quickly walked past them and up to Sedene.

 "Sedene dear, what-"

 "There was a bad trial and then another, and another. Finally, someone who was accused of abusing their child got off with nothing more than a restraining order and had to pay some compensation because of the lack of evidence. From what I know the evidence was destroyed by the defendant but there was no proof as of yet.

 After that, he came back to a whole room's worth of paperwork and found a fault in one of them. He may or may not have vented out his frustration on the poor guy in charge of it."

 That explains both the god-awful weather and the traumatized workers.

 And angry Neuvillette is not someone you want to deal with.

 I thanked Sedene for filling me in before going for the door of Neuvillette's office.

 I didn't bother knocking and just opened the door to see-

 I quickly shut the door, looking at Sedene questioningly.

 "Didn't you say he was pissed?"

 "He is. Annoyed, angry, and very tired. Now go and deal with it already."

 I was pretty much kicked inside and the door slammed shut behind me, leaving me alone with Neuvillette.

 And Neuvillette...

 Well, he...

 He was lying on the couch playing with some water floating around.

 ...

 He certainly didn't look all that pissed.

 It looked like it was only now that he noticed my presence, but he only gave me a single glance before clicking his tongue and looking away as if I was the biggest bother that could have walked through that door.

 What the hell?

 "Neuvillette-"

 "I'm annoyed." He interrupted.

 "What?"

 "Pissed off even." He continued.

 "Because of the trials?"

 "Tsk! Trial this trial that. I'm pissed because I know exactly how to deal with those."

 I followed his finger pointing to the piles of paperwork on his desk.