5 The True Culprit

Luca's bright blue eyes began to glow in a similar blue to his irises as he stared the previous mayor in the eyes, a dark tone in his voice leaving a foreboding edge to his words, "He's standing beside you sir, next to the victim." As Darius Bradley was about to explode with wrath, the boy continued, "I have already sworn once for my innocence. Do you want me to swear a second time for the truth? These eyes of mine see through all things, remember all that it sees, and never forget. You are a Level 3 Mage. Look at the mana in the air and tell me if I'm lying about my [All-Seeing Eyes].

Luca's so-called [All-Seeing Eyes] were, in fact, one of the sealed gifts granted by the God of Light that, after some effort overnight, the System was able to unlock, with its true name being [Divine Eyes]. The rest all had requirements to unlock, whilst this first gift was like a freebie. Darius, as Luca had pointed out, was a Level 3 Mage and therefore sensitive to mana. While non-Mages would not notice anything short of a massive surge of mana, Mages like Darius could see the mana around a spell being cast. He could see the light mana gathered around the boy's eyes, and knew that not only was he not lying, he was capable of influencing mana naturally, a great talent.

Turning to look at his two grandsons, about to ask them a question, he instead noticed Cedric acting strange. His question turned into one aimed solely at the younger brother, "Cedric, what did you do to your hands?"

Revealing his bandaged hands, the second Bradley boy nervously replied, "Nothing s-serious. I just messed up while casting [Firebolt] and burned myself."

The sound of laughter came from the center of the training ground as Luca heard this statement, "Let me tell you another thing about these eyes of mine. If I choose to, I can illuminate anything I happen to be searching for, as long as I have seen it once in person. Look at my body, does it look like I'm covered in a splash of silver?" Sure enough, everyone could see the silvery coloration over his body, which started on his right shoulder and ended near his bellybutton, but spread out to cover his right arm and the right half of his face. "I have chosen to look for the Swamp Python Venom, using the same silver color that it possesses to illuminate it. As I was covered in it, I clearly have a silver blotch on my body. However, he should have some on his fingers, just like the culprit. Remove his bandages and see if they glow silver to prove my words!"

All eyes returned to Cedric, who seemed like he was attempting to make himself smaller in hopes of making himself disappear. However, under the weight of his father and grandfather's insistent but silent glares, and the stare of his brother standing next to him, the second Bradley brother weakly lifted his arms and removed the bandages on his left hand. Once the first finger was unraveled, the silver began to show, but it became fully apparent upon his entire hand being unwrapped. By the end of it, Cedric's hands were visibly shaking as he continued to further prove his guilt by doing the same to his right hand.

Astonished, Adrian felt justifiably aggrieved as he stared at his younger sibling, "Cedric... why?" The eldest brother's voice was the first sound to break the silence, a quiet that even nature itself seemed to follow. His face had wounded expression; he'd never expected his own brother to be the same person who tried to poison him.

Unable to bear his elder sibling's look of betrayal, Cedric meekly responded, "I... I felt... I felt like I was worthless compared to you. Even though your magic talent developed after mine, you were so much better than me. Mother, Father, and even Grandfather only paid attention to you... I... I was just thrown aside like a spare. I spent so long suffering everyone's pity.... I really hated you... and one day I found a vial of Swamp Python Venom lying under Grandfather's bed like it'd rolled there... and I thought, 'If my brother wasn't here anymore, would it go back to how it was when I wasn't just an accessory?' I-I admit I d-did try to poison you, b-but I panicked and only put in half... and even after I left the kitchen, I tried to go back and get rid of the tea but it was already being taken before I could... so I ran in fear and threw the rest of the venom away in an alley before running away from it as fast as I could... I didn't know anyone was there... I... I nearly killed you. I kn-know you wont forgive me... but I'm s-sorry, big brother..." The younger boy was completely in tears at this point, wet cheeks and runny nose included in his sobbing.

Luca had a mirthless half-smile on his face as he listened to the story. His [Divine Eyes] could also perceive heartbeats and emotions to some extent, and through them, he could see that Cedric was completely sincere and, unsurprisingly, full of grief and sorrow, along with the overwhelming feeling of guilt.

After a couple seconds, as Darius was about to speak again, Adrian unexpectedly, but understandably, gave his brother a rather hard slap, stunning the waterworks temporarily, "You idiot!" Cedric, cheek red post-slap, looked up at his brother to see tears falling from Adrian's eyes before he made a girlish squeak as the eldest brother gave him a bear hug. "As much as I want to be mad at you, I'm more hurt that you thought I didn't care about you! You're my baby brother, I will always care about you. I did so many things for you, but you never noticed because you were so depressed. Mother did too! We had a celebration for your birthday this year with almost the entire town, but you didn't come. Looking back, you'd probably ran off thinking we'd forgotten about it. Mother cried all night, she thought you'd grown to hate us, and her as well. Father was the one who did the most, even though he was rarely there. All of the trouble you've caused for these few years, Father used a quarter of the family's treasury as consolations.

This continued for a good few minutes and the geyser of tears only grew stronger, eventually spreading from the family members to the crowd. Luca also felt his eyes welling up from the emotional bonding. Nearly a quarter of an hour passed before Anderson, who had recovered faster than his father, said, "The real culprit has been found, so the conv-... the young man is acquitted of all charges..." Taking a minute to gather his thoughts, the mayor continued, "As for Cedric, as he did try to poison his brother, he will be punished. However, because he is young and misguided, not to mention he is honest in his regret, on top of which I have most certainly not been a very dutiful father for him, I believe he can be reformed into a proper young man. Therefore, unless there are any objections, I will charge Cedric Bradley with two years of house arrest, during which he cannot leave the Bradley Family house except for official business or for supervised hunting. Any objections?"

At this moment, one of the eldest members of the village, stood from his seat, old wooden cane in hand as his aid, his rather clear voice speaking loudly, "Might I ask for clarifications on what Mayor Bradley means for 'supervised hunting,' so as to ease the thoughts of us who wonder at its meaning?"