- Money is the best lawyer in hell.
Deadly Sins of Evil: Judgment of Corruption is a light novel in the Deadly Sins of Evil series in the Evillious Chronicles. It was written by mothy, illustrated by Ichika and You-ring, and released in 2016.
The story takes a deeper look at the song of the same name, detailing Gallerian's childhood, burgeoning career as a judge, relationship with Ma, and his descent into villainy and madness revolving around his wish to collect the seven vessels of deadly sin and restore his deceased daughter Michelle. It introduces several new characters, including Gallerian's assassin task force and members of the modern day Freezis Foundation.
The novel takes place during a blend of the Evillious equivalent to the Salem Witch Trials (resulting from a string of bizarre events happening all throughout the globe), and the lead up to the Great War (the Evillious version of the World Wars). Unusually, it is narrated by one of the series' gods, Sickle. The novel is preceded by The Tailor of Enbizaka.
The novel's website can be found here
(note however that it’s all in Japanese), and it can be purchased on Amazon.
This novel provides examples of:
- Alas, Poor Villain: Loki is murderous scum, but the way that everyone he cared about ( namely Mira and his family) completely betrays and leaves him to his downfall is still sad to see. Even Gallerian, after being so ruthlessly betrayed by him, is saddened when he learns of his death.
- Call-Back:
- When Ma is introducing Gallerian to the Marlon spoon, she reminds him of their conversation about "The Daughter of Evil" (which took place in the bonus chapter of Praefacio of Blue).
- Gallerian escapes the courthouse near the end using a secret passageway behind his fireplace like the one in Cloture.
- Chocolate Baby: This is one of the cases of bizarre phenomena mentioned in the beginning of the novel—an Elphe and Marlon couple have a black child. It seems like a simple case of an affair gone wrong, but the police investigation afterwards finds no evidence of any infidelity.
- Continuity Nod:
- When talking about the Red Cat Sorceress, Gallerian lists off her various incarnations throughout the series as being historically documented.
- Ma notes when meeting Gusuma for the first time that his ancestor was a pirate once.
- Gallerian and Ma begin their affair at a restaurant that was once the bar where the Lucifenian Revolution began.
- When Gallerian asks Bruno why he never betrayed him, part of Bruno's explanation involves making a comparison to the ending of Cloture of Yellow (specifically that he sees himself as being like Allen).
- Nyoze recalls how his grandfather, Anan Octo, left Jakoku in search of the sword that was passed down in his family (which he thinks is the Venom Sword).
- Face–Heel Turn: The Freezis family.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Maistia is a blend of Africa and North America, the native Black Valkyrias being African in appearance and, similarly, having a history of being enslaved. About midway through the novel a civil war breaks out surrounding freeing them.
- Foregone Conclusion: As in all of the Seven Deadly Sin novels, the ending is spoiled by the song—Gallerian's house is set on fire, and Nemesis goes inside to kill him. In addition, many other minor points (like what happens to his family, and his descent into corruption), are spoiled by all the other material surrounding him in the rest of the series.
- Hanging Judge: Twofold, made all the worse because Levianta's court system is based on Japan's, where the judge has all the power and there's very little rights, if any, for the accused to defend themselves. Hanma begins the trend as someone who sentences all "witches" to death simply by virtue of being accused as such, and Gallerian famously follows up by making judgements solely based on how much money and power it gives him.
- Hunting the Most Dangerous Game:
- Loki invites Gallerian up to a snowy area at the top of Lucifenia on a hunting trip. He neglected to mention that Gallerian would be the prey.
- This is also apparently a favored past-time of the entire Freezis family.
- Law Procedural: Some of the chapters, as is only natural considering the nature of Gallerian's occupation.
- Lemony Narrator: Sickle ends up being this, breaking from the story from time to time to express how interesting he finds it, say hello to the reader, or go on about bats and insist that he is a normal bat with nothing strange about him at all.
- Repeating So the Audience Can Hear: Gallerian engages in this when having his first conversation with the doll (that he thinks is Michelle) in front of Bruno. Being a doll, of course, it doesn't talk back.
- Sequel Hook: The final chapter ends on an ominous note surrounding Nemesis, as the head of the Tasan Party in Elphegort.
- Start of Darkness: Notable as an origin story in Gallerian's case in that his presence as a villainous judge has become known throughout the series in bonus chapters and side stories long before this novel came out, unlike the others in the Deadly Sins of Evil series who were largely restricted to songs before their novel releases.
- Teen Genius: Gallerian in the early chapters, with Levianta's school system meant to facilitate this in general by allowing qualified applicants into their colleges regardless of age.
- Witch Hunt: The first half of the story takes place during a period of several witch trials in an attempt to curb strange events that are happening in the world, with Elluka being one of the first victims. Gallerian is the very first judge in the span of over fourteen years to find someone innocent of the crime, and then it's revealed by Ma that the Freezis Conglomerate fabricated the whole thing about witches being responsible for the disasters in order to kill anyone that might be a threat to them.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Done to Bindi Freezis by Gallerian—once he's done using his money and connections for his own ends, Gallerian essentially hands him off to Gusuma to get revenge for the Titanis sinking.
