Chapter 173: Snowball Effect (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 173: Snowball Effect (2)
“Pr-Professor.”
As Adler spoke softly into the icy atmosphere, every gaze in the area snapped toward him.
“Didn’t you say you were going to take care of some personal business before returning…?”
“Adler, it’s already midday.”
“Ah, yes, that’s true. Time has indeed…”
Watching their reactions, Adler began to back away silently.
“I was just about to catch a carriage on the main road, as I couldn't stay here forever. It was then that I happened to run into you.”
“…I, I see.”
“Since we’ve met, why don't we return to London together?”
Professor Moriarty remained nonchalant, casually tossing out the suggestion as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Well, that’s…”
Swoosh…
Faced with her blatantly casual reaction, Adler was unsure how to respond.
“””………..”””
“…Hmm?”
Quietly surrounding Adler, his three loyal followers glared dangerously at the professor.
“Stay by our side.”
“…Grrr.”
“………”
Pressed by Moran from the front, with Princess Clay and Silver Blaze flanking him on either side, Adler observed the professor’s reaction before speaking.
“Professor, it seems there might be some misunderstanding here…”
“……..”
“I think I need to clarify things…”
“Is that true?”
Cutting him off mid-sentence, Celestia Moran boldly questioned Professor Moriarty.
“What are you talking about?”
“Dad… no, I received information that my master is being sexually abused by you.”
Looking down at her cold expression as if it were amusing, the professor smirked.
“Even if that were true, what could you possibly do?”
“…I could just blow your head off.”
In the next instant, with blinding speed, Moran drew a pistol from her coat and aimed it straight at the professor’s forehead.
“Puh, heh heh heh…”
“What’s so funny?”
“Ahaha… hah… Yes, sorry about that.”
Despite having the best sniper in London—a markswoman with the innate talents of a war hero—aiming a gun at her head, Professor Moriarty burst into laughter like a child seeing something hilarious.
“But if you, too, saw an ant carrying a twig and threatening to cut your throat with it, you’d burst out laughing just like me.”
“Nonsense…”
“Do you not understand what I’m saying?”
Suddenly, a cold smile stretched across Jane Moriarty’s lips as she added, “Even if you were to empty every chamber of that gun, you couldn’t inflict a single wound on me.”
“…Ugh.”
“And the same goes for the two glaring at me from behind you.”
“……..!!”
“With a vampire who hasn’t fully recovered her strength and a demihuman who is hardly different from a human, you cannot possibly stand against me.”
As she emitted a murderous grey aura into her surroundings, the legs of the three resolute henchmen began to tremble.
“Do you understand now, you inferior species?”
“……..”
“It’s only natural for the strong to take from the weak.”
Watching them with a smug look of superiority, Professor Moriarty stepped forward.
“However, the courage to not run away despite being overwhelmed is indeed praiseworthy.”
Click…
“Or are you so frightened that you can’t even move?”
Moran’s eyebrows twitched as she rested her finger on the trigger. Simultaneously, the tips of Moriarty’s fingers began to turn a deathly grey.
Gooooooo…
Out of nowhere, a chilling, murderous black aura began to erode the space between them.
“Get out of the way, all of you.”
Charlotte, who had been silently glaring at Moriarty with a deadly look in her eyes, finally intervened.
“Little miss detective… It’s been a while since we’ve faced each other like this.”
“Shut up. Just shut the fuck up…”
“I enjoy seeing your despairing face so very much, but let me make one thing clear.”
With bloodshot golden eyes and her body trembling in rage, Charlotte glared at the professor with an intensity that suggested she would kill her then and there. But Professor Moriarty only whispered in a low, mocking voice.
“Isaac Adler—both his body and mind are already mine.”
“SHUT UUUUUUUUP!!!!”
“Oh, and did you know?”
As Charlotte fell for the cheap provocation, Moriarty’s expression grew even more suffused with superiority. She whispered in a singsong voice, “…I didn’t use any protection today.”
“……..”
“Let’s see, then… I wonder when the due date will be…”
Having stopped screaming, Charlotte stood with a dazed expression and quietly reached out her hand.
Gooooooooooooo…!!!!
“…Hmm.”
Ferocious black energy surged out in all directions.
“For a little kid, you’re quite something…”
Crrrrrack!
Surprised by a spirit that almost matched her own, Professor Moriarty stretched out her hand, pitting her own grey aura against the detective’s black tide.
“I’m going to kill you. Whatever it takes…”
“Oh? Is that something a detective fighting for the truth should say?”
In the midst of the violent flow of mana that twisted and collided, the two women conversed with murderous expressions.
“Yes, it’s something a detective shouldn’t say…”
Gooooooo…
“But, you know…”
Surprisingly, Charlotte began pushing back Moriarty’s grey mana. She muttered in a voice devoid of all emotion, “I’m not a detective. I’m a consulting detective…”
“Your penchant for wordplay is the same as ever, I see.”
“And the reason I became a consulting detective was because the act itself intrigued me.”
As she slightly twisted her hand, black blades began whirling from every direction, targeting the professor.
“But now, my priorities have changed.”
“Is it because of that child?”
“Why should I observe the rules of being a detective when someone is trying to take away my life’s purpose?”
Professor Moriarty swiftly swatted away the blades spinning at terrifying speeds, but she still sustained small cuts on the back of her hand and her left cheek.
“You are greatly mistaken.”
“………”
“I am not the force of absolute righteousness you think I am. I will cross any line if it means eliminating a nauseating existence like yours.”
Instantaneously, Charlotte’s body erupted with burning mana.
“Exactly… that’s it…”
“……..?”
“That’s right, Miss Holmes…”
It was at that moment that Moriarty’s eyes began to darken.
“Didn’t I tell you before? We might make good friends…”
“Nonsense…”
“You and I are quite similar.”
“Stop talking nonsense!”
Despite Charlotte’s firm interruption, her stable mana waves began to lose their balance.
“Don’t be so extreme. They say opposites attract, don’t they?”
“Just thinking about it is horrifying. Shut up.”
“Have you ever considered joining us?”
“SHUT UPPPPPPPPP…”
But the odds soon began shifting toward the professor.
Fzzzz…
“You… just you need to disappear…”
Charlotte, vaguely realizing she was losing, desperately gathered every scrap of mana from her body.
Drip…
“If only you weren’t in this world…”
“Is this your last struggle?”
“MORIARTYYYYY!!!”
Bleeding from her eyes and nose, Charlotte attempted to launch a final attack with all her might.
“Stop it!!!”
“…Ah!”
But at that moment, she noticed Adler. Pale-faced, he had thrown himself right into the heart of their battle, forcing her to violently retract her power.
“……..”
Moriarty did the same, silently pulling back her mana.
“Stop it… now…”
“Uh…”
As he muttered those words in a pleading tone, Charlotte—who was biting her tongue to maintain consciousness—could no longer overcome the dizziness. She collapsed to the ground.
“P-Professor, I was wrong. I’ll apologize on her behalf…”
“…Hmm.”
“Let’s go now.”
Adler, looking at Charlotte with a longing gaze, clutched the professor’s hand with a trembling expression.
“That’s right. That’s my assistant…”
“Oh, no…”
Moriarty, locking hands with him, smirked mockingly at the collapsed Charlotte, who reached out a trembling hand toward Adler.
“Adle… r…”
“…Come on, Isaac.”
Leaving her behind, Professor Moriarty began to move forward, pulling Adler with her.
“Let’s finish what we started in my office.”
“…Yes?”
“Don’t leave me…”
Staring at their blurring figures with gritted teeth, Holmes finally lost consciousness.
“Kulluk…”
The professor, who had been suppressing a cough, stopped walking and staggered as she vomited blood.
“Indeed, you’re a good actor. You…”
“P-P-Professor…?”
“By the way…”
Adler was startled by the professor’s frail appearance. It was a look he had only witnessed when he had restricted her mana.
“Indeed, you were right; that kid is my arch-nemesis.”
The professor looked at Adler and whispered in a low voice, “…She’s the first one to push me to this extent.”
It was the first time Professor Moriarty had received a significant blow in a direct confrontation.
.
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.
.
Meanwhile,
“What—what are you doing? Shoot already…!”
“Now’s your chance! The professor’s posture has faltered…!”
From behind, Princess Clay and Silver Blaze began urgently whispering to Celestia Moran, who had somehow managed to keep hold of her pistol despite the oppressive atmosphere.
“………”
However, Moran’s gaze, pallid as it was, wasn’t fixed on the slumping professor. It was directed somewhere else entirely.
“What on earth are you looking at!?”
“…What are you doing, little lady!”
“Over there. There’s someone else.”
She pointed toward the bushes where Gia Lestrade and Rachel Watson were crouching.
“…There are quite a few of them.”
“What?”
And behind them, even more figures were lurking in the shadows.
.
.
.
.
.
“………”
Indeed, as the keen-eyed Celestia Moran had noted, behind the bushes where Gia Lestrade and Rachel Watson were hiding, other figures had been staked out for hours.
“…Do you enjoy killing?”
“Sorry, but my motto is non-killing.”
The atmosphere had turned rigid the moment they heard the claims of the brutal treatment Isaac Adler was experiencing.
“But then again, a lizard isn’t human, is it?”
“…Oh, so you’re one of those, huh?”
Forced to stalk Adler by someone’s command, the two figures were none other than Jill the Ripper and Phantom Thief Lupin.
“Then help me kill that grey-haired bitch.”
“…Gladly.”