Chapter 236: The Detective's Sorrow
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 236: The Detective's Sorrow
Rewinding time slightly, to a few days after the professor had given birth...
- Knock, knock, knock…
Rachel Watson, her once-vibrant and lively spirit now a distant memory, stood before the door of the familiar boarding house. Her face was gaunt, her features worn thin by exhaustion.
“Holmes? You’re in there, aren’t you?”
- Knock, knock, knock, knock…
“I know you’re inside, so just open the door. Mrs. Hudson couldn’t take it anymore and called me!”
Her voice, unusually dark and forceful, rose in volume, but no matter how much she shouted, there was no response.
“Hey! Holmes!”
“……..”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner! I’ve been struggling too! But ignoring me like this is…”
Feeling a surge of frustration and betrayal, Watson gripped the doorknob tightly and gave it a sharp tug.
- Creeeak…
“…What?”
She blinked, taken aback. The door creaked open easily; it had been unlocked the entire time.
“…….”
Her surprise was short-lived. Stepping into the room cautiously, her expression grew tense.
“…Ugh! Cough, cough!”
Her caution proved useless as she immediately wrinkled her nose and covered her mouth, overcome by a heavy fit of coughing.
“Ugh… what the hell…”
The room was thick with a choking haze of smoke that stung her eyes and burned her throat.
“What on earth is all this smoke…!”
Watson, visibly distressed, coughed uncontrollably for a moment before staggering forward, her hand still pressed firmly against her mouth.
“…Huh?”
She stopped dead, her breath catching in her throat as her gaze fell upon the wall obscured by the shifting haze.
“What… happened here…”
The wall, plastered with countless photos of Professor Moriarty, was riddled with bullet holes.
That wasn't all. The floor was a graveyard of torn fragments—photographs of the professor had been shredded and scattered everywhere.
The only photo left intact amidst the chaos was one depicting the professor holding two children—a pair who seemed vaguely, almost hauntingly, familiar.
“Ad… ler?”
“…Huh?”
Watson, staring at the unmarked photo as if entranced, was startled by a faint, trembling voice from beside her. She whipped her head toward the sound in alarm.
“……..!”
Moments later, her eyes widened and she froze, utterly stunned by the sight before her.
“Adler… is that really you?”
“Holmes!!”
Charlotte, slumped in the armchair, looked utterly destroyed. She was so far gone that she was almost unrecognizable as the vibrant girl from a year ago. Her expression was far more haggard and desolate than Watson’s. She was the perfect, tragic definition of a shadow of her former self.
Her arms, exposed by the loose folds of her bathrobe, were riddled with needle marks. Even now, she held a pipe of potent opium between her lips.
On the desk beside her, a golden mana stone burned like incense, filling the room with its acrid, heavy presence. It wasn’t hard to see how she had descended into this abyss.
“Are you insane?! Have you finally lost your damn mind?!”
Panicked, Watson grabbed Charlotte by the shoulders and shook her violently.
“Adler… hehe…”
“Do you even see yourself right now? If you keep this up, you’re going to die! Is that what you want?!”
“…You’ve finally come back, haven’t you?”
Charlotte’s eyes remained unfocused. She simply gazed at Watson with a hazy, delirious smile, mumbling incoherently in a voice that sounded more fragile than anything else.
“Do you… have any idea… how much I missed you…?”
“Holmes.”
“Every single night, I cried because I wanted to see you… Then I’d fall asleep from sheer exhaustion… over and over again…”
Watson stopped scolding her. She simply stared in silence, her face a mask of disbelief and profound sorrow.
“Adler… but, I… I have one question…”
Still grinning like a fool, mistaking Watson for Adler, Charlotte pulled her into a desperate, trembling embrace. She continued in a broken whisper.
“You won’t disappear again… right?”
“……..”
“Please… I’ll do better this time… I don’t even care if you stay around other women, just…”
Unbidden, tears began to stream steadily from her eyes.
“Promise me you won’t ever leave my side again…”
Her tears fell upon the photograph she clutched tightly, even in her delirium.
“Please… it’s my last wish…”
“……..”
“Adleeeer…”
It was the photograph of Adler, a treasured possession from the Bohemian Queen’s scandal, received in lieu of payment, that she still held dear.
“Don’t leave meee…”
“…….”
Watson, watching the pitiful sight, couldn’t hold back the anguish in her own expression. Closing her eyes tightly, she silently wrapped her arms around Charlotte, pulling her into a firm, grounding embrace.
“…He really was the greatest asshole.”
Tears welled in Watson’s eyes as well—her golden irises, now dulled and murky, glistening with unspoken grief.
.
.
.
.
.
A few days later, in an upscale residential area of London, the weather remained as perpetually gloomy as it had been for the entire year.
- Step, step…
For the first time in nearly a year, Charlotte stepped out of the boarding house. She staggered, leaning on Watson for support as they made their way to a particular mansion in the district.
“…So, Holmes. Why did you insist on coming here the moment you woke up?”
“……..”
“You still need to recover. If we’d waited any longer, you might have—”
“…We’re here.”
Though Watson’s dedicated care over the past few days had improved her condition slightly, Charlotte still lacked the strength to even lift her hand to knock.
“Knock for me, please, Watson.”
“…Haah.”
At the emotionless request, Watson sighed but begrudgingly raised her hand to knock on the door in her stead.
“”………””
There was no response from within.
- Creak…
“Is leaving doors unlocked the latest trend in London?”
As a precaution, Watson turned the doorknob, only to find the door opening far too easily. She walked in with a look of sheer incredulity.
“…So, where exactly are we?”
“Sister. I’ve come out.”
Charlotte ignored the question, her voice low and hollow.
“You thought changing your address would stop me from finding you, didn’t you?”
“……..”
“Don’t worry, I’m not here to reprimand you. I just have something to ask…”
Muttering to herself, Charlotte began opening doors one by one as she ventured deeper into the mansion. Abruptly, she stopped, freezing in place.
“Oh my god…”
Curious, Watson peeked through the slightly ajar door Charlotte had opened. She, too, found herself paralyzed by the sight.
“…….”
Sitting silently on the edge of the bed was Mycrony Holmes. Her expression was even more void of emotion than it had been in the past. Her body was a map of scars—cuts covered every inch she could reach: arms, hands, everywhere.
At her feet lay nearly lethal doses of morphine syringes and bottles of strong alcohol, scattered carelessly across the floor.
- Swish…
“…Hey!”
When Mycrony wordlessly brought a knife to her own arm, Watson darted forward and grabbed her wrist in a panic.
“Are you out of your mind?! Do you want to bleed out and die?!”
“…You’ve come.”
Only then did Mycrony slowly lift her head, her lifeless eyes focusing on the sibling standing before her.
“Have you come to hold me accountable?”
“…Accountable for what?”
When Mycrony’s trembling voice posed the question, Charlotte silently shook her head. The elder Holmes sibling blinked in confusion, her expression going blank for an instant.
“…Adler gave me the medicine.”
Lowering her head once more, Mycrony began muttering softly.
“The one and only cure—the panacea… He gave it to me, instead of taking it for himself.”
“……..”
“In his will, he said as much. That it would be better for London if I survived instead of him.”
Hearing those words, Charlotte clenched her fists so tightly that her knuckles turned white, cutting off her circulation.
“It was the first time my calculations went wrong. I thought his only goal was to toy with me…”
“……..”
“So I… I had no choice. I didn’t know things would turn out that way… I didn’t mean for it to happen…”
Mycrony’s voice wavered as she offered incoherent excuses. Her complexion was deathly pale as she faced Charlotte, who remained silent, her expression unreadable.
“…Did you know?”
After a brief pause, Mycrony let out a deep, shaky sigh and glanced sideways at her sibling.
“That medicine… it freed me from the curse of numbness that had plagued me my entire life.”
“……..”
“But… even after finally feeling the sensations I had wished for all my life…”
From her eyes, the same liquid that had fallen from Charlotte’s and Watson’s eyes a few days prior began to stream down.
“…Nothing satisfies me anymore.”
That same dull, golden hue, now tainted, glistened in the tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Even injecting myself with morphine until I reach lethal doses, even drinking until my brain feels like it’s melting… even carving my own flesh with a blade…”
“…….”
“…It only helps me forget, for the briefest of moments, the endless despair and helplessness I feel every second of my life.”
Unlike the professor, who could force herself to cry, Mycrony’s tears were something she had never shed in her entire life until now.
“Do you… know why?”
Her voice trembled as she choked out the question, her tear-streaked face turning toward Charlotte. However, Charlotte could only avert her gaze in silence.
“…I have something to ask.”
Breaking the heavy silence, Charlotte’s quiet voice sliced through the tension.
“Adler… is he—”
“He’s nowhere in this world.”
Before Charlotte could finish her sentence, Mycrony’s voice, once again void of emotion, cut her off.
“Whenever I regained some semblance of clarity, I used my abilities to search the entire world over and over again… but I gave that up not long ago.”
“”……..””
“He’s no longer in this world.”
At those words, Charlotte closed her eyes, her face unreadable.
“…Let’s go.”
“Charlotte? But your sister—”
“There’s a place we need to go before it’s too late.”
Without another word, Charlotte turned on her heel and began making her way out of the mansion.
“Where are we going now…?”
“To the study.”
“…What?”
Watson, her expression stunned, glanced between Mycrony and Charlotte before reluctantly following the latter.
“…If only I had just let you kill me that day.”
- Swish…
“If only… I had claimed you as mine from the very beginning…”
As Charlotte’s fading figure disappeared from view, Mycrony stood frozen, staring after her for a long while. Then, her eyes, once again devoid of light, turned down to the knife in her hand. She picked it up once more.
“Would everything have gone differently?”