Chapter 278: Side Story: The Adventures of Isaac Adler (12)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 278: Side Story: The Adventures of Isaac Adler (12)
“Ugh, what is it now?”
The first thing I saw upon opening my eyes was a rope binding my entire body and Rachel Watson looking down at me with a cold smile.
“You’re awake?”
“…Hey.”
“No, no, no. Don’t say a word.”
All I could see around us was a dense forest. I opened my mouth to say something, but Watson’s sharp rebuke cut me off instantly.
“If you open that damn mouth again, you’re just going to lie to me, aren’t you?”
“…What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t I tell you not to open your mouth?”
“Just tell me where you’re taking me…”
“Enough. Get in, quickly.”
A few moments later, I saw what was next to Watson and shuddered as an old memory resurfaced.
“This is your home now, Adler.”
The giant bag she used to carry me in when she’d kidnapped me before was waiting to welcome me.
“Come to think of it, we haven’t had our honeymoon yet, have we?”
“……”
“Perfect. Since it’s come to this, let’s have it now.”
Naturally, I wanted to run, but with my entire body bound, there was nothing I could do.
“What did you just stick in my arm?”
“…Ah, that.”
Rachel Watson, who had nonchalantly plunged a syringe filled with a clear liquid into my arm, proceeded to say something utterly horrifying as if it were nothing.
“Medical-grade anesthetic.”
“Are doctors allowed to do this?”
All that was left was to appeal to her conscience. With that in mind, I pleaded in a desperate voice.
“Have you forgotten the Hippocratic Oath?”
“…I know who Hippocrates is, but what oath?”
Unfortunately, it seemed Miss Watson, a woman of the 19th century, was (of course) unaware of the Hippocratic Oath, which was established in the 1950s.
“A doctor shouldn’t be abusing this stuff…”
“You still think you have human rights?”
Of course, even if she had known, I doubt anything would have changed.
“Alright, then…”
Roughly shoved into the bag, I felt my body lift off the ground and curled up, feeling utterly hopeless.
“Wait, what? Who are you?”
But before Watson could take more than a few steps with the bag in hand, it happened.
“No, what… This is impossible. How are you here right now…”
“……?”
“W-wait a minute…”
The bag I was in dropped to the ground again, and I heard Watson’s panicked voice as she seemed to have seen someone.
“…Ugh.”
Not even a few seconds later, a single scream echoed out, followed by a dead silence from outside.
“Um, I don’t know who you are, but thank you for saving me.”
“……”
“But since you’ve already saved me, could you maybe let me out of here?”
Having escaped the fate of being kidnapped to who-knows-where, I carefully tried to communicate with my rescuer.
“Hello?”
“……”
“Say something!”
But no matter how many times I called out, there was no reply.
“Ha, I knew it. Another kidnapping and rape?”
Right, I should have known. As if anyone in this world would help me out of the pure goodness of their heart.
“Help me! Some crazy woman put me in a bag and is kidnapping…”
As I trembled with a sense of betrayal toward humanity and women, making one last desperate struggle…
“Adler.”
I immediately shut my mouth, hearing a voice I never expected to hear in a place like this.
“Be quiet.”
The voice coming from outside the dark bag was unmistakably the Professor’s.
*
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
Freed from the bag and ropes with the Professor’s help, I regained my freedom and immediately dropped to my knees, begging for forgiveness.
“For what, exactly?”
“Well… uh…”
But hearing the words men supposedly fear most from their girlfriends, what little of my brain was still functioning completely shut down.
“Well, you don’t really have anything to be sorry for.”
“Pardon?”
The Professor, looking down at me with her usual inscrutable smile, suddenly said this before starting to speak of incomprehensible things.
“Adler. Don’t you find something strange?”
“…W-what do you mean?”
“Everything that has happened since you returned to this world.”
Something strange? Wasn’t it just the world being as harsh to me as it always was?
“Why are you making such a foolish face, Adler?”
“……”
“Haha, you really don’t know?”
As I stared blankly, completely unable to understand what the Professor was saying, she tilted her head from side to side out of habit, a faint smile playing on her lips as she whispered.
“I’ll give you a hint. The women around you, the ones who call themselves the ‘Coalition,’ have become strange.”
“Ah, that’s certainly…”
“Don’t misunderstand. It’s not that you’re blameless.”
Just as I was about to speak, having realized something, the Professor cut in.
“When you pulled that stunt in the first place, I seriously considered whether I should lock you up in the basement for good.”
Though she was still smiling, the look in the Professor’s eyes was incredibly cold.
“But in the end, I didn’t.”
“Th-thank you.”
“But what about the other women, aside from me?”
I broke out in a cold sweat for a moment, but at the Professor’s next question, I started to frantically work my stalled brain again.
“Something was definitely strange. How should I put it… it’s like they became excessively violent? Like they’d been let off the leash?”
“Precisely. To be more specific, every woman around you, except for me, has changed in that way.”
“Wait, wait. That’s not right. The one who led the Breeding Coalition was you and Charlotte…”
“My, it seems there’s been a misunderstanding.”
I looked at her with a puzzled expression, and her next words left me momentarily stunned.
“Did I ever once attack you in that mansion?”
“Of course you did… wait.”
“Let me be blunt. While I did visit the mansion regularly, did I ever have sexual relations with you there?”
Only then did I realize that while I had memories of the Professor visiting my bedside for the past few years, I had no memory of her actually assaulting me. My jaw dropped.
“You seem confused. Well, it’s understandable if you were brainwashed with near-lethal doses of drugs.”
“……?”
“I never thought you’d still be in denial of reality, Adler. By the way, they’re all so cruel. The children kept making a fuss, saying the mansion had a ‘white smell,’ and it was hard to make excuses.”
“……”
“Of course, I love you and the children, so something like that is no trouble at all.”
To be honest, I had felt a sense of unease ever since escaping the mansion.
But I never dreamed the situation was this twisted.
“What on earth is going on?”
As I asked the question to get a better grasp of the situation, the Professor quietly came and sat beside me, stroking my hair as she began to explain.
“I’ll explain it simply. You and the members of the so-called ‘Coalition’ have been afflicted by the final curse of my biological father, James Moriarty.”
“What?”
“You and I realized it about a month after my father was sealed away and peace returned to London. It was when strange phenomena began to appear among us, who had originally agreed to punish you in that mansion for only about three months before letting you go.”
And only then did I realize just how abnormal the things I was experiencing had been.
Sure, I had done some wrong…
No, on second thought, I did a lot of wrong.
In any case, even though I had made a huge mistake, being abused to the point of not even being treated like a human was a little strange.
“The symptom caused by the curse is incredibly simple and clear. All of our feelings for you began to shift from ‘love’ to ‘addiction’.”
“…What’s the difference?”
“Love makes the world seem beautiful no matter where the object of your affection is, but addiction makes the world feel like it’s collapsing if the object isn’t right in front of you.”
After explaining James Moriarty’s final curse in more detail, the Professor took a sugar cube from her pocket, chewed on it, and added.
“You could call it the difference between sugar and opium.”
“…That certainly makes it easier to understand.”
“That is the nature of my father’s ability. Just as he twisted what should have been people’s natural talents into curses, he’s second to none when it comes to twisting positive things into negative ones.”
I took the sugar cube the Professor offered me and, while munching on it and nodding blankly, a question popped into my head, and I asked it carefully.
“Wait, something’s not right.”
“Hmm?”
“I heard that most of the drugs administered to me were made by you…”
“That’s not my area of expertise. The one with a deep knowledge of mana stones and chemical experiments is Charlotte Holmes, not me.”
The Professor’s answer to my question was perfectly reasonable, but it didn’t clear up all my doubts.
“Then why aren’t you affected by the curse?”
At that question, the Professor let out a small laugh, as if she had always wanted to say these words, and answered me with lively eyes.
“Adler. From the very first moment I met you, I was addicted to you for a very long time. It was closer to obsession and dependence than love.”
“……”
“That’s why my eyes were grey for so long instead of changing to the color of your hair. Ah, of course, now that I understand love, my eyes are your shade of gold.”
I had no idea there was such a backstory. Does that mean that until I died that one time, the Professor was in the same state as the other women are now? For some reason, a chill ran down my spine.
“In any case, because I’ve experienced that state, I’m able to maintain my reason now, in contrast to them.”
“In that case, Charlotte too…”
“Adler.”
But if that’s true, shouldn’t Charlotte be fine too? She’s the very incarnation of reason…
“Why have you always overestimated that pathetic wench?”
My train of thought came to a screeching halt at the Professor’s question, which was laced with the murderous aura of her younger days.
“Do you like that wench more than me?”
“N-no.”
“Good. You shouldn’t be a father our son and daughter would be ashamed of.”
The only saving grace was that Professor Moriarty, now a mother, was about a thousand times milder than she used to be.
While I was lying in a daze at the mansion, I’d vaguely heard that she had even attended a kindergarten observation day and handed out homemade cookies to the children, something I couldn’t even begin to imagine.
“Though she’s slightly insufferable, Charlotte Holmes is also well aware of the current situation.”
“…I suppose so. She’s like the epitome of rational thought.”
“Is she? Then what would you think if I told you that the one who stood against me, formed the ‘Coalition,’ and escalated this whole situation was none other than Charlotte Holmes?”
As I was lost in such thoughts, I heard something truly unbelievable and my eyes went wide.
“Why?”
“My, my, Adler. Why do you pretend not to know?”
But the Professor looked at me as if the responsibility was mine and opened her mouth.
“Aren’t you the one who corrupted two of London’s greatest intellects, two epitomes of rational thought who had no interest in things like love?”
“Are you talking about…”
“Yes. I’m talking about myself and Charlotte.”
Hey, I didn’t know things would turn out this way.
It’s probably too late to make excuses now, but still…
“And unfortunately, unlike me, it seems her rational thinking has been considerably eroded by the addiction.”
“……”
“How does it feel to have corrupted such an innocent child who knew nothing but cases and investigations? Do you feel a sense of immorality?”
As I quietly lowered my gaze, I sensed a hint of falsehood in the Professor’s words and frowned slightly.
“What is it?”
“…It’s nothing.”
It wasn’t scientific, but I couldn’t quite tell what the falsehood I’d sensed almost instinctively meant.
However, it seemed to be true that the Professor was intentionally withholding something about Charlotte.
‘Besides, the Charlotte I know, no, the ‘Holmes’ I know, isn’t someone whose rational thought would be paralyzed by a mere addiction.’
Perhaps she wasn’t just a victim of the curse, but was acting with some purpose of her own.
“Anyway, to get back to the main point, you and I recognized this final curse and formulated a plan. Of course, you seem to have forgotten, being addled by drugs.”
“What was it?”
“You would hold out against Charlotte’s coalition forces, while I would search for a solution to the situation.”
In any case, I decided to hear the Professor out. Seeing her incredibly proud expression, as if she were seeking praise, I suppressed the goosebumps rising on my skin and continued to listen.
“So, you should thank me. For I have finally found the solution.”
“And what is that solution?”
“To resolve this situation, we must…”
“…return to London?”
But I, who already knew the answer, beat her to the punch. For a fleeting moment, a look of surprise flashed across the Professor’s confident face.
“To be precise, to the Auguste Detective Academy.”
“…In that case, you must already know who we need to meet.”
And for a very brief moment, the Professor looked at me with a dejected expression (which was quite cute) before clearing her throat and asking me seriously.
“Auguste Dupin. The first detective and the dean of the academy.”
Of course, I knew who we had to meet.
“…A rather unpleasant person, I must say.”
“Haha.”
“Certainly, there can be no more effective solution than meeting her.”
Since she’s the manager of the bonus room I put in myself, it couldn’t be any other way.
“She is the only person more knowledgeable about magic and curses than I am. Therefore…”
“…What about Mycrony Holmes?”
“Shut up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Excluding the outlier that was Mycrony Holmes, she was, for now, the most knowledgeable person in this world.
“Anyway, if you understand everything, lie down on the bed.”
“Yes, I’ll just rest for a bit…”
Having finished my reunion and goal-setting with the Professor, I was about to lie down to organize the new information I’d learned, but…
“Professor? Why are you taking off your clothes?”
“……”
“Huh? Uh?”
Seeing the Professor suddenly cast a spell to ward off intruders around the forest and start unbuttoning her clothes, I stared in horror and began to back away.
“Adler. I have endured years of hardship I shouldn’t have had to, all to save you and those ungrateful wenches.”
But the Professor simply looked at me as if it were the most natural thing in the world and summoned grey chains to easily capture me.
“Surely you won’t deny me just this once today?”
“…No.”
“Adler.”
Of course, the restraints were loose and gentle, showing no real intent to bind me.
“Besides, I make it consensual, don’t I?”
“……”
“Isn’t that nice?”
However, the intention behind them was incredibly clear.
“…Haha.”
And the next morning, I began to trudge after the Professor, who looked remarkably refreshed, on trembling legs.
*
Meanwhile, at that same time, in a nearby forest.
“Hey.”
“…Umm?”
“Hey. Wake up.”
Rachel Watson, who had been unconscious and surrounded by a protective barrier ever since being taken down in one blow by Professor Moriarty, lifted her heavy eyelids at someone’s touch.
“Gah! Huh? Ch-Charlotte?”
“……”
“You… why are you here…”
And then, seeing her old friend come into view, Watson was shocked for the second time.
“It’s time for an adventure, after a long time.”
Looking at her was Charlotte, a wicked grin spreading across her face.