Ch.134Chapter 134 – Strange Decisive Battle (8)

“Y-you…”

“……..”

A familiar silhouette piercing through the thick foggy smoke covering the walkway.

Lady Clay and Celestia Moran, who had been staring blankly at that silhouette, soon begin to wear dazed expressions.

“…why are you here already?”

“T-this is strange.”

Eventually, the two girls begin whispering to each other with puzzled expressions.

“Little one. Didn’t you say you infiltrated the hospital and administered several times the usual dose of sleeping pills?”

“…I’m not a kid. And it’s not my fault. I put in almost a lethal dose just to be safe.”

Their increasingly troubled gazes turn toward the gray-haired professor who has appeared before them.

“T-that’s problematic in its own way, isn’t it?”

“When I secretly visited my father at the hospital last time, I experimented with 10 times the dosage, and he woke up feeling completely refreshed.”

“…Even my body doesn’t have that kind of recovery ability.”

The two break into a cold sweat as they watch her quietly tilting her head side to side, as is her habit.

“What are you whispering about so quietly?”

“”………..””

The girls fall silent at the professor’s voice tinged with amusement.

“Um, Professor…?”

Meanwhile, Issac Adler, standing beside them with a dubious expression, quietly steps forward.

“Is it really you, Professor?”

“…Issac.”

The professor, who had been staring at him intently, begins to whisper in a gentle voice.

“Are you suggesting there’s a fake professor as well?”

“Ah, well…”

Adler shifts his gaze toward Silver Blaze, who was lying on the ground with spinning eyes.

“I thought there might be…”

“What are you talking about?”

“…Nothing.”

After being lost in thought for a moment, he quietly steps forward until he’s right in front of the professor.

“Nothing at all…”

“…….?”

Then, with his hands behind his back and eyes narrowed, Adler begins to circle around the professor.

“Hmm…”

“What are you doing now?”

As he strokes his own hair to smell it, and even pokes at the professor’s sides and lower abdomen, curiosity flashes across Professor Moriarty’s eyes.

“…This is completely the professor.”

“Issac?”

“The scent of her hair, her perfume is identical… The feel of her skin and even her body shape…”

But Adler ignores her call and continues muttering quietly to himself.

“…The height difference is too much to cover with magic.”

Confidence gradually fills his voice.

“Professor~”

And the next moment, Adler enters the professor’s embrace with a bright smile.

“I missed…”

“While I was away, you seem to have gotten involved in quite an interesting situation.”

“…..Ah.”

But at the professor’s calm voice as she looks down at Adler, he begins to blink blankly.

“What will you do now?”

“Uh, well…”

“…Th-there is a way.”

Just as the professor was questioning him with a slightly cold voice, an urgent voice begins to be heard from the side.

“Y-you might have heard, but I can kidnap Adler.”

“………”

“I-I’ll sp-specially give you permission to contact Adler by letter. H-how about that?”

But there was no response from Professor Moriarty.

“…I-I think it would be easier to deceive the enemy if I kidnap him.”

“……..”

“I-I’ll share the progress with you. I’ll use straw ropes instead of iron chains, and I won’t abuse him in ways that leave marks, mostly just psychological…”

Moran tried to interject with a desperate attempt, but there was still no answer.

“As I said earlier, both solutions are rather poor.”

“Then…”

“But I have a very plausible and safe solution.”

After maintaining silence for a long time, the professor finally speaks quietly.

“I will take Issac with me.”

“”……….””

The two girls quietly begin to clench their teeth.

“But…”

“Are you suggesting you can protect this child better than I can?”

“………”

“If you have any objections, prove it here and now.”

Professor Moriarty’s gaze, which had been watching them, gradually begins to darken.

“Though it will cost you your lives.”

“N-now is not the time for us to fight among…”

“You seem to be under some misapprehension.”

The professor, who began to emit a chilling aura just by slightly changing her expression, mutters in a low voice.

“I can single-handedly kill every group and individual in this place and slip away unnoticed.”

“”……..””

“I simply choose not to because I know Issac dislikes such actions.”

Moran and Lady Clay’s hair begins to stand on end as they listen to those words.

“So I’ll say this one last time.”

The professor concludes, looking at them with her usual enigmatic smile.

“I will take Issac Adler with me, so you two step aside.”

As the tense gazes of the two girls and the professor’s calm eyes began to intersect ominously, at that very moment.

“…That’s enough, step back.”

The calm voice of Adler, who had been nestled in Professor Moriarty’s arms until then.

“I’ll be back soon.”

As he smiles with his eyes at his loyal subordinates, the two girls grit their teeth and quietly lower their heads.

“An excellent choice, Issac.”

“…….”

“Then let’s first leave London. Where shall we go next? America? France? Germany?”

Thus, Adler and Professor Moriarty gradually began to move away from them.

– Beep, beep beep…!

“”……..?””

It was at that moment that an urgent message began to come through on the mana signalers of the two subordinates who were watching their retreating figures with gloomy eyes.

[Where is Adler right now?]

.

.

.

.

.

– Trudge, trudge…

A few minutes later.

“By the way, Issac, you’ve become quite bold.”

Professor Moriarty, who was heading toward the park exit through the thick fog without encountering anyone—as if by magic—addresses Adler, who was quietly following beside her.

“What do you mean?”

“…Normally you wouldn’t have dared to attempt something on this scale, has there been some emotional change recently?”

In response, Adler scratches his head briefly before quietly answering.

“There has been.”

“Is that so? I’m slightly curious. If you don’t mind, would you share a little with me?”

He suddenly stops walking and begins to stare intently at Professor Moriarty beside him.

“…I don’t think I need to tell you, of all people.”

Adler begins to mutter in a surprisingly cold and businesslike voice.

“What did you just say?”

“Professor.”

He gazes steadily into the professor’s gray eyes and whispers.

“…Stand in front of me.”

Jane Moriarty steps forward until she’s right in front of him, with an expression of not understanding what’s happening.

“What on earth…”

“Put your hands behind your back and take a deep breath.”

“…Hmmph?”

The moment she follows Adler’s request and takes a deep breath with her hands behind her back.

– WHAM…!!!

“…Guhk.”

Adler’s full-force punch lands directly in her lower abdomen.

“Ugh, urgh…”

“……..”

The professor, momentarily losing strength in her legs and collapsing to the ground, begins to retch while drooling.

“What… is the meaning of…?”

Then, as she looks up at Adler with tears forming in her eyes and asks this, the next moment.

– SLAP!

The professor’s face whips to the side.

“Issac…”

The professor, touching her face where a handprint remains, stares blankly at Adler and begins to mutter his name in a trembling voice.

“How long do you plan to keep acting?”

That is, until Adler looks down at her pathetically and mutters those words.

“First, the cute Miss Moriarty would never leave London. The professor has already made London her nest. Rather than fleeing, she would overturn all of London.”

“………”

“Second, Miss Moriarty doesn’t call me ‘Issac.’ Your acting was quite excellent this time too, but your research was one percent lacking.”

As she listens quietly to his explanation, the professor’s—or rather, her—expression gradually begins to change.

“And finally, if it were Miss Moriarty, she would have blocked my attack just now.”

“…Haha.”

“Because the professor is the strongest.”

Not with the frightened look she had been wearing until just now, but with a somewhat familiar, sinister expression.

“Isn’t that right, Miss Thief?”

“…Since I’ve been found out anyway, I’d like to get kicked by you a bit in this form… would that be okay?”

.

.

.

.

.

“…W-what is this?”

How much time had passed since then.

“What are you trying to do? What is this?”

The coachman who had safely transported the professor and Adler from Baskerville to London not long ago, and who was now catching his breath with his carriage parked a short distance from the park.

“”……….””

“Sh-should I call the police for you, miss?”

He begins to break into a cold sweat as he sees a girl with bruises and handprints on her face, bleeding from her mouth, approaching him from the darkness, and a boy holding a leash attached to her neck.

“Excuse me.”

“W-wait. I’ll be right back…”

“I think you’re misunderstanding something…”

As the coachman hurriedly tries to leave, the boy holding the leash speaks with a resigned look.

“Actually, I’m the one being kidnapped by this person, right now?”

“What…?”

“…I don’t really want to walk all the way to wherever I’m going to be imprisoned, so could you give us a ride in your carriage?”

As he glares at the girl who is leaning weakly against his shoulder with her head bowed, the coachman’s mind goes completely blank.

“What nonsense…”

“I’ll give you all the gold coins in this pouch.”

“…Get in.”

A few minutes later, his carriage began to smoothly leave London, in the opposite direction from last time.