Ch.173Chapter 173 – Ripple Effect (2)

“P-Professor.”

As Adler quietly speaks in the frozen atmosphere, everyone’s attention immediately shifts to him.

“D-Didn’t you say you were going to use the restroom…?”

“Adler, the sun is already high in the sky.”

“Ah, y-yes. Time has already…”

Adler begins to slowly back away while watching their reactions.

“I couldn’t stay here forever, so I was heading to the main road to catch a carriage. That’s when I happened to run into you.”

“…I-Is that so.”

“Since we’ve met, how about returning to London together?”

Professor Moriarty calmly makes this suggestion to him.

“W-Well…”

*Swoosh…*

Just as Adler was wondering how to respond to that brazenly natural reaction.

“………”

“…Hmm?”

The three loyal servants quietly surround Adler and begin glaring at Professor Moriarty.

“Stay by my side.”

“…Grrrr.”

“………”

With Moran in front and Lady Clay and Silver Blaze on either side blocking his movement, Adler quietly watches the professor and speaks.

“P-Professor. I think there’s some misunderstanding here…”

“……..”

“I-I should explain…”

“Is it true?”

But interrupting his words, Celestia Moran boldly questions Professor Moriarty.

“What do you mean?”

“The information that my father… no, my master was sexually abused by you.”

Looking down at her cold expression with amusement, the professor smiles and answers.

“Even if that were true, what could you do about it?”

“…I could blow your head off.”

The next moment, Moran pulls out a gun with surprising speed and aims it directly at the professor’s head.

“Pfft, hehehe…”

“…What’s so funny?”

“Ahaha… haha… yes, I’m sorry.”

But despite having a gun pointed at his head by an expert markswoman who inherited the talents of London’s most powerful sniper and war hero, Professor Moriarty merely laughed like a child seeing something amusing.

“But if an ant walking along the roadside picked up a twig and threatened to cut off your neck with it, you would surely burst into laughter just like me.”

“Bullshit…”

“Don’t you understand what I’m saying?”

Then, suddenly smiling coldly, Jane Moriarty adds:

“Even if you emptied all the chambers of that gun, you couldn’t inflict a single wound on me.”

“…Ugh.”

“Of course, the same applies to the two glaring at me from behind you.”

“”……..!!””

“A vampire who hasn’t fully recovered her strength and a werebeast barely different from a human could never stand against me.”

As she begins to emit a gray aura filled with killing intent in all directions, the legs of the three loyal servants who had shown determination to fight to the death begin to tremble.

“Do you understand, inferior species?”

“”……..””

“It is only natural for the strong to take the weak.”

After looking at them with eyes drunk on superiority, Professor Moriarty quietly begins to step forward.

“But I must commend your courage for not running away despite being overwhelmed.”

*Click…*

“Or perhaps you’re too frightened to even move?”

As Moran’s eyebrow trembles with her finger on the trigger, and simultaneously as the professor’s fingertips begin to turn gray—

*Whoooosh*

Suddenly, a black aura filled with chilling killing intent begins to infiltrate between them.

“Everyone move aside.”

It was Sharlotte, who had been quietly glaring at Professor Moriarty with murderous eyes, finally intervening in the situation.

“Young detective… it’s been quite a while since we faced each other like this.”

“Shut up. Shut up…”

“I must say, I enjoy seeing your face in despair, so let me make something clear.”

To Sharlotte, who was trembling with her bloodshot golden eyes glaring as if to kill her, Professor Moriarty whispers in a low voice.

“…Issac Adler, whom you love, already belongs to me—body and soul.”

“SHUT UUUUUUP!!!!”

“Oh, and do you know what?”

As Sharlotte falls for the provocation, she speaks with an expression even more steeped in superiority, whispering in a small voice.

“…I didn’t use contraception today.”

“……..”

“Let’s see, then… the due date would be…”

Sharlotte, who had stopped shouting and momentarily wore a blank expression, quietly extends her hand forward.

*Whoooosh!!!!*

“…Oh.”

Simultaneously, tremendous black energy begins to surge from all directions.

“Not bad for a youngster…”

*Crack!*

Professor Moriarty, looking surprised at her energy that nearly matched her own, extends her hand forward and collides her energy head-on.

“I’ll kill you. No matter what happens, I will definitely…”

“My, is that what a detective fighting for truth should say?”

In the midst of the violent flow of mana spreading in all directions, the two women begin to converse with murderous expressions.

“Yes, it’s something I shouldn’t say as a detective…”

*Whoooosh…*

“But you see…”

Surprisingly, as Sharlotte begins to push back Professor Moriarty’s gray mana, she mutters in a cold voice.

“I’m not a detective but a consulting investigator…”

“You’re still playing childish word games, just like before.”

“And the reason I became a consulting investigator was because I could only find interest in that activity.”

As she says this, she slightly twists her hand, and black blades begin to whirl in all directions.

“But now, my priority of interest has changed.”

“You mean that boy?”

“Why should I abide by the rules of being a detective when dealing with someone trying to take away the purpose of my life?”

The professor easily deflects those blades flying in circles at a terrifying speed, but small wounds appear on the back of her hand and her left cheek.

“You’re making a big misunderstanding.”

“………”

“I’m not the absolute good you think I am. To eliminate a disgusting existence like you, I can cross any line.”

After saying this, Sharlotte begins to burn her entire body with mana.

“Yes… that’s it…”

“……..?”

“That’s exactly it, Miss Holmes…”

It was at that moment that Professor Moriarty’s eyes began to glow darkly.

“I told you before, didn’t I? We might actually become good friends…”

“Nonsense…”

“You and I are quite similar to each other.”

“Stop talking nonsense.”

Although Sharlotte cut off the professor’s amused voice firmly, her unwavering mana wavelength began to lose its balance slightly.

“Don’t be like that. Don’t they say that opposites attract?”

“Shut up, it’s horrifying just to think about it.”

“Have you no thoughts of coming over to our side, even now?”

“Shut up…”

And so, the advantage began to shift back to Professor Moriarty’s side.

*Fizzzzz…*

“If only you, if only you were gone…”

Realizing this vaguely and becoming increasingly anxious, Sharlotte begins to draw mana from her body despite the strain.

*Drip…*

“If only you were gone from this world…”

“A final struggle?”

“MORIARTYYYY!!!”

Thus, Sharlotte, even bleeding from her eyes and nose, attempts to unleash her final attack with all her might.

“Stop it!!!”

“….Ah!”

Seeing Adler suddenly jump between them with a pale expression, she hastily withdraws her power.

“……..”

And the same was true for Moriarty, who silently withdrew her mana.

“Please stop… now…”

“Ugh…”

The moment he muttered this while watching their reactions, Sharlotte, who had been biting her tongue to maintain consciousness, finally succumbs to dizziness and collapses to the ground.

“P-Professor. It was my fault. I’ll apologize instead…”

“…Hmm.”

“L-Let’s go now.”

After looking at her with a slightly concerned expression, Adler, with a trembling face, interlocks his fingers with the professor’s.

“Yes, that’s my ‘assistant’…”

“No, don’t…”

As Moriarty slightly raises their joined hands and gives a sneering smile to Sharlotte who had collapsed on the ground, Sharlotte extends her trembling hand forward.

“Ad… ler…”

“…Let’s go, Issac.”

But ignoring her, Professor Moriarty pulls Adler along and begins heading forward.

“We’ll continue what we were doing in my office.”

“…What?”

“Don’t leave me…”

After watching this scene while grinding her teeth, Sharlotte quietly loses consciousness.

“Cough…”

It was at that moment that the professor, who had been forcibly suppressing her cough, stopped walking and spat blood while staggering.

“As expected, you’re a good actor.”

“P-Professor…?”

“By the way…”

Adler is startled by this weak appearance of the professor, something he had rarely seen except when her mana usage was restricted.

“It seems your statement that that youngster was my arch-nemesis was correct.”

Looking at Adler, the professor whispers in a low voice.

“…This is the first time someone has pushed me to this state.”

It was the moment when Professor Moriarty, who had never had anyone to oppose her, received an effective hit in direct confrontation for the first time.

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Meanwhile, at the same time.

“W-What are you doing? Hurry and shoot…!”

“Now’s our chance. The professor’s posture is broken…!”

Clay and Silver Blaze urgently whisper to Celestia Moran, who was still holding her gun while barely withstanding the energy of the two from the rear.

“………”

But Moran’s pale gaze was directed not at the professor who had collapsed, but somewhere completely different.

“W-Where are you looking?!”

“W-What are you doing? Little miss!”

“There’s someone else here.”

Namely, Lestrade and Rachel Watson, who were crouching in the bushes far away.

“…There are quite a few people.”

“What?”

And another figure lurking behind them.

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“”……..””

As the sharp-eyed Celestia Moran had said, behind the bushes where Lestrade and Rachel Watson were hiding, there were figures who had been staking out the place for several hours.

“…Do you enjoy slaughter?”

“Sorry, but my motto is non-lethal.”

Having frozen stiffly after hearing that Adler had been raped by the professor.

“But come to think of it, a lizard isn’t human.”

“…So that’s your type?”

Gil the Reaper and Arsène Lupin, who had been forced to accompany Adler to his location by someone’s orders.

“Then, help me kill that gray-haired fucking bitch.”

“…No problem.”