Ch.236Chapter 236 – The Detective’s Sorrow

Rewinding time slightly, a few days had passed since the professor gave birth.

– Knock, knock, knock…

Rachel Watson, no longer the bright and fresh-faced person she once was, knocked on the door of the boarding house she hadn’t visited in a long time, her expression thoroughly haggard.

“Holmes? Are you in there?”

– Knock, knock, knock, knock…

“I know you’re in there, so open the door. Mrs. Hudson called me because she couldn’t bear to see you like this anymore!”

Though she raised her voice with a notably dark tone, there was still no answer.

“Hey! Holmes!”

“……..”

“I’m sorry I haven’t visited! I’ve been struggling too! But ignoring me to my face is…”

Feeling somewhat betrayed, Watson yanked hard on the doorknob.

– Creeeeak…

“…Huh?”

She momentarily looked confused as the door, which hadn’t been locked to begin with, opened with a creak.

“…….”

But that confusion lasted only briefly before she stepped into the room with a slightly tense expression.

“…Mmph! Cough, cough!”

Despite her caution, as soon as she entered the room, she grimaced and began coughing with her hand over her mouth.

“Hack… This is insane…”

The acrid smoke filling the boarding house room stung her eyes and nose.

“How can there be so much smoke…!”

For a while, Watson continued coughing painfully, covering her mouth with her hand as she staggered forward.

“…..Huh?”

Suddenly she stopped in her tracks, speechless at what she saw through the smoke-obscured wall.

“What… happened here…”

The wall, plastered with photos of Professor Moriarty, was riddled with bullet holes.

Not only that, but the floor was littered with torn-up photos of the professor.

And among them, the only one that remained intact was a picture of two children in the professor’s arms, emanating a somehow familiar atmosphere.

“Ad… ler?”

“…Huh?”

After staring blankly at it for a while as if entranced, Watson was startled by a sudden meek voice from beside her and turned her head.

“…….!”

A moment later, she froze in place with wide eyes.

“Is that… Adler?”

“Holmes!!”

Sharlotte was slumped in the armchair beside her, looking so broken that she was unrecognizable as the vibrant girl from a year ago—her expression far more devastated than Watson’s.

The numerous injection marks on her arms visible through the bathrobe she wore without any clothes underneath, and the strong opium she had in her mouth even at that moment.

And seeing the golden magic stone placed on the desk beside her, burning like incense, it was clear why she had reached such a state.

“Are you insane?! Have you lost your mind?!”

Watson urgently shook Sharlotte’s shoulders.

“Adlerrr… hehe…”

“Don’t you see what state you’re in? What if you die like this?”

“You finally… came back…”

But Sharlotte, looking at Watson with unfocused eyes, merely mumbled with a foolish voice and a faint smile.

“Do you know… how much… I missed you…?”

“…Holmes.”

“Every night I cried wanting to see you… then fell asleep exhausted… over and over…”

Watson stopped scolding her and stared with a loss for words.

“Adlerrr… but I… have one question…”

Despite this, Sharlotte, grinning as if delighted about something, hugged Watson with all her strength while mistaking her for Adler, and added in a trembling voice:

“You won’t disappear again… will you…?”

“……..”

“Please… I’ll do better this time… I don’t mind if you hang around other women…”

Tears began to fall from her eyes.

“Tell me you’ll never leave my side again…”

Those tears wet the photograph she had never let go of, even in her current state.

“Please… it’s my last wish…”

“……..”

“Adlerrr…”

The photo of “Adler” she had received instead of payment from the Scandal in Bohemia case, which she had treasured all this time.

“Don’t leave me…”

“…….”

After watching this pitiful scene for a while, Watson closed her eyes tightly and silently embraced Sharlotte.

“…He really was a bastard after all.”

In her eyes too, tears shimmered with a dull golden light.

.

.

.

.

.

A few days later. In London’s wealthy residential area, where the weather had remained gloomy throughout the entire year.

– Step, step…

Sharlotte, who had left the boarding house for the first time in nearly a year, staggered toward a mansion located there, supported by Watson.

“…So, Holmes. Why did you want to come here as soon as you woke up?”

“……..”

“You still need to recover more. If we had been a little later, you might have…”

“…We’ve arrived.”

Though Sharlotte’s condition had improved somewhat after days of Watson’s devoted care, she didn’t even have the strength to raise her hand and knock.

“Could you knock for me, Watson.”

“…..Sigh.”

As she asked in an emotionless voice, Watson sighed but reluctantly raised her hand to knock.

“”………””

But there was no answer from beyond the door.

– Creeeeak…

“Does everyone in London have a hobby of leaving their doors unlocked these days?”

In this situation, Watson tried pulling the doorknob just in case, and when the door opened too easily again, she stepped inside with a slightly incredulous expression.

“…Where exactly is this place?”

“Sister. I’m here.”

In response to Watson’s question filled with doubt, Sharlotte spoke in a low voice instead of answering.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find you just because you changed your address?”

“……..”

“Well, I’m not here to blame you. I just have something I want to ask…”

As she muttered this while opening the rooms inside the mansion one by one, she suddenly stopped in her tracks.

“My God…”

Wondering what was happening, Watson peeked through the slightly opened door and froze as well.

“…….”

Microny Holmes, with knife marks all over her arms and every reachable part of her body, was sitting quietly on the bed with an expression even more emotionless than before.

At her feet lay syringes of morphine close to lethal doses and bottles of strong alcohol.

– Swish…

“Hey!”

In this situation, as Microny silently brought the knife in her hand to her arm, Watson rushed forward and grabbed her wrist.

“Are you out of your mind? Do you want to die from excessive bleeding?”

“…So you came.”

Only then did Microny slowly turn her head, staring at her blood relative standing before her with completely dead eyes.

“Are you here to hold me accountable?”

“…What accountability?”

After asking in a slightly trembling voice, she looked momentarily dazed when Sharlotte quietly shook her head.

“…Adler gave me the medicine.”

After a moment, she lowered her head again and began to mutter.

“The only panacea in the world. To me, not herself.”

“……..”

“It was written in her will… that my survival would be more beneficial to London than hers.”

At those words, Sharlotte unconsciously clenched her fist so tightly that blood couldn’t flow.

“It was the first time my calculations were wrong. I thought her only purpose was to toy with me…”

“……..”

“So… I had no choice. I didn’t know things would turn out that way… I had no choice…”

Microny continued making incoherent excuses to her with a pale complexion.

“…You know what?”

After pausing briefly and letting out a deep sigh, she suddenly glanced at her sister and began to speak.

“When I took that medicine… the curse of numbness that had been eating away at me forever disappeared.”

“……..”

“But… I finally gained the ‘sensation’ I had wished for all my life…”

From her eyes, the same liquid that Sharlotte and Watson had shed days ago began to flow.

“Nothing I do feels satisfying anymore…”

Glowing with the same dull golden light as theirs.

“Even injecting morphine to lethal doses… drinking alcohol until my brain melts… even carving my flesh with a knife…”

“…….”

“…It only makes me forget the endless helplessness and despair I feel every moment, just for a brief instant.”

Tears she had never shed in her life, unlike the professor who could force them out.

“Do you know why?”

Microny asked with a tearful voice, but Sharlotte quietly averted her gaze.

“…I have something I want to ask.”

After a long silence, Sharlotte’s low voice rang out.

“Is Adler…”

“She’s nowhere in this world.”

But before she could finish, Microny’s voice, once again emotionless, cut her off.

“Whenever I regained my senses, I used my ability to search the entire world many times… but I gave up even that recently.”

“”……..””

“She’s no longer a person of this world.”

At those words, Sharlotte quietly closed her eyes.

“…Let’s go.”

“Sharlotte? But your sister…”

“There’s somewhere we need to go before it’s too late.”

She quietly turned around and started heading out of the mansion.

“Where are we going this time…?”

“The office.”

“…What?”

Looking back and forth between Microny and Sharlotte with a confused expression, Watson eventually followed after Sharlotte.

“…If only I had died in your jaws that day.”

– Swish…

“If only… I had made you mine from the beginning…”

After staring at Sharlotte’s retreating figure for a long time, Microny Holmes picked up the knife again with eyes that had lost their light.

“Would anything have been even slightly different?”