Ch.256Chapter 256 – Bug Fix

– Trudge, trudge…

“…?”

I blankly observe the children I’ve only glimpsed in dreams looking up at me with puzzled expressions, when I begin to sense someone approaching from behind.

“…Ah.”

I instinctively turn my head, then immediately start watching the person behind me with a tense expression.

“…Professor.”

Professor Moriarty was looking down at me with a dazed expression.

“Um, well… uh…”

What should I say?

Though it was a face I’d longed to see so desperately I’d lost sleep over it, now that we’re face to face, I can’t think of what to say.

“…Adler.”

As I stand there stammering while looking at the professor, she suddenly speaks first.

“Is it… really you, Adler?”

“……..”

“Really?”

Her eyes trembled as she said this.

As if she might burst into tears at any moment.

“Well…”

Honestly, I’m having trouble adjusting.

I’ve seen the professor cry a few times in nightmares in the real world, but actually facing it in person feels surreal.

Professor Moriarty crying? Making such an expression?

It feels like the person I knew is being denied.

“Um… yes.”

But since I couldn’t just stand there without answering, I cautiously nodded while watching her reaction.

“…You can tell by looking at my eyes.”

The moment I pointed to my right eye, still gray even after returning to reality, and added those words—

– Whoosh…!

“Ack.”

The professor knelt before me and embraced me with all her might.

“Cough, cough… um…”

Perhaps it’s because I’ve become a completely ordinary person unlike before. Just being hugged is making it hard to breathe.

“Professor…”

As I was about to gently push her away while nervously watching her reaction, I looked at her face and froze with a blank expression.

– Drip…

Tears were streaming down from the professor’s eyes, something I never expected to see.

I thought it unlikely even when she was sniffling, but to actually see her crying…

I’m stunned despite having seen it a few times in my dreams.

“D-don’t cry, Professor…”

Maybe that’s why. I wanted to comfort her, but only such foolish words came out.

I’ve never been good at consoling others.

So comforting the professor, who until a few years ago couldn’t even feel emotions, would be doubly difficult…

– Swish…

Somehow, without realizing it, I was holding her in my arms.

“…Professor Moriarty.”

“Sob, hic…”

“I’m late, aren’t I?”

I don’t know why. It just felt like the right thing to do.

“I’m so sorry for leaving you alone.”

As I whispered those words while patting her back, she quietly raised her head from where it was buried against my chest, sobbing pitifully.

“Ah…”

Only then did I realize, like in a dream I once had, that both her eyes had turned golden.

These were the same eyes that had maintained their dignified gray color even when she was obsessively trying to possess me.

But now, looking at her eyes overlaid with my color, my heart aches.

‘…So you finally realized it.’

I thought she might never understand it in her lifetime.

The fearsome dragon that no one could stand against had finally learned what love is.

‘And the decisive cause was…’

“Kyaung…”

“Uuung…”

As I was wiping away the endless tears flowing from her eyes, suddenly I heard discontented babbling from near my feet.

“Ah…”

Looking down toward the sound, I immediately snapped back to reality.

“…?”

Adorable, pretty children who resembled someone were looking up at me with furrowed brows from the floor.

“Professor, these children are…”

Looking at those children, I asked the professor with a slightly trembling voice.

“Yes… that’s right.”

Before I could finish, the professor’s tear-filled answer came back.

“They’re your children…”

Well, I could tell just by looking at their hair color and eyes.

The reason I asked for confirmation was simply because it still didn’t feel real.

“Yours and mine, our children…”

But as the professor showed them to me with a tear-mixed smile, I gradually began to feel it throughout my body.

“…Want to hold them?”

These children are really mine.

With my blood and the professor’s, our genes mixed half and half.

The most precious beings in the world, children so dear they wouldn’t hurt even if put in my eyes.

Lost in such thoughts, I carefully took the children the professor preciously handed to me.

“Pa!”

“Abu!”

Then, the little ones, delighted for some reason, grinned broadly while pulling at my cheeks.

“I’m… their father.”

“……..”

“…And the professor is their mother.”

As I accepted this fact, I suddenly began to feel afraid.

Is London a good place for children to live? Should we immigrate somewhere else?

How should I educate them? Should I let them follow the same path as the professor?

Can I really be a good father?

“…Adler.”

As I was staring down at the children with a dazed expression, thinking such thoughts, I snapped back to reality once more at the now-calmer voice from in front of me.

“Ah.”

Professor Moriarty, who had regained her composure, was staring at me with her characteristic emotionless expression.

“S-sorry…”

Come to think of it, things had been so intense that I’d overlooked the current situation.

Although she was on top of me, I was the trash who had abandoned the pregnant professor for over two years.

I couldn’t be by her side during childbirth, and I didn’t even properly say goodbye before leaving.

In other words, if she were to wring my neck right now, it would barely qualify as self-defense.

“I’m… sorry.”

So I offered a cowardly apology in a shrinking voice to the professor who was staring at me with a slightly pale face.

“I shouldn’t have… tried to resolve things that way…”

“…Issac.”

The words that came out of the professor’s mouth after meeting again after two years weren’t accusations about where I’d been, interrogations about why I’d made such a choice, or resentments about how she’d been so lonely without the children that she wanted to die.

“I love you.”

What came out of her mouth was.

“I love you so very much.”

Something that the professor had never been able to say sincerely throughout our brief but intense relationship.

“If you weren’t before my eyes, I would be so consumed with agony that I’d burn the whole world down and die.”

A heartfelt confession.

“I love you, Issac Adler.”

Our reunion culminated with her whispering those words and pressing her lips against mine.

.

.

.

.

.

And how much time had passed?

“Excuse me. Are you two finished now?”

“”………””

As I was exhaling sweetly after being released from the professor’s entwined tongue, a blunt voice came from behind.

“Then let’s start considering countermeasures.”

“…Holmes?”

Sharlotte stood with her arms crossed, looking down at us with cold eyes as she spoke.

“That monster that we all rushed to seal, but could only manage to contain for 20 to 30 years.”

Her appearance made me feel slightly relieved, as if I were seeing her from years ago, but her following words made me anxious again.

“He clearly said it. That when he breaks free from the seal, he’ll beat you up, Adler.”

“That’s… right, isn’t it?”

“So we need to prepare. But the problem is…”

“…That my father’s abilities are beyond imagination.”

Meanwhile, the professor, interrupting Sharlotte’s words, muttered with an equally serious expression.

“Honestly, if it weren’t for the children, I could have fought him on equal terms this time. But… if he accumulates power for 20 years and returns to the world…”

“…A monster that might be barely defeatable even if all of us attack together will appear in London.”

Eventually, everyone’s gazes turned toward me.

“And that monster will target Adler first.”

As those gazes darkened again, it happened.

[Want to know the solution?]

“……!”

[Actually, it’s very simple.]

Suddenly, System-yang’s message appeared before my eyes.

‘What, what is it?’

[What do you think?]

[Who is the only person who can defeat James Moriarty?]

When I asked with sparkling eyes after seeing that, System-yang began to answer kindly, unlike usual.

‘…Sherlock?’

[You know well.]

‘But Sherlock doesn’t exist in this world?’

Just in case, I had my minions comb through London like searching for lice, but there was no detective or investigator named ‘Sherlock’.

After all, the Sherlock Holmes of this world is Sharlotte Holmes behind me.

So how am I supposed to summon Sherlock?

[This is your final mission for plausibility.]

[Fix the bug where Sherlock Holmes doesn’t appear in a game based on the Sherlock Holmes series.]

So, how?

[Fix it.]

‘No, how exactly am I supposed to fix it?’

As I asked with a troubled expression in response to System-yang’s firm answer, I could only open my mouth, at a loss for words.

[No, I misspoke. Make it fixed.]

“……?”

[If it doesn’t exist, you have to create it.]

Sharlotte, the professor, and the women gathered in the office were observing my gradually paling expression with sharp eyes.

‘…So I just need to do it with Sharlotte? She is Sherlock “Holmes” after all?’

[Probability of being gang-raped: 100%]

[Don’t ignore your karma.]

“…Fuck.”