Ch.29Chapter 29 – The Speckled Band (4)

“…Where are you looking, Mr. Adler?”

As Adler’s face turns pale while rolling his eyes around, Helen Stoner, who is sitting on his lap, flashes her eyes.

“Why are you looking at my employee?”

Then, Stoner carefully redirects Adler’s gaze from Professor Moriarty to herself by reaching out her hand.

“That person is merely someone I hired.”

“………..”

“Talk to me now.”

Professor Moriarty begins to stare intently at Stoner and Adler, but Adler cannot bring himself to say that he wants to speak with the professor first.

– Sling…

This was because he was aware that if the knife pointed at his neck dug even a fraction deeper, everything could end.

“Yes, that’s it. That’s exactly it.”

As Adler begins to look at Stoner with slightly trembling eyes, she starts whispering in a voice full of passion.

“When you can see me so well like this, why haven’t you looked at me until now?”

“…What?”

“I’ve always been watching you since long ago.”

Hearing this, Adler tilts his head with a seemingly confused expression, and Moriarty, who was leaning beside him, begins to whisper in a gentle voice.

“Miss Helen Stoner has been your longtime fan, I hear.”

“…My fan, you say.”

“Talk to me.”

Then, Stoner’s cold voice flies in without fail.

“…Mr. Adler. Do you remember who was the first person to see your debut performance from the very front row?”

“What?”

“Who was the president of your early fan club?”

“………”

“Who has the most of your autographs in London?”

As her gaze deepens, Adler quietly averts his eyes.

“That’s me.”

Then, forcing her head forward, Stoner whispers.

“Thanks to you, I even enrolled in the Auguste Detective Academy, which I wasn’t interested in. I also studied brainwashing magic just in case.”

While caressing Adler’s cheek, she asks in a trembling voice.

“But why wouldn’t you even give me a glance, let alone talk to me?”

“……..”

“Always surrounded by women, why only me?”

Still avoiding her gaze, Adler frowns slightly and asks.

“…Were you my stalker?”

Since there was naturally no connection between Stoner and Adler in the original game, he unconsciously asked that.

“A stalker? How could you say that.”

Then, Stoner answers with an eerie smile.

“That’s too harsh to say to your future wife.”

At those words, Adler gives up trying to extract information and closes his mouth, and Stoner continues with gleaming eyes.

“I don’t plan to fill the mansion with Vampires like my stepmother.”

“…Then.”

“So let’s have one son and one daughter and live happily together.”

Adler, who was about to interrupt her words but momentarily lost his words, soon collects himself and asks another question.

“…So, did you orchestrate all of this?”

“Why are you curious about that?”

Then, Stoner asks back with a genuinely curious expression.

“The conclusion has already been reached. Mr. Adler, you will live happily with me in this basement forever.”

“…I’m just curious about how things unfolded.”

To understand the development that differs significantly from the original game, Adler begins to put on his best acting performance.

“…Shouldn’t I know how hard my wife worked to get me?”

After saying that, Adler adds with a smiling eye smile.

“As your husband.”

“…Husband.”

As Stoner repeats his last word alone, a strange heat rises in her eyes.

“Now that I hear it, that’s right. That makes sense.”

“…Doesn’t it?”

“Then, I’ll explain it to you.”

After a moment, she begins her explanation with a slight blush on her face.

“I first started planning a few days ago.”

‘…I figured as much.’

While deliberately ignoring the gray killing intent he briefly felt beside him, Adler was lost in thought.

“To be precise, it was when I was about to kidnap you as you were walking alone through the foggy London streets at night.”

‘As expected.’

Hearing those words, he smiled as if he had known it all along.

“As I was following you from behind with a leather pouch, holding my breath, someone grabbed my arm.”

However, lost in recalling that moment, Helen Stoner didn’t notice Adler’s reaction.

“That person was…”

“It was I who consulted on this entire case.”

Professor Moriarty naturally interrupts her words, still leaning beside her.

“Surprisingly, you had already noticed, though.”

And then, she adds in a low voice that Stoner cannot hear.

“Isn’t that right, Mr. Adler?”

‘…I had my suspicions.’

Only then could Adler confirm his guess.

In fact, he had been somewhat certain since the moment a gray message appeared on the palm of the lady who had pounced on him.

That this entire incident was a surprise party prepared by Professor Moriarty for him.

“Professor Moriarty showed me a more efficient way to get you.”

“…Is that so.”

“It was to take advantage of my stepmother’s criminal plan.”

However, that didn’t mean he could overlook the mistake.

“My stepmother tried to kill me by sending a snake through the ventilation duct. Her goal was to have our newlywed home all to herself.”

A trick with plausibility errors that appears in the original novel, which Professor Moriarty had exploited.

“…So you used that plan in reverse to brainwash the lady.”

“What?”

“You were planning to use it again today, weren’t you? Probably targeting either Sharlotte Holmes or the lady. Then, framing the remaining one as the culprit…”

After all, that trick was a serious error that could potentially hasten the world’s destruction.

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“What?”

But Adler’s thoughts were…

“It’s impossible to execute such a stupid plan.”

…bound to collapse at the statement that came out of Professor Moriarty’s mouth.

“It was absurd that a so-called professional trainer would plan to feed milk to a snake and train it with a whistle.”

“………”

“It was a crude trick that only stupid detectives or police might find plausible.”

After that, Adler stared blankly at Professor Moriarty for a long time.

“Don’t tell me the ‘mistake’ you mentioned was the misunderstanding that I utilized such a low-grade trick as is?”

Then, he shakes his head with cold sweat and denies it.

“Yes, that must be it. It was an unnecessary worry.”

Looking slightly relieved, Moriarty stares at Adler intently.

“The terrible mistake I made couldn’t possibly be such a trivial misunderstanding.”

‘….I’m really screwed.’

At her following words, fear began to creep into Adler’s eyes as he tried to maintain a smile.

‘But it is a misunderstanding.’

The moment he fell into Roylott’s lady’s arms, thinking he would be praised by Professor Moriarty who was excited at the thought, began to flicker before his eyes.

.

.

.

.

.

“My stepmother’s idea was brilliant. But that was all it was. Due to her stupid intelligence and misguided belief in her abilities, the chance of success was zero.”

Miss Stoner was muttering something on my lap, but it didn’t register in my ears.

“Well, in fact, 90 percent of that person’s talent was an illusion created by my brainwashing magic, so such pathetic behavior was to be expected.”

I had realized the seriousness of what I had done.

“Anyway, it was a foolish plan, but thanks to the professor’s excellent consultation, it could be repurposed.”

“Ah….”

“My stepmother has weak magical ability but unnecessarily high mental resistance. So even I, a brainwashing magic specialist, can only place simple suggestions on her.”

“……….”

“Pretending to be actually victimized by my stepmother’s stupid plan and getting rid of her for attempted murder. Wouldn’t that plan work on the stupid London police?”

Contrary to my expectations, Professor Moriarty seems to have completely erased the plausibility error in the case just by being involved.

But then why was the plausibility warning message still there?

Because of that, I judged that the original “snake trick” hadn’t been fixed, and that’s why I did this dangerous thing.

Doesn’t this make my actions, including the bondage date with Lady Roylott, one big waste of time?

“So I put it into action immediately. To get my stepmother into prison as quickly as possible, I was walking around the streets with a mild hallucination cast on myself…”

While I was wrapped in questions about why the corruption rate had increased, I heard Miss Stoner’s voice, which had become even more joyful.

“Oh my goodness. There you were.”

Her eyes were shining brighter than before.

“I couldn’t resist.”

“…What do you mean?”

“Stabbing you with a knife.”

What nonsense is this?

“It wasn’t pre-arranged with the professor, but I stabbed you, of course.”

“Why?”

“…Because I loved you.”

After tilting my head and asking the question, I heard her answer and gave up trying to understand her.

“Of course, I regretted it a little afterward. But at the same time, it was a golden opportunity to get you.”

Now was the time to use my brain to figure out how to escape this totally screwed-up situation, rather than trying to understand her.

“So I gave my stepmother a suggestion to get you and sent her to the hospital room…”

“…Instead, she choked my neck with her hand. I guess when the suggestion is weak, the intention can be misinterpreted?”

To buy even a little more time, I played along with her words, and Miss Stoner nodded quietly and answered.

“Yes, I was really in trouble then. Fortunately, I managed to control her with the message that the professor had activated on her hand as a safety measure.”

“……….”

“Still, I was at a loss about what to do next. But right then, a miracle happened.”

She begins to smile eerily.

“You came to this mansion voluntarily.”

“………”

“…If only the reason wasn’t that you wanted to be raised by the lady.”

Then, carefully lowering the knife, she continues.

“But none of that matters now.”

Eventually, for some reason, she picks up a milk bowl that had been placed on the floor and begins to try to feed it to me while stroking my head.

“As that stupid detective outside deduced, the lady will be arrested.”

“Mmph?”

“Now that the interference is gone, I’ll give you a sweet suggestion.”

Feeling that this was something I shouldn’t eat, unlike what Lady Roylott had given me, I urgently turned my head away, and her voice became colder.

“A few months after the case ends, when everything has calmed down… quit the academy.”

“Mmph, mmph…”

“And come back to this place… that’s when we’ll be happy…”

Just as I felt a sweet liquid seeping between my lips and my consciousness becoming increasingly hazy, I squeezed my eyes shut, and at that very moment.

“…Mr. Adler.”

Professor Moriarty’s voice began to reach my ears.

“…May I whisper now?”

“Professor Moriarty. What are you doing?”

Hearing both the professor’s voice, the gentlest I’d ever heard, and Stoner’s sharp words simultaneously, I began to tremble with my eyes closed at what followed.

“The terrible mistake I made against you.”

‘What the hell is that?’

So this is what unknown terror feels like.

.

.

.

.

.

“……….Ugh?”

It was at that moment when Stoner, who had been pressing the milky liquid to Adler’s lips with an expression full of ecstasy, suddenly dropped the bowl and grabbed her own neck.

“Hick… hick…?”

The spotted collar that had been around Adler’s neck just seconds ago was now wriggling like a snake and rapidly coiling around her neck.

“Y-you…”

Thanks to this, she grabbed her neck and looked around with a pale face, soon discovering the cause.

“What… are you… doing…”

Professor Moriarty was raising one finger, glaring at her with cold eyes, and emitting gray mana.

“…Correcting it.”

“Mmph!?”

As she slightly bent her finger in that state, the collar, which was not yet fully coiled, stretched even longer and began to burrow into Stoner’s mouth.

“Mmph? Mmmmph….”

“Mr. Adler.”

As the room grew quiet, Professor Moriarty, with a single gesture, threw Stoner, who had been sitting on Adler’s lap, to the floor.

“The basic and stupid mistake I made against you was…”

She brings her face close to Adler’s, almost touching, and begins to whisper.

“You, who chose me.”

“Um…”

“You, who rolled into my life on your own and created ripples in what was like calm water.”

“……”

“You, who should not be taken by anyone because you are more precious than anything else.”

As Adler, completely intimidated at a distance where even their breaths could touch, tries to avert his gaze, Jane Moriarty grabs his face and fixes his gaze on herself.

“No different from that idiot detective, no, even more seriously.”

After climbing onto his lap, she glances at Stoner struggling on the floor and whispers.

“I made you feel dangerous and insecure.”

And then silence began.

“…Isn’t that right, Mr. Adler?”

Adler, held in Moriarty’s arms, trembles and nods, and she smiles and begins to caress his neck.

“I’ll correct it right now.”

– Swish…

Then, Moriarty’s mana begins to instantly cover the bronze mana that had spread over Adler’s body.

“Stay still.”

“……..Yes.”

Eyes mixed with gray and golden colors were staring blankly at the scene through the gap of the half-destroyed basement door.

[Villain Maker: Chapter 1 Complete]

[Relationship of Love and Hate: Chapter 2 Beginning]