Ch.63Chapter 63 – The Blooming Detective

A few days after Sharlotte Holmes collapsed at the boarding house.

“…Mmm.”

“Miss Holmes?”

For some reason, Issac Adler was lying in the same bed, holding her in his arms at the boarding house rather than a hospital.

“Are you coming to your senses?”

Hearing the faint voice near his ear, he hurriedly checks Sharlotte’s condition in his arms.

“Ehehe…”

Sharlotte Holmes, now awake, was smiling as she carefully interlaced her fingers with his.

“You’re by my side today.”

“…Yes, I am.”

“I’m glad.”

After staring at Adler for a long while, she says this and burrows back into his embrace.

“I couldn’t open my eyes for 30 minutes because I was afraid you wouldn’t be there when I did.”

“But didn’t I hold you while you slept yesterday too, after you caused quite a commotion?”

“Still, there was only a 50 percent chance it would be you.”

“…Why do you think that?”

From within Adler’s embrace, her small but confident voice begins to speak.

“Think about it. When I open my eyes, there are two possibilities: either you’re holding me, or someone else is holding me.”

“………”

“So it’s fifty-fifty. 50 percent.”

After finishing this completely illogical explanation with a confident expression, Sharlotte quietly raises her head.

“But now that I think about it, a 50 percent probability is perfectly balanced. Quite stable.”

“Miss Holmes.”

“Mr. Adler, balance is important for the human body too. So you should draw a line down the middle of your body in advance.”

Her condition seemed quite serious at a glance, as she continued to ramble incoherently while sweating profusely not just from her forehead but her entire body.

“That way, it’ll be easier to maintain your body’s stability. You could even use it as a perforation line if necessary…”

“Please, I beg you.”

After watching her with an expression like the sky was falling, Issac Adler closes his eyes tightly and speaks.

“Please go to the hospital now.”

“Hospital?”

Sharlotte, slightly regaining her senses at his pitiful voice, quietly tilts her head.

“It’s useless.”

“But…”

“The test results are already in.”

She then gives a sorrowful smile.

“What was in that box wasn’t magic but a curse. It’s the most difficult form to undo, independently researched in India and some parts of the East.”

“……….”

“And Watson said it. The mana circuits that make up my body have been damaged beyond repair by that curse.”

At her words, spoken with difficulty as she breathed heavily, Adler’s expression gradually hardened.

“I’m finished, Mr. Adler.”

“……..”

“Adventures with you, mysteries, everything is over.”

Stroking his cheek, Sharlotte speaks in a calm voice.

“…It’s such a shame.”

Quietly lowering her gaze, she whispers in a low voice.

“I had fun.”

At those words, Adler bows his head, unconsciously tightening his arms around Sharlotte.

“”………..””

Silence fills the room for a moment.

“Hey.”

How much time had passed like that?

“I think my mind is somewhat clear right now.”

Sharlotte, sweating profusely and breathing heavily, lifts Adler’s head and begins to whisper as she meets his eyes.

“So, I have a proposal for you.”

“…….?”

“Take my soul.”

At those words, Adler’s expression goes blank.

“What are you saying…”

“Actually, I know.”

Placing her finger on his lips, Sharlotte begins to speak with a fragile smile.

“That you don’t have much time left.”

“That’s…”

“We’re both terminally ill, so let’s stop lying.”

Adler’s complexion gradually darkens.

“That body of yours, you don’t have much time left to move it.”

“……….”

“So you’re looking for a way to extend your lifespan.”

Struck at his core by her words, Adler silently looks at Sharlotte, at a loss for words.

“I did some research since the case I was investigating recently involved curses.”

“Sharlotte.”

“In most curse literature, taking a person’s soul is the common way to extend one’s lifespan.”

Sharlotte’s eyes quietly shine.

“So devour my soul.”

“Do you realize what you’re saying?”

“I’m saying I’ll give you my soul for your sake.”

“Aside from the danger to your life, Miss Holmes, do you, the most rational being of all, believe in such occult stories?”

“You’re going to argue about that in this fin de siècle world where magic from fairy tales has been proven real, and all sorts of strange phenomena and curses are appearing everywhere?”

At her subsequent words, Adler quietly closes his mouth, unable to refute.

“…I suppose you’d need to know the method or not.”

“Pfft.”

“What’s so funny?”

At his words, Sharlotte bursts into laughter and brings her sweat-covered head closer.

“Does it make sense that you, of all people, wouldn’t know the method?”

“What?”

“I’ve searched through countless papers, but there’s no precedent for a tailed vampire.”

Her pupils had momentarily returned to their original sharp form.

“Suspiciously skilled at contract magic, and with a strange charm that easily captivates ordinary women despite not being a curse.”

“……..?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t know your true identity?”

Then follows a low but confident tone.

“Little demon?”

“…..Sigh.”

After quietly looking down at Sharlotte for a moment, Adler heaves a deep sigh.

“…I thought your condition had miraculously improved since you suddenly seemed a bit more lucid.”

Then, quietly stroking her back, Adler mutters in an emotional voice.

“But seeing you talk nonsense again, you haven’t improved at all.”

“……….?”

“It’s all my fault. If only I had arrived at the boarding house a little sooner…”

Seeing him embrace her with a genuinely regretful expression, Sharlotte tilts her head with a momentarily confused expression, then quietly returns her gaze to its dull state.

“…Anyway, what I want to say is.”

And then, she begins to stroke his cheek again.

“You must live, at least.”

“…Miss Holmes.”

“Although my mana circuits are too damaged to live on, it should be perfectly possible to partially transplant them into your body.”

Her voice begins to darken slightly.

“And even if you don’t use me, couldn’t your curse be broken?”

“What?”

“I can roughly guess. The way to escape the curse you’re entangled in.”

It was at that moment.

[Ending 09: Millennial Kingdom]

Among the many endings, one of the few that wasn’t so bad from Adler’s perspective appeared before his eyes.

“I need to be defeated by you and the professor.”

“What are you…”

“It’s very simple. I just need to die like this.”

Sharlotte’s voice, vaguely sensing this, begins to tremble slightly.

“Let’s be honest. The fact that you like me is a lie, isn’t it?”

“……….”

“What you really like is the professor. That’s why you approached her first, not me, and why you work as her assistant, not mine.”

“I…”

“But.”

She pauses briefly to catch her breath.

“…I’m okay with that.”

Her voice, now slightly cracking, pierces Adler’s ears.

“Although it was a short time, the time I spent with you was truly happy.”

A satisfied smile appeared on Sharlotte’s lips.

“…Mr. Adler.”

After watching his crumbling expression for a long time, Sharlotte, with an even paler face, begins to speak.

“Do you know what my curse was?”

Her voice was so weak it was hard to believe it was Sharlotte’s, but it sounded very clear to Adler, who was listening more intently than ever.

“It was a curse that prevented me from loving any being in the world.”

Adler’s thoughts froze for a moment at those words.

“Except for one thing: the concept of mysteries.”

Looking straight into his eyes, Sharlotte whispers softly.

“Maybe that’s why. I opened my heart this much to you, who gave me mysteries I’d never seen before, who was a mystery yourself.”

“………”

“But seeing that my heart remains open even now, when I somewhat understand you…”

She pauses briefly as if speaking is painful, then continues with a slightly choked voice.

“…My curse might already be broken.”

Adler’s eyes were trembling wildly.

“By your existence.”

After quietly smiling at him, Sharlotte closes her eyes.

“…Whatever the case, it’s my turn to give a gift now.”

She concludes with a determined expression.

“Use me as a sacrifice to grow your professor’s kingdom.”

“………”

“I’ll die without resistance.”

Cold sweat begins to form on Adler’s forehead.

“Then your curse that binds your life will be broken too.”

Similarly sweating profusely due to the fever raging through her body, Sharlotte continues.

“…You must live happily.”

She whispers in a carefree voice, as if it had been decided.

“If souls exist, I’ll visit you at your wedding with the professor.”

“Miss Holmes.”

“So please…”

“Sharlotte.”

But before she could finish, Adler covers her mouth.

“……..?”

After looking at her as she tilted her head curiously, he begins to rise from the bed.

“…You’re really not in your right mind.”

At those words, Sharlotte painfully sits up on the bed.

“Seeing that brilliant brain of yours not working properly.”

In her view appears Adler’s most serious expression ever.

“You say I don’t love you?”

Along with his blue eyes that were gradually turning black.

“Not at all.”

The two pairs of eyes, now dyed in each other’s colors, meet.

“…I will definitely save you.”

Even without checking, it was clear that this wasn’t one of Adler’s usual deceptions to evade a situation.

“Even if it costs me my life.”

For the first time, there wasn’t even a hint of the falsehood that was always slightly mixed in his voice, which now lacked any trace of humor.

“That was our contract, wasn’t it?”

Tears begin to well up in Sharlotte’s golden eyes as she quietly bows her head.

“I roughly know someone who can fix your condition.”

Gently wiping her eyes with his hand, Adler rises from the bed.

“So wait.”

After wrapping his outer garment around her sitting on the bed, he moves toward the exit and concludes.

“I’ll bring them here without fail, even if I have to sell my body and soul.”

And then the boarding house door quietly closes.

“”…………””

Afterward, a heavy silence began to fill the room.

.

.

.

.

.

“…What?”

Surprisingly, it was a third person who broke the deep silence that had filled the room for a long time.

“This development is completely different from what we expected…?”

Rachel Watson, who had been hiding behind the bed with a tiny phonograph powered by magic stone and her favorite pistol.

“What’s going on, Holmes?”

She asks Sharlotte, who was lying on the bed, with a completely dumbfounded expression.

“………”

But for some reason, Sharlotte remains silent.

“…Holmes?”

Rising from her spot and quietly bowing her head to check Sharlotte’s condition, Watson begins to look flustered.

“Watson.”

“You…”

Sharlotte, who looked still slightly pale but relatively normal, was shedding real tears, not the fake ones.

“…I think I have to admit it now.”

Despite this, with a smile on her lips, words that would have been unimaginable just a few months ago come out of her mouth.

“My curse is broken.”

At the same time, her eyes shine brightly with tears, their color now unchangeable even by magic.

“By a man named Issac Adler.”

In the heart of the girl that was destined to remain frozen forever, a golden spring had somehow blossomed.