Ch.85Chapter 85 – The Shadow of England

“…Hmm.”

“………”

In the hideout filled with a heavy atmosphere, the royal representative holds the teacup Adler prepared and takes a sip.

“The tea is delicious.”

“…Is it?”

“This isn’t the work of an amateur. I’m surprised.”

“You flatter me.”

When she offers a gentle smile with her compliment, Adler responds with a stiff smile.

“Say, why are you so nervous?”

“Pardon?”

“You’ve seemed rather fidgety since earlier.”

The representative stares directly at Adler while taking another sip of tea, then begins to whisper in a low voice.

“The Issac Adler I know isn’t the type to act so awkward around women.”

“Well…”

“Did you perhaps put something in this tea?”

She asks with a voice full of curiosity.

“I’ve heard about such things. Potions that instantly make women captive. I hear that in back alleys, they even distribute sophisticated products that most magic can’t detect…”

“Those are just urban legends. I wouldn’t possess such things. And even if I did, I know better than to use them on you if I want to keep my bones intact.”

“Hmm, why do you think that?”

“Are you genuinely asking?”

When Adler poses a slightly ambiguous question, the representative narrows her eyes and smiles behind her veil.

“Is it because even the great Issac Adler knows not to mess with royalty?”

“…That’s why, unlike Caroline, I’m able to keep my life in London. By the way, you’re not even hiding it anymore?”

“It’s just the two of us here. What’s there to hide?”

Adler scratches his head with a slightly confused expression at her direct statement.

“Are you really royalty?”

“What a strange question to ask now. Didn’t you already figure me out?”

“It just seems odd that someone of such high status would come to a dangerous place like this alone.”

Just as he tilts his head, trying to imagine the representative’s true appearance behind the veil—

*Swish…*

“…Oh.”

Quietly raising her hand, the representative begins to remove her own veil.

“”……..””

As her face is revealed before Adler’s eyes in the blink of an eye, a moment of silence falls over the hideout.

“Now you’re certain?”

“………”

“I was going to reveal my face here today anyway, so relax.”

As the representative quietly rises and begins walking toward him in that silence, Adler unconsciously swallows hard.

“…So you really are a princess. And one at the top of the succession line at that.”

“My grandmother was Queen Victoria. It can’t be helped.”

An atmosphere both elegant and free-spirited, yet somehow dark.

The slight dark circles under her eyes create a stark contrast with her beautifully maintained royal appearance.

“Why are you staring so intently?”

“…I apologize.”

Adler, who had been gazing at her blankly, lowers his head and averts his gaze from the princess who asked the question with a dark smile.

“You’re just too beautiful.”

“Pfft.”

She quietly smiles and tilts her head.

“I’ve heard that countless times during my rather dissolute life, but today it sounds different.”

“……..”

“Hey. Lift your head, Issac Adler.”

Having reached right in front of Adler, she gently takes his chin and lifts it.

“Do you know something?”

“……..”

“I like you.”

She whispers softly with a decadent smile.

“What about you, Issac Adler?”

“I’m not sure what you’re saying…”

“Don’t you think you’re wasting your talents, living on edge between a detective and a professor?”

The princess’s delicate hand caresses Adler’s cheek.

“It sounds like you’re asking me to be yours.”

“Correct. Become my lover.”

“…Are you serious right now?”

But he catches her hand midway and quietly lowers it.

“Why the hesitation?”

“Setting everything else aside, there’s the matter of our status difference.”

“Status difference?”

“I’m not a marquis or a duke. I’m just a commoner. I don’t even meet the minimum requirements to be the unofficial lover of a royal heir.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

At his objection, the princess’s cloudy eyes begin to darken with intensity.

“You’re one of the very few magicians in the British Empire.”

“…Ah.”

“In terms of ceremonial rank, you’re equivalent to most marquises.”

“That’s merely formal…”

“If needed, I could simply bestow a noble title upon you.”

Adler looks up at the princess with a rather troubled expression.

“There would be no justification for that.”

“Are you aware that the magical academic world was turned upside down by the new discovery in your magic thesis?”

“…No.”

“That professor must have hidden it from you. I suspected as much.”

The princess’s voice grows colder.

“As your advisor, not only did he fail to bring his student into the light, he tried to push you into the shadows. He’s unworthy of being a professor. Why are you wasting your brilliant talent under such a person?”

“………..”

“With me, you could shine. Of course, you’d face public criticism for being part of the scandal of the century, but you’re used to that, aren’t you?”

As her demeanor continues to change, Issac Adler quietly begins to break into a cold sweat.

“Excuse me.”

“Yes.”

“Why have you been looking at me like that?”

When the princess, who had been quietly observing him, asks this question, he bites his lip tightly.

“Like you’re looking at a monster rather than a princess.”

“…………”

“Is it my imagination?”

Just as his eyes begin to tremble wildly—

*Click…!*

“Hmm.”

A small pistol suddenly appears from Adler’s pocket.

“If you hadn’t been planning to brutally murder me, I might have seriously considered your offer, Princess.”

“…Interesting.”

The princess, who had been alternately looking at the gun and Adler’s sweat-drenched face, asks with a slight eye-smile.

“Since when did you know my true identity?”

Her expression finally reveals her raw, predatory nature, like a beast before its prey.

“Since we first met.”

“That’s quite romantic, but which exact moment are you referring to?”

The princess, now speaking in a manner neither dignified nor elegant, gently wraps her hands around Adler’s shoulders.

“Years ago? Months ago? Days ago? Or just now?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Come on, tell me.”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

As the princess delicately sits on Adler’s lap and leans in closer, he asks with a trembling voice.

*Shing…*

But instead of answering, the princess takes out a surgical knife from her bosom and begins to smile with desire so intense she’s almost drooling.

“I’m sorry, but it’s difficult to explain right now…”

*BANG!!!*

At that moment, a gunshot echoes through the hideout.

*Shudder…*

Adler, who had shot her directly in the head as she sat on top of him, shudders and grimaces.

*Gurgle, gurgle…..*

Her head, now enveloped in dark shadows, was writhing and returning to its original form.

*Slide…*

“Look at this.”

In this situation, the princess places her hand against Adler’s cold, pale cheek and whispers in an affectionate voice.

“I don’t die even from this. How could I not love you?”

“…Cough.”

As the medical knife she pushed deep inside pierces his heart, dark red blood begins to leak from Adler’s mouth.

“Are you also under a curse?”

“…I love you.”

Even as he asks in a faltering voice, the princess, feeling his heartbeat through the knife, goes into a frenzy.

“I love you I love you I love you I love you…”

“That’s enough, please stop.”

She carefully pulls out the knife, then stabs it back into his heart with each word she utters.

“I truly love you, Issac Adler.”

“I said stop it.”

Adler looks at her with a transcendent gaze, as she becomes covered in his blood.

“The detective, the professor, your girlfriend…”

But as she licks his blood with a shy expression and whispers in a voice full of heat—

“…I’ll kill them all for you.”

*SLAP!!!*

Adler’s expression instantly changes to an icy glare as he slaps her cheek with all his might.

“I said stop it.”

Gil the Reaper tilts her head curiously, then displays an awkward question mark on her face after hearing those words.

“What are you doing?”

“Shut up, bitch.”

“…….?”

.

.

.

.

.

Meanwhile, at that time.

“This is…”

Zia Lestrade, who was just about to leave the back alley where Adler’s hideout was located, stops walking and begins to wear a dark expression.

“…Adler’s subordinates.”

Adler’s subordinates, who had been diligently following her until she arrived here, were all lying unconscious in the corner of the alley.

“…..This is concerning.”

After looking at the scene with serious eyes, she quietly turns around and heads back the way she came.