Becoming Professor Moriarty's Probability

Chapter 196: The Five Orange Pips (2)

- Whoosh…

“Argh…”

A pillar of fire soared ignorant of the sky’s height, lighting up the evening of London.

Within that terrifying inferno, which would surely inflict fatal wounds on any ordinary creature, suddenly a low moan began to echo.

“Ughh, uh…”

Surprisingly, the faint silhouette of a human began to flicker inside.

- Thud…

The owner of that silhouette, who had been tightly embracing someone, staggered out and soon lost their balance, falling forward.

“A-Adler…”

Soon, a faint voice emerged from its embrace.

“Wh-Why did you…?”

“Kulluk, kullu.”

“Why did you wrap your arms around me…?”

Inspector Lestrade, trembling in the arms of the blond boy who had thrown himself to save her, murmured in an overly trembling voice.

“You said… you lost your memory…”

Despite the destructive explosion, her injuries were only superficial burns on her face, neck, and parts of her body.

“… Well.”

Of course, this was because Isaac Adler had spread his devil wings which he had never revealed before to shield Lestrade from the destructive might of the explosion and searing flames.

“Because you were in danger… D-Did I suddenly remember b-b-because of that?”

“A-Aah…”

However, due to this, Adler’s condition was worse than it had ever been.

“No…!”

His body was twisted with bones and organs displaced due to the blast’s impact, and where it was not displaced, it was perforated by shrapnel. Finding unscathed areas was easier than the places that hadn’t been burned in his body.

Moreover, the wings he had revealed were now completely broken, burnt to a crisp and smoking, while his lively eyes were now unfocused and trembling.

Quite literally, he had turned into something barely recognizable due to the fatal wounds.

“Why… why did you go to such lengths to save me…?”

“…..?”

“… Y-You should have stuck to the contract! You should have left me! We don’t even love each other!”

Despite her usual resilience, Gia Lestrade began trembling all over as she realized that not only had she been protected, instead of it being the other way around, the person who had protected her was now dying before her very eyes. Tears welled up in her eyes as she started to scream hysterically.

“You… You said we were a happily married couple…”

“Tha-That…!”

“That aside… we have quite a serious matter on our hands…”

As Adler looked at her with a smile and muttered, suddenly his expression turned to concern as he reached out to touch Lestrade’s face.

“It looks like a scar will form on your pretty face.”

“……!”

“If that really happens… the men of London will really try to kill me…”

Adler gently caressed the burn mark on her cheek, giving a quiet smile to the inspector who was staring at him blankly.

“Uh, uggh…”

Tears began pooling in Lestrade’s eyes.

“Ughgh…”

For a girl who had never cried no matter how tough things got, tears finally began to stream down for the first time in her life.

“… Huh.”

But what truly shocked Adler, as his eyes slowly lost their light, was not just that.

“This is troubling…”

- Tssssss…

Gia Lestrade’s trademark eyes, white and pristine as an unblemished snowy field.

Those very same eyes began taking up the colour of his hair.

- Ssssss…

However, he could not see the full transformation, as his eyes slowly closed.

“Inspector… you were not supposed to like me…”

“… Are you a fool?”

Lestrade, looking at him with tears in her eyes, uttered with a breaking voice.

“I really hate you… Isaac Adler.”

“… Ha ha.”

“I hate you the most in the world…”

Though it might have been a valid statement just a few months ago, now, as she buried her head in Adler’s chest and sobbed, it carried no credibility whatsoever.

- Whooooosh…

After some time had passed,

“……..”

Unable to withstand the terrible pain breaking his body apart from the inside out, Adler lost consciousness, and Lestrade, holding him, slowly lifted her head.

“Who… is it?”

And then, she began to growl as she took in each silhouette that slowly started to appear before her.

“Who did this… exactly who the bloody hell is it!!?”

“”………””

“Better start talking before I tear everything apart.”

Usually reserved in her demeanour, the abrupt chilling aura she began to emit made everyone flinch, but no answer came.

“Is it you?”

Amidst the obscured figures, Lestrade’s eyes narrowed on the shortest person as she hurled the question at them in a growling voice.

“You couldn’t snipe me out for days, so you resorted to this?”

“MasterMasterMasterMaster…..”

However, the only response was the broken voice of Moran, who had lost all her senses upon seeing Adler’s condition.

“Or is it you?”

Lestrade, staring coldly, then shifted her gaze to the figure emitting the darkest energy.

“You always wanted to kill Adler, didn’t you?”

“…….”

“So, did you finally do this?”𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Then, a chilling voice emerged from the smoke.

“I never wanted to kill Adler in such a trivial way… A bomb? That’s not my style…”

“……..”

“At least, I wanted to butcher that delicate body with my own hands…”

As Britain’s worst serial killer muttered, a murderous gaze from everyone instantly targeted her.

“… Right, there was a similar incident before.”

But, undeterred, she began to mutter to herself, her eyes gleaming.

“The day I first saw that detective whelp when I sneaked into his house… Something similar had happened then too…”

“…….?”

“… It was the first time someone had beaten me to the act, and it was quite displeasing.”

Ignoring the suspicion and killing intent pouring in on her from all sides, she began to growl in a far more feral tone than Lestrade.

“But you lot… I really don’t like your attitude…”

- Rustle…

“I’ll just slaughter everyone here.”

- Swish…

Far in the distance, in the aftermath of the flaming pillar which was slowly burning the surrounding bushes, suddenly one of the burning piles stirred as someone with a white hood over their head darted out and hid in the opposite bushes.

“”……….””

And then there was silence.

In that silence, the eyes of the women who had clearly witnessed what had just happened instantly turned cold as arctic ice.

- Thud, thud…

Soon, excluding Lestrade who was holding Adler, they all began walking towards the bushes simultaneously.

Although Professor Moriarty and Charlotte were not there, the forces gathered here were capable of easily overturning a whole military division. Such a force started to hasten their steps with eerie expressions on their face, prompting the silent bush to quiver violently.

- Swoosh…

After a while, the grass hiding someone behind the bushes was swiftly being pushed aside.

“”…….””

As soon as the bushes were completely cleared, their expressions began to darken.

“… He’s dead.”

“He bit into the pill.”

The mysterious figure, wearing something like a white cone on its head, lay there with a cold body, foaming at the mouth.

“… I don’t know who the fuck is behind this.”

Watching that absurd scene for a long while, Jill the Ripper’s shadow began muttering in a chilling voice.

“But let’s see if they continue to act so brazen when I move the whole royal court against them.”

As her shadow quietly dispersed into the air, the women also began to scatter in all directions, each with their own objectives.

This was the prologue to the assassination attempt on Isaac Adler, later known as The Five Orange Pips in Watson’s memoirs, which would bring terrifying repercussions across the whole nation.

The news of the explosion at Gia Lestrade and Isaac Adler’s honeymoon residence spread across Britain within a day.

- Grind, Creak…

Already aware of the situation through eavesdropping, the renowned detective of London had set aside even her prenatal care, grinding her teeth as she rifled through some documents.

“Stop everything you’re doing right now.”

- Fizz, sizzle…

“… New orders.”

Professor Jane Moriarty, who had temporarily descended into her old lair to study interspecies pregnancies, received the news belatedly. Her eyes lost their spark as she began issuing new orders to her widespread minions across the whole nation.

“Look at this… these bastards have crossed the line?”

“”……..?””

Early in the morning, Mycrony Holmes, who was at the Diogenes Club, broke the silence rule for the first time since the club’s founding, muttering with a voice full of killer intent.

“… Gather all the demihumans active in the back alleys by today.”

Silver Blaze, eyes utterly dead, abandoned the nominal principle of being the spokesperson for the demihumans and for the first time took action on the front lines.

“… Find them.”

“… Find them all, please.”

The vampire leaders in both London and Romania, who had been secretly gathering their strength, came out of their hiding and mobilized all of their minions.

“… This isn’t the time for thievery, kids.”

“”…….?””

Even a certain phantom thief in France threw such a bombshell announcement to her secret organization spread across the globe.

“… Cancel all schedules for this week.”

“What?”

“I’m going to Britain.”

“…..???”

To make matters worse, a certain empress, having tossed aside even state affairs, secretly decided to head to Britain after hearing the news.

“… Oh.”

Thus began a global fervour.

“Such a big problem, how…?”

But at the very core of this turmoil, the main person involved, woke up with cold sweat in the hospital room which had become all too familiar to him.

“The five orange pips incident…”

Warning!

Erosion Rate — 70% → 80%

“A case that must remain unsolved…”

Isaac Adler, inadvertently causing everyone to move on his behalf, began looking increasingly distressed.