Becoming Professor Moriarty’s Probability

– Creak…

The door to the hospital room opened with a creak. Simultaneously, as a slender girl poked her head in through the small opening in a timid manner, Adler’s gaze started wavering ever so slightly. 

“……..”

His reaction was perfectly understandable… as the girl was none other than Celestia Moran, gazing at him with an undeniable chill in her eyes. Nestled in her hands, was a doll modeled to look like a life-like cat— the very same toy that housed Princess Clay. 

“Welcome.”

“… Master.”

As Adler cautiously observed her mood, forcing himself to smile, and made a welcoming gesture with his hands… out came Moran’s voice, colder than arctic snow.

“Why are you suddenly calling me Master now…?”

“You said you wouldn’t abandon me.”

Watson couldn’t help but frown as she gazed at Adler, hearing the little girl address him as Master. It was suspicious no matter how she looked at it. On the other hand, Moran started to press Adler for an answer with her piercing gaze.

“Then why? Why are you abandoning me even though you promised you wouldn’t?” 

“Miss Moran, I don’t quite understand what you’re trying to say here.”

“You said you wouldn’t die. You told me the last time that you would never… die. Yet…”

Caught off guard by her incongruous interrogation, Adler asked with the slightest notes of confusion in his eyes. 

“Who’s dying? It seems to me that there’s been some misunderstanding here…”

“… I heard everything both of you said.”

Before he could fully display his eloquent rhetoric, Celestia Moran drove the point home.

“I have sharp ears, Mr. Adler. For a sniper, hearing is just as important as sight.”

“That’s a bit scary, honestly…”

“Doesn’t the inability to continue any life-sustaining treatment directly mean that your condition is now terminal?”

Standing right next to Adler while tilting her head, she posed the chilling question to him and.. both Adler and Watson’s complexions darkened simultaneously.

“Why are you breaking your promise, Master?”

“… You should be calling me Dad, not Master, Miss Moran.”

However, as Moran’s expression continued growing somber with each passing moment, Adler quickly changed his tone and began whispering into her ears in a chiding voice. 

“Yes…?”

“I always told you to call me that.”

Glancing toward Watson to gauze her reaction, Adler urged Moran to speak. And Moran, after hesitating for a moment, looked down before responding in a subdued, bashful voice.

“… D, Dad.”

“That’s right.”

A shy blush crept up her cheeks as she spoke those heartwarming words. And Adler, hearing her reply, started patting her head gently, prompting even her body to start squirming bashfully. 

“As you can see, this is the nature of our relationship. I’m simply raising her out of pure goodwill, like my own daughter. It’s nothing suspicious… as Miss Watson might be thinking it to be.” 

“… It seems more suspicious now, to be honest.”

“Miss Moran, that aside, you’re completely misunderstanding the situation here.”

But as Watson continued to look at him with a frigid gaze, Adler eventually gave up trying to look good in front of her and began focusing all of his attention on Moran.

“A misunderstanding…?”

“It’s true that I can no longer undergo any life-sustaining treatment. As you have heard already.”

“… Uh.”

Hearing his words, Moran couldn’t stop herself from sobbing. And seeing such a Moran… Adler hurriedly continued his words; lest another misunderstanding may bore its way into her mind.

“But that doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve found a definite cure.”

“Really…?”

“Yes, it’s true~”

As he caressed Moran’s cheeks and smiled brightly, her skeptical gaze, which was looking up at Adler, began to waver.

“What is it? The cure…?”

“You heard it yourself, didn’t you?”

Responding to her with a twinkle in his eyes, Adler added,

“Dr. Frankenstein’s elixir. If we can recreate that, I can be completely revived as well.”

“Ah…”

“Right, Doctor?”

As he turned his head, seeking agreement from Watson, she pondered for a brief moment before, with a sigh, reluctantly nodding her head in agreement. 

“See? Even the doctor agrees.”

“… That’s good.”

Moran, with tears welling up in her eyes, quietly wiped them away with her tiny hands and buried herself in Adler’s embrace. 

“But how will you make it?”

“Huh?”

“The essence of life— don’t you need Dragon’s Tears to make that ingredient?”

All of a sudden, she lifted her head from his embrace and began asking him with a grim look in her eyes. 

“I looked it up in the library. Dragons have been extinct for a long time. They’re now displayed as mere fossils in museums.”

“…….. Hmm.”

“How do you plan to collect their tears then?”

Adler, momentarily stunned by her piercing question, soon replied with a nervous chuckle,

“Dragons haven’t actually gone extinct yet.”

“Really?”

“They’re practically teeming in the Eastern Lands of the Rising Sun.”

As he laid out those words, sweat covering his forehead, Watson couldn’t help but look at him with eyes full of disbelief and incredulity. 

“… Dr. Frankenstein also had a large supply of tears, didn’t she? The Dragon’s Tears are easier to find than you think.”

“Ah…”

“Just give it a year at most, we’ll be able to acquire some quite easily. Of course, the key is to stay alive until then…”

“Don’t worry about that.”

But as Adler continued his speech, Moran, with a certain radiance in her previously gloomy eyes, opened her mouth with an excited voice.

“You’re a vampire, right? As far as I know, they get healthier by drinking human blood, right?”

“That’s usually the case bu…”

“That’s why I caught a lot of people with Miss Silver Blaze and kept them in the hideout’s basement!”

“… What?”

The innocent smile plastered on her small face suddenly felt goosebump-inducing. 

“They’re all back alley people, so there’s no worry of the police chasing after us. They’re carefully filtered prey… chosen by Princess Clay herself, so there can be no mistake.”

“………”

“And we’ve only captured females. According to the princess, female blood is healthier than male blood for a vampire…”

Silently, Adler looked down and then shifted his gaze to the toy cat in Moran’s arms.

“Meow?”

“… Sigh.”

The toy, puffing up its chest proudly, tilted its head as if to question his gaze. Seeing such a scene, Adler could only sigh deeply before glancing at Watson – standing frozen in place beside him in shock and utter bewilderment at little Moran’s horrifying words – and muttered,

“… Release them all.”

“Huh?”

“We already have enough blood bags. So, Miss Moran, you don’t need to exert yourself.”

Moran couldn’t help but mutter with a downcast expression.

“I had even finished the basic training…”

“It’s alright.”

“… Yes.”

“And next time you do something like this, get my permission first, okay?”

However, as Adler gently scolded her with a slightly stern voice, she lowered her head like a frightened puppy and silently nodded her small head.

“Still, I’m touched, Miss Moran…” 

Chuckling faintly, Adler started patting the small girl’s head. 

“After all, you did it all for me. Thank you, Miss Moran.”

“… Umm.”

Celestia Moran, looking up at him with a warm smile, hesitantly asked… her voice timid and low. 

“Can I keep calling you, um… Dad, from now on?”

Adler tilted his head at her words, and she, nervously tapping the floor with her foot, mumbled under her breath in response,

“… My father used to hit me when I called him Dad. He said he didn’t want to be called that by me.”

“Miss Moran…”

“You won’t hit me when I call you Dad, right?” 

Looking down at her with a kind gaze, Adler whispered in a gentle tone. 

“Call me whatever you like.”

“Ah…”

Hearing his kind words, Moran averted her gaze shyly and… with a trembling voice, began to speak.

“Dad…”

She murmured and awkwardly embraced Adler, her gaze affixed to the ground.

“……..”

Adler gently stroked her back with a fatherly smile, causing Moran to slightly lift her head and gaze up at him with her twinkling eyes.

“I should get going now.”

Gingerly, she stepped out of Adler’s embrace, looking at him with a subtlety in her gaze that wasn’t present when she first entered the room. Soon, she bowed her head in farewell.

– Pitter-patter…

Without looking back, she hurriedly left the hospital room with swift, faint steps.

“Young children are so pure, it’s quite endearing.”

“…….”

“Don’t you think?”

  The fatherly smile still stretching his face, Adler turned his head toward Watson – who had been quietly observing the scenario while standing beside him – and struck up a conversation.

“… It seems these days, educating back alley women to be blood bags for their master is considered pure, huh?”

“That’s because they weren’t able to learn the good things in life…” 

“And speaking of which, do you think you will really be able to do it?”

Adler’s face turned sheepish as he tried to make an excuse… but then it immediately darkened at her following words.

“I’ll have to find a way somehow.”

Adler quietly stood up and began to mutter to himself.

“I don’t want to die like this either.”

He gazed at Professor Moriarty, who was deep in sleep on the bed across from Watson, and murmured with the faintest sliver of a tremor in his voice…

“So I’ll have to try my best. Of course, I’m not sure if I can find the Dragon’s Tears within the given time…”

“……..”

“Still, I can’t just abandon a small kid with nowhere to go.”

As he concluded with a faint smile, Watson sighed and responded… her gaze never leaving his form. 

“It’s not just about that.”

Her gaze shifted towards the door Moran had just exited through.

“Youngsters seem to grow up faster than we think, don’t they?”

“Is that so?”

“You might want to keep that in mind while going forward…”

With a relaxed smile, Adler walked towards the door, following her words.

“Yes, I’ll keep that in mind…”

As he mumbled and turned the doorknob, a dumbfounded expression appeared on his face.

Warning!

– Probability of being Devoured in Reverse — 25%

“Eh.”

After all, a message with a somewhat rigid font had popped up before his eyes. 

You really have a lot on your plate, don’t you?

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‘If I get devoured, so be it, but what’s this about being devoured in reverse…? The hell!?’

Isaac Adler expressed his confusion – at the probability that had been newly categorized, the difference being a single word that diverged it from a previous probability – as he stepped out of the hospital room himself.

“… Huh.”

A dumbfounded expression once again manifested on his face after he finished getting out of the room.

“Isaac Adler.”

Gia Lestrade, who should have been at the courthouse right now, was inexplicably… leaning against the corridor wall of the hospital; her gaze was intense and frigid as she looked at him. 

“… You’ll need to come with me.”

Hearing her frigid voice, Adler quietly slipped behind Celestia Moran, who was standing guard with a wary look in her eyes.

“What brings you here, savage elder sister?”

“Sorry, but I need the runt to step aside and stay away from this.”

“… I told you not to call me runt.”

And with those words exchanged, mere moments having passed since Adler left the hospital room, the corridor was inevitably drenched in the prelude of a fierce commotion.