ALL NOVEL Chapter 96: The Three Garridebs (3)
– Knock knock knock…
A few days after Charlotte Holmes received a message from Adler…
“Who is it?”
“Excuse me.”
“Oh…”
Nathan Garrideb, who opened the door to the mansion at the knocking sounds, started speaking with a puzzled look on his face as a girl abruptly pushed her way inside the house.
“Excuse me, but who might you be…?”
“A colleague.”
“What?”
Stopping in her tracks, she spoke with an air of authority in her voice.“Didn’t you already receive a prior message?”
“Ah…”
“Don’t waste any more time, and take me to him.”
“… Then, please follow me.”
Garrideb, wearing an uncertain expression, finally nodded his head and began leading the girl toward her destination.
“You know, I asked for this matter to be handled with the utmost discretion…”
“Two is still a small number.”
“Yes, but you see, given the nature of the work, if the police or a detective were to catch wind of this by any chan…”
“You talk a lot, don’t you?”
While he continued to express his dissatisfaction, the girl stopped walking and narrowed her eyes.
“Do you want to handle it alone then?”
“No, that’s not what I meant…”
“I have no desire to quarrel needlessly with you. Just get. Me. To him…”
With her icy demeanor silencing any semblance of nagging he had left in him, Nathan Garrideb frowned before obediently resuming the walk.
“This way.”
An uncertain period of time passed as they walked through the meandering hallways of the mansion. They eventually stopped in front of a room still marked with nail scratches, and the girl’s eyes sparkled in silence at the sight.
“… Your colleague hasn’t arrived yet, so you should go in first.”
“You may leave now.”
As she spoke without even looking at him and proceeded to unlock the chains with the key she was given, Garrideb gazed at the girl with unconcealed apprehension. However, he soon turned away, shaking his head as he decided to leave her to her devices and withdraw himself from this dangerous place.
“Be careful. It has become somewhat tame recently, but a monster will always be a monster.”
His parting words of caution echoed down the hallway and reached the girl’s ears, but she just entered the room without even batting an eye.
“You’re early, Mr. Adle…”
“Look here.”
An instant later, she started walking forward, her gaze locked on Neria Garrideb, who was mumbling to herself in a low voice with her head bowed down. Having already anticipated Neria’s reaction, she was unfazed by Neria’s words, misinterpretating her as Adler.
“Wh-Who are you?”
“Never mind that, answer my question.”
Neria Garrideb, finally realizing that the person in front of her was not Isaac Adler, whom she had been visited by persistently over the past few days, but an unknown girl instead… merely nodded her head in confusion as a response.
“What is your relationship with Isaac Adler?”
“Pardon?”
“Did you pledge your love to him? Agree to date or have a secret marriage?”
Then the girl, peering down at her with a sinister look in her eyes, began barraging her with incredulous questions.
“If not that, have both of you been physically intimate? How far did you go? I hope you’re not going to tell me you’ve been sexually involved or something along those lines.”
“Uh…!?”
“Do you even love Isaac Adler? That’s the most important part. Perhaps you’re just being used…”
It was at that very moment – hearing the girl’s clingy questions dripping with clear obsession and madness, as cold sweat began forming in small beads on the pale face of Neria Garrideb – when,
“Miss Holmes, you shouldn’t torment the patient like that.”
From behind them, a familiar voice laced with mischievous laughter was heard.
“Adler.”
“She is not involved with me in the way past acquaintances have been.”
“… Past being the operative word here.”
“I’m not shameless enough to deny what I’ve been involved in.”
“That brazen look on your face certainly doesn’t inspire confidence.”
“… Um, excuse me. He’s speaking the truth.”
As Charlotte Holmes turned her head, her sharp gaze met by Adler’s relaxed expression, Neria Garrideb, from behind them, timidly added her voice to the conversation.
“Are you his lover by any chance? I’m not sure what misunderstanding you might be having here, but Adler and I are not in the sort of relationship you’re thinking of.”
“So you say…”
Charlotte, not outright denying the inquiry about being lovers, scanned her with a slightly suspicious look before turning her gaze back to Adler.
“Eventually, the investigation will reveal everything, so if you’re honest n…”
“It’s just… I’ve eaten up Mr. Adler a few times. That’s all.”
She stopped speaking as a timid voice came from behind, leaving her with a stunned expression.
“It’s a misunderstanding, Miss Holmes…”
“I didn’t eat because I wanted to; I had no choice if I wanted to get paid…”
“… Really now.”
A heavy silence began to fill the room at the end.
.
.
.
.
.
“… So, you mean to say that she literally ate you?”
“Have you finally figured out what she meant by those words?”
“It’s the worst in a different sense, indeed.”
A few minutes earlier, in the mansion’s drawing room to accommodate guests…
“I had no choice but to follow through with my plan, Miss Holmes.”
“What is your purpose?”
Leaving Neria Garrideb, who showed signs of another fit, Isaac Adler and Charlotte began to converse while gazing intently at each other.
“To deceive that naive girl with the peculiar surname into believing that she would be receiving an inheritance, giving her the courage to venture outside, and then discreetly eliminating her as per her brother’s, who is our client, request. That was my current objective.”
“… You should have known that such lies are not going to work out on me, right?”
“No, I am speaking the truth. I am positive that I will succeed in this endeavor.”
Charlotte couldn’t help but smirk while muttering those words. However, she soon frowned when she observed Adler’s unchanging expression at her words.
“If that were your true goal, you wouldn’t have summoned me and spilled your entire plan.”
“Miss Holmes. This has just been the kind of bet we’ve been making all along. Whether to solve a case, or let it remain unsolved forever. Thus, making it a mystery”
“… But now, you’ve gambled on a living person’s life.”
“Did you think I was just always going to engage in love affairs?”
With that said, Adler took out a small bottle and took a swig of it with relish.
“That’s… alcohol…”
“We’re not playing house anymore, Miss Holmes.”
“………”
“It’s a death race that won’t end until one of us disappears forever from London.”
Charlotte opened her mouth with a slightly darkened look in her eyes as she observed him and his actions.
“What if there’s a way to end this without one of us disappearing?”
“Miss Holmes, I can assure you that there is no such way.”
Adler, with a leisurely expression, emptied the bottle and plucked a strand of his hair to hand over to her.
“Sadly, no matter how much you try to exploit my genes, Miss Holmes, what you want will not happen.”
“………..”
“Even if you sneak into my hideout again and rummage through my trash, like last time, it’s futile. Your approach is fundamentally flawed, and even if you did find out, you would instinctively reject it.”
A fleeting smile appeared on Charlotte’s lips, but as the tipsiness began to spread throughout Adler’s body again, he swayed and failed to notice her expression.
That kid, she just smiled at your words.
“… Mr. Adler.”
As he looked puzzled at the system message that suddenly appeared before hiss eyes…
“Have you forgotten that I love you?”
Suddenly sighing, Charlotte murmured while staring into Adler’s eyes.
“… I genuinely love you, Mr. Adler.”
As Charlotte, resting her chin in her hand, whispered those words in a soft and gentle voice, Adler’s previously confident eyes started wavering ever so slightly…
“And I know it’s the same for you.”
“………”
“It’s not common, even in a marriage, for two people’s eyes to be dyed in each other’s colors as they are for us.”
Charlotte, catching that small change, whispered with even more emotion in her voice.
“In this London, where we love each other more than anyone else, must we ultimately fight one another?”
“… That is.”
“Isn’t that such a sad tragedy?”
As Adler quietly bowed his head, Charlotte carefully caressed the back of his hand and spoke.
“Why don’t we just end this nonsense and move down to a quiet countryside to live together?”
Though she threw the words out casually, her eyes were filled with sincerity as they observed Adler.
“… How about we take up beekeeping as a hobby and live happily ever after?”
“………”
“For children, we could have a son and a daughter, what do you say?”
A rather long silence began to flow between the two…
“… Let’s focus on the case, Miss Holmes.”
“Is that your answer?”
“The reason I called you here is quite simple. There’s a secret in this case that is… difficult to investigate as a mere assistant of a criminal consultant.”
Eventually, Adler, having expelled the alcohol that had spread through his body, spoke with a slightly grave voice.
“So, let me be your assistant for some time…”
“… Don’t regret it later.”
Charlotte, who had been looking at Adler with a frosty stare, stood up from her seat and, as usual, connected Adler’s arm to her own with black handcuffs as she whispered in a dark voice,
“This was your last chance.”
“… What chance?”
At her words, Adler couldn’t help but tilt his head.
“The chance to agree on a consensual child-making scenario.”
Turning her head, Charlotte murmured quietly as she moved towards the door.
“Do you still think that I don’t know?”
“Know what…”
“… How to make babies.”
That brief phrase was enough to dye Isaac Adler’s mind, which had been inebriated with alcohol for the past few days, with terror.
.
.
.
.
.
Hey…
“………?”
But that wasn’t the end of it.
You’re now facing a crisis that will lead to a potential Game Over scenario.
“… Yes?”
Adler, who was being dragged away by Charlotte with a stiff expression, saw a sentence that was several times more terrifying before his eyes.
Warning!
– Probability of Retiring in this Case in place of the protagonist, Isaac Adler —
“… Gasp?”
Adler’s face turned pale in an instant, and he immediately grabbed the arm of Charlotte, who was leading him to who knows where, and pulled her towards him.
“What are you doing?”
“Just stay still.”
“What, what’s the matter? All of a sudden…”
As a dismal number had appeared before his eyes.
95%
“Did you think I’d get excited if you suddenly played hard to get?”
Be sure to protect what you desire to keep.
Adler, looking down at Charlotte, who murmured with a voice that seemed to be growing increasingly ominous, began to sweat profusely.
“… Shall we go now, to the countryside?”
“What?”
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