Becoming Professor Moriarty's Probability

Chapter 8: Summary

"Have you arrived, my dear?"

Exiting the hospital lobby and heading to the café where Professor Moriarty was currently located, she greeted me after sipping her freshly brewed coffee.

"You've been through a lot. How does it feel to have made the queen your slave?"

Suddenly, she paused mid-sentence, frowned, and started rummaging through her pocket.

"...The coffee is quite bitter."

Subsequently, Professor Moriarty, having torn the portable sugar packet she took out from her pocket, unhesitatingly dissolved the sugar into her coffee.

"Do you know, Mr. Adler, what sugar and crime have in common?"

As I blankly watched her, she posed that question while opening a second sugar packet.

"I'm not quite sure."

"Both stimulate the pleasure center of the brain, causing it to release dopamine as a reward."

Saying so, Professor Moriarty, with a sip of her now modified coffee, expressed a joyful countenance and lightly nodded her head from side to side.

"Ahem... Would you like some of this natural drug?"

A woman in her early twenties— looking ordinary and cute as she swayed slightly after eating something sweet. From just that sight, she appeared no different from anyone else in the world.

"So, you're saying when you commit a crime, you feel the way you do now?"

"In reality, it's many times more intense. A shiver runs through my entire body, to the point where I can't even control myself any longer."

However, no matter how cute she appeared, Moriarty was still Moriarty. She was the embodiment of pure, undiluted evil.

"But recently, I seemed to have lost that feeling. Even if I put 12 sugar cubes into my coffee, there was no joy in life."

And then, she, placing her coffee to the side, began to stare intently at me.

"You appeared before me in such times. Just by looking at you, you stimulate my pleasure center."

Her gaze deepened. It was hard to describe, but if I had to, it was shining with a dark gleam.

"It's an emotion I hadn't felt in a long time."

I inexplicably felt a chill run down my spine, but I tried to maintain a composed expression. The professor mumbled, tapping her finger on the table.

"Actually, I wasn't the one who directly subdued the queen or made her lie down and surrender. Yet my heart is still pounding this much."

Her voice was as intense as when we had first met.

"Even though I didn't commit heinous crimes like murder, kidnapping, or confinement... It's truly astonishing."

"I turned the queen of an entire kingdom into a slave. Isn't that a major crime in itself?"

"Is it? Regardless, this is the charm of criminal consulting. I've realized it clearly now."

The feeling of tainting Moriarty, who still displayed the somewhat awkward demeanor of a newbie in society, with my own hands was quite peculiar.

It wasn't to the extent of feeling pride, but for some reason, I felt as if we were both being swept away by a powerful current... together.

"Professor."

Unable to articulate the inexplicable emotions I was feeling, I momentarily closed my eyes and soon opened my mouth to change the subject.