piratefiction Chapter 180: Elagabalus
Chapter 180: Elagabalus
-Alfred Tennyson,
A day before the scheduled hatching. 6:55 a.m.
As promised, Ulrich Zuckerberg arrived at Baker Street with one engineering Kung-Fuist.
I realized the one inside was Ulrich when I saw the driver approaching the boarding house in a large canopy carriage, reflecting sunlight with a small hand mirror as we had arranged in advance.
“…I don’t know if this is really all right, Holmes.”
Watson, peering down at the street through a gap in the open curtain, hunched her shoulders as if uneasy.
In her arms was a thick envelope sent by the Strand Magazine editorial office.
Astonishingly, Watson had displayed superhuman self-control and still hadn’t opened the magazine’s reply.
-If London disappears, what use is a serial? When you safely send the Vermilion Phoenix back and return, we’ll open it together.
When she said that, my heart moved despite myself.
Serializing the dramatized account of our cases in a magazine was something she had always wanted, and at the same time, it was a means to find her twin elder brother, John Watson.
She must have wanted to begin specific discussions with the magazine as soon as possible.
Yet seeing her say she would wait and open it with me when I returned, my affection for the Watson siblings swelled anew.
Still, separate from that, I needed to know what had her so anxious.
“What is it, Watson?”
“If Mrs. Norton, no, Irene Adler, truly leads an underworld clan that handles information, as you said, isn’t she watching you even at this very moment?”
“Hm…”
“I mean, what if she’s already grasped our intentions. Things like the civil engineering Ulrich prepared, or the matter of the Vermilion Phoenix. You keep saying the Afternoon Tea Party is so elusive, so I became worried.”
It was a reasonable point.
From the day I learned Irene Adler was the party leader of the Afternoon Tea Party, I had been plagued by the worry that her subordinates might be tailing and monitoring me.
Fortunately, for the past two days, that worry had eased.
“As for that, you needn’t worry. If the Butler Agency sets its mind to hiding something, there is no force in the martial world that can see through it.”
“If you’re that certain, then I suppose I can trust it…”
No matter how capable the Afternoon Tea Party may be, as long as Butler Agency agents were holding the streets, they would not notice what was happening at 221B Baker Street.
It was true the Butler Agency had ugly sides, needlessly authoritarian and eager to monopolize information, and as a newly formed organization, it had neither roots nor history.
But what mattered was that Mycroft, whose mind surpassed mine by even a little, led them.
The presence of an outstanding leader alone allowed the Butler Agency’s butlers to pile up enough achievements to prove their worth.
From the fact that not even two years after its founding they had surpassed the palace maids of the East Wing and West Wing and begun carrying out Her Majesty’s most secret orders, one could see how disciplined their movements had been.
I could say with certainty that in concealment operations, there was no group under heaven that surpassed them.
“In any case, let’s first confirm what core medium Ulrich brought.”
“That’s best.”
As I went down to the first floor to greet Ulrich, the strange attitude he’d shown yesterday bothered me.
More precisely, the moment the Red Cliff Kalpa Frame came up, he had become oddly excited and eager to expand the area where the formation’s efficacy would manifest.
Even if it was a formation mixed with illusion, was he simply happy that he could reproduce with his own hands the feat of Zhuge Wuhou, the clan founder and the greatest figure in Zuckerburg history.
As someone aiming for the patriarch’s seat, perhaps he wanted to establish legitimacy through an incident like this, somehow.
The fact he had a hand in saving London would not be known to outsiders like the Tsar, but to the Patriarch and the Grand Patriarch who decided the successor, it could look quite attractive.
‘Of course, that’s all only if this ends safely.’
It made me realize again how many lives hung on my shoulders.
…No. In Yan’s case, he might actually be wishing London would burn.
The expression he’d worn when he visited the boarding house briefly yesterday was the sort a man would make if he truly wanted the world to end tomorrow.
How much did he hate the idea of marrying the Liverpool Tang Clan’s young lady to look like that.
Come to think of it, because Watson was watching yesterday, I couldn’t ask whether he recognized anything about the strange pill White Worm had spat out last time.
At times like this, it was truly inconvenient that Yan couldn’t use Direct Message.
It wasn’t that his training was insufficient.
Even if he was a living Dead Man, he was still a corpse.
Unless a talisman made by the Modern Faction that specialized in Dead Man arts, or a Yan Clan Revivalist, was affixed to his forehead, Yan could not send or receive Direct Messages.
It likely wouldn’t happen, but if a situation arose where Mycroft and Yan had to meet and communicate directly, it would be very inconvenient.
“Welcome.”
Right after I heard the knock and opened the door, I saw Ulrich, drenched in fatigue, with his hat pulled low.
“It took more effort than usual because I personally inspected the mediums in the city and along Serpentine Avenue. Still, thanks to staying up all night, I somehow finished in time, so that’s fortunate.”
“You’ve worked hard… Come in and have some tea.”
I supported Ulrich, who swayed as if he might collapse at any moment.
His body was heavy and his pulse irregular. He seemed on the verge of collapse from internal energy loss.
Even if natural objects were used as mediums, to verify the formation’s efficacy, a human still had to directly infuse Essence into every medium.
Even as a young master of a Murim noblesse house, perhaps because he came from a family specialized more in brains than swinging swords, it seemed he’d expended a great deal of internal energy preparing two formations at once.
…Perhaps even this was the merchant’s intent, to make me feel indebted.
“So, the medium?”
“It’ll be brought in soon. It was a bit much for me to carry.”
Before Ulrich even finished, I heard the subordinate he’d brought climbing the stairs with difficulty.
Judging by the footsteps, he wasn’t carrying something especially heavy.
Then it was a matter of size—
“Excuse me.”
As I was thinking that, the porter appeared beyond the open door.
What he carried was a massive bouquet that covered his entire upper body.
A bundle of at least five hundred roses.
“What in the world is that?”
“As you can see, they are roses.”
“…That is a very obvious fact.”
Both Watson and I were so taken aback that we fell silent for a moment.
However, I quickly realized the roses Ulrich had brought were no ordinary flowers.
When I expanded Indra’s Net to its limit, I saw countless small whirlwinds of Yang Qi surging along the direction the rose petals had grown.
“A spirit flower that carries Extreme Yang.”
The petals, a blend of pink and red, kept trembling faintly even though there was no wind.
Roses had countless varieties, and several candidates came to mind from color alone, but it was not easy to identify Ulrich’s rose precisely.
“It’s Elagabalus’s Rose.”
“You recognized it at once.”
“Elagabalus. Do you mean the ancient Roman tyrant?”
Watson, distracted by the bouquet’s beauty, jolted when she heard the unexpected name.
“I once heard there was a flower tied to the Demonic Arts of Elagabalus, but I never imagined you would use it as the formation’s core medium.”
Elagabalus was Europe’s first Sunflower Manual practitioner and a tyrant branded an enemy of Roman Murim. His deeds, recorded in the Mediterranean Classic of Ancient Roma, a counterpart to Midfield’s Classic of Mountains and Seas, were cruel beyond measure.
“They say he slaughtered countless Romans with a primitive form of Ten Thousand Flowers Rain, scattering violet and rose petals infused with internal energy.”
The moment I smelled the bouquet’s strangely intense fragrance, I understood why Ulrich had chosen those roses as the core medium.
The medium placed at a formation’s center had the greatest influence on its efficacy.
Elagabalus’s roses, emitting a fragrance strong enough to suffocate ancient Roman Murim people, would grant the Red Cliff Kalpa Frame the Extreme Yang and the choking smoke and heat we needed.
To begin with, the name Elagabalus itself came from the sun god worshiped by Syrians, so it suited roses bearing vitality extremely skewed toward Yang.
“As a numinous flower, it seems that gathering only a few hundred can replace the bizarre rocks of a famed scenic site. However—”
“Is there a problem?”
“There are two concerns. First, the roses might lose their Qi in five hours… Hm. The ribbon tying the bouquet forms a miniature formation itself. That won’t be a problem.”
“Of course. If I hadn’t even prepared that, it would disgrace my house’s name. If you’ll excuse me, may I ask what the other concern is?”
Ulrich asked with a worried face, as if he still did not understand why I hesitated.
“Well… It’s nothing else. It’s just that the place I’m going to now is a bit of an issue.”
“…Ah.”
“You may have forgotten, but the Mistress of Green Willow is publicly known to be married.”
Ulrich and Watson’s faces began to turn pale.
“What do you think will happen if, in front of the Green Willow Manor gates in the middle of Serpentine Avenue where London’s richest live, I, a single man, shout for them to let me in while holding five hundred roses.”
“…Instead of saving London, we’ll be holding Great Hero Holmes’s social funeral.”
“Can you obtain another medium somehow, starting now?”
“I-Impossible!”
“Wait!!”
That was when Watson looked up at me with wet eyes and seized my right arm with the knack of a grappling method.
A technique used to subdue a mad patient.
A bad feeling rose.
“I beg you, Holmes. For London’s future, please let yourself be mistaken as having that sort of relationship with a fake married woman. Just once is enough.”
“Not possible. How could I, with a woman like that, a viper, a firefox, a tarantula… I’d rather burn away with this city.”
“With your personality, you’ll never marry in your life anyway.”
“I’ve never dreamed of marriage. Is it so strange that I simply dislike Irene Adler?!”
“Tch. It can’t be helped. At this point, don’t resent me. This is all something you brought on yourself.”
“Aagh. Why are you taking out long needles all of a sudden?”
“Mrs. Hudson. Young Master Zucker. I’ll subdue Holmes with acupoint strikes, so help me.”
-Pook!
“With you looking this shabby, even Serpentine Avenue residents won’t believe you’re an adulterer. Where did the brilliant gentleman of the royal ballroom go?”
“I’m sorry, Great Hero Holmes. The medium can’t be changed even if I die. Please sacrifice yourself like a true gentleman.”
“Mrs. Hudson. Please bring warm water and a razor.”
“Yes, Miss Watson.”
-Pookpook!!
“L-let go of me at once, Watson.”
“Now, now. Didn’t I tell you to stay still. My razor has no eyes. Young Master Ulrich, hold his left arm tight there.”
-Pookpookpook!!!
Because I feared Watson might be hurt, I couldn’t properly fight back, and I was subdued by acupoint strikes using long needles, a grappling technique, and the combined formation of three men and women.
And thirty minutes later.
“…Much better. Now Holmes finally looks like someone who suits a bouquet.”
I had planned to visit Irene Adler’s estate dressed like a beggar to insult her, but by Watson and Mrs. Hudson’s hands, I was forcibly shaved and made to tidy my attire, becoming a new man.