Professor Holmes is not a villain.

“Holmes… Sherlock Holmes… that’s a great name, little one.”

Moriarty repeated the girl’s name a few times, as if savoring it like candy, and at the end, he let out a pure admiration.

No one dislikes compliments, but the girl, introducing herself as Sherlock, raised an eyebrow, as if finding the praise strange, and spoke.

“Great? Normally, people don’t say that. I know I shouldn’t say this, but my father is quite an unusual person, so all three of us siblings have strange names. Really, Mr. Moriarty, you are a strange person.”

“Is it just me who asks if you’re a villain after suddenly showing up?”

“…That was a small mistake! It’s not my fault that Moriarty looks suspicious!”

The girl raised her voice, irritated by Moriarty’s remark. She frowned, trying to deny it and get angry, but it only appeared like childish behavior. Moriarty couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of the girl, who had looked smarter than the foolish adults just a moment ago, now behaving like a child her age.

The more she reacted, the more her expression twisted in frustration, but objectively, her expression looked like an innocent, childlike one, so it was far from threatening.

“Alright, it might be my fault, little miss. Want some candy? They’re lemon drops.”

“…You’re really suspicious, Mr. Moriarty. Trying to bribe me with candy won’t work. I’ll keep an eye on you from now on.”

“Alright, alright, keep this in your pocket secretly. I bet your mother doesn’t let you have snacks much, right? Be careful not to swallow it whole, it might get stuck in your throat if you’re not careful.”

Moriarty casually handed the girl a few lemon drops from the desk. Math, it seemed, required a lot of sugar, and he often carried snacks or candy around.

Our Sherlock Holmes might try to act like an adult, but she was still an 8-year-old girl. Moriarty couldn’t help but notice the sparkle in her eyes as she quickly popped a lemon drop into her mouth, worried that he might take it back.

The girl, after tasting the sweetness for the first time in a while, her eyes twinkled with delight.

All these actions were done reflexively, and only after did Sherlock realize she had behaved in a very childlike manner.

Of course, while the girl was still a child, she was very intelligent and often tried to act like an adult. Naturally, she cleared her throat and tried to explain.

“Ahem… It’s delicious! Ah, ahem… but I don’t think there’s any poison in it, so I’ll accept it gratefully. It’s a bribe, but I’m not going to agree to any of Mr. Moriarty’s requests! I guess this candy is from London? Wait a minute, how did you know about my mother?”

The girl had often seen foolish adults be surprised by something she said and sometimes enjoyed such reactions.

But now, realizing that she had reacted similarly to those adults, she couldn’t help but blush.

However, what was more important was how this man in front of her, who, based on his words and actions, was clearly different from the foolish adults, could have noticed something like that.

Unfortunately, Moriarty didn’t give the girl the answer she wanted. He simply shrugged, as if teasing her like a child.

“I told you, little one. You need to hone your instincts. Sometimes, just looking is enough. That’s what intuition is.”

“…Tell me, how did you figure it out?”

The girl, who had been thoroughly immersed in mimicking the boy protagonist capturing villains in a novel, was now staring at Moriarty with wide eyes, like a curious child fascinated by everything.

Moriarty thought to himself that her reactions, each and every one of them, were colorful and entertaining to watch. It wasn’t merely because of her name.

At the very least, there was certainly something special about her.

Whether she was aware of his thoughts or not, or perhaps more interested in how Moriarty deduced information about her mother, the young Miss Holmes persistently badgered him like a child.

Unfortunately for Miss Sherlock Holmes, her time was cut short. Sally, the young maid who handled almost all the household chores, quickly realized that the troublesome youngest daughter of the household was once again bothering a guest. In haste, she came to take the girl away.

“Please promise to tell me! Okay? It’s a promise, Mr. Moriarty!”

“Young Miss, you’re being rude to Master Mycroft’s tutor. Hurry back before the mistress finds out!”

Without giving any reply to Miss Sherlock Holmes as she was dragged away by the maid, Moriarty simply waved his hand, thus concluding his first meeting with Sherlock Holmes.

“Is she really Sherlock Holmes?”

Left alone once more, the room fell silent. The lively atmosphere created by the girl’s presence had already become something he unconsciously began to miss.

As he sat down, Moriarty muttered the question aloud without realizing it.

It was a foolish thought. Yet, considering what he had experienced, it couldn’t be dismissed entirely as a silly idea.

James Moriarty possessed memories of a previous life. While the details weren’t clear, he had a faint awareness that he had been reincarnated, along with some hazy, fragmented memories.

He couldn’t clearly remember who he had been in his previous life or what kind of life he had lived.

However, compared to those memories, 19th-century England, where he now lived, didn’t quite align in various ways.

Contrary to his expectations, the concept of reincarnation wasn’t regarded as mere fantasy in this world. There were individuals who were genuinely believed to have been reborn.

And these were not just stories told by frauds. In this peculiar world, where witches and wizards existed and rogue werewolves sometimes committed murders in the alleys of London, such phenomena were not unheard of.

However, most of these individuals claimed to have been people from the past. After coming to Oxford University and accessing more knowledge, Moriarty realized there were no cases of reincarnates like himself, who had lived in the future and then been reborn into the past.

This had never been a significant problem in his life. He was intelligent enough to avoid mentioning it since childhood.

More importantly, his memories and knowledge from his previous life weren’t particularly useful or advantageous.

Life in this world was dull, but since he wasn’t suicidal, James Moriarty, born in 1841 in Ireland, was able to live his life without ending it.

But that was all.

Life was unbearably tedious. The only thing that saved him from being consumed by that monotony was the necessity of survival.

His family belonged to the class of Irish landowners. But during the Great Famine, like many other Irish families, they couldn’t escape the downfall of their household, even if they managed to avoid starvation.

With the help of relatives, they barely relocated to Dublin, but the family remained impoverished ever since.

Thanks to his intelligence, he secured sponsorship, but he had to focus on mathematics. Moriarty himself didn’t particularly like mathematics, but he had undeniable talent, so he studied it to survive.

Yet solving problems was clearly not his hobby, as he felt every day.

And there was little else he could do.

Life was so dull, unbearably dull.

Accepting the position as a tutor for the second son of the Holmes family was an act of desperation to break free from that tedium.

The main purpose was money, but the name ‘Holmes’ had also piqued his curiosity.

When he heard the name Holmes, he thought it oddly fitting with his own. This thought stemmed from one of his faint memories from his previous life.

‘Professor Moriarty was Sherlock Holmes’s arch-nemesis, right? Then what about Lupin? Does he appear separately?’

Like many others, he had never actually read the novels featuring Sherlock Holmes. His knowledge of them came indirectly through films or television dramas.

Even so, he was able to recall that the famous detective Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis was called Professor Moriarty.

There were at least a few hundred people with the name Moriarty in Ireland, so he had never felt the need to associate it with Holmes before.

Of course, when he began tutoring Mycroft Holmes, Moriarty dismissed it as a foolish thought.

But now, at this moment, it was different.

Sherlock Holmes truly existed. Unlike what he remembered, she was a girl—a very young, truly young girl—but Sherlock Holmes existed.

It might be a crazy thought, but he instinctively knew that this child was the Sherlock Holmes.

He had teased Miss Holmes about it, but this was one of the senses he had honed while studying mathematics. Intuition had always been a useful tool for him, bringing answers without evidence.

He didn’t know why. In fact, he might never be able to prove it. But he was certain, this child was Holmes.

Then, was he the Professor Moriarty?

Moriarty couldn’t give a definitive answer to that question. To be precise, he was reluctant to do so.

Of course, he would soon become a professor. Professor Dodgson, who held a high opinion of his abilities, believed so, and the school was already half-convinced that he would soon be appointed as a new professor of mathematics.

Normally, one would follow the standard procedure of graduating and staying on as staff, but he had been granted a special exception.

In the coming year, he was destined to complete a small paper, probably a mathematical one on the binomial theorem, and present it at a conference before returning to Christ Church College at Oxford to teach foolish freshmen.

So, he was certainly set to become Professor Moriarty.

‘But not a criminal.’

Miss Holmes, immersed in adventure novels, had mistaken him for a villainous stranger, but unfortunately for her future, there would be no nemesis Professor Moriarty.

While he might have disdained others and lacked affection, he had led a life far removed from crime, more like that of a straight-laced academic.

Moreover, when he thought of London’s vagrants, beggars, murderers, and drunkards, living as a criminal seemed undeniably foolish and, above all, boring.

Unless someone led them. As things stood in London—and in England—criminals were nothing more than a chaotic group of fools each going their own way.

Thus, his connection with Miss Holmes would be limited to that of a childhood tutor to her older brother.

Even so, Moriarty was confident that the upcoming year would be entertaining. At the same time, a certain thought crossed his mind, one he would never have entertained in his usual rational state.

“Did you say you also wish to take on Sherlock’s… the child’s tutoring, Mr. Moriarty?”

“Yes, she’s a brilliant child. Besides, I’ll hardly have much to do while staying here, so I’d like to teach her a few things. Of course, I wouldn’t require any additional fees, madam.”