Midnight Prince: Empire of Sin

Moments after their confrontation in front of the store, Adam was now sitting in a chair of the main office of said store with Makoto standing right behind him as he played with a porcelain glode with his powers. Meanwhile, the dandy middle-aged man could be seen standing further in the last corner of the office, his pristine suit now dishelved and tattered, his face swollen and bruised.

"What was your name again?"

"Rex."

"Rex, huh? Seems like the name of a loyal dog. Then again I guess that is quite fitting for a hound such as you."

Adam chuckled to himself as he observed the name and the stats of the man standing bruised and battered before him.

『 Name: Rex Baskerville

Affiliation: The Familia

Alias: Loyal Hound

Race: Human

Emotion(s): Wariness 』

All of his information was pretty interesting to Adam as it represented a faction he had never seen before. As for his stats, one look was enough for him to realize that it was useless to gleam further. The man was barely equal to a bronze-ranked hunter. For a human, this wasn't exactly worthless per se, it was actually viewed as good. However, he was once again forced to realize just how many geniuses was surrounding him from all sides all this time.

An ordinary human of the supernatural world didn't grow as fast or as powerful most of the time.

"I thought you guys were supposed to be in England?"

Adam was once again met with the realization that both reality and fiction were weird concepts that intermingled in one way or another. He had never been a fan of the thriller genre, for all the rave it was about, but it was funny to see that so many concepts that he had only seen in books to really exist in the supernatural world. It was almost a bit absurd.

'All I need now is to meet the great Sherlock Holmes himself and I can say I have seen everything there is to see.'

He chuckled inwardly, wondering if such an encounter would actually be possible. It would be pretty interesting if he were to ever encounter the legendary detective.

"We were, until recently that is. It's impossible for our organization to just settle in one place and the Queen makes life quite hard for the criminals. Furthermore, after the Grand Fire of London that happened a few decades ago, many of the forces there decided to spread further into the other facets of Europe."

"Huh… The great fire…" Adam squinted at those words. This was the monumental event where Cecilia had pitted herself against the projection of Surtr, the mythical Norse figure, and eventually saved London, resulting in her triumph. One might say that casualties amounting to ten thousand and more were not really in the realm of saving. But for those used to calamities, they would say 'Merely ten thousand?'

The only reason the calamities Adam faced didn't cause more damage than what they did cause was because he was generally at the very heart of those incidents, witnessing its very formation and thus being able to stop it in time. Before it could progress into a true calamity and descend hell on the landscape.

It was a sobering thought for sure, showing how lucky he had been.

"You are pretty forthcoming now. See~ If you had acted a little smarter sooner, I wouldn't have had to ruffle your feathers. Don't you think so?"

The man, Rex, could only give a bitter smile in response, "It's in our policy to not risk our life for information. This is what our boss told us. Either way, I am just a foot soldier so to speak. I have no information about the Familia."

Adam waved his hand.

'Man. I wish I had a cat. That would have made this situation so much more epic.'

"I don't care about your Familia or whatever. I just want information about the Dark Louvre."

Rex hesitated a little before nodding, "The Dark Louvre will soon open for the auction of the year. But you won't be able to enter the Black Market Auction without a special permit."

"Oh?"

"The true black market is in another dimension altogether. This was a technology Doctor Moriarty stole from the FPD not long ago. This news is not widely known to the outside as the FPD wishes to save face."

Adam frowned visibly. This was becoming far trickier than he had hoped it would be. He didn't know how strong Moriarty was, but the fact that he was still alive despite everything proved that he was ever really strong or really tricky.

'Well, our goal is not to fight him. So it shouldn't be a pro…'

Adam immediately stopped this line of thought and sighed to himself. His eyes were twitching and he knew that now he must have planted some kind of stupid flag already with the mention of those words.

It seemed like he would have to get more information.

"Tell me about this Moriarty guy and how I can gain access into the dimensional realm."

"Well…"

Rex seemed clearly uncomfortable with the question, but in the end, there was not much in his hands. His life was obviously far more important to him than a blind sense of loyalty.

The simple fact that he was hesitating to answer though, was very forthcoming of the sheer danger that Moriarty possessed.

"Firstly and obviously. Moriarty is a Director-level threat and not just any small time."

Rex seemed to be looking far away, "Around 100 Years ago, The very first Sherlock Holmes and the First Moriarty alongside a group formed by different individuals were born at the same period. This was undoubtedly the golden age of Britain and it was the period during which Britain became the Largest Empire in the world." [1]

There was a sense of pride and awe in his voice. Clearly, even if he wasn't born during that period he must have heard many things of the so-called golden era of the British Empire.

"At first, the group of individuals who heralded this golden era, while under the order of Her Majesty the Queen were all united but soon dissatisfaction began to appear among the different factions, as it always does when a group of highly competent and individualistic people are united under the same banner. They asked themselves, who was the strongest? Who was the smartest? Who was the protagonist of this era?"

He spoke and his excitement visibly grew with each word he uttered.

"It didn't take long for them to start wreaking havoc. Some stayed on the side of the Queen. Some went away to faraway lands, while others decided to become criminals and create their very own empire. A great era of chaos started and many geniuses died subsequently. Only for the best to remain. Soon they realized the answer to the question. Who was the protagonist of the era?"

He smiled, "Professor James Moriarty and Detective Sherlock Holmes. The two of them were undoubtedly at the Zodiac level and perhaps at the very top of the whole hierarchy. Only a few special individuals like Musashi Kaminari and other renowned individuals could even be deemed as their equals."

"Sadly the two of them did not live long. Moriarty died at the hands of Holmes and soon Holmes followed because of all the drugs and enhancements he used in search of greater excitement to stimulate his boring life, don't know for sure what that meant. But this wasn't the end. The two had descendants and those descendants stayed nemesis.

"Thus we come to the current era. The current Moriarty is supposedly the Fourth of his name. As for the Holmes house. They had fallen after an incident related to demons wiping out 80% of their family. Leaving only Charlotte Holmes and a few others as survivors."

He shrugged, "Despite everything, Charlotte showed talents similar to that of the first Holmes and was about to arrest Moriarty but the Great Fire of London dished out and Moriarty fled to France before hiding himself. The rest that happened is known to everyone."

Moriarty entered France. Disguised as a hunter. Climbed the ranks. Became Director and finally epically backstabbed the Association before stealing a great amount of technology and knowledge.

Finally, he rose as the Emperor of Crime or as he liked to call himself— The Napoleon of Crime, just like the original Moriarty.

[1]: The size of the British Empire – the amount of land and number of people under British rule – changed in size over the years. At its height in 1922, it was the largest empire the world had ever seen, covering around a quarter of Earth's land surface and ruling over 458 million people.

An interesting fact is. China was also a very colossal empire during this period. In a way, China was even bigger. If China made a different decision around the year 1400 and decided to start colonizing the world. Europe would have had no chance. I am no historian though and my source is Google. So don't bash me