Do not fight Russia. They counter every technique with unpredictable folly.
-Otto von Bismarck -
Claridge’s was one of London’s most famous five-star inns.
The Russian man we t in the lobby guided us to a private lift tucked away in a corner.
As we rode upward, I observed him carefully, mindful not to show it.
He was sturdily built, and his face carried the scent of elixirs. Sothing about him felt familiar.
He looked only recently past thirty.
Perhaps four or five years older than I.
As an escort officer attending the Tsar himself, I had expected him to be strong, but seeing him up close, rather than in passing as before, I could not find a single opening.
Taciturnity was common enough among Russian n, but paired with his upright posture and disciplined gait, it made it easy to tell he had once belonged to the military.
‘Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, was it…?’
Before long, I rembered where I had encountered his na.
It was a na printed in the dical journals Watson and I used to read in my previous life.
Though he had never t him, Watson had looked up his photograph and record and had been delighted, calling him a fellow army surgeon..
With his dependable impression, and the breadth of insight evident in his papers, she praised him, certain he would soday make discoveries that advanced dicine.
As for , I was the sort who believed one must never judge a person by first impressions alone.
True, whenever I t soone for the first ti, I had gleaned abundant information from their clothing, features, voice, habits, and the like.
But I also knew well that being dazzled by appearances led one to ruinous judgnts.
The most captivating woman I had ever t was Irene Adler, who committed cris without hesitation. The second most captivating woman poisoned three children for an insurance payout and went to the gallows.
And the man with the ugliest face I had ever seen was a philanthropist who gladly donated a vast sum—two hundred and fifty thousand pounds—for London’s poor.
For that reason, quite apart from Watson’s favorable impression, I was seized by a strange foreboding the entire ti I watched Pavlov.
‘Even for an army surgeon, if he publishes in academic journals, he ought to be closer to a physician than a soldier. Yet his palms are… peculiar.’
I am a man who prizes trifles.
To the extent of researching and recording the traits of a hundred and forty types of tobacco ash, one by one.
To focus on the small things others never even notice, and thereby unearth truths they cannot see—that was the very purpose of a consulting detective.
That near-obsessive eye pushed to study everything. What prints each kind of shoe left, how hand shapes differed by profession, how calluses changed with the Kung-Fu one trained.
And by the records I had kept over the years, Pavlov’s hands were uncanny.
‘Hands far closer to a soldier’s than a physician’s.’
As I recalled it, in my previous life Pavlov finished his studies abroad and beca a professor at an army dical academy.
I threw myself with Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls ten years from now, and up to that ti, Pavlov had never gone to the battlefield.
Yet the calluses embedded in his palms just now showed a distinctly unusual distribution and shape.
Hands that belonged, by any eye, to a man who had handled weapons his entire life.
And not just one kind.
Swords, spears, and even hidden weapons.
In this world, Kung-Fu existed, I already expected history to have diverged, at least in places.
It was obvious the two worlds were entirely different places, if only because Her Majesty was an Unrestrained Realm master, and Sir Newton still lived.
But the fact that a ‘military surgeon’ had beco far more ‘soldier’ than I rembered kept stirring a strange sense of incongruity.
Perhaps it bothered more because Watson had ntioned him in my previous life.
Or was it because his profession matched Watson’s—an army doctor—that I felt it so keenly?
‘So that’s what it was.’
Without realizing it, I was comparing Pavlov to the other Watson I had t in this world.
Even if she was a twin younger sister, Jane Watson, who had walked a path perfectly identical to the John Watson I knew, embodied both faces of the army doctor’s profession, just as I rembered, and kept them in perfect balance.
Pavlov, by contrast, felt as though he had walked a path entirely different from what I rembered.
I did not truly know him, but a single hypothesis rose in my mind, one that could explain such a change.
‘So there are those who, thanks to the existence of Kung-Fu, have unleashed violent dispositions they would have kept hidden in the history I knew.’
Seeing how Sir Newton, having learned the Essence-Draining Art, Gravitation, went about punishing heretical groups, it seed certain that even when people walked paths similar to original history, more of them solved problems with martial arts rather than peaceful ans.
The thought made worry anew, whether n who had been fad writers or scholars in my forr world might here be seized by inner demons and cause blood calamities.
One rcy was that even searching the mories I held as a London Kung-Fuist, I could not yet find such incidents.
Yet it felt as though the scent of blood wafted from the Pavlov before my eyes, and I could not easily suppress my unease.
An escort officer ought to be devoted enough to throw himself down for the one he serves, yet with this man, rely standing still, he seed to threaten everything around him.
‘There is sothing wrong.’
I had already confird that the Tsar did not wish his visit to London to be known.
If so, he ought to have been more careful than usual about appearance and temperant when selecting his guards.
But by my observation, this world’s Pavlov might be useful for intimidating others, yet for moving quietly, his killing intent was far too dense.
After all, the reason I had paid attention to them when the Tsar erged at the tailor shop was Pavlov’s violent Qi Frequency.
One might bring such a type deliberately to frighten a negotiating partner, but he was not the sort of man suited to a secret visit to London.
The Tsar’s choice was incomprehensible.
Did Alexander III truly wish to avoid war?
Or was he intentionally trying to reveal his presence to the terrorists who had murdered his father?
Unable to wash away the strange dissonance, I stepped off the lift at the fifth floor and headed to the Tsar’s suite.
“I knew you would co.”
The mont I entered, Alexander III spoke in perfect diction with not the slightest trace of a Russian accent.
The Tsar sat on a sofa in comfortable clothing, relaxing at ease.
Perhaps the hotel had prepared it for his massive build. The chair was roughly one and a half tis the usual size.
“I thought I ought to at least hear why you require my help.”
“You sound as though you can solve anything.”
“Fortunately, I have not yet failed within my field.”
He was a pragmatist who had tried to scout the mont I deduced his identity.
The fact he had not even asked my na ant he cared only for ability.
He would be the sort to see no need for pomp, so I should match his rhythm.
‘Still, one never quite adjusts to that bulk.’
Just standing before him made one feel like a child.
Even among Scotland Yard’s inspectors, no one possessed such an unreal physique.
“H-hwaaa….”
Watson at my side did not even try to hide how tense she was.
I could understand her feelings well enough.
Seated before us was the emperor of a nation.
Unlike Her Majesty, whom we had t a few tis, this was a stranger, and not an easy one to face.
To keep one’s composure here without being born a noble, one needed experience like mine, having t royalty and even popes and accepted commissions from them.
“An unrelated observation, but for an emperor’s visit, you have few attendants.”
Including Pavlov, he had only four Kung-Fuists with him.
Every one of them looked, and was built, positively murderous.
Judging by the aura they radiated, the highest realm among them was, as expected, Ivan Pavlov, the one who had escorted us.
But there was no doubt the remaining three were also Kung-Fuists of considerable attainnt.
“My subordinates are all warriors worth a hundred n. You need not worry.”
“My apologies.”
Though my remark was rather provocative, neither the Tsar nor his attendants showed the slightest disturbance.
Just seeing them wait in parade rest without a twitch proved they were well-trained soldiers.
‘…This is abnormal.’
No matter how I looked at it, it didn’t add up.
The previous emperor had been assassinated not long ago, yet he intended to guard the Tsar in London, not even in Russia, with only four n?
As I was thinking that, black ink began rapidly writing letters on the wall of the building across the street, visible through the window.
< The investigation is already complete. The Tsar’s attendants are only the four in this room. For your reference, even the Russian embassy does not know of this visit.>
Mycroft imdiately grasped what I was thinking and tossed the information I needed at once.
Whatever orders he had received from Her Majesty Victoria, it seed his promise of cooperation was not a lie.
Because Claridge’s used civil engineering1 for security, sealing the building off from Direct ssages with the outside, he had to use ink for both eavesdropping and communication.
It was mildly inconvenient, but in any case, having the head of the British Intelligence Butler Agency, Britain’s greatest intelligence organization as an ally, was extrely reassuring.
‘No matter how I consider it, it’s unnatural.’
With Mycroft’s confirmation, I could once again suspect the Tsar’s intent.
That the Russian Emperor had co abroad with only four attendants suggested he very much did not want his departure to be discovered.
If word leaked, the force behind the brutal murder of the late Alexander II would surely send assassins, so it was not strange to judge that moving in a small group would be advantageous.
And yet, the Tsar’s face before was proud and utterly calm.
He had indeed made minimal preparations for self-defense, but his expression was far from that of a man worried about death arriving at any mont.
“I sought only you. Why, then, have two co?”
“She is my assistant. If it inconveniences you, we will leave at once and return ho.”
“So if it inconveniences , I should endure it?”
“I am British, not Russian. My loyalty does not extend to you.”
At my words, Alexander III let out a booming laugh.
“You have nerves. I like it. Let us go straight to the point.”
The Emperor watched steadily and asked,
“Are you prepared to work for , Briton?”
“I refuse.”
I gave the answer I had prepared.
I had not even heard what the task was. If I bit at an imperial commission too readily, I would lose.
One must refuse once, hear the details, and only then negotiate to seize the initiative—
“If you refuse, London will beco a sea of fire in three days.”
“What did you just say…?!”
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