Screams.
Lucian's gaze swept the street.
A delivery wagon's horses had been spooked by the flashbulbs—now they were shrieking and rearing, iron hooves hammering the cobblestones in frantic bursts.
The driver yanked the reins with all his strength.
Useless.
The horses were fully out of control.
The heavy wagon surged straight toward the crowd.
People screamed and scattered in every direction.
From above, Lucian could see it clearly.
Most of them ran to either side.
But one person fell.
Golden hair.
A pale black skirt.
Unmistakable under the moonlight.
Mary Morstan.
She lay on the ground trying to push herself up—slowly.
Too slowly.
Like something had snagged her.
The runaway wagon was less than twenty meters away.
Five seconds.
Lucian's mind accelerated.
He should leave.
The plan was complete: jewel secured, points guaranteed.
The rational move was to vanish into the chaos, return to the stairwell, change back into civilian clothes, and reappear among the onlookers as Lucian—just another "witness."
Four seconds.
Three seconds.
"Damn it."
The Napoleon of crime wasn't supposed to care whether some random civilian lived or died.
But the truth was, Lucian still wasn't a real Moriarty.
"And I told you—if you're sickly, don't go wandering around!"
Lucian hurled himself off the edge.
…
10:08 p.m.
Five stories.
About fifteen meters.
Converted into "chance of death by impact"—roughly one hundred percent.
But Phantom Thief Moriarty was clearly not included in that statistic.
The grappling hook fired, catching a lamppost.
Momentum bled off.
Landing.
Sprint.
Three seconds.
The entire sequence took less than three seconds.
More than eight hundred people gasped in unison.
Lucian didn't have the time to care.
All he saw was that golden figure still on the ground.
Ten meters.
Five.
Three.
He seized Mary's wrist, yanked her upright, pivoted hard—and dragged her into a roll toward the curb.
The wagon screamed past them, close enough for the wind from its wheels to snap the tails of his coat upward.
A hair's breadth.
Truly, a hair's breadth.
If he'd jumped half a second later—
Forget it. Don't think about it.
…
10:09 p.m.
They tumbled to the edge of the street.
The posture was… undignified.
Lucian instinctively used his body to shield her.
Her face pressed against his chest, golden hair fanned out across the white of his tailcoat—
Like a scene from the cheapest romance serials.
Inside his head, Lucian was screaming at himself: What am I doing?
But at that moment the clouds fully broke.
Moonlight poured down like a flood.
White tailcoat. Golden hair. A massive full moon.
The composition looked like it had been arranged by God himself.
Reporters hammered their shutters. The flashbulbs went off even harder than they had when the thief first appeared.
"He jumped down!"
"Five stories!"
"He saved that girl!"
"God—how romantic!"
Under the moonlight, the white-clad thief held a blonde girl tight.
More than eight hundred people witnessed it.
This image was guaranteed to become tomorrow's front-page headline.
From this moment on, Phantom Thief Moriarty wouldn't just be a mysterious thief.
He'd be a hero—the kind who would leap from five stories to save someone.
Which was absolutely not part of Lucian's plan.
…
The instant she was held like that, Mary's mind began to move.
She could hear his heartbeat.
Thud. Thud. Thud—
Fast and hard.
The aftershock of a full sprint, yes—
but also the kind of rhythm you only get from a heart trained over years.
That wasn't the point, though.
The point was her situation.
Eight hundred pairs of eyes.
Moonlight bright as day.
Flashbulbs strobing without end.
Professor Moriarty—spider of the criminal world—was currently posed as a "rescued, fragile young lady" in a man's arms.
Disgust flooded up from the marrow.
Not because she'd been saved.
She had nearly been hit; the snapped heel hadn't been part of the calculation, the chaos of the crowd hadn't been under control.
This "frail lady" disguise was brilliant camouflage—yet its cost was these absurd heels and this dragging skirt. If she'd known, she'd have rather risked revealing half a second of physical capability… or had old Moran waiting in shadow—
But the thing she hated most, right now, was the picture.
This loud, showy imitator had turned her into a prop to elevate his "hero" narrative.
"Phantom Thief Moriarty Saves a Maiden Under the Moon"—tomorrow's papers would write it exactly like that.
Her face would be everywhere in London: a background ornament, a trophy, a stage light.
Disgusting.
A spider should sit at the center of its web, waiting in darkness.
It should never appear under spotlights in a state like this.
But under the identity of "Mary Tristan," she couldn't show even a trace of anger.
Eight hundred eyes were watching.
So the blonde girl could only lift her head, eyes reddened, lips trembling, voice shaking with a perfectly measured sob:
"Th… thank you…"
Flawless victim acting.
And in her heart, the Professor snorted coldly.
I'll settle this account sooner or later, you gaudy scapegoat.
…
Lucian released her once he confirmed she could stand.
"You're fine. Next time be careful—don't wear heels in a crowd."
Mary kept her terrified-grateful expression. "Why did you save me?"
"Just happened to be there."
"But you're a phantom thief…"
"I'm a phantom thief, not a murderer." Lucian straightened and brushed dust from his coat. "Stealing and watching someone die are two different things."
The nearby policemen recovered from their shock and started closing in.
Lestrade's roar rolled through the night wind. "Move! Catch him! Don't let him get away!"
Lucian drew his last flashbang.
"Take care, miss."
He gave Mary one final look.
Pale. Beautiful. Tear tracks still wet—every inch a pitiable girl who needed protection. She overlapped perfectly with the helpless girl crying under her violent father on Regent Street.
"Good night."
A brutal white glare detonated.
The white figure vanished from the street.
All that remained was a blonde girl standing motionless in moonlight—and the wreckage scattered everywhere.
…
10:30 p.m.
Lucian cut through three alleys, confirmed he wasn't being tailed, then slipped back into the clock tower's rear entrance to change.
The white tailcoat returned to the system.
On went the old coat, the flat cap.
Phantom Thief Moriarty exited.
Poor student Lucian returned.
He retrieved the camera, checked it—no damage, the film intact.
This was his "I was just watching" proof. It couldn't fail.
He slipped out the back and merged into the chattering crowd.
No one noticed him.
The street was a mess. Police tried to restore order. Reporters shoveled questions at anyone who would speak.
"Did you see it? He jumped from five stories!"
"So handsome—like an angel!"
"Would a devil save someone?"
"Maybe a fallen angel?"
…
11:00 p.m.
An abandoned warehouse in the East End.
Lucian leaned against a wall and examined freshly developed photos by lamplight.
The bank entrance. Police. Reporters. A black sea of people.
Average framing. Average light.
But good enough to prove: I was there.
He flipped to the last one—
And froze.
Under moonlight: the side profile of a girl.
He'd meant to shoot a wide crowd scene. Mary had simply been in the frame.
Golden hair glowing soft in the moonlight, a pale blue skirt shifting slightly in the breeze.
She was looking up toward the clock tower, lips parted, eyes full of something like expectation.
The crowd behind her was blurred just right, buildings reduced to silhouettes.
A moonlit girl—shockingly beautiful.
He'd taken it around 9:00 p.m., near the edge of the crowd. He'd been aiming for the "whole scene." She'd just happened to be there.
Coincidences stacked on coincidences, and a good photograph fell out the bottom.
Pure luck.
"This one… I can give her this."
He'd promised Mary: if he got a good photo, he'd share one.
He hadn't photographed the thief.
Of course not—he was the thief. He couldn't photograph himself.
But the photo was beautiful on its own.
It counted as keeping his word.
Lucian tucked it away carefully.
A system prompt surfaced.
[Performance Complete]
[Style: S+]
[Audience: 847]
[Impact: S+]
[Bonus: +25%]
[Points Gained: 980]
[Current Balance: 2560]
Nine hundred eighty points.
Almost three hundred more than expected.
The unexpected rescue had become the biggest bonus…
Hold on. That didn't make sense.
Lucian stared at the panel, baffled.
He'd been ready for a "role consistency" penalty. What kind of cold, imperial crime-king saves people? Isn't that character collapse?
But not only was there no penalty—there was a bonus.
So… the "Napoleon of crime" valued not cruelty, but style?
Thinking about it, that checked out.
A mastermind who could weave London into a web never played the game with crude violence.
If the real Moriarty was going to save someone, he'd do it elegantly.
Shockingly.
In a way that made every newspaper in London go mad.
From that angle—
Tonight's performance really was… rather "Professor-like."
"All right. Worked out by accident."
Lucian lifted the sapphire and studied it under the moonlight.
In the warehouse darkness, it glowed with a mysterious blue fire.
Beautiful.
But not his.
Tomorrow he'd mail it back to Barings Bank—phantom thief rules: you always return what you "borrow."
It sounded stupid, but only that kind of stupidity drew a line between him and true robbers.
"Hope nothing else goes wrong…"
Lucian stood, rolling his stiff shoulders.
Tomorrow he still had to show up at school as a nobody.
He still had to act like he didn't know that moonlit "hero" was himself.
He also had to find a chance to give Mary that photo—and pretend it was just a random shot from a normal spectator.
"Tired to death."
He pushed open the warehouse door.
The moon still hung huge and round in the sky.
"That sickly little lady… should really take better care of herself. What kind of person wears heels in a crowd?"
And Lucian disappeared into the night.
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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