October, 1881. Gower Street. Student Lodgings.
"—Hss…"
Lucian woke in pain.
[Skill side effects ongoing: Severe hypoglycemia. Shock in 180 seconds.]
[Recommendation: Switch to a Radiant-side character card for stamina recovery.]
[Scan result: Card slot empty.]
"Shut up…" the young man rasped. "Like I can afford to pull one."
Last night on Regent Street, he had been elegant as a god.
This morning, he was wretched as a stray dog.
He staggered upright and glanced at the narrow desk. A stack of manuscript pages lay there, ink still drying—his cheap serialized "popular mystery" for The Strand Magazine. It was also the only lifeline an orphan with no background had in London, when he wasn't a phantom thief.
From the sitting room came a clatter of metal and glass, accompanied by the burnt smell of coffee.
His roommate.
Henry Jekyll of the medical faculty was trying—once again—to tame his coffee pot.
"Morning, Lucian."
Jekyll's voice always carried the careful timidity of a startled rabbit. Thick-lensed spectacles perched on his nose. Under messy brown hair was a face that seemed permanently short on confidence: a slightly receding chin, eyes that never quite stayed still.
He looked like a man forever fearing the ceiling might collapse on his head—or worse, that St. Bartholomew's Hospital's irascible anatomy professor might crawl out of the fireplace and demand recitation on the spot.
A textbook "nice guy," the sort of anxious mediocrity London produced by the thousands.
Ordinary. Mild. Harmless.
If Lucian hadn't known—by virtue of being a transmigrator—that Hyde slept inside this man like a coiled knife, he might have assumed Jekyll was just another medical bookworm who would graduate, open a clinic in some rural town, and spend his entire life prescribing aspirin and bloodletting like a glorified quack.
"Your complexion is pale as… as one of our cadavers," Jekyll said, worry tightening his mouth as he watched Lucian wobble out of the bedroom. He held up the coffee pot like it was a shield. "Have you been staying up writing again? I told you—lack of sleep disrupts your humoral balance and increases black bile, which causes melancholy…"
"Sugar…" Lucian croaked.
The sound was dry, hungry—like a vampire begging for blood, only his cravings were slightly cheaper.
"Jekyll," he muttered, "give me sugar. Now. Immediately."
"Huh? Oh! There's marmalade in the cupboard! It was discounted, but I'm pretty sure it hasn't gone moldy—"
Lucian practically teleported to the cabinet. He grabbed the cheap orange marmalade, didn't even bother looking for a spoon, and scooped a huge chunk out with his fingers and shoved it into his mouth.
Sweetness so thick it turned bitter exploded across his tongue.
His shaking fingers slowly steadied. The dizziness receded like a tide pulling back.
He exhaled, leaning against the cabinet, as if he'd just escaped death by a hair's breadth.
"Sorry, Henry," he said hoarsely. "I stole your sugar."
"What? It's just jam." Jekyll hurried over and pressed a cup of hot water into his hands, relief loosening his shoulders. Then he fidgeted, rubbing his palms together, words stumbling out like they were weighted.
"Um, Lucian… actually, I'm the one who should apologize. I… I might be late with my portion of rent again. Professor Craig deducted my stipend yesterday, saying it was 'laboratory equipment loss.' He said if I don't pay for that expensive measuring cylinder, he'll revoke my lab privileges…"
Jekyll's eyes dropped. He looked ashamed of breathing.
"But I swear it was his nephew who broke it. I… I just didn't dare argue. If I lose lab access, I won't graduate."
Lucian's grip tightened around the cup.
Craig.
An academic parasite promoted by nepotism.
The kind of man who took greatest pleasure in bullying soft-spined honest people like Jekyll.
"It's fine," Lucian said evenly. "The editor at The Strand promised to settle the final payment for my last detective story in the next couple of days. It's not much, but it should cover your share."
"Really?" Jekyll's face brightened with grateful disbelief. "Thank you, Lucian! When I have money, I'll definitely—"
Jekyll turned to toast bread, thanking him again and again.
Lucian sighed silently.
There was no "final payment."
That damned magazine was still withholding last month's稿费.
With a thought, Lucian summoned the translucent panel only he could see.
[Host: Lucian Grey]
[Current public identity: Second-year Literature student / third-rate novelist "Doyle"]
[Shadow side: Napoleon of Crime — Moriarty (SSR)]
[Synchronization: 33%]
[Side effect: After each skill use, emotions gradually grow numb.]
[Radiant side: Empty]
[Current skills: Magician's Hand, Minor Planet Dynamics, Faceless Professor]
[Points: 1580 | Gacha cost: 2000 points/pull]
420 points short.
But it didn't matter.
Moriarty never lacked an audience.
The next performance—if it was grander, more elegant—
The card pool's Watson or Lestrade would eventually deliver themselves to his doorstep.
Scotland Yard had finally learned to think last night.
For Lucian, that was a rare and delicious sort of fun.
Four months ago, after years in this world, the system had finally arrived—and the first card it gave him was Moriarty.
The Napoleon of Crime.
Which meant what?
It meant petty theft didn't score points. Hiding your roommate's glasses didn't score points. Even breaking into a house had to have style.
But Lucian didn't want to truly become a murderer and arsonist.
So he chose a compromise—
An elegant phantom thief who made all of London tremble, yet never harmed anyone.
Steal jewels. Toy with the police. Escape unscathed. Return the item to its owner.
It satisfied the system's demand for "class," without dragging him into an actual abyss.
Because points equaled:
Style × Audience Size × Shock Value.
The "phantom thief" route fit perfectly.
The cost, however, was simple:
Between headline-worthy acts, Lucian Grey was just a powerless poor student who had to calculate rent down to the penny.
"Lucian?" Jekyll asked softly. "Are you spacing out?"
He offered a slice of toast burned as black as charcoal.
"Your hands are still shaking. Is it hypoglycemia again?"
Looking at that lump of carbon, Lucian felt an unexpected warmth—and a faint guilt at tricking an honest man.
"Sorry, Henry," he said. "I got too absorbed plotting last night."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of plain black-framed glasses—non-prescription—and set them on his nose.
A miraculous switch.
The sharpness in his sleepless eyes dulled behind the lenses. His upright posture slouched slightly on purpose. That faintly confident smile was replaced by a timid, pressed-lip hesitance.
Phantom thief Moriarty: offline.
Anonymous literature student Lucian Grey: online.
A forgettable background character: low presence, mild temperament, slightly bookish, staying up late for a few pennies' worth of —
Someone you'd glance at once in a crowd, then immediately forget the face.
That was Lucian's survival philosophy.
Hide in plain sight.
"That's good," Jekyll said, completely oblivious to the shift in aura. He relaxed with a sigh. "Hurry and change. The old fossil professor hates latecomers, and I heard there'll be lots of freshmen auditing today… Though I suppose it has nothing to do with people like us."
"People like us?" Lucian asked, buttoning his shirt with an amused tilt of his mouth.
"Just… ordinary people," Jekyll said, pushing up his glasses with a bitter smile. "Shining geniuses and nobles live in another world. If we can graduate and find work in a clinic somewhere, we should thank God."
"You're right, Henry," Lucian said.
He opened the door and looked out at the yellow fog rolling like a living thing.
"But you know," he added quietly, "sometimes I think the fog is London's true master. We walk through it, and no one can see anyone's real face. Maybe the next child we pass has a blood-stained knife in his pocket."
"Don't say things like that!" Jekyll yelped, gulping the last of his mud-like coffee. He grabbed the freshly delivered Times, shrugging into his coat, and then froze.
"God—Lucian, look at this! Something huge happened on Regent Street last night! That phantom thief calling himself Moriarty—he left a playing card for Inspector Lestrade and then vanished into thin air!"
Jekyll pointed at the front page's blurry sketch, his face a mix of fear and secret excitement.
"They say he can use magic! A constable swore he saw him turn into a white bolt of lightning and melt into the air!"
Lucian leaned in and skimmed the sensational article.
Magic?
It was a magnesium oxidation reaction—basic chemistry first-years learned in medical school.
But on the surface, Lucian shrank back and put on the perfect expression of frightened awe.
"How terrifying," he said, voice trembling just enough. "A criminal that lawless… I really hope Scotland Yard catches him soon. London's becoming so unsafe, isn't it?"
"Yes…" Jekyll nodded hard, clutching his briefcase like a lifeline. "People like us should stay as far away from those things as possible."
They pushed open the apartment building's front door and stepped into the gray-yellow fog that swallowed everything.
Hoofbeats tapped a crisp rhythm on the cobblestones. Somewhere distant, a clock tower rang eight.
"Henry," Lucian said suddenly, stopping.
He scratched the back of his head, shy in a way that looked almost genuine.
"What is it?"
"Could you lend me two shillings?" Lucian asked softly. "My hasn't arrived, but I urgently need some money to… uh… buy materials for replenishing sugar."
"Huh? Of course," Jekyll said without hesitation, reaching for his coin purse.
When the silver coins—warm with another man's body heat—rested in Lucian's palm, he tossed them lightly once.
These aren't for sugar, Henry.
Professor Craig, is it?
So you enjoy docking students' stipends. You enjoy pushing honest people to the brink.
Then Moriarty will collect that debt—
With interest.
He won't let his own people take losses.
That, too, was part of the unshakable self-cultivation of Mr. Lucian Grey.
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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