Chapter 160

"...Detectives, please claim your corresponding items."

When the countdown on the LCD screen reached zero, Holmes stopped writing and continued to guide the process - he would undoubtedly get a perfect score and took away No. 9's magnifying glass first; at the same time, many magnifying glasses like spider legs grew out from the metal corset that was previously blocked by Holmes' coat.

"...I just said that I felt something was missing when he appeared." Sherlock complained to Watson.

"Did you get it right?" Watson asked decisively without looking away, not doubting the level of slacking of this fellow "Sherlock Holmes".

While Sherlock and Watson were arguing, the others quickly took back their own props - Grey, who helped El-Melloi II get the relic back, was the last one, so she threw the tray in front of Sherlock.

"Ahem." Sherlock cleared his throat and pushed the process forward. "Please, detectives, introduce your belongings in order of number."

Number one is the Valentine's Day gift outfit that the program staff selected from the pile of things that Fujimaru Ritsuka handed over before the filming began - the mercury chocolate provided by Renis, which is said to be extracted and refined from the supreme outfit, the Moon Spirit Marrow Fluid - no one can guess why the questioner chose this, but it is still possible to give a brief introduction.

"This is the Valentine's Day chocolate I gave to my apprentice." Lenis happily picked up the mercury chocolate that was picked out by the program crew as a test question, and smiled at everyone in the round table hall. "This is a Valentine's Day gift extracted and refined from the Supreme Celebrity Outfit, Moon Spirit Marrow Fluid - OK, does anyone have the courage to eat it?"

Perhaps because no one knew how to handle Lenise's bad taste, the participants corresponding to item No. 2 continued without Holmes' guidance.

"These are the handcuffs I received from my seniors when I first joined the company." Kiriya Aoi recalled the audition scene for the movie "Bad Cop" and smiled as she showed everyone the glittering silver handcuffs in her hands. "I've been promoted now! But as an encouragement from my seniors, this is an important memory for me."

"This is someone's relic." El-Melloi II stroked the cloak fragment in his hand, and his thoughts inevitably fell into the memories of the past. "I boarded that train in the past to retrieve this relic. Its meaning to me is just like the handcuffs that Miss Kiriya received from her predecessors."

"But I can only look at that person from afar, and I can't reach the height to walk side by side with him."

——Yes, in the final analysis, all that he has achieved today is because the Holy Grail War left an indelible impact on his life.

——Who told El-Melloi II that he could declare to his classmates, “I will overturn the entire clock tower for you to see” just because of a rumor that seemed unfounded to most magicians?

- Even though he was in debt, after returning to the Clock Tower, he took on El-Melloi's astronomical debt directly... In short, he seemed to be indifferent to the debt.

——But if it weren’t for that heroic spirit, he would probably have been just an ordinary magician for the rest of his life.

Although Chaldea had observed his possible future, he also knew that a magician never had a happy ending in life; however, from his personal perspective, if it weren't for the existence of the King, he wouldn't have such a clear goal to achieve.

When he was young, he wrote a paper arguing that a magician's achievements had nothing to do with the length of their family lineage. However, in the El-Melloi classroom, he was criticized by the then monarch, El-Melloi, or Kenneth, as being nothing more than wishful thinking, something that the magicians of the Clock Tower would despise even more than Animusphia's paper talks.

Young people always have various times when they feel dissatisfied - and their dissatisfaction always leads to big and small troubles.

El-Melloi II, no, Weber Velvet believed that the choice he made at that moment not only changed his life, but also brought an abrupt end to the life of a magician whose excellence he understood the more he delved into magic. The fragment of cloak that El-Melloi II was touching at this moment was the property of his teacher that he had stolen when he was young.

So much so that many years after the end of the Fourth Holy Grail War, El-Melloi II still held on to the belief that if he had not stolen the relic, the king would have won the Holy Grail War and his teacher would not have died...even if he would have ended up being just an ordinary magician.

Weber Velvet's momentary impulsiveness caused a disaster - this is why he insisted that everyone call him "Lord El-Melloi II", leaving the El-Melloi family with only one scapegoat and astronomical debts.

——This was his mistake and he must atone for it.

But El-Melloi II did not give up and continued to participate in the Holy Grail War - he even brought Gray back for this.

——Since I have no hope of becoming a first-class magician, I will improve myself in other areas.

So he found a gravekeeper who was good at fighting spirits.

——He always wanted to prove that the reason why the king failed to achieve the final victory was because he was too weak, not because of the king’s problem.

So after the relic was stolen, he didn't think twice and just caught up with the Mystic Eye Collection Train - the red cloak fragment could be said to be the embodiment of El-Melloi II's obsession.

"Ahem." Yin Cheng Sera held up the blue hat and cleared her throat to bring the obviously distracted El-Melloi II back to the shooting scene. "This is a hair accessory, a standard feature of our detective agency uniform."

"This letter is mine." Sherlock showed everyone the side of the envelope with the wax seal in his hand and removed the "Do Not Open" label that the staff had pinned on the seam of the envelope. "This is the correct answer that Lian left for me to solve a puzzle I've been looking for all the way. Because I haven't opened it to read it yet, I'm also prohibiting you from opening it when I show it to you."

——This statement is misleading.

Of course Sherlock had already opened it and read it. Although the sample of the Chaldean records was from the time period of the Whitechapel Anomaly, the heroes in the Throne of Heroes had already accepted their own death, and their memories contained their complete lives. In Sherlock's memory, he had already read this letter.

In fact, like Sherlock and El-Melloi II, the items that were finally chosen by the program team were the things they gave to Fujimaru Ritsuka as the bond costumes - but in fact, as early as when the bond costumes were collected, Fujimaru Ritsuka complained that Sherlock and William's bond costumes looked like they were swapped.

——Sherlock's bond dress is an envelope containing the true life story of William James Moriarty; William's bond dress is the skull ring that Sherlock wore on his hand when he and Sherlock first met.

Then, the adults who heard the complaints patted Fujimaru Ritsuka on the shoulders with paper documents and tactfully sent him to the control room where the data of Heroic Spirits could be checked. After seeing the personal data 5 in the data of their two Heroic Spirits, Fujimaru Ritsuka finally understood what the adults' hesitant expressions at the time meant.

The introduction of the filming site is still going on, and the next item is item number six - a leather armband.

"This is my armband." Shiya Locke calmly took off his coat and put on the armband, while stating that he did not choose any items with special meanings because he really did not have any in his hand. "This armband has no special meaning. I did not choose any items with special meanings as the topic because I really do not have such things."

"This is Kii's tool kit." Saesakusa Kii held up the small tool kit in her hand and showed it to everyone. "Like Sera's hat, it is also a standard uniform for our detective agency."

At the moment when Saesusa Kii's brief introduction ended, Holmes unabashedly shifted his gaze to Tojo Shiki, who was sitting between Kiriya Aoi and Tokiya Locke. Item No. 8 was a white handkerchief with pink embroidery. Some people might have made mistakes about the owner of this handkerchief due to inertial thinking and stereotypes.

"This is Miss Kusanagi's handkerchief." Tojo Shiki introduced the origin of this handkerchief to everyone in a very calm tone. "The reason why I was involved in the murder case and became a suspect in the murder of Miss Kusanagi was because I picked up this handkerchief on the road and judged that Miss Kusanagi had not gone far... Then I ran into the murder scene in order to return the handkerchief."

"Then it's me at the end." Holmes leisurely turned the smoke wrench in his hand and moved the magnifying glass beside him to the back of Kiriya Aoi and Sherlock's chairs as a background. "You can think of this as a mechanism or detective tool that I made myself. The magnifying glass I showed you is just one of them."

"Well, now that the answers are out in the open - let's look at the final results."

Even though the Chaldeans were prepared to slack off before the test began, they still had a few correct answers from their own firm at least - they were just making up four stories, and if they slacked off a little they could have finished half an hour; but they still chose to act it out and changed the correct answers of other numbers into incorrect answers.

"Three, two, one—let's turn the clipboard around together."

The nine detectives turned over their clipboards in unison, revealing their respective answers.

Holmes & Watson: All right.

Kiriya Aoi: Of question 7, number 7 and 8 are wrong.

Sherlock: For question six, numbers two, six and eight are wrong.

Tojo Shiki & Sajima Toru: Of the seven questions, number one and three were wrong.

Yincheng Saila: For five questions, numbers one, three, five and nine are wrong.

Tokiya Locke & Shinsei: For six questions, one, three, and five were wrong.

Saesusa Nori: For five questions, number one, three, five, and nine were wrong.

El-Melloi II "Lanesse" & Fujimaru Ritsuka: Out of five questions, number four, six, seven, and eight were wrong

El-Melloi II & Gray: Of the seven questions, two and eight are wrong.