While the three of them were still chatting around the golden utensils, an ominous creak echoed from the stairs.
The door swung open abruptly. The landlady, wearing her apron, stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips. “Gentlemen, I daresay you’ve spent quite enough time discussing such rubbish!”
Her finger pointed straight at Arna. “Especially you! Goodness, child, you look like a stray cat that’s missed lunch, pale as a ghost,” she said indignantly. “Come downstairs this instant, before I let your sea bass go to waste!”
Holmes quickly merged into his armchair, lowering his head as if he had suddenly developed a profound interest in a stain on the upholstery.
Watson muttered something about “needing to check my trunks” and took the opportunity to make a hasty escape.
With her allies deserting her and no support in sight, Arna had no choice but to stand up guiltily and follow her aunt downstairs like a dejected puppy.
“No, really,” she mumbled, “I just don’t like Stargazy pie…”
“If you’re too proud to eat a proper Cornish Stargazy pie,” Mrs. Hudson huffed, sounding like a dragon about to breathe fire, “then you’d best get a move on with your fish.”
“I will,” Arna said submissively.
She hurried into the kitchen. Under Mrs. Hudson’s watchful gaze, she scrubbed her hands thoroughly before reaching into the water bucket, intending to grab the fish and rinse it.
But before her hand touched the water, Mrs. Hudson suddenly caught her by the wrist.
Arna looked up, confused.
With a stern face, Mrs. Hudson placed Arna’s hand onto a plate on the counter.
It was a plate of steaming butter biscuits, clearly fresh from the oven and at the perfect temperature. Mrs. Hudson must have finished them just before heading upstairs.
Arna blinked, choosing to remain perfectly still in a posture of “total obedience” before Mrs. Hudson spoke.
Mrs. Hudson maintained her stern expression for a moment longer before she finally couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Go on, eat. I made these just for you,” she said. “Finish those before you start dinner—I want to see exactly what you can whip up!”
Only then did Arna happily pick up a biscuit and begin to eat.
After finishing the plate of biscuits, her stamina bar was fully replenished. She washed her hands again and began to cook.
Following the recipe in her system, she first marinated the fish with seasonings. When the time was right, she seared the fish in butter and added pre-cooked asparagus and potatoes. Arna successfully produced a dish of pan-fried fish.
She divided the final product into two portions, squeezed some lemon juice over each, and served them with a bowl of the hot soup Mrs. Hudson had made. She carried the trays upstairs to her two roommates.
The time that followed was family time.
Arna ate with Mrs. Hudson, venting about the dilapidated factory and the poor little boy. After tidying up the kitchen, she said goodnight to Mrs. Hudson, who was planning to knit, and returned to the upstairs sitting room to rest.
The fire in the fireplace crackled. Arna listened intently as Holmes and Watson spent ages discussing the case.
And yet, not a single random side quest was triggered.
*Damn it,* she thought. Even though the story was thrilling and the relationships complex, Arna had no place to use her skills!
Resentfully, she pocketed some candies she’d swiped from Holmes’s bookshelf and made an excuse to return to her room to check her panel. “You two carry on. I’m exhausted; I’m going to bed.”
“Get some rest,” Watson said considerately. “You must be worn out.”
Arna nodded, stifled a yawn, and walked toward her room with heavy steps.
The moment the bedroom door clicked shut, Watson turned to face Holmes.
“Have you finally lost your mind, Holmes?” he asked, his tone heavy with disapproval, clearly referring to the trap set for the factory. “That youth is barely in his early twenties and isn’t the type accustomed to danger. You know perfectly well that the gangs near Whitechapel would tear a naive informant to pieces. And you’ve been acting in a state of high excitement all day.”
Holmes asked calmly, “Why do you say that?”
“In the past, you’ve never shown interest in such minor cases, especially when you have more complex matters on your hands. You always prioritize the more challenging, difficult ones with fewer clues, remember? Like that old lady we met before; if she hadn’t begged you here, you never would have agreed to help find her eloped daughter,” Watson analyzed slowly. “Most importantly, Holmes, since when did you start planning social reforms?”
He sat down and poured two glasses of brandy. “Any explanation?”
Holmes took the glass.
“Doctor, you’ve learned well, haven’t you?” he teased, draining it in one gulp and setting the glass back on the table. “Very well. I am indeed somewhat interested in our new friend of unknown origins. He is like a puzzle wrapped in cloth; the moment it’s unwrapped, it will be quite delicious.”
This statement did nothing to appease Watson.
“Enough, Holmes,” he slammed his glass onto the table, fuming. “This isn’t one of your puzzles! Those East End gangs—”
“Oh, come now, Watson,” Holmes interrupted, reclining lazily in his chair like a black panther. “You’re missing the point.”
His eyes sparkled like frost. “Think about it, Doctor. That ‘twenty-something kid’ you speak of was able to break the ribs of East End thugs without blinking or changing expression. Two of them, perhaps as easily as cracking walnut shells. I suspect Essas didn’t stop until they begged for mercy.”
He rose from his chair and drifted to the window like a ghost, gently parting the curtains to watch the shadows of the gas lamps flickering on the street.
“He robbed them in return,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching upward. “And then, with no post-violence euphoria or anxious fear, he simply returned and sat on the sofa complaining about how hard it is to make money.”
Watson’s anger dissipated slightly, but he remained skeptical. “You mean…”
“Interesting, isn’t it?” Holmes whispered. “Even after that, he still had the chance to sell that troublesome plot of land to any poor factory owner in the East End. Why lure the criminals instead?”
He turned around. “After I proposed that plan, he turned his attention to those children rather than what the factory could produce to make a profit. You know that most men view those little rascals of the London East End as vermin or sacrifices for their own consciences.”
He murmured to himself, “But our young friend saw a lever. A contradiction, isn’t it? He reminds me of someone.”
Watson paused, mentally scrolling through the faces of various criminals.
“Who?” he asked.
“Mycroft Holmes,” Holmes said leisurely.
Watson blinked, stunned. “What?”
He… he didn’t see it at all. Had he really missed some major clue?
“Not in intelligence,” Holmes continued. “In guts.”
Watson let out a sharp breath.
“Everyone has secrets, Holmes,” he said, half-annoyed and half-amused. “But I hope you aren’t suggesting our new roommate is a criminal. Mrs. Hudson would be heartbroken.”
“No, no, no, not a criminal,” Holmes wagged a finger. “A survivor.”
“But since you’re worried about his safety,” he said slyly, “and seeing as I have those difficult cases to attend to, I’ll leave the rest to you, Watson. I hope you’ll bring us some interesting clues.”
“I’ll do my best, but don’t get your hopes up, Holmes,” Watson said crossly. “I don’t think Essas is the type to take kindly to being shadowed.”
Arna, the subject of their discussion, was unaware of the debate outside her door. Instead, she was staring intently at her panel, lost in thought.
*How does this crappy game have a child labor training module? Is this even legal?*
She clicked on the child labor hiring interface. It showed that she had to provide the children with a sufficient amount of meat at least once every two days, their daily working hours could not exceed six hours, and their study time could not be less than three hours—basically consistent with what she had said earlier.
Furthermore, if she wanted the system to certify these children as “Basic Workers,” she needed to hire a teacher to lead the classes.
*The system wasn’t even this diligent in training me as a factory owner! Can’t it show me some love too? Where’s my new map gift pack?*
After some internal grumbling, Arna tentatively clicked on the teacher selection interface and scrolled down.
In the list of available teachers, her own name appeared prominently.
*Great! Doesn’t this save a bunch of money?*
Overjoyed, Arna quickly filled in her own name and manually typed “Brawling” into the curriculum below.
A second later, the system automatically flashed a red warning.
[“Brawling” is not a valid course. Please select a teaching subject according to the curriculum categories.]
“What’s wrong with brawling? Brawling is very useful,” Arna said resentfully. “System, you’re being unreasonable.”
She opened the curriculum categories and browsed through the long list of course titles.
Mathematics?
*Cross that out.* Who wants to learn math in a game? Teaching it is out of the question too! She and math were mortal enemies!
Latin?
*What even is that?* No, no, no, she didn’t understand it herself; she wouldn’t inflict that on the students.
She scrolled for a long time before finding a subject to her liking.
*You’ll do—Mechanical Assembly! It looks very useful!*
***
Arna woke up early the next day and went out to fish.
She intended to save up some money to reach the market price so she could repaint the factory herself before operations began.
Thus, by the time she sold the fish and returned to Baker Street, it was already nine in the morning.
In the sitting room, besides Holmes and Watson, stood a group of small, slight figures.
“Ah, it seems our absent friend has finally returned,” Holmes, dressed in his dressing gown, gestured toward Arna with his coffee cup. “Our new colleague requires your talents, Wiggins. A way to deal with Whitechapel.”
the boy’s sharp eyes looked over and he winked at Arna.
“Greenland, right?” he said appraisingly.
Seeing that Arna didn’t understand him, the boy named Wiggins grinned. “Greenland is slang for a novice. I figured as much; only a fellow like that would attract such a swarm of bees.”
Holmes smiled. “Quite right. You will spread two stories—first, that the new owner is a soft sort from the country who only knows how to reach for his wallet but never notices what goes missing. Second…”
He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial low, “He doesn’t know how to run a factory and only knows carpentry. He boasts everywhere about his ancestral gold and provides hot mutton pies at noon.”
Wiggins snorted. “That’ll bring a crowd of flies in the blink of an eye. Fagin’s pups will be sniffing around by the weekend, looking for a hole to crawl into.”
He hesitated for a moment, becoming uncharacteristically solemn. “Some of those lads aren’t bad. Just hungry.”
Arna, who had been out of the loop waiting for the dialogue to end, snapped back to reality.
“What? You’re hungry?” Hearing the keyword, she reflexively pulled out the leftover biscuits from yesterday. “Want some?”
She began handing out biscuits to the children one by one.
“Thank you, sir,” the smallest girl murmured, clutching her biscuit.
She looked a bit skeptical about where exactly she was.
Wiggins, the leader, laughed.
“Even if you aren’t the brightest, I hope you’ll always be a kind man, sir,” he said. “God bless you.”
With that, he and his little squad disappeared down the stairwell with a clatter, just as they had arrived.
Leaving Arna standing there blankly, holding her biscuits.
“Hey, what do you mean I’m not bright?” She crossly took another bite of a biscuit to continue replenishing the stamina she’d lost from fishing. “Isn’t anyone going to speak up for me?”
Watson chuckled softly and gave her a consoling pat on the shoulder.