113: Where is that laboratory?

"Wow! Thanks a lot," Kasenhis slumped on the sofa, feeling utterly defeated.

"Well, as long as the suspect you're talking about doesn't have some sort of teleportation ability or wasn't performing some kind of mysterious magical ritual inside the restroom of your magical school," Sherlock said without hesitation.

"That shouldn't be the case—Hogwarts has anti-Apparition wards, and at the time, that bathroom was still in use. If he was trying to do a ritual, he probably wouldn't have been able to… huh?" Kasenhis paused, confused, as he looked at Sherlock, who was smiling mysteriously.

"A person like you talking about magic... and that look.. you know, don't you?"

"Heh, you think I wouldn't know about the Wizarding world?"

"What the actual holy fuck! How the hell do you know all this? Last I checked, you're supposed to be a normal person," Kasenhis asked suspiciously.

"About three years ago, I took on a case. You were busy at the time, renovating that second prince's estate or something," Sherlock said casually. "I'll skip the details—there was a lab called Baskerville, conducting experiments on massive, genetically altered beasts. They called them… werewolves."

"One of the werewolves escaped, and the head of the lab hired me to investigate and track it down," Sherlock continued.

Kasenhis suddenly felt a bit awkward, remembering that Lupin had once mentioned Sherlock tracking him in the past.

So that's what that was about...

"So, did someone stop you in the end?" Kasenhis asked.

Sherlock shook his head. "Of course not. I found the werewolf in a cave and talked to him for ten minutes. For the record, he was in human form at the time—if I hadn't seen him transform with my own eyes, I never would have guessed he was a werewolf at all."

"After talking for ten minutes, I decided to let him go. And that case? It was one of my rare failures. But honestly, I didn't mind one bit."

Kasenhis took a tactical sip from the small flask in his pocket. "So, when exactly did you figure me out?"

"From the very first time we met. Back when I hired you to renovate my home. Even though you were meticulous enough to buy a full set of building materials and made them all disappear after the renovation was done, I still found traces of something… off."

"That's when I started suspecting you. So, I began investigating. Hmm… orphaned as a child, attended public elementary and secondary school through social welfare, got into the University of Manchester for civil engineering on scholarships and grants thanks to excellent grades. On the surface, everything seemed perfectly… reasonable. Then I encountered that werewolf."

"To be honest, I hate him! I hate that werewolf! I hadn't even unraveled your secret yet, hadn't peeled away every layer to expose the truth, and that damn werewolf just spoiled the ending before I could get there! Damn magic, ruining all logic!" Sherlock said angrily.

"Uh… I'm so sorry for your loss," Kasenhis replied, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"But you magic types… Does the wizarding world even have math classes? Maybe the others never took them, but you did, didn't you? How did you not realize it?" Sherlock stared at him intently.

"…Realize what?"

"From the moment you knocked on my door until now, I've continuously dropped obvious hints that I already knew your identity. I was this close to spelling it out for you."

"Sherlock, how many times do I have to tell you—a normal person's brain does not function like yours!"

"First, you knocked instead of using the doorbell. I called you out for abandoning modern technology after leaving the scientific world, and yet you don't even use a simple doorbell anymore. Second, I pointed out that a normal person wouldn't just let a wizard who can do actual magic walk into their home."

"The third thing is those two bottles of wine you gave me. I highly doubt your so-called wizarding world has any kind of industrial production process. I would much rather drink that zero-day-aged, artificially blended concoction you put together than risk drinking anything mass-produced in the magical world.

Who knows? They might still be crushing grapes by having teenage girls stomp on them."

"And lastly, I outright reject any case that involves magic. Imagine spending days carefully deducing the solution to a locked-room murder, only for some damn magic spell to tell me I got the wrong suspect because the real killer was a wizard who could teleport! No sane detective enjoys dealing with magic!"

Sherlock's frustration was reaching new heights.

"Yeah… I can totally understand that," Kasenhis nodded. "But since you already know about magic, that saves me a trip to Manchester. I might as well ask for your help instead. You've got no cases right now, so maybe you can try solving geometric puzzles for fun—because, listen, I don't care if you fire bullets into your own walls, but if you start shooting holes into my house, I'm gonna have to step in."

Kasenhis pulled out his Arcane Handbook, flipping it open. The scrambled 3D map of Hogwarts floated up, hovering above the pages.

"…What is this?" Sherlock asked, visibly puzzled.

"Oh, right. Technically, you shouldn't even be able to see this." Kasenhis quickly took off his monocle and handed it to Sherlock.

As soon as Sherlock clipped it onto his face, the geometric shapes on the Arcane Handbook became visible to him.

He instinctively looked up at Kasenhis.

"…I can understand [Human]. I can understand [Magic]. But what the hell is [MC]?" Sherlock asked.

"Apologies, I don't get it either. I just hope you don't think too hard about the details." Kasenhis replied lazily.

"...…"

"I really don't know. But maybe you can just think of it as my special talent, like alchemy. This monocle is one of my own inventions—do you want me to make one for you?"

Sherlock shook his head. "No need. Giving me a cheating device like that would be an insult to the dignity of a great detective—one who constantly pushes the limits of human intelligence."

"Fine, fine. But I really didn't mean it that way," Kasenhis said.

"Of course you didn't. You speak before you think. If you weren't naturally kind and polite, and if you had the tendency to say offensive things, you'd have been thrown into the Thames in a burlap sack more times than I can count."

"Hah… Like you ever think before you speak." Kasenhis rolled his eyes.

"By the way, let me ask you something. That werewolf you were tracking—do you know his name?" Kasenhis asked.

"His name is Remus Lupin."

So I thought.. Kasenhis pinched the bridge of his nose. He had previously considered the possibility that Lupin and Sherlock had crossed paths because of some unrelated case, or that Sherlock had merely taken an interest in werewolves upon learning of their existence and decided to investigate.

But now, hearing Sherlock's confirmation, it turned out Lupin really had escaped from a laboratory…

"…Where exactly was that laboratory?"

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P@treon: Dragonel