Sherlock Holmes

In fact, laws are always only applicable within a certain scope.

Just like a crazy murderer, when he is arrested, he will inevitably be punished by law. When he is executed, the people under the gallows will be indignant and wait for him to kick his legs and die. Then he clapped his hands wildly.

No one thinks it's inappropriate because he committed a crime, but no one digs into why he kills people, and no one wants to know that he works in the factory 18 hours a day and earns money for his boss every month. It was not a small amount of imperial currency, but when settling the bill, I could only get a few dozen yuan. In the end, watching her daughter die in a damp and dim room because of medical expenses, my wife couldn't stand the excitement and jumped across the river around the city. bridge.

Anyway, he committed a murder, so he is the criminal. Although the owner of the factory is hateful and will be scolded and condemned, he does not stab people with a knife. He just enjoys life with a lot of money.

There is no crime in enjoying life.

The current price of workers is like this. The murderer cannot make money because he is not good at it. If he were a banker, his daughter's disease would have been cured long ago.

This is how society operates, and law is only a tool to maintain social stability.

And if the existence of a certain person is the cornerstone of social stability, then this person will not be punished by the law no matter what.

In fact, the law was enacted to protect him.

The food in the restaurant is very good. Most people who work in the School of Life Sciences are very concerned about the quality of the food, because they rarely have time to have a serious meal. This leads to the fact that even a roadside fast food stall is... Pay attention to nutritional balance.

Moreover, customers can see that the food you sell is nutritionally unbalanced, and they really understand.

At two o'clock in the afternoon, Sherlock and Catherine arrived at a huge experimental base. This was the crime scene and the place where the old dean died.

The Academy of Life Sciences is the most cutting-edge institution for demonological research in the entire empire. There are more than two hundred dedicated demon observation rooms, large and small anatomy areas, and even many huge areas dedicated to testing the combat effectiveness of demons.

Along the way, through the glass on both sides of the corridor, he saw many people wearing isolation overalls holding buzzing circular saws, cutting into the bodies of demons of various shapes, some of which were alive. Yes, some were dead. Anyway, blood of different colors spurted out with different intensity, but the people around them didn't react at all. This was their working environment and they had long been used to it.

Soon, he entered an observation room under the leadership of Catherine. Looking at the two huge demons soaked in some unknown solution, Sherlock truly felt in his heart that this... The trip is enough to be considered a worthwhile trip.

There should be few people in this world who can observe a third-level great demon so closely.

Although I had been in contact with a large demon before, that guy was in a crazy state of attacking anyone he saw, and it was impossible for me to focus on the level of 'watching'.

The two figures in front of me stood quietly in front of me, motionless, like two sculptures with strange shapes, but also extremely violent beauty. I allowed myself to appreciate every detail of them without any scruples. .

As he watched, Sherlock suddenly discovered an interesting phenomenon, or a coincidence.

That is, it seems that all the powerful demons he has encountered tend to be in [human form] to varying degrees.

To be more specific, there are parts that can be called [head], [limbs], and [torso], as well as the posture of [standing].

For example, the second-order peak black giant he once saw in hell, or the third-order demon like an ancient giant ape he encountered at the disaster scene of the airship crash, and the two now in front of him .

One of them reached a height of nearly twenty meters, causing Sherlock to stand under it and look up, feeling as if he were looking up at the giant clock on the banks of the Thames in London. Its limbs are very strong, and every inch of skin is It is all wrapped in a kind of hard scales. Because the scales are too thick and dense, its body looks uncoordinated. At this moment, it is slowly floating in the liquid that is constantly changing colors, with tubes of different colors inserted behind it. , hanging down from the ceiling of the laboratory like a colorful waterfall, creating a strong visual contrast with the boring gray and white of the whole body.

The other one is much smaller, but it is still seven meters tall. It is red and white. The red is the exposed skin or flesh, and the white is the bones growing on the body surface. Most of these bones are. Distributed on the arms, shoulders, sides of the chest, etc., it seems to have grown specifically for fighting. Compared to the other one, it is more like a human being, with powerful shoulders and leg lines, but a waist It's very slender, and its head is slightly tilted forward, keeping it in a 'hunched' state. Combined with its overly three-dimensional head profile, slender red eyes, and exposed teeth, it looks a little crazy. The smell seemed like it would rush out of the container in the next second and tear everything in sight into pieces.

"This demon is the test object that my father has been trying to establish a contractual relationship with over the years. It was transported from Redeker Strait many years ago. For it, eleven Crusaders' contractors died, as well as eight A steam chariot." Catherine saw Sherlock looking at the demon with a bit of amazement, so she explained next to her:

"Judging from the experimental records, it became my father's contracted demon two years ago. However, perhaps due to the different contract methods, my father's death did not have a backlash on it. At least until now, it has not It didn’t show any visible damage, it just stopped moving.”

"Not moving?"

"Yes, my father died at that time, and then this guy never moved again. I think this may be a sign of its backlash, such as being in a vegetative state or something like that."

Sherlock raised his head and looked at the scary red and white demon in front of him again. He felt an inexplicable feeling of regret and sadness in his heart. He felt that if he could only lie in bed one day, motionless, it would be better to die.

"Does this guy have a name?"

"Yes, Experimental Subject No. 1070 of Laboratory No. 19."

"...It's really in line with the habits of a scientific researcher." Sherlock said with a wry smile.

"But a few days ago, I heard some staff in the laboratory call it 'Crimson'. I guess it's because the code name is too long, so it's convenient to call it that way."

"." Sherlock was silent for a while, looking through the other person's bones and landing on his crimson body: "Named directly by color, it seems to be in line with the nature of the staff here."

After looking at the crimson demon in front of him, Sherlock looked at the extraordinarily huge guy on the other side.

If you look at the size alone, this one is two to three times the size of the Crimson Demon. The thick scales make it almost impossible to distinguish the curvature between its head and body. One leg is as big as the Crimson Demon's waist. Be thick.

"So this one is the one that killed Dean Darwin?" Sherlock asked.

"Yes. This one was just transported from the giant island of Odilia. I should have told you before. It originally belonged to an officer on the Hell Gate front line. It was recruited five years ago because of the need for experiments. , but it wasn’t until two and a half years ago that my father fully contracted the Crimson Devil and put it into use.”

Sherlock listened to Catherine's explanation and circled around the huge demon, carefully observing every detail of it. However, because its size was so huge, it was difficult to walk around the circle. It took several minutes.

"Does it have a name?" Sherlock asked.

"Yes" Catherine responded, but for some reason, this question seemed to cause her some discomfort, causing her to take a deep breath before continuing: "It's called [The Hound of the Baskervilles] ]."

".?" Sherlock was a little confused. He glanced at the giant demon in front of him again and found that this thing didn't seem to have any elements that could be related to [Hound], but its mouth was a little protruding, and it barely looked like a dog. Characteristics.

Seemingly sensing Sherlock's thoughts, Catherine explained:

"Actually, the subject of this title is not the devil, but its owner.

Its summoner is named Baskerville, who is the chief of staff of the First Covenant Legion on the Hell Gate front and is directly under the command of General Patton.

And because the demon controlled by this person is too powerful and precise. As mentioned before, his contract ability has been praised by Lord Dante.

In short, in the eyes of others, his contracted demon is like a hound that has been trained to the extreme.

So there is such a name.

Of course, this is just a name given to him by those who have seen his abilities on the battlefield.

As for himself, he has never given his demon any name. Perhaps in his view, the demon is always just a tool to serve the contractor. "

This explanation made Sherlock nod at first, saying that he knew where the word "hound" came from, but then he became even more confused, because he didn't know until this moment that he was in the contracted army establishment on the front line. , and the position of 'Chief of Staff'.

During the time Catherine was telling him, he searched several times in his mind and found that he had never heard of [Baskerville].

But according to common sense, this person should have already become famous among the people of the empire!

The First Contract Legion on the front line is undoubtedly an existence that everyone knows about in the empire, because it can be seen in almost all areas of the reclamation front line, in the most difficult battles, and in the most impossible tasks. The figure of this legion.

They are a special operations group formed by pure contractors. Everyone selected among them is the most powerful Crusader warrior. The frontline military section of the Holy Journal has an article about the achievements of this legion almost every month. According to reports, during the rescue mission, they were a spear that tore everything apart, piercing into the center of the frozen soil demons and bringing back all the besieged soldiers; during the tug-of-war, they could rely solely on their own team , without any external aid and in the darkest night, they defended the war zone for five months. The hardships and deaths they experienced during this period were enough to make any human being mentally broken, but these soldiers did not retreat even one step; during the annihilation battle, These people will become the craziest butchers, leading their contracted creatures to cause a torrential rain of blood on the front line of the war;

In short, in the twelve years since the formation of this legion, there has never been any failure in the missions carried out. It seems that in the eyes of this group of people, there is only death, no retreat, only the completion of the mission, and no failure to return. The death of every warrior will be reported in a full page in the Holy Journal, and their corpses will follow the highest heroic funeral standards in the entire empire and be buried with great honor.

It is the most powerful and elite legion among the Crusaders.

His chief of staff has remained unknown, and the existence of such a person has not even been mentioned in any newspaper.

No matter how you think about it, something is wrong.

So Sherlock thought for a while and then thought of the biggest possibility. He looked at Catherine and said:

"Did he do something that would affect the image of the Crusaders among the people of the empire, so the newspapers wiped out all reports about him?"

Catherine was a little hesitant. She didn't know whether she should tell Sherlock about this kind of thing, but seeing that the other party had already guessed it, she nodded: "Indeed, as the chief of staff of the First Contract Legion, this person undoubtedly has the entire The most outstanding military exploits in the Crusaders.

But he did do some extremely cruel and bloody things.”

As she spoke, Catherine frowned slightly, then corrected:

"No, it's not 'done'. It's that he has been doing cruel things. Because his behavior is too far away from humanism, it will definitely affect the acceptance of the Crusaders in people's hearts. Therefore, General Patton issued a military order. His name is not allowed to appear in any reports.

But Chief of Staff Baskerville didn't seem to care much about this.

He never cared about whether his reputation was good or not, let alone whether the people of the empire knew about his existence.

All in all, he seems to have been a weirdo from the start.

If he hadn't been a rare genius on the battlefield for centuries, he would have been executed by military order long ago."

As Sherlock listened to Catherine's words, his expression became more and more solemn, but at the same time he became more and more interested. He thought of that extremely cold place far away from imperial civilization, where killing and blood were the main theme, and he couldn't help but ask:

"So...what did he do?"