Rubbing Off

Internal strength is potent, money is omnipotent, and love is almighty.
-British Proverb-

“Is that truly possible?”

After hearing our series of explanations, Mrs. Hudson showed exactly the reaction we had expected.

“It is possible.”

I had just finished discussing matters with Watson, bottled half of the completed Capri Sun, and handed it to her along with two sets of clothing.

“Uh…… Uhh…… Mm…….”

Mrs. Hudson, having received the glass bottle, was making strange sounds as if she had forgotten human language.

“I am worried whether I have understood correctly, so I would like to confirm once more. In other words, Mr. Holmes, you are saying that you intend to use this absurdly precious elixir merely to wash clothes, correct?”
“Precisely.”

Mrs. Hudson stood there without moving a muscle.

I could roughly tell what she was feeling.

Watson’s shawl and my Kung-Fu robes were both made using fabric woven from the fur of an Ancient Vicuna.

No matter how thoroughly she had mastered housekeeping Kung-fu, the very fact that precious fabric was being entrusted not to a laundry expert but to a boarding house landlady was already something far beyond the common sense of London Murim.

And that was not all.

What would be used for the washing was not ordinary water, but an elixir made by processing Mita Holy Water, known as the Mediterranean’s secret treasure and difficult for ordinary people to even see once in their lives, into an even more perfect form.

It was a situation where it would not be strange at all for any normal person to be crushed by the burden and refuse.

What if some small mistake caused the fabric to be damaged or another problem to occur? What if even a single drop of the precious elixir were spilled on the floor during the washing process?

A person with an ordinary heart would be unable to bear the sheer worry.

After all, ordinary people generally do not try to take on anything when they do not believe they can take responsibility for it.

However.

Mrs. Hudson was different.

Between her, Watson, and me, a trust had already formed that went beyond the relationship between an ordinary boarding house landlady and her tenants.

I could not even imagine Mrs. Hudson refusing my earnest request.

“I do not know any laundry worker I trust enough to entrust this to. If it were not you, Mrs. Hudson, I would not have dared to hand over the clothes and elixir of the two of us.”
“…….”
“Are you all right, madam? If it is too much of a burden, I will think of another method―”
“I will do it.”

Life returned to Mrs. Hudson’s eyes, which had been filled with emptiness.

She seemed to have briefly fainted while standing from shock at the elixir’s value, but in the meantime, she had apparently gathered herself.

“You said that from now on, Mr. Holmes and Miss Watson may have to fight the Italian underworld. I am nothing more than an ordinary woman, the sort found everywhere in London, who has learned nothing except how to draw out Sword Energy, but I at least know what is chivalry and what is not. Since I have not yet hired a new maid, I suppose I’m the only one who can do this. You are entrusting such precious things to me because you trust me. I will do my best. I promise that not a single drop of the elixir will be wasted.”

Mrs. Hudson tightened her grip on the bottle and nodded.

One hour later.

After sending Sherlock Holmes and Jane Watson back up to the second floor, Hudson stood in the backyard before a gigantic jar twice as tall as she was.

This enormous ceramic work, which she had strained to bring out from the basement storage, was a family heirloom Hudson had inherited from her mother-in-law when she married her now-deceased husband.

This jar was so huge and heavy that in the early days of her marriage, when her Kung-fu realm had still been low, it had been impossible to move without her husband’s help.

Until two hundred years ago, this jar was said to have been used only to pickle large quantities of pickles in cheap elixir, but Hudson’s mother-in-law had washed the jar clean and used it to mature healthy elixirs for the family.

This jar was a family heirloom steeped in the years of one middle-class household, the Primal Qi left by elixirs, and the Intent of women who had devoted themselves to their families.

For a long time, Hudson had left the jar abandoned underground so as not to recall her husband, who had died young after suffering from illness, but this time, there was no other way.

“My dear…… I am sorry…….”

Her eyes were tightly shut.
Behind her eyelids, the face of the one who had left still shimmered before her.

“I promised not to use this jar for anyone outside the family…….”

The widow Hudson had lived with a sense of responsibility for her spouse’s early death.

The past when she had spent nights drinking in an empty house without a single tenant, trying to forget her sorrow, still remained in her heart as an unerasable bruise.

This was why it had required such great courage and resolve for her to bring out the jar.

Even now, however, Hudson still could not be certain.

Was it truly right to use this jar, which contained memories of the short and happy newlywed life she had spent with the one she loved, for another purpose?

-Wooong!

It was then.

The jar vibrated and let out a gentle sound.

It was a sight as if it were responding to Hudson’s lament-filled sigh.

“……Are you granting me permission?”

When she placed her hand on the jar, she felt a faint warmth from the surface of the old ceramic where the glaze had worn away.

She could not understand what its true nature was, but Hudson felt as though the energy emitted by the jar was encouraging her choice.

As if saying he was sorry for leaving too soon, and that those who remained by her side in his stead were also no different from family.

Hudson was experiencing the strange sensation that the trace of Intent dwelling in the jar was speaking directly to her heart.

“My dear…….”

After holding the jar in her arms for a while, Hudson wiped her reddened eyes with her sleeve and rolled up her sleeves.

“Watch over me. I will live in a way I need not be ashamed of.”

The man who had left her an unforgettable first love and the name Hudson before departing.

Though his body had been weak, he possessed a heart of a chivalrous hero, with a nature more upright than anyone and unable to ignore injustice.

As his wife, so that on the day they would someday face one another again, she could raise her head proudly.

Hudson resolved to do everything she could.

-Sreuk.

Hudson tightly tied her apron.

“Haap!”

Unfolding lightness skill and leaping up, she opened the stopper blocking the jar’s mouth, then scattered charcoal powder and Samadhi True Fire inside to complete the removal of impurities and sterilization.

-Hwareuk!

A pillar of flame surged up.

Into the jar, where only a gentle fragrance remained instead of unpleasant odors, Hudson threw the two sets of Kung-Fu robes she was holding.

-Chwaaak!

Next, she promptly poured in the elixir Holmes had given her and began drawing up her internal energy with all her might.

This was a single act of laundry meant to protect the lives of her new family.

Just as some argued that bathing was a sacred rite that washed away the grime of the soul, Hudson had always believed that laundry was not so different.

Clothes and shoes are like the owner’s alter ego.

To wash Sherlock Holmes’s and Jane Watson’s clothes clean was the same as removing the misfortune and calamity that would block the road ahead of the two.

“Hoo.”

After sealing the jar again, Hudson drew up her internal energy and regulated her breathing.

The reason she was using the jar was because not a single drop of the elixir could be wasted.

And among the Kung-fu she had trained in, there was only one method for carrying out laundry from outside a sealed jar.

-Tak!

With a reverent expression, Hudson brought her palms together.

As if praying to God.
As if praying for the happiness of the one who had left, herself who had been left behind, and her new family.

This was the starting posture for unfolding the housekeeping Kung-fu she had trained in before her wedding.

A trick learned by every middle-class married woman and maid living in London.

However, including Hudson, there were not even two people on Baker Street who had trained it to the utmost stage and could unfold it.

“Thames Water Art, Second Form, Dragon Spiral Ascension―”

-Tak!
-Saaaaaa!!!

The moment Hudson’s two hands struck the ceramic, the elixir contained inside the jar reacted to her internal energy and began slowly moving.

The Thames Water Art was Kung-fu made in imitation of the ceaseless flow of the Thames.

This Kung-fu, created solely to make various household chores such as laundry and cooking easier to handle, contained the mystery of Taiji, yet displayed the pinnacle of softness, which broke nothing at all.

“Ahh.”

Just how long had it been since she had attempted this?

A sigh slipped from Hudson’s mouth without her realizing.

Though she could not see it with her eyes, she could feel the series of movements that had begun inside the jar.

This was because the energy sense trained through long years of housework could accurately grasp the traces left by the faint Yang Qi emitted by the two sets of Kung-Fu robes.

-Chwaaaaa!!!

Sherlock Holmes’s and Jane Watson’s clothes were swept up in the vortex made by the elixir and spinning dizzily inside the jar.

Hudson quietly closed her eyes and focused on the energy emitted by the fabric.

The sight of the two sets of clothes, sleeves entwined with sleeves, moving felt as though they were dancing a waltz.

At times quickly, at times slowly.

The two sets of clothes entrusted themselves to the flow of elixir stirred by Hudson’s Kung-fu and roamed freely inside the jar.

As Hudson watched this through her energy sense, memories of the day of her wedding began to revive in her mind.

Memories of that day still rose vividly.

The two, who made their vows amid the blessings of family and friends.
Following Jewish tradition, they broke a glass plate and danced all night.

A promise to be together no matter what happened, in joy or in sorrow.
Though she had never resented her husband, who had broken it and departed first.

“……Oh my.”

An early-summer shower trickled down her cheek.
A tiny raindrop wet Mrs. Hudson’s collar.

“It mustn’t…… rain.”

Although only one drop had fallen, Hudson, her eyes closed, believed without a doubt that it was rainwater.

“Now I understand.”

Since the jar had been sealed, she was not worried that the laundry might get wet from water, but Hudson was experiencing a sensation as if her heart were being torn apart.

It was a kind of realization. And gratitude.

“You had never once left my side all this time.”

Each time the fabric absorbed the elixir, its movements visibly slowed.

And finally, when the two sets of Kung-Fu robes that had been dancing a waltz came to a stop.

Hudson opened her eyes and raised her head.

She felt that she understood now.

The fact that her beloved had not once broken his promise, not even until now.

“…….”

A cloudless sky.

In the warm air, fresh grass swayed gently with the wind.

There had never been any shower from the beginning.

Even so.

“Thank you…….”

In the London sky, there hung.

The oldest symbol of promise in all human history.

“For being with me again today.”

A rainbow, shining brilliantly in seven colors.