I regulate energy. Therefore, I am.
–René Descartes
I apologized politely to Mrs. Hudson and promised to pay for the repairs at the end of the month.
What exactly does Stomping Steps mean?
I couldn’t understand what had been happening since earlier.
“You must be very tired…”
My brain must be exhausted.
For now, I need to rest and assess the situation—
-Thud.
…but in the end, as soon as I entered the bedroom, I buried myself in the mattress and fell fast asleep.
I had a long dream.
I was still the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, but the British Empire I saw in my dream felt strangely unfamiliar.
Criminals soared in the sky, demolished buildings, and exhibited powers that surpassed human limits.
In facing them, I too employed martial arts far more formidable than the Baritsu I once knew.
The battle with the villains I experienced in the dream was nothing short of the occult itself, which I loathe.
Humans ignoring gravity and walking in the air, even breaking walls with their bare fists!
Such absurd occurrences happening in reality are simply untenable for someone who is a devout believer in science.
‘This isn’t reality!’
Unable to bear it, I shouted in the dream and woke up from the nightmare.
“…Horrifying.”
The scenes from the dream still vividly lingered in my mind.
From the so-called Master babbling incomprehensible things about Indirect Power Transfer or Succession, while infusing strange power into my body.
To the endless training leading to my becoming a master, every last bit of it.
Thanks to my exceptional intellect and memory, all the bizarre concepts and knowledge I encountered in the dream remained firmly etched in my mind.
If necessary, I could recite them as if they were another reality.
“……”
My imagination ranks among the exceptional.
When entrusted with solving a case, just seeing a few clues was sufficient for me to deduce what kind of actions the criminal had employed.
However, the information I encountered in the dream had nothing to do with the knowledge system I had previously built up.
Elixirs, martial arts, all sorts of absurd, nonsensical things.
While it’s true that I possess some understanding of Eastern culture, I have no hobby of creating concepts that do not exist in reality.
Perhaps my subconscious has the qualities of an excellent writer.
While entertaining such thoughts, my gaze suddenly fell upon the evening newspaper from last night, placed atop the side table.
‘…Could it be that I was imagining things?’
The date written at the top was still March 7, 1881.
On the front page, there was still the picture of the rejuvenated
Her Majesty the Queen.
‘It seems verification is in order.’
There have been more than a few things that felt off since last night.
Normally, if I had a question unrelated to the case, I’d dismiss it as a nuisance, take a morphine injection, and lie down, but this time is an exception.
Now, I am consumed by a strong curiosity and impulse rising from deep within my heart.
In such times, it’s better to go out directly.
Hastily, I gathered my coat, hat, and magnifying glass, and as I was about to leave, I realized I had forgotten something.
“Goodness… What’s come over me?”
My gaze fixed on the tobacco pipe on the living room table.
It was much thinner and longer than the one I usually used.
“I almost forgot my pipe.”
Reflexively reaching out for it, words I hadn’t expected were spilling from my mouth.
Clenching the suspiciously unfamiliar yet oddly fitting pipe between my teeth, I stepped out onto the street.
Even as I greeted Mrs. Hudson and walked down Baker Street, I did not cease my observations and musings.
The sky in London was gloomy in this world as well. The ground was damp from the rain that fell at dawn. I walked, avoiding the puddles that had formed here and there.
If this place was truly different from the London I knew, and if the events I saw in my dreams actually happened, there would be evidence supporting it everywhere.
“Hmm.”
I didn’t have to wait long.
Soon, I saw an old postman running at a fast pace from north of Baker Street.
-Ta-ta-tat!
The elderly postman in his late sixties was moving with an agility far surpassing the street urchins of Baker Street.
If that was all, it might have felt out of place but not necessarily strange. However.
Amazingly, the old man was accurately tossing letters into the mailboxes of buildings lined up on either side as he ran down the street.
He was even running over puddles, yet not a single drop of water splashed around him.
“Mounting Duckweed, Traversing Water—Jesus Walk…”
I swear, I did not see something imaginary.
As I witnessed before my eyes the realm of the body technique of running on water, I could only feel a strange sensation.
The postman wasn’t the only oddity.
At Portman Square, where Baker Street and Wigmore Street intersect, elderly women were gathered, holding blunt swords or iron fans.
There was music playing on a gramophone and they were dancing energetically to it, their movements so agile that their age seemed irrelevant.
Tai-chi Square Sword Dance.
Though it appeared lacking in practicality as a sword dance practiced by elderly women for their health, mastering the essence of the original swordsmanship it derived from was an entirely different matter.
…For some reason, such absurd knowledge had firmly taken root in my mind…
“This is utterly absurd.”
I had walked for barely ten minutes, yet evidence was steadily piling up that this London, rewound through time, was entirely different from the one I had once inhabited.
Once the impossible is eliminated, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Unless I was seeing things or had gone mad, it meant that everything unfolding before my eyes was indeed reality.
I have traveled back in time to the past, and this is not the London I knew.
Then, what I must do immediately is gather information.
The first order of business, of course, was to gather information.
“I’ll take this one.”
Without delay, I entered the nearest bookshop and purchased a history book.
Up until now, I had dismissed history outside of criminal affairs as an uninteresting field, refusing to even acquire knowledge in the subject. But at this moment, it was exactly what I needed.
Returning home, I sighed softly as I perused the preface of the history book.
Indeed, the history of this world was dreadfully distant from the place I had lived.
Though the geography and residents of London were the same, this world was undeniably a place I had never experienced before.
No.
Buying the history book was purely an action to verify objective evidence, and I already knew well enough what kind of world this was.
Because the life of another Sherlock Holmes that I experienced in last night’s dream was neatly organized in my mind.
“…Was that it.”
I formed a hypothesis.
The very existence of Mrs. Hudson in this world suggests that Watson, Inspector Lestrade, and even Moriarty might all be here, in exactly the same manner that I know them.
If so, what I must do is clear.
I shall resolve the cases that have fallen into a labyrinth, and see that the culprits are confined to their cells, just as I did prior to this regression.
My greatest pleasure is born from that process, and criminal investigation is the field where I can best utilize the abilities I possess.
“To judge by amusement alone, this London is undoubtedly better…”
As soon as I became aware of the presence of my dantian, I started to feel an energy bubbling up from my lower abdomen, tickling inside my body.
This is the karma I’ve accumulated in this world.
An intangible force known as internal energy.
‘If only I can manage this properly—’
Martial arts exist.
With knowledge and wisdom, and now with this newfound power as well.
I may indeed secure a perfect victory over Moriarty this time.
Above all, I should be able to protect London from his grasp without sacrificing my life.
“I’ll send you to a court far higher than that of this earthly realm.”
There was no need to worry about where to start.
Because I have already decided what to do immediately.
What I need to gain the trust of my irreplaceable friend and assistant, Watson, whom I’ll meet in six days, is the overwhelming prowess of consulting detective Sherlock Holmes.
‘If only I possessed enough strength, everything would proceed smoothly.’
When I left the house earlier, I instinctively picked up my pipe.
This indicates that the memories of another me who lived in this world are surfacing unconsciously.
The fact that I accidentally destroyed the floor just last night is evidence that both my mind and body still recall those martial techniques.
Of course, this doesn’t mean I can fully understand and control all the power accumulated by the me of this world.
This is most certainly a disappointing matter.
In a world where even the postman utilizes lightness skills, there is little hope for a half-baked individual like myself, who cannot master martial arts, to combat criminals effectively.
So.
“Let’s Begin Again.”
I locked the door, then settled on the floor in a lotus position, following the unfamiliar knowledge filling my head.
What the Sherlock Holmes of this world mastered was a unique martial art of an unknown grandmaster who had traveled through Europe and Asia, combining the cultivation method, movement techniques, and forms of various martial sects into the One Person Inheritance, Unpassed to the Inhuman martial art, the exclusive Baritsu…
Closing my eyes and circulating my internal energy according to the verses of the cultivation method, I could feel a hot energy moving along my meridians.
I no longer rejected this new knowledge or dismissed it as nonsense.
If this too was a power accumulated by my blood and sweat in this world, it was only right to accept it.
-Whoooosh!
Thus, I, Sherlock Holmes, stepped into a new realm.
Elementary, the most fundamental of fundamentals that anyone who masters martial arts must go through.
By beginning with Breath Control.
TL/N: When the Manchus took over the Ming Dynasty and established the Qing Dynasty, they established a law that required all men to wear their hair in the queue hairstyle. The queue hairstyle is where the hair on top of the scalp is grown long and is often braided, while the front portion of the head is shaven. ️