The Darsha Estate was surprisingly hot that night. After the storm of the royal court, the madness of attempted assassinations, and the constant bickering with nobles, Sharath sought solace in something apparently ordinary: dinner with family.
Lady Ishvari cradled one twin and spoon-fed the other, occasionally reprimanding Lord Bassana for attempting to stick sweets into the babies' mouths. Lord Varundar Darsha, Sharath's father, sat at the head of the table, narrating tales of past campaigns in his calm voice. Grandfather Darsha, bright-eyed with merchant's guile, interspersed the anecdotes with comments on logistics, profit, and the shortsightedness of nobles who had no idea about coin.
Sharath, though, remained silent. For once, he wasn't plotting new dungeon tactics, not drawing blueprints in his head, not even arguing with 🐧NeuroBoop. He just listened.
That peace was shattered in seconds.
Heavy hall doors crashed open, and a servant entered, white-faced and out of breath.
"My lords! My lady!" the man panted. "There has been… an accident!"
All of them spun around. Sharath's fork halted mid-air.
"What was it?" Lord Varundar demanded.
The servant stammered wildly. "Clothes—river—fluster—she drowned—washerwoman—"
"Wait," Sharath cut in, his voice cutting but controlled. He stood up, face darkening. "Speak slowly. Each word."
The servant swallowed. "The washerwoman, master… the one who washes for half the town. She slipped off while washing at the riverbank. The current swept her away. She drowned. There is chaos. Her family—"
The hallway went quiet. Even the twins ceased to complain, as if catching the weight of the sorrow.
Sharath's chair scraped out. He didn't pause for leave or comment. He took a pot off the wall — not to be eaten from, but to carry water in — and walked towards the door.
"Sharath, where are you going?" Lady Ishvari called out to him.
"To search," he replied without looking back. "For her body. For dignity. For closure."
They discovered her ahead of daybreak, downstream. Sharath, mud-stained and dripping wet, stood with some guardsmen and villagers as they pulled the woman's body out of the river. Her calloused hands, twisted back from years of work.
He shut his eyes and recited a prayer. He turned to the family, sobbing openly on the bank.
I cannot bring her back," he said quietly, his voice low and unyielding. "But I can ensure no one else is treated thus."
He pressed a pouch of coin into the hands of her oldest son. "This is collateral, for the moment. More will follow — not in coin only, but in change.
When he got back to the estate, Sharath did not rest. He strode straight into his old laboratory — the one that had witnessed the genesis of slime cloth, early magic guns, and half a dozen busted contraptions that 🐧NeuroBoop still liked to rag on him about.
The lab reeked of dust and iron, but it came alive again the instant Sharath started hauling tools from their shelves.
"A washing machine," he grumbled, scribbling madly on parchment. "Not an indulgence. A necessity. No more women straining their backs at the river. No more deaths."
"Oh, yeah," 🐧NeuroBoop's voice chimed in his head, snarky as always. "From slime guns to slime plushies to slime balloons, and now… laundry day. Really covering all the epic hero bases, aren't you?"
Sharath ignored it, adjusting the rune schematics. "Manual crank… no, too tiring. Pedal-driven? No, people would cheat and hire kids. A simple magic-core motor, water input, rotational drum—"
"Congratulations, you've invented spin cycle. At this rate you'll be selling detergent next."
"Shut up and optimize the water-rune distribution."
To his amazement, 🐧NeuroBoop did just that, flooding his mind with schematics. He blinked as the visions overlay themselves in his field of vision.
In days, the first prototype rumbled in the lab. A drum-shaped cylinder rotated smoothly as water runes ran through, cleaning clothes with magical economy. Clothes were washed for the first time without riverbanks, without backbreaking sweat, without peril.
When Lord Darsha and Lord Bassana saw, their responses divided in two.
Grandfather Darsha's eyes at once shone like gold coins. "A public washing machine? Boy, you've fallen upon another fortune! Think of it — we sell these to every family, every nobleman, every merchant—"
Sharath interrupted him abruptly. "No.
The whole room blinked at him. Sharath straightened up, his expression stern. "This is not for gain. Not like that. If we charge them noble prices, the common folk will still go to the river. People will continue to drown. No. This will be like a public tax system."
He unrolled the plan with unexpected clarity:
Public washing halls, constructed in each town.
Machines serviced by mechanics and rune-smiths.
Parents pay a small amount — a percentage of laundry prices.
The machines are inexpensive to operate, supported by mass taxation.
Eventually, the halls pay themselves off through volume, while they save many lives.
"We don't sell them as luxuries," Sharath declared. "We make them public utilities. Like wells. Like roads. It benefits everyone. Everyone pays a little bit. And because everyone uses it, we still profit — more than if we had attempted to squeeze nobles."
There was silence. Then Bassana smiled, shaking his head. "Trust my son to turn mourning into both invention and reform."
Grandfather Darsha clamped his lips together, evidently conflicted between his smell for money and his grandson's idealism. At last, he sighed. "Very well. If it profits by quantity, I shall not grumble. But don't think this won't cause trouble. Nobles will object. Merchants will be cursing us. You're hijacking an entire cottage trade."
"Let them curse," Sharath grumbled. "The river already cursed us first.
By the end of the week, the first "Public Wash Hall" was up in Unnatirajya. Villagers stood around the whirring rune-barrel machine with skeptical looks.
Some snickered. "A box that cleans clothes? Sorcery!"Others complained. "What's wrong with soap and hard work?"But when the first load of laundry emerged stain-free, warm, and scented — without anyone standing shivering in the river — jaws dropped.
The next day, there was a line outside the hall. By the end of the week, the line stretched across the square.
Sharath stood on a balcony, watching. For once, the chaos wasn't dungeon-born, wasn't noble-driven. It was simple people, marveling at safety and convenience.
"Congratulations," 🐧NeuroBoop muttered, "you've just reinvented the laundromat. Next step: coin-operated slime dryers. You'll be richer than detergent barons."
Sharath allowed himself a small smile.
But in the recesses of his mind, he realized this was just the tip of the iceberg. Every innovation brought advancement — and each advancement step attracted envy, greed, and politics.
And so, as the wash room hummed, Sharath went quietly about drafting his next drawings — defensive walls, patrol lines, and extensions of the machines to new industries. If survival meant invention, then invention would never end.