Chapter 18 · 9 min

Chapter 18

Arthur Lee and the Mysterious Magic School

[To dear sponsor, Chairman of the Board of Trade Gladstone.

Hello Member. This is Arthur Lee.

Thanks to Member’s much guidance and active support, I was able to enter Eton like this and become Member’s junior.

This Eton is much more terrible than any slum in Joseon.

Teachers swing clubs or whips when time comes, and chatter like parrots to memorize the few texts. Short class time is truly fortunate for me who has to do translation work, but instead outside class time I have to suffer the tyranny of upper grades.

The meat that comes out as much as a rat’s tail is all the upper grades’ share and new students live like slaves. Rats swarm everywhere and stench is full and heating is not properly turned on, catching these rats and playing with them or throwing them like grenades is a bit fun though...

I am mastering <sneaking into the prohibited tavern next to the school and buying beer> before <Odyssey> at Eton. Because if I can’t buy it I get hit.

Fortunately I have a little talent in gambling so I covered various errand fees or food expenses not to starve to death. But clumsy friends who have no rich father and can’t gamble or pickpocket are experiencing what economic bankruptcy is from the first semester. I lent money to some friends at cheap interest and instead gained friendship...

Anyway if as a senior you transmit know-how or life tips for adapting to Eton the junior late learner will gladly master it. Thank you.

Arthur Lee respectfully.]

[To dear Arthur Lee.

Imprinting Eton’s academic style and honor on the body is painful but a clear growth process. The reason Arthur regards this as a great hardship is surely because he went through a somewhat different growth process from others.

It might be somewhat unfamiliar words to a boy but if I do not spare a little advice, all gentlemen of Britain from young call their father ‘Master’ with respect and cultivate the heart of respecting superiors, and receive the cane of love with whips and clubs and govern the evil heart that tries to go astray or derail. The late Henry Lee if alive would never have spared the whip to Arthur either.

Thinking of a boy who did not grow up getting hit I feel great regret whether I should have brought him to our house. He should have been hit in advance from young so his resilience would hold...

If it has not changed greatly from when I attended Eton, I want to tip the boy that polishing sports game betting rather than card games is advantageous for spending school life without bankruptcy and without incident in the long term. Please cultivate the habit of betting on favorites rather than underdogs.

And if there is something better than polishing sports game betting it is by far training the boy’s fist. God’s words are far and Confucius’s words are much farther but the fist does not betray the boy. Beat them. If not at Eton when else will you turn the jaw of a noble house young master?

No matter how excellent Arthur is academically, being branded as a weakling is truly not honorable. To gain respect with learning and character takes 3 years but gaining respect with the fist takes just 3 seconds...

Nevertheless the fact that Eton’s environment is poor is hard to deny. Thinking now, even prison prisoners seem to eat and sleep better than Eton students.

But don’t worry too much. You already know that many seniors are fundraising and building a new building, right? When the new building is all built the living environment will improve, and they say they plan to hire servants and provide breakfast so it seems much more comfortable than when I attended school.

Anyway I pray you are reborn as an excellent gentleman at Eton.

Your sponsor.

P.S. Potato blight is spreading quickly. Has Arthur perhaps learned Eastern astrology or divination?]

***

[To beloved Daniel hyung.

Hyung, are you doing well? I am busy adapting after entering Eton here.

This is an indescribably terrible environment, and teachers who whenever bored not even a cane but immediately punch people’s heads with fists-]

[To Arthur.

I feel like my chest is dropping and very afraid whether my attending boarding school ruined your future.

Since father is not here the eldest son I should have beaten you with a club! What is this mere study that I neglected while my younger brother is growing like a weed without even getting hit?

It is truly fortunate that Eton’s teachers are excellently not sparing the cane...]

“Ah fuck really!!!”

- C-calm down friend.

Does it look like I can calm down!!

***

A story about a certain boy with a lightning-shaped scar and a magic school.

I thought that was a well-written fantasy novel, but recently my thoughts were gradually changing.

Perhaps that... might have been reflected as the collective unconscious of the ‘dream’ or ‘wish’ of people who lived on this marine island of Britain.

“Kyaaaaaak!”

“Meat! Easily digestible meat!”

“Haha! If you don’t like it you become upperclassmen too! We were also robbed!”

“Originally new students live licking even the sauce stuck on the plate!”

Ghosts that wandered the magic school? Here at Eton upperclassmen run wild like ghosts.

“What wrong did my fag do that you’re picking a fight?”

“This bastard is acting impudent. Aren’t you managing properly?”

“Since you only aim for the ass every day of course he acts impudent, you bastard. Eat your own fag.”

“You son of a bitch. Come outside.”

“Think I can’t come out? Today you die by my hand.”

School life shooting spells or curses at each other? There are no curses but they shoot punches.

“Jjarajjan jjan jjan. Let’s open.”

“Aaaak!! My one month food money!!”

“I even bet the house rent!”

“Didn’t Homer tell you not to bet if not sure?”

Various more dignified gambling instead of wizard chess.

“Run! Faster! Hiyaa!!”

“If you lose you’re fucked! Aren’t you driving properly?!”

Carriage racing reminiscent of the movie <Ben-Hur> instead of riding brooms (against school rules).

The Thames River where one or two drown every time the cooldown turns but anyway everyone jumps in without growing magic gill grass or something.

Yes.

This Eton is definitely the real model of the magic school. Just looking at throwing fists instead of wands this is real magic.

Look at this marine school full of madness, no magic school. The guys attending here are all people who will become elites of the British Empire.

In short a place that makes even normal people into madmen. That’s why psychoanalysis develops later. Because the social leaders are all released into the world as bloodthirsty barbarians so the European powers ran wild so much, right.

This place is no different from a small ecosystem showing how the Victorian era, 19th century Europe rolls.

School rules are strict, and violators who do not observe them receive punishment accompanied by merciless beating.

But these strict school rules were truly at the whim of the taffy seller, there were plenty of ‘officially rule violations but everyone does them knowingly’ and plenty of ‘it is rule violation but everyone does it without getting caught’.

Rowing, that is boat racing, is said to have been prohibited as a school rule violation until a few years before I entered. But from very long ago Eton students have been diligently riding boats and racing, and there were even times when teachers watched. Theater is also prohibited by school rules, but it is an implicit rule that lower students do theater saying tradition or whatever.

Whether tobacco or alcohol or gambling as long as not caught. Even if caught sometimes teachers pretend not to see and pass over many times.

In this environment what on earth will kids learn. Will they learn the importance of law and rules, or realize that law is the justification when the strong beats the weak?

- Why suddenly became a fighter for education reform.

Fuck... because I got hit so much blood doesn’t come out of the pants. I’m going crazy.

No, these guys all have strange heads and when a person gets hit and goes kkeuak kkeuaak they united as one with ‘tsk tsk. Since there’s no dad he twists his whole body like that’? Is there Thames River shit water in the cucumber sandwich?

The survival happening day by day at Eton was truly a grand epic rivaling the magic school, but right now there was something that attracted my interest much more than adapting to school.

Potato blight.

Belgium and the Netherlands’ potato farming was finished, and some regions of Germany and Denmark, France etc. also suffered serious damage.

This Eton has no particular change whether because it is a school that precious house kids attend or because the seniority was miserable from the beginning, but due to the characteristic that the poorer the higher the dependence on potatoes the damage will of course concentrate on the poor. Newspapers were chattering that people starving to death are appearing even on the European continent.

And... Ireland.

Because England had no damage from potato blight, the tone of the newspapers was truly acrid.

<Lord, thank you! Irish people need to receive some heavenly punishment!>

<That’s all because they believe in Catholicism they were punished>

Very fiery.

Of course this is a splendid collaboration of ‘some’ ignorant agitators and politicians trying to pander to popularity, and yellow press crazy for sales numbers. At least a specific party did not openly shout it serves them right.

But if one reads various kinds of newspapers the rough public opinion is visible.

And mentions of potatoes and Ireland began to gradually increase in the letters Gladstone sitting in the position of Chairman of the Board of Trade, about the Minister of Trade by 21st century standards, sends me.

[I might have had to listen a bit more to Arthur’s warning. Ireland’s situation seems very serious.]

[I don’t know how they are teaching at Eton, but recently in London the story of ‘God’s punishment unable to see the lazy Irish’ is often heard.]

[There seems no room for doubt that this terrible disaster is God’s will. If this is not God’s history isn’t that also a terrible thing?]

[But I am thinking a bit differently from them.

It seems God sent a calamity to Ireland to warn of our British people’s indulgence and sins.

Reading the Bible, sometimes God first punishes wishing to give a light punishment. If he imposes such a harsh punishment on those Irish, how terrifying and terrible a trial is waiting for us British who will be punished afterward?]

[Anyway I hope Arthur grows into one who does not mock their hardship and aches at others’ misfortune.]

This person seems to be a truly conscientious person. In this pirate country of Britain this much would be 1st grade conscience, right.

But as if mocking everyone’s will to overcome the crisis.

In 46 Ireland’s potato farming was destroyed once again.

And the free trade of the British Empire began to drive all Irish people to death.

Author's note

Thank you to Myeongwon Pizza for your sponsorship!!