Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Potato Heads

1832.

London.

“Hey, why are your hands shaking like this?”

“Come on. Let’s just turn the cards.”

“It’s not your first time, yet you’re acting exactly like a newlywed.”

Henry Leigh let out a short laugh, puffed on his cigar, drank his liquor, and drew a card.

But the trembling in his hands would not easily subside.

‘Should I have stayed home?’

He could never say it out loud. If he did, from that day on the dreadful reputation that Henry Leigh was like a girl would surely circulate inside the clubhouse.

His wife had completed four births. Compared to others of her age, that was still on the fewer side.

Of those, the firstborn son and one daughter were growing up healthy, but the two children born after them had not survived more than a few years before leaving this world.

Perhaps the Lord had wanted to convey a message to this couple that they should only have two and raise them well?

If they tried to have any more children beyond this, wouldn’t his wife really end up in danger as well?

Just as both his heart and his tobacco were burning away.

“Excuse me.”

“Has a message come from the house?”

“Yes.”

“Prepare the carriage. I’ll go at once.”

Within the bounds of not losing a gentleman’s dignity, he moved his body as quickly as possible and boarded the carriage.

An eternity of time flowed and flowed.

When he faced the door of the house, tidied his attire once more, and was just about to enter.

“Hmm?”

He felt something alien, different from usual.

What was it.

He needed to go inside right away and see his wife, yet he paused and carefully scanned the surroundings of his house.

Not long after, his sharp mind found this ‘alien’ part.

‘Animals?’

Yes.

Animals.

That crow sitting on the roof.

The cat prowling along the wall.

Why were they all, without exception, staring fixedly at his house?

“You’ve arrived?!”

“Ah, yes. Right. Let’s go in quickly. How did it go?”

“It’s a healthy baby boy! Both Madam and Young Master are safe!”

“Oh, Lord. Thank you. Thank you...!”

His thoughts did not continue any further.

As Henry strode into his house, the children approached him as if they had been waiting.

“Dad!!”

“Dad, come quickly!”

“Daniel. Didn’t I tell you to act like a gentleman? Do I need to tell the tutor not to spare the rod?”

“Getting hit a bit is nothing. Hurry up and look!! The baby is so wrinkly! My goodness!”

Before the servant could even arrive, his eldest son Daniel snatched his father’s hat at high speed, put it on his own head, quickly stripped off the coat, and repeatedly pushed his back. The oversized hat covered the child’s face like a helmet, yet Daniel walked up the stairs as if he could see perfectly ahead.

And finally.

Henry met his child.

The wrinkly, tiny baby wrapped well in swaddling clothes and held in his mother’s arms.

“Where is Mary? The mother?”

“There are no problems.”

“Is the child healthy?”

“Yes. A very healthy baby boy. He cried so loudly I thought all the windows would break.”

The midwife continued afterward with additional explanations about how healthy and strong the child was, but none of it reached Henry’s ears. The sound of his wife Mary weakly muttering that her choice to use a midwife rather than a doctor had been correct also did not reach him at all.

As a gentleman, he praised his wife’s great labor as elegantly as possible (Mrs. Leigh cut him off midway saying “I’m tired so tell me later”), then slowly received the baby.

“Thank you for being born healthy.”

“Paah.”

“My goodness. Did you just hear that? He said Dad. He said Dad.”

“Isn’t he just babbling?”

“Paah.”

“He said Dad! He said Dad! Oh, my goodness. A genius has been born into our family.”

“Dad...”

“What about being a gentleman or whatever?”

Whether his son and daughter looked on with displeasure or not, inside the head of Henry who had been suppressing himself by saying he needed to act like a gentleman, an explosion of joy was occurring as if a champagne cork had been popped.

“Eton. He’s material to send to Eton. Yes, of course. Damn it. Tutor. I need to find a tutor first.”

“Dad, calm down a bit. What tutor for a baby?”

“That’s right. Wet nurse. I need to find a wet nurse who knows Latin and Greek.”

“Dad’s gone crazy.”

Regardless of that, Henry whose limiter had already been released kept bursting into laughter and brought his face close to the baby.

“Our genius, try saying Dad one more time!! Even if Dad has to sell his horses, you’ll go through Eton and Harrow to Oxbridge- Ugh!”

The baby stretched out his hand and poked Henry’s nostril deeply.

“Our little brother, it seems he really is a genius.”

“Even the baby must have thought a wet nurse teaching Greek was unwanted. It looked like even lullabies would be in Greek.”

“Hahaha! Even his hands are skilled, he’s general material! A genius of both civil and military! What do you think of the name Arthur for the child?”

Since no opposing opinions particularly came out, the baby’s name became Arthur.

***

Park In-ho had once felt this kind of curiosity while reading web novels.

- Human memories are in the brain. Then does it make sense that after regressing and reincarnating the body changes but there are memories from the previous life? Did the baby’s brain suddenly develop into an adult’s?

- Why keep bringing up scientific verification in fantasy and going crazy, are you insane.

- Regression possession reincarnation itself is already not science but magic or occult, why are you arguing about science? Have you reincarnated?

- I’m a regressor and I brought my first-life memories on a floppy disk.

- Since the trolls have been dealt with, let’s talk about the novel with peace of mind!

Regrettably, those immersed in modern Republic of Korea internet were prone to unilaterally rejecting others’ opinions without listening, but the rational and logical thinking excellent member of society Mr. Park In-ho was a person who knew how to learn something even from such violent and superficial people.

Since it cannot be explained scientifically, it is unscientific occult. If it had been proven, every dog and cow would all be reincarnating. Wouldn’t even Bill Gates and Musk call a reincarnation truck and get hit before dying of old age.

In that sense, having experienced with his whole body the occult of the Dragon King gesturing and sending a person back to the past, he decided to humbly acknowledge reality.

What importance could modern brain science possibly have?

“Waaah!! Waaah!!”

“Oh dear, Young Master. Please wait just a moment.”

When he opened his eyes, what he saw was not that terrible Chinese detention center but a completely different ceiling, and white people in clothing that looked like something from a movie.

Baby starting.

He had become a baby.

“Waaah.”

Interpretation: Fuck you.

He had lived a life where just breathing accumulated airline mileage. The money he had poured into web novels he read to kill time would probably be enough to buy a small car and still have some left over.

According to that prior knowledge of his, baby starting meant the highest easy difficulty where one could show extraordinariness even before the first birthday grabbing ceremony.

‘A baby not even one year old... learning to talk?’

‘My goodness! The child is already walking!’

‘Solving arithmetic problems at two years old, this child is a genius!’

“Waaaah.”

Hehehe.

Isn’t life too easy to freeload on?

First of all, looking at the race, it’s definitely not a martial arts world.

Since that crazy jar called the Dragon King told him to change history, with high probability it’s not fantasy either and probably the past Earth. Then this has a very high possibility of belonging to the alternate history genre. Although the possibility of it being an Earth that still has dragons or an Earth with a magic school could not be excluded.

What added certainty to this guess was the fact that people were speaking English.

This too was tremendous honey.

The importance of the starting point can be known just by looking at Koreans’ folk game StarCraft. Imagine being born and it’s Lost Temple at 6 o’clock. How painful would life be?

In that regard, speaking English meant with high probability this was either England or America.

Here the skilled web novel reader Park In-ho did not miss the surrounding clues.

Both the midwife and the maid were white. If it were America there would be black slaves, and if it were a colony there would be Indian or other colored servants, right? It might be somewhere like Australia or Ireland, but just the fact that he had won the verified high-quality coin of the Anglo-American sphere made him willing to give the Dragon King a thumbs up for a job well done.

The exact era and location were still hard to be certain of, but for him, a 21st century modern person, if he set his mind to it, reigning as a great star of this era would be nothing.

Even if not to the delusion that just writing E=mc² would make everyone kneel, if he just preempted a catchphrase like <​Workers of the world, unite> before bearded Marx was born, wouldn’t the historical alteration the Dragon King requested happen in an instant?

There was one thing left.

What to do to suck honey and achieve the final goal of historical alteration.

For the tremendous great undertaking of changing humanity’s future, every minute and second is precious. So he needed to think and contemplate even harder-

“Paah...”

It was no good.

This frail baby’s body could not handle high-dimensional brain activity. My goodness.

Since he had consumed calories, he needed to replenish them. How?

“Waaah!! Waaah!! Waaaaah!!”

At first, an adult man’s sense of shame came first so he didn’t cry well.

But why does a baby cry? Because that is the most immediately effective. Regrettably, the baby’s mouth had not yet developed enough to express intentions like ‘Excuse me, could you give me something to eat?’ or ‘I want to go to the bathroom.’

In the end he gave up.

Once he resolved to be faithful to a baby’s duty, the world became comfortable.

“There. It’s time to eat mama-”

How good positive thinking is.

If hungry, they give food, they wash everything on their own, if sleepy just sleep. They even pat the back so digestion goes well. After working like a dog he got to enjoy this perfect unemployed life, how could he not be happy?

He drank the milk the wet nurse gave.

After eating, when they patted his back he burped.

Preparing the huge big plan to twist world history... then getting tired and falling asleep.

Occasionally when he felt he needed physical activity, he wiggled his body a bit for the grand leap of ‘standing up’ and ‘taking steps.’

What did In-ho have to do to enjoy this perfect unemployed life?

“Kyahaha!”

“He smiled! He smiled looking at me!”

“Don’t talk nonsense! He smiled looking at me! Arthur, you smiled looking at big sister, right?”

Just one smile and they go completely crazy. Would Hollywood celebrities have lived like this? Just how cute is this existence called me that everyone twists their whole bodies while liking it?

Look at that.

Even the dog raised at home ‘Hector’ is staring at him as if his soul has left from his overwhelming cuteness, isn’t he. My goodness. Even a beast that can’t speak is captivated to this degree, it means he’s a peerless beauty of a handsome boy-

- Bullshit and fall over.

Arthur was startled. So startled that this delicate heart less than a year old after birth was pounding and his body was trembling.

- A person who’s eaten enough years to eat, drinking milk and shitting and pissing and showing off cute acts, aren’t you ashamed?

“Doo... dooda...”

He resented the oral structure that couldn’t even say ‘who the fuck are you.’ Just which miscellaneous ghost was talking directly to him?

- It’s me!

“Doo...!”

Even the exorcism template line of ‘Voice phishing miscellaneous ghost, begone!’ naturally turned into baby babbling.

- I’ve said several times it’s not a miscellaneous ghost but the Dragon King!

But it seemed it had been properly conveyed to the other party.

Come to think of it, there was that guy too. That jar ghost.

Just as his thoughts were reaching the jar ghost he had forgotten for a while, the puppy being raised in this house came prowling over to the cradle Arthur was in.

- Yes. It’s me.

Ghost ball.

Why have you become a beast?

- It’s not that I became a beast, heh, damn it. I put the initial setting values wrong and even I got dragged along. I don’t even have a body so I have to freeload on all sorts of beast guys?

A ghost that possesses beasts.

It is a miscellaneous ghost after all.

- Listen a bit! I’m so wronged I feel like I’m going crazy and dying! If I just do a little of this high-dimensional brain activity these lowly beast guys can’t endure-

Thud.

Hector collapsed as if a robot whose battery had run out.

‘Died?!’

Just as In-ho was about to gather all a baby’s strength and cry out waaaaah, the puppy got up whimpering and started jumping around and spinning in circles around the cradle. It was cute, but not a trace of intellect or reason could be found.

Seeing that appearance, he realized.

Ah.

It seems the same as me.

As always, In-ho who had fully utilized the intelligence of a 21st century intellectual could not endure any longer and fell into sleep.

The baby and the puppy headed to dreamland like that, sleeping soundly.

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