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Chapter: 15
The Legent of the Galaxy God of War – Reincarnation (6)
I approached Siwoo, who had finished cleaning, with my little toddling steps.
“What is it, Young Master?”
“I want a com-pu-ter.”
“You want a computer? …How did you know about computers?”
At Siwoo’s question, I pointed at the television built into the wall.
“Ah, did you see it in a documentary? Hmm… But can you really understand something like that?”
Siwoo looked at me with a slightly flustered expression.
Well, it wasn’t like there was some baby in the world who could watch a documentary and understand the content at an age where they were only crawling around and barely able to say “mom” and “dad.”
But it was already too late to pretend I was just a baby and act clueless.
Besides, from the moment Siwoo started walking, she taught me footwork as a form of stretching, so why should I have to act like a baby?
I was too frustrated to live like that.
So I decided to shamelessly commit to it.
“Com-pu-ter! I want a com-pu-ter!”
At my words, Siwoo thought for a moment.
“Hmm… Still, I think a computer is too early for you, Young Master.”
“No! Not too early.”
“No, you mean it’s not too early? Computers do look convenient, but there are many bad things about them too. I’m worried about letting someone so young access the internet, so I’ll give you one when you’re a little older.”
Siwoo rejected my request.
Ah, if she had just bought it, I wouldn’t have needed to use this kind of martial art.
My forbidden martial art!
The art of throwing a tantrum!
“Shiwo! Shiwo! Com-pu-ter! Com-pu-ter! Buy me a computer!”
When I suddenly lay down on the floor and started throwing a tantrum, Siwoo panicked.
Naturally, since I had always been quiet and obedient until now, seeing me throw a fit shocked her.
“P-please calm down, Young Master. Even if you have a computer, it’s useless if you don’t know letters.”
“Com-pu-ter! Com-pu-ter!”
Ah, whatever! I want a computer!
This house of mine… no, since I lost my parents early, it’s not really “our house.” It’s my house.
I’m rich, aren’t I!
I can afford one computer!
I’m not even asking for something amazing!
I’d be satisfied with just enough performance to quickly search information on the internet!
Seeing me throw a tantrum like a child asking for a toy, Siwoo didn’t know what to do. After thinking for a moment, she finally said:
“Alright, Young Master. I’ll give you a computer.”
“Really?”
“Really. But there is a condition.”
“What?”
Instead of simply buying me a computer, Siwoo gave me a condition.
“First, you need to learn letters. I’ll buy it for you once you can read. There’s no point in having one if you don’t know any letters.”
I was lying spread out on the floor, but I got up and nodded.
“Okay!”
Siwoo let out a relieved sigh.
It seemed like she hoped I would take a long time learning letters and lose interest in computers during that period.
But thanks to the Tower’s shared skill, “Translation,” or perhaps because of the ability of my “Multidimensional Avatar,” I could understand languages without any problems.
“Let’s do it!”
“You want to start right away? Then I’ll immediately buy children’s letter-learning books and vocabulary books.”
“No, just teach me. We have paper and pen.”
“Just teach you? Because we have paper and pen?”
Siwoo looked surprised, but soon brought paper and a pen. She sat me on her lap and wrote letters for me.
The Galaxy Martial World used letters derived from English as its common language, but she told me that I also needed to learn Chinese characters separately to practice martial arts.
Siwoo read each one to me and taught me the pronunciation, and I just nodded along.
The language was already all inside my head anyway.
I just needed to pretend to take lessons and then claim I had learned everything.
So, after pretending to diligently listen to Siwoo’s lesson for an hour, I said:
“I know.”
“…Excuse me?”
“I know all of it.”
I got up from Siwoo’s lap, toddled over to the side of the living room, grabbed a children’s storybook from the shelf, and started reading it.
My pronunciation was terrible, but Siwoo couldn’t hide her surprise when I actually read the letters.
“Young Master, you’re a genius!”
“I’m not a genius.”
I denied it because having people expect too much from me would become troublesome, but Siwoo didn’t believe me at all.
Well, how much could a one-year-old really know about themselves?
Whether someone was a genius or an ordinary person was something others judged, not something they decided themselves.
Still, if I kept pretending to be a child forever, I’d be too frustrated to live.
“Now buy me a computer.”
At my insistence, Siwoo nodded as if she had no choice.
“There is a computer your parents used, Young Master. However, it doesn’t have a kids lock installed yet, so please wait a little.”
Ah, no! I don’t need a kids lock!
I was about to shout in protest, but Siwoo had already gone up to the second floor and brought the computer down to the living room.
The computer didn’t look much different from the world I came from. A tower-style PC with a separate monitor.
“This was the computer your mother, Seo Kyung-ae, used.”
A computer bigger than my one-year-old body…
I thought that by the 50th century, computers would be invisible things in the form of ultra-small nano biochips.
Later, I found out that implanted nano computers had been abandoned 2,000 years ago because if they malfunctioned due to space radiation during space travel, the consequences could be fatal.
Instead, there were tiny external computers that were not implanted into the body, but they weren’t very popular because they were so small that losing them was a frequent problem.
Well, even wireless earbuds get lost all the time. A computer smaller than an earbud would obviously be even easier to lose.
Everything had a size that was convenient.
Smartphones used to be only about 3 or 4 inches, but they became larger, reaching 6 inches, because they were too inconveniently small.
When we connected it to the living room television and turned on the computer, the kids lock had apparently already been installed. A strange crocodile character waved its hand at me.
“Hello~! I’m Ellie!”
“Infant user assistance AI, Ellie. You may use the keyboard and mouse, but if you give commands by voice, Ellie will carry them out. However…”
My hands were small and my pronunciation was poor.
“If it is inconvenient, you may use this brainwave controller.”
Siwoo handed me a thin headband.
A brainwave controller? That’s pretty sci-fi.
Later, I learned that it was originally developed as a controller for people with physical disabilities, but because it was more convenient than existing controllers for controlling IoT (Internet of Things), it became widely distributed.
The headband style was the most common, but there were also patch types attached to the temples, glasses types, and professional helmet-style controllers.
I put on the headband and looked at the screen.
Something that looked like a mouse pointer moved according to my gaze and thoughts.
“Wow! Amazing!”
The basic feeling was more like a Mac than Windows?
What was the exact OS?
Of course, since this was a different world, there probably wasn’t Linux or Android.
They probably didn’t use things like JavaScript or C either.
Naturally, the ports wouldn’t be compatible either, so even if I brought this high-performance computer back to my original world, I wouldn’t be able to use it.
Even if it was a personal computer, after 3,000 years the difference in performance would be like the difference between a stone axe and a rifle, so taking this back would make it an artifact.
I focused on the computer and spent time exploring information.
Though it took longer than expected to get used to the future computer itself.
As time passed and I became able to run around without much trouble beyond toddling, Siwoo taught me punching techniques and kicking techniques after teaching me cultivation methods and footwork.
The martial art was called Cheongmok Combat Technique (淸木鬪法). It was a martial art that involved staying in place, deflecting the opponent’s attacks, and counterattacking.
Since it was based on Chinese martial arts, stability of the legs was the most important thing, but because this body was not even two years old yet, I was only copying the forms of the techniques.
The room dedicated to martial arts training had mirrors surrounding all four sides so I could check my movements, but watching myself swing my arms around looked like watching a child doing cute tricks.
“Is this right?”
After practicing my pronunciation, it still wasn’t perfect, but I could pronounce things fairly accurately.
At my question, Siwoo smiled.
“You’re doing well. It’s just that you lack physical strength and cannot use internal energy yet. Once your muscles develop and you can use internal energy, the techniques will look much better.”
After practicing Cheongmok Combat, I practiced Cheongmok Steps, and after Cheongmok Steps, I practiced Cheongmok Technique.
Since I was still a child, there were many breaks in between, but the training time seemed to gradually increase.
Because I obediently followed Siwoo’s instructions, she seemed to increase the training according to my progress. For a normal child, this kind of training would probably have been considered child abuse.
Well, the reason I came to this world was to learn martial arts, so there was no harm for me.
“Alright, today’s practice ends here. It isn’t good to overwork your body at such a young age.”
After all the training ended, Siwoo massaged my body and performed blood circulation techniques.
When I searched, I learned that even a master at the Hwagyeong level would become exhausted after using such techniques once, but Siwoo didn’t look tired at all.
Was it because her body was a machine and she didn’t feel fatigue?
Siwoo occasionally cultivated as well, but the internal energy she used while performing the massage was replenished by removing her external dantian and plugging it into a charger.
Shockingly, an android’s dantian was not integrated but replaceable!
No wonder it was called an “external” dantian. It could actually be swapped out like a battery.
External dantians were used not only by androids but also by cyborgs.
Unlike androids, which were created as machines from the beginning, cyborgs were humans modified with machines. They were treated as humans legally, unlike androids, which were “special androids using singularity technology” and considered semi-humans.
The reason was that the range of cyborgs was extremely broad, from people who only used artificial fingers to replace lost fingers, to people who had their entire body except their brain replaced with machines. It was difficult to clearly decide who was human and who was semi-human.
However, the standard separating cyborgs and androids was the “brain.”
Even if someone was born human, copied their memories, and placed them into a mechanical body, legally they were classified as an android if they did not have an actual brain.
The reason androids were legally classified as semi-humans was because of people who copied their memories from cyborg bodies into android bodies, or people who copied their memories into androids in order to gain immortality right before death.
Of course, there was a philosophical question about whether an android with copied memories should really be considered that person.
For that matter, under Galactic International Law, an android with copied memories was treated as the same person.
However, since the original person was considered to have died once, their property was distributed to their family members according to inheritance law, and the android with copied memories was treated as a kind of zero-degree relative and also received a share of the property.
Naturally, since inheritance was involved, they also had to pay inheritance taxes according to the laws of the region.
Although it seemed unfair, perfectly copying memories required an android chip using singularity technology, so for people who could afford such things, money was not a major issue.
For reference, about one-third of androids using singularity technology were memory-copy androids.
It could be said that memory-copy androids made a great contribution to improving the rights of androids.
After all, from the outside, it was impossible to distinguish between a memory-copy android and a normal android.
After even the massage technique was finished, I lay down and let out a sigh.
Recently, I had been unable to return to my original body and had continued living in the body of my clone.
