Chapter 16

Chapter 16. Galactic Martial God Chronicle - Reincarnation (7)

At my sigh, Si-woo wiped the sweat from my body with a towel and asked,

“What is it? Are you feeling unwell? Shall we go to the hospital?”

“No. I’m not sick.”

Usually, even if a child said they weren’t sick, people would assume they were lying because they didn’t want to go to the hospital and take them there anyway.

However, unlike ordinary children, I told the facts properly, so Si-woo believed me.

Still, perhaps because young children often did not know their own condition very well, she checked my temperature just in case and asked,

“Then is it because the training is difficult?”

“Uh... it is difficult, but that’s not why.”

“Then why did you sigh?”

Because I can’t return to my main body.

I couldn’t confess about Multidimensional Avatar, so there was no way to explain it.

Even if I could explain Multidimensional Avatar, I couldn’t say why I was unable to return to my main body.

Because saying I couldn’t go back because there was no bathroom on the Tower’s first floor would be way too embarrassing!

There was nothing on the Tower’s first floor.

The only things there were me and the crystal that served as a passage to the second floor or Earth.

There was absolutely nothing to solve food, clothing, or shelter.

Of course, I was already wearing clothes, and food could be procured through my Tower clone or reincarnation clone.

The Tower’s first floor had no wind, no rain, and nothing at all, and the temperature was constant, so I didn’t need a house either.

The only problem was that humans performed biological functions as long as they were alive, so even if I stayed still, I had to eat, and if I ate, I had to excrete just as much.

That was right. My main body was now trapped in a life-or-death crisis.

Faced with a desperate battle that involved my dignity as a human being, I had no choice but to flee from my main body and come to the body of my reincarnation clone.

I had run away for now, but this was a problem I had to solve somehow.

No matter how wide the Tower’s first floor was, so wide I couldn’t see the end of it, there were still things one could and could not do as a person.

When the crisis first struck, I had thought about burying it and marking the spot.

However, after looking at the hard ground, I had no choice but to withdraw that plan.

I tried striking the ground hard with my one-handed sword, but it didn’t even leave a scratch.

Instead, if I had slipped even a little, my real body might have been injured.

If a clone was injured, I could simply make another clone, but I couldn’t make another main body, so I had to be careful.

And so, at the moment of crisis, I had chosen to flee and had been thinking about it ever since.

Hmm, should I send a plastic bag through Inventory and deal with it that way?

No. If I make a mistake, I can’t even wash myself.

This is something I have to consider for the future, so I need to be careful.

“I just have something I’m worried about.”

When I fell into a worry I couldn’t easily solve, Si-woo said,

“I do not know what concern you have, but perhaps you might consider even my small advice?”

At Si-woo’s suggestion, I described my situation indirectly for a moment.

“Si-woo, what do you think you’d do if you were alone on a deserted island?”

“Let me see. Are you talking about a castaway situation?”

“Something like that.”

At my answer, Si-woo thought for a moment.

“If you were cast adrift while sailing, would you have something like a survival kit? Camping supplies would be even better, but in a sudden situation, it would be impossible to obtain such things, so you would need tips for camping in the wild with only the bare minimum of tools....”

“That’s it!”

I sprang up from my seat.

Camping supplies! Among camping supplies, there were portable toilets and shower stalls, weren’t there?!

Inventory had a weight limit, but if something was heavy, I could disassemble it by parts and send it over, and that would be enough to send it to my main body.

Good heavens, there was such a simple answer, but I hadn’t thought of it until now!

I was excited for a moment, but once I calmed down and thought about it, it was understandable that I hadn’t thought of it.

After all, right now, I had no way to obtain camping supplies.

The Tower Shop didn’t sell things like portable toilets, and right now I was a baby not even two full years old.

I had no money to buy camping supplies. Should I ask Si-woo to buy them? Would Si-woo really buy them for me?

When I looked at Si-woo, she blinked and answered,

“I do not know what it was, but I am glad it seems to have helped.”

Mm, I don’t think she’ll buy them because they’re dangerous.

Camping supplies included many blades, sharp objects, and heavy things that were dangerous for a young child to handle.

That said, I couldn’t ask her to buy only a portable toilet and a shower stall.

If she asked why I wanted her to buy those, I had no way to answer.

Throwing a tantrum and demanding them recklessly was a demonic art.

If I used a demonic art too often, there was a risk it wouldn’t work when it was truly important.

A computer was worth throwing a tantrum over because gathering information was important, but a portable toilet was a little....

In the end, economic control was important.

As time passed, the items I needed would increase, and I couldn’t beg Si-woo to buy them for me every time.

Then I had no choice but to try persuading her.

“Si-woo, what money do we live on?”

At my question, Si-woo paused as if somewhat troubled, then answered,

“Well, it is money your parents earned, young master.”

“Exactly.”

“......!”

Si-woo hesitated to answer.

“Don’t lie.”

At my firm words, Si-woo eventually answered as if she had no choice.

“...The money currently used for living expenses is the inheritance your parents left to you, young master.”

It seemed Si-woo had hesitated because she was wondering whether it was right to tell me about my parents’ deaths now.

If I had been an ordinary child, she would probably have lied and said my parents had gone abroad for a while.

Ah, in this world, would she have said they went to another planet?

However, when I told her not to lie, she seemed to realize that I already knew about my parents’ deaths.

“Since when have you known?”

Since I was born, thanks to a loose-lipped nurse and the self-introduction you gave when we first met. I couldn’t say that.

Who would think a newborn baby who couldn’t even open his eyes properly could understand words?

At Si-woo’s question, I shrugged.

“It’s been a while. Since there hasn’t even been the bare minimum contact. In an age where interplanetary video calls are possible within the same star system, it’d be strange not to have even a video letter.”

“...I see.”

Si-woo seemed convinced by my explanation.

It appeared to be easy for her to accept because I often showed behavior unlike an ordinary baby.

No matter how much this was the 50th century, where would there be a baby who lay on the sofa watching documentaries and skillfully surfed the internet during break time?

“Who’s managing the inheritance I received?”

“A professional asset manager under the Cheon Family is managing it.”

“Can they be trusted?”

At my question, Si-woo nodded.

“Before you become an adult, young master, even an asset manager requires the consent of me, your proxy, and Cheon Gyeong-ho, your legal guardian, when moving money above a certain scale, so they cannot embezzle the money. Even if they did embezzle it, they would be pursued by the Cheon Family, so they would not be able to live within the sphere of righteous Murim influence.”

“Instead, even the asset manager can only maintain the assets at a level where they don’t decrease much. They can’t make large investments.”

“That is correct.”

Then the earnings were probably something like fixed deposits or low-risk funds.

“Naturally, I also can’t move large sums of money until I become an adult.”

“That is correct.”

Well, I didn’t need a large amount of money immediately, so that wasn’t a problem.

“Can I see my assets?”

“Of course. You can view the asset details transparently at any time.”

Si-woo turned on the computer in the living room and showed me the details of the assets I had inherited.

“The assets you inherited, young master, are broadly divided into three categories. Cash assets, real estate, and investment assets.”

The number printed in the account details was fairly large.

The problem was that I still didn’t know the prices in this place, so I couldn’t tell whether this was a lot of money or a little.

If someone asked you to choose between one hundred trillion Zimbabwean dollars and one hundred US dollars, who would choose the former?

Since I had no need to spend money, I had not even thought to research prices.

“What can you buy with one nyang?”

“Nyang” was the currency unit of the Galactic International Currency Union.

Simply put, it was like the euro of the eurozone.

In righteous sect territory, it was definitely unified under the nyang, but I was not sure whether it could be used in unorthodox faction or Demon Cult territories as well.

As far as I knew, the Demon Cult used its own single currency, while unorthodox faction territories used either independent currencies issued by the great sects that ruled each star system, or the currency of the Evil Dao Alliance as their key currency, with no currency union.

Still, nyang could probably be used and exchanged in unorthodox faction and Demon Cult territories too.

“You probably cannot buy anything with it. These days, even the snacks you eat, young master, cost at least one thousand nyang.”

Should I roughly think of one nyang as one won?

No, the snacks I ate seemed somewhat expensive, so perhaps one nyang was about six won?

This is annoying, so let’s just think of it as one-to-one.

In the first place, the productivity and technology levels of my home world and the Galactic Murim world were so incomparable that simple price calculations were meaningless.

It would probably be worse than comparing the price of rice in the Joseon dynasty to the price of rice in the 21st century.

“One, ten, hundred, thousand... wow, I’m rich.”

At this level, I could live my whole life doing nothing but playing and eating off the interest income alone, couldn’t I?

“Was Father someone who earned that much money?”

“He belonged to the Cheon Family’s armed unit, so it was not as if he earned poorly, but I understand that he also spent just as much, so he was unable to grow his assets.”

“Then this money?”

“It is the wealth your father inherited from your grandmother, young master.”

My grandfather, Cheon Gyeong-ho, had lived for over five hundred years and married a total of twenty-seven women.

Naturally, there was no polygamy... but apparently, he had a record of getting caught having affairs and divorcing in about half of those marriages.

Naturally, he had also made the news for having several children out of wedlock.

In any case, Cheon Gyeong-ho spent time with twenty-seven wives and an unknown number of affair partners, having a total of sixty-three children, and my father was born as the youngest of one son and two daughters from his twenty-fourth wife.

My father’s age at death was seventy-six.

He had died in battle while carrying out a mission in a fierce combat zone, shortly after reaching the Transformation Realm.

Since my father had been seventy-six, naturally, my grandmother was even older.

My grandmother ultimately failed to reach the Transformation Realm and died of old age roughly five years ago, and her wealth was inherited by her biological children.

My grandmother was one of the heirs of a conglomerate family, and when she divorced Cheon Gyeong-ho after he cheated on her, she received an enormous amount of alimony.

According to rumors, there was also talk that the alimony she wrung out of Cheon Gyeong-ho was several times greater than the money she had inherited as a member of a conglomerate family.

While she was alive, my grandmother invested that tremendous wealth without sparing any expense to help her children raise their realms.

Si-woo was also said to have been a training android that my grandmother had invested in for my father.

According to Si-woo, surprisingly, unlike Cheon Gyeong-ho, my father had been extremely devoted to his wife.

Because of that, Si-woo had to spend more time nursing his young wife, Seo Gyeong-ae, than serving as my father’s training partner.

Returning to the topic of wealth, after my grandmother’s death, her inheritance was divided equally into three parts, but my father used almost none of the wealth he inherited and only spent the money he earned himself.

As a result, that inherited wealth had come intact to me, his only child.

Of course, since inheritance tax had to be paid, it wasn’t completely intact.

As if adding one more point, Si-woo said,

“Cash assets make up about one-fifth of your total assets. Most of them are real estate.”