Shadow of the Old Continent (1)
One morning.
Dorothy, who had finally escaped the long stretch of mental stress and was enjoying the weekend sunlight for the first time in a while, sleeping soundly, was abruptly awakened by someone's rough shaking.
"Mmm… breakfast is over there, just handle it—"
"Mom, Mom."
"What is it…?"
"Dad's acting weird!"
Henry and Alice said as they shook their mother, but Dorothy simply turned over again, trying to quickly catch the train back to dreamland.
"Mmm… it's fine. When has your dad not been weird…?"
"I hear sniffling from the bathroom."
Crying?
Her sleep vanished instantly. She kicked off the blanket and quickly walked toward the bathroom.
What he had gone through was no ordinary matter.
It wasn't just the Milk Expeditionary Force incident. Ever since former President Harding suddenly passed away, Yujin had been surrounded by enemies on all sides.
The era of Coolidge and Hoover may have been a time of prosperity for the United States, but for Yujin as an individual, it had been suffocating.
Suspicion, checks, anxiety, control, appeasement, persuasion, pressure.
She didn't know everything that went on behind the scenes, as if they were determined to take everything he had, but she knew at least this much—it was nothing an ordinary officer would ever experience. And the Milk Expeditionary Force had been the peak of all that hardship.
Even though it was all over now, was he still suffering?
She had heard it many times from others married to soldiers—stories of people suddenly tormented at any moment, thinking of the dead.
She gently pushed the bathroom door.
It wasn't locked. It slid open, revealing her husband gripping the sink tightly with both hands, his head hanging low.
"Are you okay?"
"No…"
"Don't be like that. Let's talk it through slowly, together. Okay?"
"No… it's not something you can help with."
"Still, isn't it better to talk to someone than suffer alone?"
Water dripped from his hair and face, making it look as though he were crying. Her heart sank.
That expression… like someone who had lost something they could never afford to lose. She had seen it recently too—her father had looked just like that when he announced his retirement from politics.
She waited calmly for him to speak.
After a moment of silence, he finally began to share his concern.
"No matter how much I pluck them, I keep noticing more gray hairs."
"…What?"
"It feels like just yesterday I was teasing Caucasians for aging fast, and now I'm already starting to get wrinkles around my eyes. At this rate, I can't even make fun of others anymore! This is already a trash second run without a status window—why the hell is aging included too, you damn—"
"You idiot! I can't live like this! I cannot live like this! I just aged ten years right now!"
"Ow! Ow! Ow! You told me to open up! You told me to open up!"
How does that look like someone pushing forty?
All that worry for nothing—she'd just ruined her precious weekend sleep. What a waste.
Dorothy burst into laughter and started smacking this annoying man on the back repeatedly.
***
Violence without cause suddenly struck me. It's unjust. I'm being serious—why must I become the victim of such ruthless assault?
But as a father, I carry a heavy mission on my shoulders: this time, no matter what, I must successfully go on a European trip without yielding to any outside pressure. Anyone who gets in the way will be turned into canned spam.
Dealing with and coaxing the kids was truly exhausting, but what could I do? There's no longer any need to flee in a hurry, so I should finish everything before departing.
The first thing to handle was, of course, organizing the household.
"Yuin. Didn't you say you were going to become a teacher?"
"Huh?"
"It feels like it's been quite a while since I sent you to college, but I haven't heard anything about you finishing your studies. Did you get put on academic probation or something? Slacking off?"
"What are you talking about?"
Our youngest, Yuin, didn't bow before the authority of the head of the household—instead, she looked at me like I'd suddenly started spouting nonsense after eating crow meat.
"Uh… I did say I'd go into teaching, but I changed that plan quite a while ago."
"Did I hear about that?"
"I sent you a letter."
No idea. If it's not in my memory, maybe it was never sent?
"Even if I become a teacher and teach kids, how many could I teach in a lifetime? It's not like there's a shortage of teachers anymore."
"Well… that's true."
"So what I'm studying now isn't to become a teacher—it's education studies. Stuff like educational administration and things like that."
"So… you went to graduate school?"
"Yep. I'm in a doctoral program right now."
Good heavens. Our Yuin went to graduate school!
You poor thing. How can a human being go to graduate school? No doubt some evil professor, eager to recruit a new slave, lured our kind Yuin in with something like, "Why not continue your studies in graduate school?"
As Confucius supposedly said in the Analects: when a student commits a crime, they go to juvenile detention; when a university student commits a crime, they go to graduate school. This has even been cross-verified in Goguryeo frescoes and Japan's Kojiki.
Sure, my sibling might be a rude brat who doesn't respect their older brother, but what kind of grave sin deserves a master's and doctoral course?
"Well, you'll figure it out yourself."
I give up.
Next, of course, was business.
"This is the investment portfolio."
"That's… quite a lot."
With cash on hand, we're the ones in the strongest position right now.
A foothold in both the navy and the air force, the acquisition of shares in Hormel that I specifically requested, the smooth progress of Ford Tractor Company's new tank R&D, and even the plan for a new card pack release by our walking mint, Mr. Bang Jeong-hwan…
As I expected, the worse the recession got, the better our card packs sold. People were starting to feel burdened even buying toy soldiers or dolls now.
"And those publishing companies you mentioned…"
"I don't know much about publishing, so let's just pick a few that seem to have decent futures. I already told Mr. Bang separately—we can't keep making money selling playing cards forever. If we want to extend the lifespan of that card game, we'll need additional content."
At a time when the kind of "so-and-so man" superheroes I knew hadn't appeared yet, it was about time to start staking claims in the novel and comic markets too.
In that sense, we already had a loyal customer base, so unless we released something historically terrible, we should be able to make a decent profit through OSMU as well.
After taking care of the essentials, the inevitable social time followed.
"Wow. So you're going to Europe all by yourself. You dragged me along when you went to Japan, but for a nice sightseeing trip like Europe, you're going with your family?"
"Oh really? Then want to come along?"
"I'd rather not get shot by Mrs. Kim."
HaJi chatted away while stuffing her mouth with food. Does Marshal really not feed her or something?
This was a fairly large social gathering held at a rented resort. The last meeting at Wobok was basically just Marshal and his underlings, with Patton tagging along, but this time I'd invited acquaintances from the Navy and Air Force—and their families too.
Given the current situation, hosting something this grand had the resort staff bowing at perfect ninety-degree angles, welcoming us with overwhelming enthusiasm. Still, I wasn't crazy enough to buy a resort outright. Maybe after World War II.
"It's been a while! Between that Pan Am matter and everything else, I feel like I'm always indebted to you—"
"Oh, it's nothing."
There's Lieutenant Colonel Henry Arnold, who's received a generous amount of my dollars.
I'd been watching closely for a chance to earn the favor of the future Air Force general, and the news that Arnold and a few others were founding an airline was the perfect opportunity.
And the name of that airline was Pan Am? That legendary airline? Yeah, there was no way I could pass that up.
For some reason, I'd gotten entangled with Arnold quite a bit over money. To be honest, not just Arnold—there were quite a few officers I'd quietly lent money to during the Great Depression. After all, hadn't I already proven at West Point that friendships blossom through the exchange of cash?
"You said you were looking for an aircraft manufacturer to acquire, right?"
"That's right. We're still debating whether to operate it within the family or strengthen Ford's aviation division. Ideally, we'd enter the civilian aviation market too, but that might be difficult."
"I've got a few candidates in mind. This isn't the place to talk business, so I'll send you a letter to San Francisco later."
"I'd appreciate that."
The company I knew best was Boeing, but it was already quite large, and if I swallowed it up, it might end up becoming some strange, distorted version instead of the Boeing from the original timeline.
Better to listen to aviation experts and secure a cost-effective company instead.
"Hey, are you just ignoring us?"
"With Arnold here, we're not needed anymore~"
Will you two stop yapping.
After spending a bit of time with my fellow aviation comrades—who I'd asked for help with the Billy Mitchell affair last time—I headed over to where the kids were playing.
"Could you spare a moment?"
"Of course, Colonel King."
We sat elegantly on sunbeds, sipping drinks, and had a rather heavy conversation.
Wasn't this supposed to be a vacation? Why am I talking about work here too?
"Have you been keeping track of developments in the Asia-Pacific region?"
"Japan's expansion is quite alarming."
"Indeed. The Japs completely swallowed Manchuria and set up a puppet state. I'm no expert on the army, but I hear their armored tactics were quite impressive."
He stared at me as if trying to bore a hole through my face. Hey, that's not my fault. The U.S. Congress and the Army were the ones who told me to sell tanks and spread armored tactics in the first place!
"No matter how you look at it, Japan is the strongest power in Asia and has already joined the ranks of the great powers. If they focus on tanks, won't that push naval shipbuilding to the back burner? Wouldn't that be good news for the Navy?"
"Not necessarily."
He clicked his tongue.
"According to our intelligence, real power in the Japanese Empire is effectively in the hands of the Army. After conquering Manchuria, that's only natural."
"Hmmm."
"So instead of building expensive battleships, it seems the Japanese Navy has chosen a second-best option."
"And that would be?"
"Aircraft carriers."
The muscles in my face twisted strangely.
"It's still at the level of inference, but it's probably not far off. Just like we discussed before. Instead of forming powerful battleship fleets, they've decided to concentrate their strength on naval aviation. There are even reports that aircraft development, which used to be separate, is now being integrated between the Army and Navy."
So instead of building something like the big, beautiful Yamato hotel, they're pushing mechanization in the Army and using the remaining money to churn out carriers? That's no fun at all.
Still, can they really afford not to invest in battleships at all? In this era?
"But battleships are still the core of naval power, aren't they? How could mere flies take down fortresses of the sea?"
"That's not entirely wrong for now… but their bold focus and concentration worries me. Who knows what results it might bring in the future? And even if they're doing that, it's not like we can suddenly pour massive investments into anti-air defenses."
In short… he wrapped it in layers, but in the end, it was just a complaint. Damn it, I thought this was going to be something important and got all tense for nothing.
Now that I realized King wasn't expecting some magical solution from me, there was no need to rack my brain. Instead of answering, I raised my glass and watched the children running around in the distance.
King had one son and six daughters, and my family had two sons and two daughters. Put together, that's already enough to form a soccer team. With all the kids swarming around, even this spacious resort felt cramped.
And in the middle of it, Henry was… giving a flower to a pretty little girl. Look at that kid. Hah.
"Do you want to play with me?"
"No!"
"Why not?"
"My dad said not to play with bad mutts!"
Even without binoculars, I could clearly see Henry's face fill with the despair of rejection. It felt like my heart was collapsing.
"…I seem to have raised my daughter poorly. My apologies."
"…Let's call it even."
Yeah. I didn't even need to ask whose child she was.
You've done a wonderful job with her upbringing.
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