New Life

After getting dressed, he saw a glass of water beside the empty plate. This time, he had learned his lesson. Carefully lifting the fragile glass, he downed the entire cup of strangely flavorful plain water in one gulp.

"Kid, I'm John Brown. Who are you?" the old man asked.

Who was he?

During his confinement, he had seen from those excessively bright washbasins that he no longer looked like the black-haired, black-eyed Asian man from his memories.

His hair was still black, but his eyes were distinctly blue. His skin was no longer the rosy pale complexion of an Asian, but the deathly white of a Caucasian.

Simply put, he was no longer the person he had been before transmigrating. Did it still mean anything to use his old Chinese name?

In this life, those Russians had called him Ennyuno Odin. Though he did not know what it meant, it was obviously some improper codename. Instinctively, he did not want to keep using it.

Since he had become a foreigner, he might as well use a foreign name. In the English he remembered, he answered haltingly, "My... name... is... Henry."

He should pick a name as common as dirt. He did not want to attract attention. That was why he called himself that. As for why he had picked this one? Who knew. He was in a good mood? Intuition? He damned well felt like it—did he need to explain himself to anyone?

"Henry what?" The old man was asking for his surname.

Hmm... did that mean he had to make up a last name too? What a pain. Forget it. He shook his head and said, "Nothing. Just Henry."

Old John had no intention of pressing further. He merely said, "Suit yourself." Then he suddenly asked in Russian, "Do you have somewhere to go?"

Henry gave him a genuinely blank look. Obviously, he could not understand a word.

Switching back to English, Old John asked again, "Do you have somewhere to go?" As though he knew the young man's English was poor, he deliberately slowed down.

This time, Henry understood. He put on a different sort of blank expression and shook his head.

"I thought so." Old John stood up and casually picked up the shotgun. But he held it around the middle rather than gripping the stock and trigger. He continued,

"If you have nowhere to go, you can stay here. But that bed is mine. I can let you sleep on the sofa in the bar. If you want to stay, though, you'll have to work for me.

"I'll provide three meals a day. If you want to drink, you'll have to pay for it. When you're ready, come out. My bar is out front. If you want to leave, consider the food and clothes from earlier a gift. But don't expect me to provide you with anything else."

Having said that, Old John slung the gun over his shoulder and walked out.

Where else could he go? His appearance had changed. Even if he returned home, he could not use his old identity or reclaim his old life.

And that was without even considering whether his former self existed, whether he could replace him, or whether this was even the world he had once lived in.

Spaceships had appeared, and he had endured that lonely, torturous second growth period. Henry would rather believe this was not the safe, peaceful world he had once known.

Before encountering that transmigrator's artifact, he had only heard rumors about Area 51, watched news about the Middle East wars, and seen America's famous zero-dollar shopping. How could it compare to this world, whose first impression had been so bizarre and terrifying?

Besides, who knew how much time had passed? From infancy to the way he looked now, it could not have been just a few years.

The moment that thought surfaced, a number appeared in his mind: 7213.

That was the number of days that had passed from the day he appeared in outer space and prepared to descend to Earth until the day he collapsed from hunger.

Though those seven thousand-plus days had been monotonous, every one of them remained vivid in his mind. What experiments they had dragged him off to on which days, what items had been included in his examinations, what the people in charge had looked like—he remembered it all with startling clarity.

He could not understand what they had said, but every word was as clear as if they had just spoken beside his ear.

Even the torture methods and the injuries from severed hands and feet during the years after he had grown up felt as though they had happened only moments ago. Whenever he recalled them, the corresponding parts of his body would ache with the pain they had suffered.

Henry hurriedly shook his head, forcing himself to forget—or rather, to focus on something else. This was one downside of having a brain that worked too well.

So, if he counted from the day he transmigrated, he had already spent nearly twenty years in this world?

Assuming the average human lifespan was seventy years, nearly thirty percent of it—his most precious years of growth—had already been wasted?

What a fucking miserable start. Henry did not even have the energy to complain.

Rather than thinking about how to return, he should consider how to live well here. Before transmigrating, had he not simply taken life as it came?

The only things worth missing were the treasures on his D drive. Aside from the devoted contributions of teachers from every field, there were the anime, movies, and television shows he had watched, along with the games he had played.

If he wanted those things, he could collect them again. It was not as though he absolutely had to get his own...

Ah, right. He had not cleared his browsing history, and there were all those saved files on his D drive. If anyone saw them, he would be socially dead, wouldn't he?

My posthumous reputation from my past life...

Forget it. He was already dead. It did not matter anymore.

Besides, no matter where a pile of mud went, it could still rot in peace. Since he had given himself a new name, he would live a new life.

Having made up his mind, Henry opened the room's door. Before him was a fairly large bar. Six tables for four were scattered sparsely through the middle, while long sofa booths lined the walls.

Aside from the tables and chairs, there were also two old pool tables and three dartboards so riddled with holes that they were barely recognizable. Even the walls beside the dartboards bore marks where darts had struck.

Then, on one particularly unusual wall, hung several old group photos of soldiers, along with a... Captain America shield?

Behind the bar stood shelves packed with every kind of alcoholic drink. There was neither milk nor juice in sight, nor could he smell anything like them. Clearly, this was not the sort of place for family gatherings.

Then why was there a nerdy decoration here? Henry walked up to the old man, who was serving customers at the counter, pointed at the star-spangled round shield, and asked, "Do your grandson live here too?"

The question made Old John's heart tighten. He asked in return, "Why would you say that?"

"If you don't have a grandson, who put a Captain America shield on the wall?" Henry's English had somehow become fluent without him noticing.

"That's a replica I bought."

"You?"

"During World War II, I nearly got selected for the Howling Commandos. Although I never became a member, I worked alongside them plenty of times. I fought shoulder to shoulder with a hero like the Captain. What's wrong with hanging his shield as a memorial?"

...Motherfucker! Where the hell had he transmigrated to?