American: Native Empire

As time passed, Kim Kiwoo’s passion for sports also faded at some point. 

Or rather, it would be more accurate to say that he started to pay attention to something else.

At this time, Kim Kiwoo felt a deep regret.

Although it was early, science and technology were following a similar trajectory to the original history. 

However, many other aspects were quite different.

This was because the Westerners did not, but the Native Americans had seized the world hegemony.

The most prominent tendency was in the cultural aspect.

‘If time goes on like this, many masterpieces will come out… but the masterpieces of the original history that I know will not appear.’

Like others, Kim Kiwoo was also a young man who liked music from the past. Especially pop music.

He had forgotten a lot because a lot of time had passed, but many songs were still stuck in his mind.

He couldn’t help but feel sorry when he thought that they would be buried forever.

‘But it’s different from before.’

In the past, Kim Kiwoo made various instruments and popularized sports such as soccer and basketball. 

And he wrote various novels.

That was because he needed to make the empire’s culture more prosperous.

But not now. 

The imperial culture had already bloomed enough, and it was bearing fruit on its own. 

He didn’t need to manipulate it according to his will like before.

‘But still…’

He also wanted to leave some traces of the great artists who were unlikely to be born in the future.

Kim Kiwoo agonized for a long time and compromised on the middle ground.

‘Let’s make what I remember, but never announce it under my name.’

From the masterpieces of singers like the Beatles in the mid-20th century, to modern Korean pop songs and pop songs.

He only thought of releasing them. 

He didn’t care whether they were popular or not.

‘Maybe they won’t be popular.’

The original history and now, the cultural trends were quite different. In this situation, the unfamiliar culture of the original history had a high possibility of being forgotten.

But even if only a few people in this era listened and liked it, Kim Kiwoo thought he could be satisfied with that.

“From now on, none of the songs I made should be known as composed by me. Even if a long time passes, keep it secret. Do you understand?”

“We will do as you wish.”

Kim Kiwoo earnestly asked his attendants. The attendants were curious why they had to do that, but they just agreed to Kim Kiwoo’s order.

From then on, Kim Kiwoo started working on songs by recalling his memory. 

And from Kim Kiwoo’s fingertips, several masterpieces were written on the sheet music.

Of course, there were many songs whose lyrics he couldn’t remember, and songs that he only knew the chorus part or didn’t even know who made them.

He also had to change the lyrics to imperial language, so he couldn’t say they were exactly the same songs. But Kim Kiwoo was satisfied. 

He felt that they were roughly similar.

That’s how blues, rock, pop songs, Korean pop songs and so on. 

Quite a lot of genres of songs were made. 

Kim Kiwoo completed all these songs with just one piano.

The attendant who watched this from nearby was tongue-tied.

‘I heard that he has an amazing artistic ability, but seeing it in person is really amazing…’

It was widely known to the imperial people that Kim Kiwoo had created classical literature and classical music from his fingertips.

But at some point, Kim Kiwoo stopped working in this field, so it was just a history of the past.

‘It would have been better if he released them under his name…’

It was an unfamiliar genre of music, but it was clear that it was music that stuck in your ears even if you only heard a fragmentary melody while working on it.

It couldn’t be helped.

They were music that had been hit for decades from the mid-20th century.

‘Sigh… Let’s send these first.’

It was strange that at first many songs were vague. But as he worked on them, songs that had been buried deep in his brain kept coming up.

The work of reviving these things gave Kim Kiwoo a lot of fun and sense of accomplishment. 

There were still many songs left to revive.

But he had too many works done now, so Kim Kiwoo decided to release them as albums first.

After making up his mind, he immediately ordered his attendant.

“Send all the songs I’ve made so far to each record company.”

“By any chance, what should we do about the composer?”

“Hmm. The composer…”

This was also a topic he had thought about.

In fact, he could have written the group or singer who sang these songs in the original history, but…

‘Did they really make them?’

He only knew the songs, but Kim Kiwoo didn’t know exactly who wrote them.

He even didn’t know who sang them for many songs.

So he made a conclusion.

‘Let’s create a fictional genius composer.’

A genius who can create various genres that are unknown, and a mysticist who doesn’t want to show his face to people.

Kim Kiwoo decided to release all the albums from now on under the name of such a person.

When he told this to his attendant, the attendant asked again.

“Then what is his name?”

“Traces of the Future. Let’s go with that name.”

Traces of the future that can never return. 

Kim Kiwoo liked that name.

That’s how countless songs written by a fictional person named Traces of the Future were delivered to various record companies.

***

“What is this? Is this music?”

“Ha! It sounds like a kid scribbled something without knowing anything.”

“Traces of the Future? What kind of name is that?”

Among the people who first encountered the songs that were distributed to large record companies, there were many who sneered.

The songs Kim Kiwoo wrote were mostly completely different from the current trend.

But not everyone was like that.

“It’s better than I thought?”

“It sticks to my ears. It seems to touch my heart somehow.”

As a result of playing and singing according to the sheet music, it was very pleasant to listen to.

“Hmm. Should we try recording it?”

Eventually, some record companies started to seriously record them, and the results were quite good. 

And they reached the point of release.

Of course, even then, they couldn’t see Traces of the Future. 

They could only communicate by voice call.

That’s how around the same time, several record companies released songs from the original history.

As Kim Kiwoo expected, many songs were ignored by the public in the early days. But some of them were different.

“Oh… it’s good?”

“It’s unfamiliar, but the melody sticks well.”

Several albums gradually spread by word of mouth, and eventually started to flow on the radio.

And the imperial people gradually became enthusiastic about the fresh genre of songs.

Among them, there was one song that was especially popular, and that was none other than Let It Be by the Beatles.

Of course, both the lyrics and the title were in imperial language, and the composer was also Traces of the Future.

And at some point, the imperial people began to pay attention to one fact.

“All these songs, they were written by a composer named Traces of the Future, right?”

“Did you just find out? His songs are unfamiliar but they are all good. In my opinion, he is a genius. He can change the music scene in the future.”

“Is that so? I have to listen to them all.”

“You won’t regret it.”

With such rumors spreading, and even being mentioned in the media, people began to look for and listen to the albums composed by Traces of the Future.

And of course, the record companies knew about this situation.

“Traces of the Future! We had songs sent by that composer too, right? What happened to them?”

“Ah… maybe we burned them already…?”

“What! Why did you burn them! You crazy…!”

There were places that had acted rashly and missed a golden opportunity. 

The songs that were burned were delivered to other record companies by the attendants, and the record companies that missed the opportunity once could not get it again.

“We have them! They were buried in the warehouse!”

“Ah! Thank goodness… bring them all! We’ll start recording right away.”

There were also many record companies that joined the trend belatedly.

That’s how the masterpieces of the original history were sung by various singers of the empire. 

The imperial people were fascinated by the songs composed by Traces of the Future, and they reached the level of looking for and listening to any song he released.

“I wonder where Mr. Traces of the Future lives?”

“Ah, I wish I could meet him once…”

Naturally, there were many people who wanted to meet Traces of the Future, but he never showed his face to the public.

Maybe it was because of his mysticism that the public was more enthusiastic.

‘Haha… The power of music is amazing. No, should I say the power of the great artists who made these songs is amazing?’

Kim Kiwoo watched the situation and admired it.

He had expected it to be like this to some extent, but he was surprised that the composer named Traces of the Future had risen much bigger than he expected.

After that, Kim Kiwoo continued to write songs from time to time and released them to the world under the name of Traces of the Future. But he couldn’t devote all his time like before.

‘I have to get back to work soon.’

He felt that he had rested enough without regret. 

So Kim Kiwoo decided to start his work as an emperor again.

***

After that, Kim Kiwoo spent a busy time without a break for a while, adapting to his work.

‘How did I handle this murderous workload in the past…’

He couldn’t adapt easily because he had been away for a long time. 

No, actually, the workload had increased even more.

The economy had grown much more not only in the empire but also in the world during his absence.

After adapting to his work to some extent, the first thing Kim Kiwoo did was reveal nuclear weapons to the world.

The nuclear tests had been top secret until now. 

This was a very sensitive issue, so experiments and production were very strictly controlled.

The nuclear weapons personnel could hardly meet their families.

But while Kim Kiwoo was resting, enough nuclear weapons were made, and missile technology had also developed satisfactorily thanks to Golden Lake.

Kim Kiwoo first announced the existence of nuclear weapons to his ministers at an imperial meeting.

“Nuclear weapons…”

“Are you saying that such a tremendous weapon has been made?”

“It’s been made for a long time. Most of you didn’t know it except for some ministers and related people, so don’t be too upset.”

Most of the ministers were surprised. 

They encountered nuclear weapons for the first time.

But they agreed with Kim Kiwoo’s explanation. 

They understood that he had to hide it well if he wanted to hide it.

After Kim Kiwoo’s explanation was over, the Minister of Justice suggested.

“Then how about showing nuclear weapons to all imperial citizens and foreigners? If they witness a nuclear explosion from afar, it would be much more effective than hearing it.”

“What?”

Kim Kiwoo was startled by this.

And he immediately shook his head.

“That can never be done.”

“Why is that?”

“The material that comes out of nuclear weapons is very harmful to humans.”

He didn’t know yet, but Kim Kiwoo knew very well how harmful radiation from nuclear weapons was.

‘In the original history, America experimented on its people to find out how harmful nuclear materials were.’

It was a horrible human experiment where they deliberately showed them nuclear explosions and checked what happened to them.

As a result, tens of thousands of people died of cancer. 

When this was revealed later, the president apologized to the nation and compensated the victims.

Kim Kiwoo had no intention of doing such a thing.

“Nuclear weapons are explosions of huge energy from nuclear fission. But there is no need to use this huge energy as a weapon. We can also build power plants using nuclear energy. But as I said, the material that comes out of this process is very harmful to humans. Therefore, we must handle nuclear-related materials very carefully in the future. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”