WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Ceaseless
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◈ The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing ◈
Chapter 1: I Fell into 15th-Century Europe
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“Senior Park! I clearly warned you to remove that line from the report!”
The stack of documents the team leader had thrown scattered through the air.
One sheet fluttered down at my feet. I did not even need to bend over to see the offending sentence.
At the very end of the report was the one line I had stubbornly insisted on keeping.
[NX-7 Graphene Composite: (excerpt omitted)··· It poses no issue for commercial use, but further research is needed into its potential risks from long-term exposure.]
The veins stood out on the team leader's neck as he erupted again.
“Because of this, the final K-REACH (Act on Registration and Evaluation of Chemicals) review has been put on hold again! Do you understand?”
I stared blankly at the scattered documents before speaking. My voice was calmer than I had expected.
“But sir, NX-7 still needs further safety research.”
“We've already established its short-term safety! Are you telling us to hold up a project worth tens of billions of won for years over unverified ‘potential risks’?”
“······.”
He was not entirely wrong. From a short-term perspective, the new NX-7 material had produced nearly perfect results.
It was simply that no researcher, myself included, could guarantee the effects continuous, long-term exposure to the substance might have on the human body.
Apparently, though, uncertain risks in the distant future were not something the higher-ups cared to consider.
“Do you think you're the only one working for this company? Is your precious researcher’s conscience more important than meeting the project deadline? If that's how you're going to work, then quit! There are plenty of PhDs lined up waiting to take your place!”
The moment I heard that, I felt something snap inside me.
The papers scattered at my feet, the contemptuous abuse, the cold glow of the fluorescent lights. Everything felt distant, like a scene playing out in slow motion.
I quietly set the report I was holding on the desk.
Thud.
“Yes, I'll quit.”
“What?”
“I said I'm quitting because this place is fucking ridiculous.”
That was how I handed in my resignation.
It had been an impulsive decision, but I did not regret it.
I was sick of it all. The endless overtime, the suffocating pressure to perform, even the nerve-racking office politics.
What was the point of being a researcher at a major corporation? I was living like a slave with no time to properly spend the salary deposited into my account.
‘What do I do now?’
Then an old dream surfaced in my empty mind. It was something I had buried in a corner of my heart long ago.
Maybe because I had forgotten it for so long, its shape felt even clearer now.
“Should I travel the world?”
Just as I had thrown down my resignation in a fit of anger, the trip was impulsive too. I headed straight to the airport and bought the earliest ticket to Europe.
I had no destination and no plan. For the first time, I wanted to step off the path laid out for me.
For several months, I wandered wherever my feet took me and wherever my heart led.
The Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Vienna State Opera, the Colosseum in Rome. I saw countless famous sights I had only ever heard about with my own eyes.
Then Prague's famous astronomical clock suddenly came to mind. The moment it did, I had my next destination.
I immediately boarded a train for the Czech Republic.
Clatter, clatter.
I let the steady vibrations carry me as I gazed blankly out the window. Green plains slipped past without end.
That was when my gaze fixed on a hill in the distance.
A Gothic castle rose high enough to pierce the sky, framed by a deep green forest.
“Wow.”
An exclamation escaped me before I knew it.
It bore the marks of at least several centuries of history. How had it endured the hardships of all those long years so steadfastly?
It was grand and awe-inspiring. Compared to it, how shabby were Seoul's apartment buildings, which crumbled before they could even last a few decades?
It was a majestic sight one could never see in a world that tore down old things just to pile up new ones.
When I first chose a career in science and engineering, I had wanted to create something that would remain in history, just like that castle.
A great discovery, an immortal achievement. There had been a time when I dreamed such romantic dreams···.
‘Of course, reality was different.’
An announcement said the train would stop at the next station. Without hesitation, I sprang from my seat.
It was an impulsive change of plans. It had not been on my itinerary, but that was exactly why I liked it. Was that not the charm of backpacking?
What greeted me, though, was a tightly shut iron gate and a sign written in cold lettering.
[Český Šternberk Castle]
Opening: 10:00 AM
Closing: 5:00 PM
Closed: Weekends and Public Holidays
“Damn it, it's closed.”
I gave a hollow laugh. The sun was still high in the sky. Europe had a habit of shutting everything down far too early.
There was nothing I could do. I would have to stay here tonight and sightsee tomorrow.
I immediately booked a nearby Airbnb and unpacked.
After wandering around the village for a while, evening came and hunger hit me. I opened my map and headed for a small pub nearby.
Jingle.
The place was lively with people who looked more like locals than tourists.
The moment I stepped inside, nearly everyone in the pub turned to look at me. An Asian traveler must have been a rare sight in this tiny village.
I did not mind and took an empty seat. Then, in halting Czech, I ordered goulash, bread, and a glass of Kozel Dark.
My order soon arrived. The scent of steaming goulash filled my nose, while condensation beaded on the cold dark beer.
I lifted the glass and took a deep drink. The bitter yet sweet beer slid down my throat, and a satisfied sound burst out of me.
“Ahh-!”
It felt as if the exhaustion of traveling had melted away like snow.
Just then, a warm Czech accent came from the seat beside me.
“Ho ho, you certainly have a healthy appetite for an outsider.”
I turned to see a well-built middle-aged man holding a beer glass and laughing heartily.
“Thank you. The beer here is really good.”
When I answered in clumsy Czech, a pleased look crossed his face.
“Oh, you can speak Czech?”
“I studied hard while traveling. I can manage short conversations.”
“I see. I'm Zdeněk.”
“I'm Park Kang-jun.”
We exchanged a brief handshake.
Just as I wondered whether I would have to keep struggling through Czech, Zdeněk fortunately spoke to me in fluent English.
“So what brings you to a rural village like this? Tourists hardly ever come to a remote place like this.”
“I was on my way to Prague, but the castle I saw from the train window was so impressive that I got off without thinking.”
“Ah, Sternberg Castle! It's the pride of our village! Ha ha, though to be honest, there isn't much else to see.”
Zdeněk laughed good-naturedly, then lowered his voice and whispered with a playful look.
“Prepare to be surprised.”
“Pardon?”
“The truth is, I'm the owner of that castle.”
My eyes widened.
As though he found my reaction amusing, Zdeněk burst into laughter and pulled out a business card.
It bore the name Zdeněk von Sternberg, along with his title as the castle's caretaker.
“That's incredible. I never thought I'd meet the lord of a castle in my life.”
“Ho ho, it's nothing. These days, we barely get by on it as a tourist attraction. Still, our family was once truly great. Our history goes back over eight hundred years.”
Eight hundred years. It was even longer than the Joseon dynasty. For someone like me, who could barely remember my great-grandfather's name, it was impossible to imagine.
“It really is an incredible family. Eight hundred years.”
“Do you know about the Sarajevo incident? The event that sparked World War I. Konopiště Castle, where Crown Prince Ferdinand lived before he was assassinated, once belonged to our family too.”
“Ah···.”
He tipped back his glass and continued. There was a faint pride in his voice.
“Once, every Czech knew the name Sternberg. Do you know that there was a time when our little country of Czechia stood at the center of Europe?”
“This is the first I've heard of it. Was there really?”
“Of course there was! In the fourteenth century, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was Czech. The great Charles IV! Prague was the capital of the Empire then, and our Sternberg family was a great house that enjoyed the Emperor's deepest trust!”
Zdeněk's eyes shone with wistful pride, as if he had seen those days himself.
After that, his stories continued without end alongside the beer.
The rise and fall of the Kingdom of Bohemia, Prague's golden age, and the glory of the Sternberg family at the heart of it all.
I quietly listened as I dipped bread into my goulash. I had nothing else to do, and his stories were more interesting than I had expected.
After speaking passionately for quite some time, Zdeněk suddenly let out a deep sigh.
“Haah···.”
“Is something wrong?”
“It is a regret of mine. There was a time when our family, no, our homeland shone brightest. The early fifteenth century, the most turbulent era in Czech history. If only the House of Luxembourg had not died out then···.”
Zdeněk's voice trailed on wistfully.
“Our Czechia might have stood proudly at the center of Europe instead of being a weak country forced to tread carefully around the great powers. If only my ancestors had made a slightly different choice back then···.”
Bitterness crept into his voice. His gaze rested somewhere in the air, filled with deep regret.
The atmosphere grew awkward. Unsure where to look, I scanned the inside of the pub.
Then my eyes landed on an old painting hanging on the wall.
A knight holding a sword, and a guardian angel sounding a horn.
“Ho ho, I've been rambling like an old man. I hope I haven't stolen too much of your time with boring old stories.”
“Not at all. I enjoyed hearing them. The beer tastes even better because of them.”
I naturally changed the subject.
“By the way, Zdeněk, do you know what that painting over there is?”
“Ah, that painting?”
Zdeněk turned toward it.
“It's an old Czech legend. They say that when the country is in danger, a guardian angel's horn will sound, and Saint Wenceslas, the founding king sleeping beneath Mount Blaník, will rise with an army of steel and save the nation··· Just a fanciful story like that.”
Zdeněk shrugged and smiled.
“Well, none of that ever happened in the end.”
To him, it seemed to be little more than an old tale told to children.
“Thank you for listening to my long story. You're a young man I quite like.”
“It was good to meet you too, Zdeněk.”
Saying it had been a long time since he had enjoyed a conversation so much, Zdeněk paid for my drinks as well and left the pub.
‘What an odd encounter.’
I returned straight to my accommodation. The moment I entered the room, all the tension left me, and fatigue and drunkenness washed over me at once.
As soon as I threw myself onto the bed, my eyelids grew heavy and my consciousness began to sink.
Just before it disappeared completely into the darkness.
Bwoooooo-
Somewhere, a long and majestic horn seemed to sound faintly.
* * *
I slowly opened my eyes through the haze of sleep.
The faint sensation of morning sunlight seeping through my eyelids was the same as yesterday.
That was all.
Everything around me was unfamiliar.
The blanket covering me was rough linen rather than soft polyester, and the bed creaked whenever I moved even a little.
The smell was even worse. Damp earth, the acrid scent of burnt firewood, and the faint stink of livestock dung.
“This isn't a dream,” I muttered with a hollow laugh.
Today marked my second day since waking in this new, or rather horribly old, world.
I had no choice but to accept it now. This was not the twenty-first century, and I was no longer Park Kang-jun.
My mind was a mess. I went over the information I had gathered over the past day.
‘First, it's December 1420 in the Kingdom of Bohemia, the old name for Czechia.’
‘Second, I'm Ulrich von Sternberg, the sole heir to Český Šternberk Castle and the Sternberg family.’
‘Third, the original Ulrich lost consciousness in a riding accident a few days ago.’
‘But the one who woke up wasn't the real Ulrich. It was me, Park Kang-jun, from the twenty-first century···.’
It was an absurd situation. I had only gotten off the train on impulse because I was drawn to the view outside its window, yet I had suddenly become the ancestor of that castle's owner.
At first, I naturally thought it was a dream. A vivid and terribly unpleasant nightmare. But even after a night had passed, nothing changed.
The bed creaked as I climbed down. I walked over to the cloudy bronze mirror hanging on the wall in the corner of the room.
Strong features, sharp eyes. A handsome young man with pale skin stared back at me from the mirror. There was no trace of Park Kang-jun, the exhausted researcher, anywhere.
‘···At least he's pretty handsome.’
That absurd thought came to mind at a time like this. Well, being handsome was far better than being ugly.
In any case, I turned away from the mirror and walked to the window. Beyond the thick, uneven glass stretched a medieval landscape.
Servants hurried through the castle courtyard, while the dull sound of metal being hammered rang out steadily from a distant forge. Soldiers clad in helmets and armor patrolled the walls with spears in hand.
Asphalt roads, utility poles, the noise of cars··· There was no sign anywhere of the civilization I knew.
I let out a long sigh.
‘Accept it. I'm no longer Park Kang-jun. I'm Ulrich now.’
Nothing would change if I denied it. I had to accept this situation and find some way to survive.
At least I was not a serf[1] at the bottom of society, but the son of a castle lord. I probably would not starve to death right away or end up rolling around in a field of shit.
···Maybe this was a good thing after all.
There was no electricity, internet, or smartphone, but on the other hand, did that not mean I had been completely freed from that sickeningly competitive society?
Every morning, I could eat the meal a maid brought me. During the day, I could walk around the domain or enjoy hunting on horseback. In the evenings, I could drink wine before the fireplace and live at my leisure.
It was exactly the retirement life I had always dreamed of.
Right. All I had to do now was let go of everything and enjoy this life.
Dreaming of a rosy future, I gradually found peace amid this absurd situation.
* * *
“This is supposed to be a noble’s life?”
That sweet fantasy shattered in a single day.
Footnotes:
[1] Serf was an agricultural laborer bound by the feudal system to work on a specific lord's estate in medieval Europe. They were legally tied to the land and required to provide labor, taxes, and crops to the landowner in exchange for physical protection and a tiny plot of land to survive.
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