WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Ceaseless

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◈ The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing ◈

Chapter 2: I Fell into 15th-Century Europe (2)

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Cock-a-doodle-doo-

Medieval mornings began not with a smartphone alarm, but with the crowing of roosters in the distance.

“Ugh... It’s cold.”

A groan escaped me before I could stop it. Cold seeped in from the stone walls, chilling my bare shoulders outside the blanket. A single thin linen nightshirt was nowhere near enough to keep out the chill.

When I curled up, the coarse blanket scraped against my skin. The charcoal I had put in the brazier last night had long since turned to white ash and lost all warmth.

The musty scent of dust with every breath.

The sharp smell of half-burned firewood.

The stench of waste that had collected in the chamber pot overnight.

‘Damn it. Is this really a place for people to live?’

If someone measured the air quality in this room, the fine-dust levels would surely qualify as a disaster.

Holding my aching back, I dragged myself out of bed.

‘The sleeping arrangements are awful...’

Beds in this era were little more than enormous sacks stuffed with goose feathers. A fancy canopy hung over my head, but it was less comfortable than the cheap latex mattress I used to own. Every morning, my entire body ached.

The worst part, though, was the fleas. Dried herbs supposedly meant to repel insects had been laid beneath the sheets, but they barely worked. I had woken up several times during the night from the itching.

At least I seemed to have fewer bites than yesterday. That was my only comfort.

‘Ah, I miss my apartment.’

The air conditioner that kept the temperature and humidity pleasant.

The double-glazed windows that shut out noise and cold.

The flush toilet that made filth disappear with the press of a button.

I desperately missed the marvels of twenty-first-century civilization. Truly desperately.

Knock, knock.

The old oak door opened from outside after a light knock.

“Excuse me~”

She looked about fifteen. Šárka, the maid with freckles on her youthful face and blond hair braided into two pigtails, entered the room.

Her worn woolen clothes were covered in kitchen soot and dust, yet her expression was as bright as the morning sun.

“Good morning, Young Master! It looks like the weather will be very clear today!”

As soon as she entered, she threw the window wide open. Cold air rushed in, carrying the earthy smell of the countryside and livestock dung.

Šárka inhaled deeply, as though it were a refreshing fragrance. It was an utterly incomprehensible sight.

“Please get up! Just as you asked yesterday, I even brought water that was boiled once for washing!”

Faint steam rose from the brass basin Šárka proudly held out.

It was water brought to a boil last night, then left beside the kitchen hearth to retain its warmth. Even this was tremendous progress since I had arrived here.

On the first day I woke up, she had casually brought me ice-cold water freshly drawn from the river below the castle.

River water from an age without purification facilities or even basic hygiene.

Just imagining how many bacteria and parasites must be crawling through it made me nauseous. I would rather die than wash with that.

I answered as casually as I could, in the solemn tone the owner of this body would probably have used.

“Very well. Leave it there.”

“Yes, Young Master!”

The way I spoke still felt awkward, but Šárka seemed more unsettled if I did not act this way. The invisible wall of a class society was taller and stronger than I had expected.

While I washed my face in lukewarm water, Šárka picked up the chamber pot in the corner and walked to the window. Without hesitation, she poured its contents outside.

Splaash!

Along with the sound of heavy liquid spilling out, a coarse curse rose faintly from the courtyard below.

“Hmm, hmm-hmm~”

Whether she had not heard it or simply did not care, Šárka hummed cheerfully as she returned the empty chamber pot to its place.

“...”

I squeezed my eyes shut at the sight.

‘Forget everything else, I need to install water and sewage systems first. At this rate, people won’t die from the Black Death. They’ll die from every waterborne disease imaginable. That filth eventually flows through the moat and into the river, then they use that river as drinking water!’

The latrines were even more absurd. They protruded from the outside of the castle walls, so waste simply fell straight into the moat below.

They were literally living above a moat full of sewage.

I could now truly understand that the lack of basic hygiene was one of the main reasons people in this era had such short lives.

“Young Master, I shall prepare your clothes.”

The garments Šárka brought were made of rough linen that felt like sandpaper against my skin. Even with underwear beneath them, the scratchy sensation was impossible to ignore.

The leather doublet worn over them had not been broken in yet, so it was stiff, and a foul odor had soaked deep into it.

“...”

I knew what that smell was. Ammonia used to tan leather.

To put it more plainly, the stench of fermented urine.

No matter how much it was washed and dried in the sun, the smell did not fade easily. The only solution was to cover it with expensive perfume.

Once I had finished getting ready, Konrad, the castle’s chamberlain and steward, came to find me.

Konrad had faithfully served the Sternberg family since this body’s grandfather’s time. His graying hair and deep wrinkles spoke of the years he had spent in this castle.

“Young Master Ulrich, did you sleep well? Breakfast is ready.”

As always, he greeted me with a straight posture and an unreadable face that revealed no emotion.

Breakfast was served in a small dining room used only by the lord’s family. Still, being the lord’s dining room did not make it any more comfortable or cleaner than my bedroom.

On the table lay a hard loaf of dark bread, several slices of sheep’s milk cheese, and a cup of weak ale drunk like water.

Even as the heir to this castle, I could not eat soft white bread made from wheat flour every morning. That was a luxury only a king or archbishop could enjoy.

‘A loaf of sliced bread that costs a few thousand won at a supermarket in the modern world is more expensive here than a commoner’s food for an entire week...’

I soaked the rock-hard bread in ale and took a bite. A sour smell of fermentation rose from the soggy bread. The taste was every bit as terrible as expected.

Water quality in medieval Europe was so poor that drinking clean water was practically suicide. Even children drank low-alcohol ale or wine instead of water.

I understood drinking alcohol in place of water, but warm, flat ale first thing in the morning was a serious ordeal for my taste buds.

‘Please, just let me have one cup of coffee.’

But coffee was an unknown luxury to Europeans of this era. They had not even heard of it.

I seriously thought that a fragrant cup of Americano, the kind I drank every morning, might be worth more than everything in this castle put together.

After forcing down that horrible meal, I followed Konrad to the study.

As the heir to the Sternberg family, I had to deal with mountains of work every day.

“Young Master, here are the accounts for last month’s income from the domain.”

The parchment Konrad spread across my desk was packed with Roman numerals written in difficult cursive script.

An unintuitive system without place value, with figures like IV and VI, made even simple addition slow and difficult.

‘How are they supposed to multiply or divide with such complicated numbers? If only they had Arabic numerals and a decimal system, calculation time would drop tenfold.’

Everything in medieval Europe was inefficient, illogical, and unreasonable.

After spending the entire morning wrestling with account books and finishing my desk work, I left the castle with Konrad to inspect the domain.

In my previous life, I had never once lost first place in my school throughout my student years. Naturally, my knowledge of history was also more extensive than that of the average person.

The history I had learned did not simply list which countries rose and fell. It also covered, in detail, the development of technologies that changed eras and advanced civilization.

The tenant farmers’ fields spread out before me showed the limits of medieval agriculture I had only read about in books, leaving me frustrated.

‘That’s the three-field system. They’re just leaving a third of that precious land fallow? What an awful loss of production. No wonder harvests are so poor that one bad year leaves people starving to death.’

I sighed as I looked at the fallow land lying abandoned like a wasteland.

‘They could restore the soil and produce winter feed for livestock by planting clover or turnips on that unused land.’

My heart grew heavy throughout the inspection.

The pastoral view from the castle walls was a deception. Modest farmhouses and fields stretching beyond them made for a picturesque scene, but every farmer digging through that soil had a deeply bent back.

Hands stained with dirt, worn-out rags, and empty eyes exhausted by life.

Deep wrinkles covered the peasants’ faces. Born a farmer’s son, destined to live as a farmer and become fertilizer for this field. They did not seem capable of imagining any other life.

“...”

The sight made me uncomfortable. It was not simply pity.

The tremendous losses created by that helplessness and inefficiency kept agitating my scientific mind.

The forge was no different. As we neared the smithy by the castle gate, the foul smell of coal smoke and the steady thud of hammers reached us.

A blast of heat hit me the moment I stepped inside. Bare-chested and drenched in sweat, the blacksmith gasped as they worked a crude leather bellows with their feet.

“Huff, huff...!”

The bellows groaned like they were sick, but the amount of air they blew into the furnace was absurdly small. The labor required was wildly inefficient compared to the amount of air it supplied.

Naturally, the furnace did not heat evenly, and even the glow of the red-hot iron was uneven. Temperature control and carbon-content adjustment were, of course, nonexistent.

‘Improving the bellows alone would triple the efficiency of air supply. If I introduced firebricks to the furnace walls, I could prevent heat loss and maintain higher temperatures. Then we could mass-produce stronger steel with more consistent quality, and that would directly affect the domain’s productivity and military strength!’

Everything I saw was inefficient, something that needed improvement.

After finishing the inspection, I headed to the training ground for my next task.

Sword training was also an unavoidable part of my daily routine as the lord’s heir. My squire, János Hunyadi, greeted me from one side of the training ground.

“Young Master, you have arrived.”

János was five or six years younger than me, and I had only just turned twenty.

He came from a minor noble family in Hungary, but had been sent here as a squire to receive knightly training as part of an exchange between families.

His face was still youthful, yet his solid sun-darkened build and clear eyes carried a toughness rare among children his age.

And he was far stronger than me.

Clack, clack!

“Young Master! You cannot put proper force behind your strikes if you hold the sword like that! Use your waist more, not just your wrists!”

“Urgh... I am using it!”

Wearing heavy armor and swinging a wooden sword was exhausting labor, close to torture. After clashing swords only a few times, I was already gasping for breath.

‘How are they supposed to fight in this? War depends far more on the organization of a well-trained army than on individual martial strength. Once Gunpowder weapons develop, knights will become relics of a bygone age anyway...’

“Pant, pant... János, let’s rest for a moment.”

“You are tired already? Young Master, you need to build more stamina! No one on the battlefield will wait for you to recover!”

My body was already at its limit, yet János pushed me without showing the slightest sign of exhaustion.

But for someone who had been a bookish scholar in both my previous and current lives, sword training was nothing more than meaningless suffering carried out in the name of a noble’s duty.

Lunch after that hellish training was at least the day’s most generous meal.

In the center of the long table in the vast dining hall sat a whole roasted boar, steaming.

Still, the powerful spice smell that stung my nose did not whet my appetite. It felt more like an attempt to hide the gamey odor that must have soaked deep into the meat.

‘In an age when a single peppercorn is worth a silver coin, spices are probably more for displaying wealth than preventing spoilage.’

I roughly cut off a piece of tough boar meat with a knife and ate it with my hands.

‘Are knives and spoons the only utensils? Forks will not become common until after the eighteenth century, so even nobles eat with their hands as a matter of course. Naturally, there is no concept of washing those hands with soap before a meal either.’

The small bowl of water beside the table was not for drinking, but for rinsing fingers. Trying to grow accustomed to such primitive table manners, I finished my meal quietly.

In the afternoon, I had to preside over court as the lord’s representative. My father had answered the king’s crusade muster order and was away, so handling every matter in the domain rested entirely on my shoulders.

I sat in the high chair reserved for the lord in the castle’s great hall and heard the petitions of the people.

The hall was crowded with people who had come to watch the proceedings and those waiting for their turn.

The first petitioner was an old farmer with a bent back. Weeping, he claimed that his neighbor had moved the boundary stone of his field in secret during the night and stolen his land.

The accused neighbor soon rushed forward, shouting that they had done no such thing. Instead, the old man was the one coveting their land.

There was no evidence. Only curse-filled shouting at each other and oaths sworn before God.

‘This is when you conduct a survey. Establish a reference point and measure the distance, then it’s over... Do they not have land registers or property records?’

Courts in this era did not follow an evidence-based system. They did not even recognize the presumption of innocence. The lord’s word was law, and judgments could change depending on the lord’s mood.

With a sigh, I sternly warned both sides and settled the matter by making them reconcile.

The next case was even more troublesome. A farmer came forward, claiming that the widow next door had cast a curse that dried up their cow’s milk.

They even added the ridiculous testimony that they had seen her turn into a cat every night and sneak into the cowshed.

‘What witch? Did you even feed the cow proper, nutritious fodder? Is the cowshed clean?’

I pressed hard against my throbbing temple.

‘It’s clearly malnutrition or illness caused by poor care. But a widow without a husband is an easy target. If they accuse her of witchcraft and get her killed, they receive a reward, so this is probably some cheap trick to pin it on her first.’

Medieval Europe was an era ruled by superstition and fanaticism. Modern reason and common sense did not work here at all.

What would happen if I dismissed the farmer’s claim as unscientific?

Instead of seeing me as a wise lord enlightening his foolish subjects, they might suspect me of being a heretic protecting demons and witches.

After thinking for a moment, I sighed and gave my ruling.

“I will severely warn the widow. Have a priest bless the cow as well. Also, feed the cow more bean pods and dry grass from now on. The more blessed the livestock, the more generously it must be fed for God’s grace to multiply.”

“Thank you, Young Master!”

People trusted a priest’s prayers more than scientific grounds, and they paid more attention to stories of demons and witches than reasonable solutions.

So rather than reveal my knowledge directly, I had no choice but to give instructions indirectly, at a level that the people of this era could understand and accept.

When the sun set, low clouds swallowed the castle in pitch-black darkness in an instant.

For modern people, night marked the start of another day, but here, it was when all activity ended.

In a world where torches and candles provided all the light, most of society wasted half the day in darkness.

‘When did Edison invent the incandescent light bulb? One thing is certain. If I wait until then, I’ll grow old and die first.’

I stood by the window and looked up at the night sky.

Countless stars, never visible beneath city lights, flowed overhead like a vast river.

The medieval night sky was incomparably clearer and deeper than the sky over Seoul where I had lived.

“The sky is so beautiful, yet why is the world beneath it so terrible and inefficient?”

I sat at my desk and spread out a piece of parchment. Then I picked up a piece of charcoal and tried to record the knowledge I remembered.

Basic chemical element symbols, plans for a waterwheel, the structure of a distillation apparatus.

Teaching even a simple method of making soap would cut infant mortality in half. Teaching the basics of crop rotation and selective breeding would free people from hunger.

‘...But the moment this knowledge becomes known to the world, I will either become a saint who performs miracles or a heretic accused of making a pact with the devil and sent to the stake.’

I crumpled the parchment I had just written on and threw it into the embers of the fireplace. The parchment slowly burned in the flames.

I had no desire to end up in a fire like that paper.

When I lay down again in the cold, damp bed, the countless inefficiencies and absurdities I had seen throughout the day churned through my mind.

Water and sewage systems, agricultural technology, steelmaking methods, public hygiene, even the legal system... Everything in this medieval world was terrible, inconvenient, and uncivilized.

There was none of the romantic fantasy I had imagined here. Only the real medieval Europe, where even surviving and enduring a single day was cruel.

But the worst was yet to come.

The Sternberg family’s soldiers, who had left in response to the king’s crusade muster order, finally returned.

But among the long, exhausted line of survivors, one person was missing, though they should have been at the very front carrying the family banner.

The lord of this family, Petr von Sternberg, was nowhere to be seen.

Footnotes:

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