WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Ceaseless

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing ◈

Chapter 3: I Fell into 15th-Century Europe (3)

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That morning, the outside was unusually noisy.

It was different from the usual crowing of roosters that marked the start of the day, or the bustle of half-awake servants rushing about.

An uneasy murmur hung low throughout the castle, seeping through the thick stone walls into my bedroom.

‘What’s going on? Did the tenant farmers start fighting over field boundaries again?’

I threw aside the rough linen blanket and sat up in bed. The cold dawn air touched my bare skin, making me shiver.

“Ugh, it’s cold.”

A thin nightshirt was not enough to keep out the chill.

It should still have been some time before Šárka brought me warm water to wash with, as she always did.

Then it happened.

Bang!

Konrad, the chamberlain who normally announced himself with a polite knock, threw open the door as though he meant to break it down.

“Young Master! Young Master, something terrible has happened!”

Konrad’s voice trembled violently. His graying hair was disheveled, and cold sweat covered his forehead.

“Konrad? What is it? Calm down and tell me.”

Konrad barely managed to catch his breath before continuing.

“The family soldiers who marched out with the lord... have returned!”

“What?”

I hurriedly changed and headed to the courtyard.

Dozens of servants and soldiers had already gathered there, whispering among themselves.

Their grim gazes were fixed on the center of the courtyard.

A little over thirty armored soldiers stood there.

Some could barely remain upright by leaning on their comrades’ shoulders, while others used broken spears or shields as walking sticks.

They looked utterly miserable.

‘...This.’

They certainly did not look like men who had returned victorious. They were the remnants of a defeated army.

A heavy silence settled over the courtyard.

Then I met the eyes of the only knight in the ragged group who had removed his helmet.

He was a stranger, but the faint memories left behind by this body’s original owner told me his name.

The commander of the Sternberg family’s knights and my father’s oldest comrade.

Kuno von Friedenberg.

The instant Sir Kuno saw me, he collapsed to his knees. His armor clattered against the gravel-covered ground.

“Young Master!” Kuno choked back a sob. “The lord! The lord...!”

“My father? What happened to my father?”

“At the Battle of Vyšehrad! He fell into the trap of those vile, cowardly Hussites and died a glorious death!”

Killed in battle.

At that moment, it felt as though every sound in the world had suddenly drifted far away.

Riiiiing.

The servants’ whispers, Kuno’s wails, even the sound of the cold wind all faded into the distance.

Grief? Not yet. It was closer to the numbness of a massive shock severing every line of thought.

Thirty-two years of memories as Park Kang-jun. Only a few days of memories since waking up as Ulrich von Sternberg.

All of them tangled together in my head, robbing the moment of any sense of reality.

‘...My father is dead?’

The vague image of a middle-aged nobleman, always stern and taciturn in this body’s memories, came to mind.

I had honestly worried whether I would be able to call him Father when he returned home.

Yet he had died so suddenly before I could even properly face him.

Kuno’s grief-stricken cries rang through the courtyard.

“We could not recover the lord’s body! Please kill this disloyal wretch who had the audacity to return alive alone!”

Kuno began slamming his forehead against the bare ground like a madman.

Thud, thud.

Blood streamed from his forehead and soaked into the dirt, but I could not even think to stop him. I could only stare blankly at the sight.

‘...Calm down. This is not the time to get emotional. I need to assess the situation calmly. Calmly.’

Cold reason raised its head before emotion. It was a habit ingrained in me from my previous life as a researcher and engineer.

I slowly drew in a breath. Then I sorted through Kuno’s explanation point by point and began asking questions.

“Sir Kuno. Are you saying the holy crusaders gathered in the name of His Majesty, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, were defeated by a rebel army made up of nothing more than peasants and heretics?”

Kuno finally raised his head. Unfathomable fear filled his eyes.

“Yes, Young Master. Those wicked heretics... built walls with strange wagons none of us had ever seen before, then hid behind them and rained fire down on us! Our knights’ cavalry charges were powerless before that fortress!”

Strange wagons and weapons that rained fire.

The moment I heard that, something came to mind.

‘A wagon fortress... Wagenburg tactics. And early gunpowder weapons like hand cannons. They are still crude and unwieldy, but even a peasant can bring down a knight with a single shot.’

A page of history I had heard from Zdeněk’s own mouth had become reality before my eyes.

I quickly counted Kuno and the soldiers behind him.

“As I recall, our family had ten knights and three hundred soldiers. Yet only thirty people, including you, have returned?”

“...I have no excuse!”

Ninety percent of the family’s private soldiers had vanished in the war. They had effectively been wiped out.

‘Just how badly did they get beaten...?’

I swallowed and asked my final question. This was the most important one.

“...So the rebel army that won the battle is planning to march directly into our domain?”

Kuno lifted his head, his eyes desperate as he shouted.

“Yes! Those cruel Hussites will soon ride the momentum of their victory straight here! You must flee, Young Master! The Sternberg family line cannot end like this!”

That settled it.

The lord was dead. The forces meant to defend the castle had been almost completely wiped out.

And the approaching enemy was a rebel army numbering in the thousands, its morale soaring.

Once I had grasped the situation, one brutally clear sentence surfaced in my mind.

“Ha, I’m f***ed.”

Crash.

That was the sound of my peaceful, comfortable retirement shattering into pieces.

* * *

Run away? Of course, that was the first option that came to mind.

But I immediately erased the thought. Reason was colder and crueler than instinct.

‘Where would I even go? Is there truly any safe place in this mess?’

The entire Kingdom of Bohemia was like a boiling cauldron.

The Imperial faction, which supported Sigismund, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and King of Bohemia.

And the Hussites, who followed the teachings of the religious reformer Jan Hus.

The entire country stood in the middle of a horrific civil war, split between two factions that killed and looted each other.

In this situation, a wandering noble with no domain, soldiers, or money was no different from a plump sheep tossed before hungry wolves.

On top of that, my father, the previous head of the family, had practically emptied the family coffers to answer the king’s call to join the crusaders.

The Sternberg family was an ancient house that had served the emperor loyally for generations. Answering the emperor’s call to join the crusaders was a noble’s natural and sacred duty.

Refusing it would mean betraying the emperor and staining the family’s honor.

The problem was that the family finances had not been particularly sound lately. My father had fulfilled his duty as a loyal subject, but the price had been an empty treasury.

All we had left was this old stone castle, a barren domain, and starving subjects.

If I abandoned even that and fled, I would truly have nothing left.

Even if luck let me seek shelter with another lord of the Imperial faction, I would become a powerless dependent, spending the rest of my life living at others’ mercy.

‘There’s only one conclusion. I either fight here and die, or survive somehow.’

The choice was clear. The problem was how.

Stopping thousands of enemies with around thirty routed soldiers? That was like throwing eggs at a rock.

Then one source of hope came to mind.

The only person I could ask for help, and the man responsible for this entire mess.

“János Hunyadi, bring me parchment and ink.”

“You’re sending a letter?”

I nodded.

“I need to inform His Majesty Sigismund of our situation and request reinforcements.”

King of Germany and Hungary.

Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

The rightful heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Bohemia.

Sigismund von Luxembourg.

By now, he should have been regrouping his scattered army in the mining city of Kuttenberg, hoping to recover from his humiliating defeat at Vyšehrad. That was the historical record.

If that man had even the slightest conscience, he could not simply ignore the son of a loyal subject who had given his life for him.

No, this was not a matter of conscience. It was a deeply political and practical matter.

If Sigismund abandoned the Sternberg family now, he would set a terrible precedent. It would show that anyone who devoted themselves to the king would ultimately be cast aside.

He would never make such a foolish choice.

He had to.

Repeating that to myself, I spread parchment across the cold stone table.

Then I began carefully composing each sentence, drawing on every flowery phrase I could think of.

_________

To His Majesty Sigismund, King of the Romans, sovereign of Germany and Hungary, and rightful ruler of Bohemia.

I, Ulrich von Sternberg, son of Petr von Sternberg, Your Majesty’s most loyal subject, who recently became a martyr at Vyšehrad while fighting for the Lord’s will and Your Majesty’s glory, take up this pen with a grieving heart.

My father devoted his entire life to serving Your Majesty in accordance with the Sternberg family’s oath, and even in his final moments, he never let go of Your Majesty’s banner, even before the heretics’ blades.

My father’s death has brought our family an indelible grief. Yet because it was a sacred sacrifice for Your Majesty’s great cause, I regard it as the family’s highest honor.

Yet, Your Majesty,

with my father’s death, the shield of our family has also been shattered.

The family’s elite soldiers fell beside my father on the battlefield, and our empty treasury cannot even polish the boots of the soldiers who remain.

What is more, seizing this opportunity, the wicked Hussite heretics seek to snuff out what little life remains in our family.

Merciful Majesty!

We are now like a lonely castle besieged from within and without.

Please look upon the unbroken loyalty of the Sternberg family and grant us a single ray of salvation.

A single unit of knights would suffice. No, even one knight bearing Your Majesty’s banner would be enough.

If You show us a sign that You stand with us, we will defend this castle until the last drop of our blood, and establish a bridgehead from which Your Majesty’s army may one day reclaim Bohemia.

Please remember the blood and loyalty our family has offered to Your Majesty.

Your Majesty’s eternal subject,

Ulrich von Sternberg.

_________

With a satisfied smile, I slowly read over the letter once more.

Perfect. At least within Sternberg Castle, I was surely the only person capable of writing something more likely to move the king’s heart.

‘The CSAT language section, university reports, and the report-writing skills I honed at work are finally paying off.’

János Hunyadi, who had read the letter over my shoulder, widened his eyes in admiration.

“Young Master, this is incredible. Since when did you know how to write like this...?”

“Enough pointless talk. Pick the fastest and most reliable messenger in the castle and have this letter delivered to His Majesty in Kuttenberg immediately.”

I rolled up the parchment, pressed my signet ring bearing the family crest into wax, and sealed it. Then I handed it to János Hunyadi.

János Hunyadi nodded.

“Understood. But, Young Master... what if His Majesty really sends only one knight because you wrote that?”

I let out a hollow laugh.

“Are you crazy? If the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire sent only one knight in response to a plea for aid from a loyal subject’s son, he would be making a fool of himself and undermining his own authority. Do you think he will really take my words so literally and send just one knight?”

...Unless he sent no reinforcements at all.

I forced that ominous thought from my mind.

Worrying would not change anything. For now, all I could do was pin all my hopes on this one letter.

The king’s reply arrived exactly three days later.

Footnotes:

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