Cock-a-doodle-doo!
The medieval morning didn't begin with a smartphone alarm, but with the distant crow of a rooster.
"Ugh... cold."
A groan slipped out unbidden. The chill from the stone wall seeped into my exposed shoulder. A single thin linen nightshirt was woefully inadequate against the biting cold.
Huddling my body only brought the coarse blanket scraping against my bare skin. The charcoal I'd placed in the brazier last night had long since turned to white ash, losing all its warmth.
Every breath carried musty dust.
The acrid remnants of burned wood.
The stench of overnight waste piled in the chamber pot.
'Damn it. Is this really a place where people live?'
If anyone measured the air quality in this room right now, it'd probably register disaster-level fine dust.
Gripping my creaking waist, I hauled myself out of bed.
'The bed's the worst part...'
Beds in this era were little more than massive sacks stuffed with goose feathers. There was an ornate canopy at the head, but it wasn't even as comfortable as the cheap latex mattress I'd once used. Waking up left my whole body aching.
But the real nightmare was the fleas. They'd laid dried herbs under the bedsheets to ward off bugs, but it barely helped. I'd woken up scratching countless times through the night.
At least today, it felt like I'd been bitten less than yesterday—that was my only small mercy.
'Ah, I miss my apartment.'
The AC that kept perfect temperature and humidity.
The double-glazed windows blocking noise and drafts.
The flush toilet that made waste vanish with a button.
I desperately longed for the wonders of 21st-century civilization.
Knock knock.
The worn oak door creaked open from the outside.
"Pardon the intrusion~"
She looked about fifteen. Sharka, the freckled young maid with blonde hair braided into twin tails, stepped into the room.
Her threadbare wool dress was caked in kitchen soot and dust, but her face shone bright as morning sunlight.
"Good morning, young master! Looks like it's going to be a beautiful clear day today!"
She flung the window wide open the moment she entered. A rush of cold air brought the earthy smell of countryside soil mixed with livestock manure.
Sharka inhaled deeply, as if it were fresh mountain air. Completely incomprehensible.
"Come on, time to get up! I boiled the wash water once like you asked yesterday, and brought it nice and hot!"
A faint wisp of steam rose from the copper basin she proudly held out.
Water boiled to a rolling boil overnight and kept warm by the kitchen hearth. This alone was a monumental improvement since I'd arrived here.
The first day I'd woken up, she'd casually brought water straight from the river below the castle—ice-cold and filthy.
River water from an era without purification or even basic hygiene concepts.
Just imagining the bacteria and parasites teeming in it made my stomach turn. I'd rather die than wash with that.
I replied as indifferently as possible, in the stern tone this body's original owner would have used.
"Fine, set it there."
"Yes, young master!"
The phrasing still felt awkward on my tongue, but if I didn't act this way, Sharka would only get more flustered. The invisible walls of class society were higher and harder than I'd imagined.
As I dunked my face in the lukewarm water, Sharka grabbed the chamber pot from the corner and headed to the window. Without hesitation, she dumped its contents outside.
Splash!
A heavy splatter echoed, followed by muffled curses from the courtyard below.
"Hm hm~"
Sharka either didn't hear or didn't care, humming cheerfully as she returned the empty pot to its spot.
"..."
I squeezed my eyes shut at the sight.
'Forget everything else—sewage systems first. At this rate, we'll all die not from the Black Death, but from waterborne diseases. That filth ends up in the moat, flows into the river, and we drink it as our water source!'
The toilet setup was even more absurd. Protruding from the outer castle wall, waste dropped straight into the moat below.
We were literally living atop our own shit.
I truly felt how the absence of basic hygiene was slashing life expectancy in this era.
"Young master, shall I prepare your clothes?"
The rough linen Sharka brought felt like sandpaper against my skin. Even with undergarments, the scratchiness was vivid.
The leather doublet layered on top was stiff and unyielding, reeking of a nose-assaulting stench soaked deep into the material.
"..."
I knew what that smell was. Ammonia from tanning the leather.
More bluntly, the stench of rotten piss.
No amount of washing or sun-drying could erase it. The only fix was dousing it in expensive perfume.
Once I was fully dressed, Konrad—the castle's seneschal and steward—came to fetch me.
Konrad had loyally served the Sternberg family since this body's grandfather's time. His graying hair and deeply etched wrinkles spoke of the decades he'd spent in this castle.
"Young master Ulrich, I trust your cough has improved. Breakfast is ready."
As always, he stood ramrod straight, greeting me with an emotionless face.
Breakfast was served in the small dining room reserved for the lord's family. But lordly dining didn't mean it was cozier or cleaner than my room.
On the table: a hunk of rock-hard rye bread, a few chunks of goat cheese, and a cup of watery ale that might as well have been water.
Even as the castle heir, I couldn't have soft white bread made from wheat every morning. That was a luxury for kings or archbishops.
'Back home, a loaf from the mart costs a few bucks—here, it's worth more than a peasant's weekly rations...'
I soaked the stone-like bread in ale and took a bite. Sour fermentation wafted from the soggy lump. The taste was predictably awful.
Medieval Europe's water was so filthy that clean drinking water was suicidal, so even children drank low-alcohol ale or wine instead.
I got drinking booze over water, but tepid, flat ale first thing in the morning was a real assault on the palate.
'Please, just one cup of coffee.'
But to Europeans of this era, coffee was an unknown luxury from beyond the horizon.
I seriously thought my daily aromatic Americano might be worth more than this entire castle's fortune.
After forcing down the awful meal, I followed Konrad to the study.
As the Sternberg heir, I had to handle a mountain of paperwork daily.
"Young master, here are the ledgers for last month's domain revenues."
Konrad spread parchment across my desk, crammed with barely legible script and Roman numerals.
'IV' and 'VI'—no place value, so clunky and unintuitive even basic addition drags.'
'How the hell do they manage multiplication or division with this mess? Arabic numerals and decimal systems would cut calculation time tenfold.'
Everything in medieval Europe was inefficient, illogical, and irrational.
I spent the morning wrestling with ledgers before heading out with Konrad to inspect the domain.
In my past life, I'd been top of my class through school, with encyclopedic history knowledge—not just who won or lost, but the tech innovations that shaped eras and civilizations.
And the fields of tenant farmers spread before me starkly illustrated the limits of medieval agriculture, boiling my blood.
'That's the three-field system. Leaving a third of prime land fallow? What a horrific loss in yield. No wonder a single bad harvest leads to mass starvation.'
I sighed at the barren fallow fields, wasted like wilderness.
'Plant clover or turnips there, and you'd restore soil while getting winter fodder for livestock.'
Inspecting the domain left my heart heavy.
The pastoral view from the castle walls was a lie. Humble farmhouses and patchwork fields looked picturesque, but the farmers tilling the soil were all bent-backed with toil.
Dirt-caked hands, threadbare rags, hollow eyes dulled by life.
Deep wrinkles scarred their faces. Born farmers, they'd die as fertilizer for these fields, never imagining another life.
"..."
The sight unsettled me—not just pity.
The sheer waste from their apathy and inefficiency gnawed at my analytical mind.
The forge was no better. Approaching the smithy near the gate brought coal smoke and rhythmic hammer blows.
Inside, blistering heat hit like a wall. The blacksmith, shirtless and sweat-drenched, pumped a crude leather bellows with grunts.
"Hup, hup...!"
The bellows wheezed pitifully, supplying pathetically little air to the furnace. Labor input versus airflow was disastrously inefficient.
Naturally, furnace temps were uneven, the heated iron's glow inconsistent. No temperature control or carbon regulation whatsoever.
'Improve the bellows design alone, and airflow triples. Line the furnace with firebricks to cut heat loss, hit stable high temps. That means mass-producing stronger, uniform steel—directly boosting domain productivity and military power!'
Everything I saw screamed inefficiency, begging for fixes.
After rounds, I headed to the training grounds for the next item on my schedule.
As heir, sword training was mandatory. Squire Janos awaited at the edge of the field.
"Young master, you're here."
Janos was a boy of maybe sixteen or seventeen—four or five years my junior.
From a minor Hungarian noble family, he'd come as a page for knightly training via family ties.
Boyish face, but sun-bronzed build and sharp eyes radiated uncommon grit for his age.
And he was way stronger than me.
Clack, clack!
"Young master! Gripping the sword like that won't transmit power! Use your hips more, not your wrist!"
"Ugh... I am!"
Swinging wooden swords in heavy armor was torture-level labor. A few clashes left me gasping.
'How do you fight in this? Wars hinge more on trained armies' organization than individual prowess. Once gunpowder evolves, knights become obsolete relics...'
"Hah, hah... Janos, break time."
"Already tired? You need to build stamina, young master! No one on the battlefield waits for you to recover!"
My body was at its limit, but tireless Janos pushed me.
To a lifelong desk jockey in both lives, this was pointless noble drudgery.
After hellish training, lunch was the day's most lavish meal.
A whole roasted boar steamed at the center of the great hall's long table.
But the overpowering spices stung my nose, less appetite-booster than cover for deep gamey rot.
'Peppercorns worth a silver coin each. Spices signal wealth more than preserve meat.'
I hacked at the tough boar with my knife and ate by hand.
'Just knife and spoon for utensils. Forks didn't catch on till the 18th century, so even nobles eat with hands. No pre-meal handwashing hygiene either.'
The small bowl by the table was for rinsing fingers, not drinking. I choked down the primitive meal in silence.
Afternoon meant presiding over trials as acting lord. With Father away on the king's crusade call-up, all domain matters fell to me.
I sat in the great hall's high seat, hearing petitioners amid a crowd of onlookers and waiters.
First up: a hunched old farmer weeping that his neighbor stole land by shifting boundary stones at night.
The accused neighbor burst forward, denying it and claiming the old man coveted his land, bellowing curses.
No evidence—just mutual oaths and invective.
'Survey it properly. Measure from benchmarks, done. No land registry or deeds?'
Trials here ignored evidence or presumption of innocence. The lord's word was law, swayed by mood.
I sighed, blustered both sides into a truce, and moved on.
Next was worse: a farmer claimed his neighbor's widow hexed his cow dry. She'd even shapeshifted into a cat at night, he swore.
'Witch? Feed the cow proper nutrition? Clean the barn?'
I pressed my throbbing temple.
'Obvious malnutrition or illness from neglect. But a defenseless widow's easy prey—label her witch, claim the bounty.'
Superstition ruled medieval Europe. Modern reason fell flat.
Dismissing it as unscientific? I'd risk heresy accusations for sheltering demons.
After deliberation, I sighed out judgment.
"I'll warn the widow sternly. Have a priest bless the cow. And feed it more bean pods and dry hay henceforth. God's graced beasts thrive best when well-fed—their blessings multiply."
"Thank you, young master!"
Folk trusted priestly prayers over science, witch tales over logic.
So I couched my knowledge in terms they'd accept, sidestepping direct revelation.
Sunset brought low clouds, plunging the castle into pitch black.
To moderns, night meant new day's start. Here, it ended all activity.
Torches and candles were sole light—most folk wasted half their lives in darkness.
'When did Edison invent the bulb? Waiting means dying of old age.'
At the window, I gazed skyward.
Stars unseen amid city glow formed a milky river overhead.
The medieval night sky dwarfed Seoul's in clarity and depth.
"The heavens so beautiful, yet the world below so wretched and wasteful."
I sat at my desk, unrolling parchment to jot known knowledge: element symbols, waterwheels, distilleries.
Basic soapmaking halves infant mortality. Crop rotation and breeding basics end famine.
'...But sharing this makes me saint or satan—burned at the stake.'
I crumpled the parchment, tossed it into the brazier embers. It smoldered slowly.
I didn't fancy ending that way.
Slipping into the cold, damp bed, the day's inefficiencies swirled in my mind.
Sewers, farming tech, steelmaking, public health, legal systems... Medieval life was filthy, uncomfortable, uncivilized.
No romantic fantasy—just brutal survival in real 15th-century Europe.
But the true nightmare hit the next day.
The Sternberg troops, called to the king's crusade, finally returned.
Yet in their weary column, one man missing from the vanguard bearing the family banner.
This house's lord: Petr von Sternberg.
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