"Senior Researcher Park! I warned you plainly to cut this line out of the report!"
The bundle of documents the team leader hurled scattered through the air.
One of the sheets fluttered down and landed at my feet. I did not have to lower my head to see the line that had caused the trouble.
The very last line of the report, the one I had insisted on keeping to the end.
[NX-7 graphene composite material: (omitted)... No issues with commercial application, but further research is required regarding potential hazards under long-term exposure.]
The veins stood out on the team leader's neck. He erupted in anger once more.
"Because of this, the final review under K-REACH (the Act on the Registration and Evaluation of Chemical Substances) has been slapped with another hold! Do you understand?"
I looked down blankly at the scattered documents, then opened my mouth. My voice was calmer than I expected.
"But sir, NX-7 still requires further safety research."
"Short-term stability has been secured, hasn't it! Are you telling me to sit on a project worth tens of billions of won for years because of some unverified 'potential hazard'?"
"......."
The team leader was not entirely wrong. From a short-term standpoint, the NX-7 new material had shown results close to perfect.
It was simply that no researcher, myself included, could guarantee the effect on the human body after steady, long-term exposure to the substance.
But for the people at the top, such an uncertain future risk was apparently not a matter worth considering.
"Are you the only one who works at this company? Is your precious researcher's conscience more important than meeting the project deadline right now? If that's how you intend to work, then just quit! There are doctorates lined up out the door waiting to take your seat!"
The moment I heard that, I thought I heard something snap inside my head.
The documents scattered at my feet, the contemptuous tirade, the cold light of the fluorescent lamps. Everything felt distant, like a scene in slow motion.
I quietly set the report I was holding down on the desk.
TAP—
"Yes, I'll quit."
"What?"
"I said I'm quitting because this is shit."
And so I handed in my resignation.
It was an impulsive decision, but I had no regrets.
I was sick to death of it. The overtime that repeated every single day, the pressure over results that choked me, the office politics that drained the blood out of me.
What use was the title of researcher at a major corporation? It was the life of a slave, without even the leisure to properly spend the salary stamped into my bank account.
'What do I do now?'
An old dream suddenly surfaced in my empty head. A dream I had left to age in a corner of my chest for a long time.
A dream whose outline felt all the sharper for having been forgotten so long.
"Should I set off on a trip around the world?"
Just as I had thrown down my resignation in a fit of temper, the trip was impulsive too. I headed straight for the airport and bought a ticket on the earliest flight to Europe.
There was no fixed destination and no plan laid out. For once, I wanted to leave the track that had been set for me.
Wherever my feet took me, wherever my heart led, wandering aimlessly for several months.
The Eiffel Tower in Paris, the opera house in Vienna, the Colosseum in Rome. I saw with my own eyes countless famous sights I had only ever heard about.
Then, all at once, the famous astronomical clock in Prague came to mind. That was the moment my next destination was decided.
I boarded a train for the Czech Republic straight away.
Clatter, clatter.
I let my body ride the regular vibration and stared blankly out the window. Green plains streamed past without end.
That was when it happened. My gaze was nailed to a distant hilltop beyond the window.
A Gothic castle risen high enough to pierce the sky, set against a deep blue-green forest.
"Wow."
A gasp escaped me before I knew it.
Traces of a history that looked at least several hundred years old. How had it endured the storms of all those years so stubbornly?
It was majestic, it was wondrous. Compared to that, how shabby were the apartment blocks of Seoul, which crumbled before they could last even a few decades.
It was a grand sight that could not be seen in a world that tore down the old and stacked up nothing but the new.
When I first chose the path of science and engineering, I too had wanted to make something that would remain in history 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 came that the train would stop at the next station. I sprang out of my seat without hesitation.
It was an impulsive change of schedule. It had not been in the plan, but that was exactly what made it better. Wasn't this the very charm of backpacking?
But what greeted me was a firmly shut iron gate and a signboard with cold lettering on it.
[Český Šternberk Castle]
Opening: 10 a.m.
Closing: 5 p.m.
Closed: Weekends and public holidays
"Damn it, it's closed."
A hollow laugh came out of me. The sun was still high. The problem with Europe was that everything ended far too early.
There was nothing to be done. I would have to stay here today and see the sights tomorrow.
I immediately booked an Airbnb nearby and unpacked my bags.
I looked around the village at a leisurely pace, and when evening came hunger set in, so I opened a map and made my way to a small pub nearby.
Jingle—
The inside of the shop was noisy with people who looked more like locals than tourists.
The moment I stepped in, nearly every gaze in the place turned toward me. In this small village, an Asian traveler seemed to be a rare spectacle.
I paid it no mind and took a seat wherever there was one. Then, in stumbling Czech, I ordered goulash, bread, and a glass of Kozel Dark.
The dishes I had ordered soon came out. The smell of steaming goulash stabbed at my nose, and beads of water clung to the cold glass of dark beer.
I lifted the glass and took one big swallow. The bitter yet faintly sweet dark beer went down my throat. A sound of satisfaction burst out of me on its own.
"Ahh—!"
The fatigue of travel felt like it was melting away like snow.
Right then, a hearty Czech accent came from the seat beside me.
"Ho ho, the outsider eats with a good appetite."
I turned my head to find a well-built middle-aged man holding a beer mug, laughing easily.
"Thank you. The beer at this place really is delicious."
When I answered in my clumsy Czech, a look of delight crossed the man's face.
"Oh, you can speak Czech?"
"I studied hard while traveling. I can manage a short conversation."
"I see. I am Zdeněk."
"Park Gang-jun."
We exchanged a brief handshake.
Just as I was wondering whether I would have to keep conversing in awkward Czech, Zdeněk fortunately addressed me in fluent English.
"So, what brings you to a country village like this? This is an out-of-the-way place where even tourists rarely come."
"I was on my way to Prague, and the castle I saw out the window was so magnificent that I got off without meaning to."
"Ah, you mean Šternberk Castle! The pride of our village! Ha ha, though in truth there's nothing else here worth seeing."
Zdeněk laughed good-naturedly, then lowered his voice and whispered with a mischievous expression.
"Prepare yourself for a shock."
"Yes?"
"The fact is, I happen to be the master of that castle."
My eyes went round in an instant.
Zdeněk chuckled as if my reaction amused him and drew a business card from inside his coat.
On the card was the name 'Zdeněk von Šternberk' along with the title of castle administrator.
"That's remarkable. To think I'd meet a lord of a castle in my lifetime."
"Ho ho, it's nothing. These days I barely scrape a living off the tourists. Still, there was a time when our house was truly great. The family history alone goes back more than eight hundred years."
Eight hundred years. Longer than the Joseon dynasty, no less. For me, a man who could barely recall his own great-grandfather's name, it was a span of time hard to imagine.
"That certainly is an impressive house. Eight hundred years."
"Do you know of the Sarajevo incident? The one that became the fuse of the First World War. Konopiště Castle, where the assassinated Archduke Ferdinand lived, once belonged to our house as well."
"Ah..."
He tilted his glass and continued. A faint pride was steeped in his voice.
"There was a time when every Czech knew the name of Šternberk. Do you happen to know that this small country of ours, the Czech lands, was once the center of Europe?"
"That's news to me. There was such a time?"
"There certainly was! In the fourteenth century, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was a Czech. The great Charles IV! In those days the capital of the empire was this very Prague, and our house of Šternberk was a great house that held the emperor's deepest trust!"
Zdeněk's eyes shone with a wistful pride. As though he were a man who had seen those days with his own eyes.
After that, the stories went on endlessly along with the beer.
The rise and fall of the Kingdom of Bohemia, the golden age of Prague, and the glory of the house of Šternberk that stood at the center of it all.
I dipped my bread into the goulash and ate quietly as I listened to his stories. I had nothing in particular to do, and as I listened it turned out to be quite fascinating.
Zdeněk, who had been holding forth passionately for some time, suddenly let out a deep sigh.
"Haaa..."
"Is something the matter?"
"It's regret, that's all. There was a moment when our house, no, when our homeland shone brightest. The early fifteenth century, the most turbulent era in Czech history. If only the line of the House of Luxembourg had not been cut off then..."
Zdeněk's words trailed on wistfully.
"We Czechs might have stood proudly as the center of Europe instead of a weak nation reading the moods of great powers. If only our ancestor had made a slightly different choice back then..."
His voice sank bitterly. His gaze, steeped in deep remorse, was fixed somewhere in the empty air.
The mood had grown awkward. Not knowing where to rest my eyes, I looked around the interior of the pub.
Then my gaze settled on an old painting hanging in the shop.
A knight holding a sword, and a guardian angel blowing a horn.
"Ho ho, I've been prattling on like an old man. I wonder if I've done nothing but steal your time with dull old tales."
"Not at all, I enjoyed listening. Thanks to you, the beer tasted even better."
I steered the subject away naturally.
"By the way, Mr. Zdeněk, do you happen to know what that painting over there is?"
"Ah, that painting?"
Zdeněk looked back at the painting and spoke.
"It's an old Czech legend. When the country falls into crisis, the horn of the guardian angel sounds, and Saint Wenceslas, the founding ancestor sleeping in Mount Blaník, rises and leads an army of steel to save the country... that sort of far-fetched tale."
Zdeněk shrugged and laughed.
"Well, in the end no such thing ever happened."
To him it seemed to hold about as much meaning as an old story told to children.
"Thank you for hearing out my long talk. You're a young man very much to my liking."
"I was glad to meet you as well, Mr. Zdeněk."
Saying it had been an enjoyable conversation for the first time in a while, Zdeněk settled the bill for my drinks as well and left the pub.
'What a strange chance meeting.'
I went straight back to my lodging. The moment I stepped into the room the tension drained out of me, and exhaustion and drunkenness came rushing in all at once.
The instant I threw myself onto the bed my eyelids grew heavy and my consciousness sank away.
Just before my consciousness sank completely into darkness.
Booooo—
From somewhere, a long and solemn horn seemed to sound faintly.
***
I slowly opened my eyes in a hazy state of consciousness.
The feel of faint morning sunlight seeping over my eyelids was the same as yesterday.
But that was all. Everything surrounding me was unfamiliar.
The blanket covering my body was not soft polyester but coarse linen, and the bed creaked at even the slightest movement.
The smell was worse still. The damp odor of earth, the acrid smoke of half-burnt firewood, and the faint underlying stench of livestock dung.
"So it isn't a dream."
A mutter mixed with a hollow laugh came out on its own.
Today was the second day since I had opened my eyes in this new, or rather horrifically old, world.
I was slowly forced to admit it. That this place was not the twenty-first century, and that I was not Park Gang-jun.
My head was in disarray. I sorted through the information I had grasped over the course of yesterday once more.
'First, this is December 1420, the Kingdom of Bohemia, the old name of the Czech lands.'
'Second, I am Ulrich von Šternberk. The sole heir of this Český Šternberk Castle and of the house.'
'Third, the original Ulrich lost consciousness a few days ago in a riding accident.'
'But the one who opened his eyes was not the real Ulrich. It was me, Park Gang-jun, from the twenty-first century...'
It was an absurd situation. I had merely gotten off the train on impulse, drawn by the scenery outside the window, and now I had abruptly become the ancestor of that castle's master.
At first I naturally assumed it was a dream. A vivid, poor-quality nightmare. But even after a night had passed, nothing had changed.
I climbed down from the bed, which creaked as I moved. I approached the clouded bronze mirror hanging on the wall in the corner of the room.
Dark, striking features and sharp eyes. A handsome young man with pale skin was looking back at me from inside the mirror. There was not a trace anywhere of Park Gang-jun, the researcher worn down by fatigue.
'...Still, the face is pretty good-looking.'
Of all things, that was the thought that came to me. Well, being handsome was far better than being ugly.
In any case, I next turned my gaze away from the mirror and moved to the window. Beyond the thick, unevenly surfaced glass pane, a medieval landscape spread out.
In the castle's inner courtyard the servants moved busily about, and from the smithy in the distance came the regular, dull sound of hammering iron. Atop the castle walls, soldiers armed with helmets and armor made their rounds with spears in hand.
Asphalt, utility poles, the noise of cars... no matter where I looked, there was no trace of the civilization I had known.
I let out a long sigh.
'Let's accept it. I am no longer Park Gang-jun. I am Ulrich.'
Nothing would change no matter how much I denied it. I had to accept this situation and find some way to survive.
The one saving grace was that I was the son of the castle's lord rather than a serf at the very bottom. At the very least I would not starve to death right away or roll about in a field of dung.
...Perhaps this was actually fortunate.
There was no electricity, no internet, no smartphone, but put another way, didn't that mean I had been completely liberated from that wearisome competitive society?
Eat the meal a maid brings every morning, stroll through the domain during the day or enjoy hunting on horseback. In the evening, drink wine before the fireplace and pass a life of unhurried ease.
It was the retirement I had dreamed of, quite literally.
Dreaming of a rose-colored future, I gradually recovered my composure amid this preposterous situation.
***
"This is what a noble's life is?"
That sweet fantasy shattered in a single day.