Chapter 15
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Translator: Wjin
Chapter: 015
Chapter Title: Heretic King
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Neigh!
Clop clop! Clop clop!
Thousands of hooves and hundreds of wheels pounded the earth.
The ground trembled, and with a roar that shook the very axis of the world, the army marched steadily toward Sternberg.
The Hussites' second punitive force.
At its vanguard rode the one-eyed lion, Jan Zizka.
The Wagenburg unit mobilized this time was on an entirely different level from the one Mikulas had led before.
Every wagon's outer walls were thickly coated in mud, and their roofs were layered with leather soaked through with water.
Where water barrels should have been, there were tubs filled with dry sand and vinegar instead, and every soldier wore a thick cloak.
They had even formed an axe unit ready to detach wagons from the formation at a moment's notice in case of emergency.
A obsessively perfect defense against fire attacks.
That cursed flame would never work on the Hussites again.
Flames of vengeance blazed in Zizka's single eye.
'Mikulas, I'll have my revenge for you myself.'
He ground his teeth, recalling the futile end of his old comrade-in-arms.
It was then that the Hussite host finally reached the borders of the Sternberg domain.
"Hold—!!"
A dust cloud rose from the rear, and a foam-flecked horse came charging madly toward them.
The rider, who had spurred his mount so fiercely, shouted desperately in a voice hoarse from strain.
"Halt! Stop the advance!"
Zizka raised one hand. The Hussite army came to an abrupt stop.
The earth-shaking roar from moments ago ceased as if it had been a lie.
"Who dares order me to halt the army?!"
The messenger reached the front of the army and tumbled from his horse. Gasping for breath, he dropped to his knees before Zizka.
"General! Urgent dispatch from Prague!"
"Urgent dispatch from Prague? If that's all, you could have told me on the way. Did you really block God's army for such a trifling reason?"
Zizka's voice thundered. The pressure radiating from his single eye made the messenger's shoulders tremble in terror.
"F-Forgive me! But... we cannot attack Sternberg! The leadership orders you to halt the advance immediately!"
"What?"
Deep furrows creased Zizka's brow. The air around them froze in an instant.
"What did you just say? Did I mishear you, or is your tongue twisted?"
The messenger shook his head, his face nearly in tears.
"Th-That's...! General, please read this first...!"
Fumbling, the messenger pulled a crumpled sheet of parchment from his bosom and held it out. The seal of the city of Prague was clearly stamped upon it.
"Hmph."
With a snort, Zizka reluctantly took the parchment.
Not imagining that a mere scrap of paper could halt God's army.
As he began reading the first lines with mocking eyes, Zizka's expression slowly hardened.
The rage burning moments ago had vanished, and his single eye widened in disbelief.
"This... what in the world is...!"
Zizka whipped his head toward the messenger.
"Is what it says here really true?"
"I beg your forgiveness, but I don't know the contents of the letter. The Prague leadership said all commanders, including you, General, must urgently discuss this matter!"
"Ha... ."
The iron commander who had never wavered once before Sigismund's Crusade.
His hand now trembled at a single letter.
"Damn it!"
Crumple—
The parchment crumpled hideously in Zizka's grip.
To the brave brothers of the faith in Bohemia.
First, I express my deepest regret for the bloodshed that occurred beneath the walls of Sternberg.
However, I must first clarify that this was a tragic misunderstanding born not of hatred between us, but of grave error.
My father perished by your hands at Vysehrad, and my sword has tasted your blood.
Yet I take up this pen not to demand payment for the blood spilled.
Rather, I ask you this: Why must we Bohemians drive daggers into each other's hearts?
The true enemy who blinds our eyes and sows discord among brothers lies elsewhere.
It is Sigismund, the lying king who has betrayed God and his oaths.
Look clearly. Sigismund is not king of Bohemia. He is king only of Hungary and Germany.
Who knows when another Crusade under the Pope's name will ravage our lands once more.
The moment he becomes king of Bohemia, Prague's brilliant scholarship and Kuttenberg's silver mines will be exploited not for Bohemia, but solely for the Holy Roman Empire.
Sigismund's endless ambitions are dividing us.
Brothers. We must unite.
We must become one and fight together.
I am prepared to cast aside everything for this sacred unity.
Thus, through this letter, I swear deeply to all Hussite brothers.
I swear to take up the chalice with you, and to make the Four Articles of Prague—which you proclaim (freedom of preaching, communion in both kinds, confiscation of church property, and just punishment)—my own law.
I pledge upon my honor to forsake Rome's corrupt order and follow the true teachings of our Lord.
Yet, brothers, there is one lamentable truth: You who have gathered under this great cause still lack a unifying center.
Like sheep without a shepherd, a flagless army is destined to scatter before wolves.
To reclaim Bohemia's glory, do we not need a noble and righteous banner that all can rally behind?
Only a united Bohemia can stand against Sigismund's ambitions.
I earnestly hope that the Sternberg eight-pointed star and Bohemia's lion banner may fly alongside your chalice flag.
The rightful heir of the Sternberg house,
The great Emperor Charles IV's last great-grandson,
Son of Luxembourg's Princess Eliska,
Ulrich von Sternberg.
"The lord... is His Majesty Charles IV's great-grandson?!?!"
Janos's cry shook the candle flames in the study perilously.
I shrugged casually.
"That's what they say. Didn't you know?"
"How would I know that?! I'm not walking around reciting the lord's entire family tree!"
Janos's protest was perfectly reasonable. In this era when paper was precious, few remembered the distant bloodlines of emperors or kings.
Especially Charles IV, who had officially married six times and fathered fifteen children. Counting their grandchildren, the number was beyond reckoning.
It wasn't some scheme or plot. That was just how it was in medieval Europe. Children died so easily that having many was natural—how much more for an emperor.
Steward Konrad spoke gravely.
"It's natural Young Janos wouldn't know. As a foreigner, he's not familiar with Bohemian affairs."
"Still, it doesn't make sense. If he's Charles IV's great-grandson, that's direct Holy Roman imperial bloodline, isn't it? And the Hussites tried to kill him without a second thought? Something doesn't add up."
Konrad replied in a calm voice, as if recalling distant history.
"That's because... the lady—Princess Eliska's—existence was an open secret in the imperial court at the time. Only royal stewards or heralds managing the genealogy knew, and those were all emperor loyalists glued to His Majesty Sigismund's side."
Konrad turned his gaze to me.
His eyes held complex emotions: pity, regret, and a touch of guilt.
"The reason the fact that you, my lord, are Charles IV's great-grandson isn't well-known... is hard for this old man to explain in detail. But suffice to say the lady was largely forgotten in central politics."
I remained silent before Konrad's enigmatic gaze.
Truth be told, this body's original owner, 'Ulrich,' had placed no meaning on being Charles IV's great-grandson. He'd never even dreamed of becoming king.
Moreover, in his memories, his mother was just a sad woman perpetually bedridden, far from any princessly image.
At that moment, Janos snapped his head up as realization dawned.
"Ah! So that's why His Majesty Sigismund essentially left you to die...!"
"He knew I was a prime candidate for the throne who could threaten him. Of course, he truly had no spare resources to protect me either, but it was a convenient chance to remove a thorn in his side."
It made perfect sense from Sigismund's perspective. No fool invests gold and troops to save a rival.
"But my lord, why reveal it now of all times? If you'd announced it before the battle, we might have ended things without fighting the Hussites."
Janos's voice sank a little. Practical as it was, it carried sorrow for the fallen.
"No. Back then, I was the weakling facing defeat from their perspective. Flaunting bloodline in that situation would just make me a puppet king they could manipulate at will."
My memories had been incomplete right after transmigrating to the medieval era, but even if they'd been intact, nothing would have changed.
It would have looked like desperate begging: 'Don't kill me; I'm useful.'
"But now it's different. I killed their commander and burned their supposedly invincible Wagenburg. They fear me. Now I hold the high ground in negotiations."
A peace offer from the loser is begging; from the victor, it's magnanimity.
Then, Sir Kuno, who had been silent, finally spoke. His voice was heavy and hard as stone.
"My lord, I cannot comprehend this."
"Hm?"
"The Hussites murdered your father, did they not? Is allying with your father's killers befitting a noble's honor?"
Sir Kuno's face mixed betrayal and confusion.
As a vassal loyal to the previous lord, his doubt was natural.
I had only one thing to say.
"Was it really the Hussites who got Father killed, Sir Kuno?"
"Of course...!"
Sir Kuno started to shout reflexively but swallowed his words.
Because my gaze pierced him sharper and colder than any blade.
"Sigismund called the Crusade, and Father marched out to fulfill his noble duty. How did Sigismund repay that loyal servant? By ignoring his son's plea for rescue and essentially dooming him."
"That was His Majesty's grand design! A necessary sacrifice to strike Prague, the heretics' heart—hardly an intent to abandon you...!"
"No."
Sir Kuno's loyalty was unquestionable; the problem was its direction.
"Sigismund started this war in the first place. Luring Jan Hus out with vile lies, burning him, then branding the outraged people heretics to sweep them away—is that a true king's conduct? In his head, there's only Bohemia's crown; this land's people mean nothing to him."
Sir Kuno faltered briefly, then spoke in a voice lacking conviction.
"...A king's duty is to protect the Church! To heed God's voice, not the people's! Even if the path is harsh, a vassal must follow it!"
Sir Kuno's voice was desperate. He was trying to stop his lord from crossing an irreversible line.
Perhaps in medieval Europe, Sir Kuno was right.
But I wasn't medieval, and my resolve was firm.
"Father's true enemy isn't those peasants fighting for faith and survival. It's Sigismund, driving them to death for his greed and seizing crown and silver."
Sir Kuno was speechless at my resolute, conviction-filled rebuttal. He couldn't continue for a long while.
But he didn't back down. Instead, he raised the most fundamental, fatal issue.
"Even... even if you're a hundred times right, my lord, the Hussites are heretics! Accepting them means you'll be excommunicated by His Holiness the Pope! Do you truly not know what excommunication means in the Catholic world?!"
Genuine worry and bone-deep fear of faith laced Sir Kuno's voice.
In this era, the Pope was God's vicar; excommunication meant eternal damnation.
Beyond that, an excommunicated lord's vassals were freed from oaths. Any Catholic prince gained pretext to attack his lands.
For in the Catholic world, one excommunicated by the Church was no longer human.
"Not just your soul, my lord—the entire Sternberg will become enemy to all Catholic powers!"
I smiled lightly.
It wasn't contempt or mockery, but pure questioning of outdated notions.
"Sir Kuno. If the Pope tells you to go to hell, do you actually end up there?"
"Of course... ."
"Heaven and hell aren't decreed by one mere mortal, but by God. If I'm upright before Him, what does it matter if the whole world points and calls me heretic?"
Everyone's eyes widened in shock at words shattering common sense once more. Janos's mouth hung slightly open, and Konrad let out a faint groan.
"Ah... ."
Sir Kuno bowed his head and continued.
"My lord treads a path no one has walked... no, a path no one could even imagine."
In that moment, he looked at me not as the young lord, but as the old lord's son.
"'Path of thorns' doesn't suffice. You're walking into hellfire of your own will."
"I know."
Of course I know. How could I not?
But this was the only way to remain myself in medieval Europe.
Sir Kuno nodded firmly, resolve set.
"...I swore before the previous lord's bier to protect you no matter what. This disloyal vassal was blind and foolish. My lord, please punish me."
"No need. Repay your fault by serving me and safeguarding this land."
"Urgh...!"
Sir Kuno bowed his head, shedding hot tears.
As the heavy mood eased somewhat, Janos glanced around cautiously and asked.
"So, my lord. Do you really intend to become king of Bohemia?"
"Who knows. It depends on how they respond."
"What kind of irresponsible answer is that! What if they say no?!"
Janos jumped up. I smiled leisurely at him.
"That's possible. But one thing's certain."
Mischief glinted in my eyes.
"By now, Prague is in complete uproar, war or no war."
My prediction was spot on.
At that very moment, Prague was indeed in pandemonium.