The Key to the Future
It had been a month since I sent Janos to Germany with orders to bring back Gutenberg.
Finally, the news I had been waiting for arrived.
“My Lord, I have returned.”
The office door creaked open, and Janos stepped inside, covered in a thick layer of road dust.
Though he radiated exhaustion from every pore, his expression was light, as if a decade-long burden had finally been lifted from his chest.
I pushed the stack of documents I had been reviewing to the side.
“You’ve worked hard. Did you have any trouble on the way?”
“Trouble? Oh, good heavens. Don’t even get me started.”
Janos shook his head vigorously and collapsed into a chair. He snatched the water bottle from the table, gulped it down as if it were life itself, and let out a groan of relief before continuing.
“At first, it was going great. I told him I’d pay off his debts and even grant him a title if he wished, and he started packing his bags as if he were ready to lick my boots. He was so fast, I wondered if he was a professional at fleeing in the middle of the night.”
“And then?”
“The moment I mentioned our destination was Bohemia, he started foaming at the mouth and collapsed on the spot.”
Janos let out a hollow laugh, as if the memory were still absurd.
“He kept shouting, ‘Isn’t that a den of cannibals who eat people?’ and ‘They say you worship demons and bathe in blood—are you insane?’ He threw such a fit that I nearly had to tie him up with rope to keep him from jumping out of the moving carriage.”
“Hahaha!”
I couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
Cannibals and demon worship? I wasn’t exactly Count Dracula.
It was a reaction that gave me a rough idea of how the Papacy was portraying me to the general public.
‘Wait, come to think of it, isn’t Vlad III about to be born soon?’
If I left the Papacy to its own devices, I might end up being the original inspiration for the Dracula legend, not Vlad III.
“It’s not a laughing matter, my Lord. He was truly determined to die rather than come here, but I managed to drag him along.”
“How did you convince him?”
Janos curled his lips into a smirk and patted his chest.
“That thing you told me to show him at the very last moment. That scrap of paper.”
“Did it work?”
“‘Work’ is an understatement. The man who was screaming for his life just moments before had his eyes turn bloodshot the second he read the contents. He became a completely different person in an instant... honestly, it was a bit chilling.”
Janos shrugged his shoulders.
“After that, he didn’t care if Bohemia was hell or whatever. He was actually badgering the coachman to hurry up, saying he had to verify if this information was true.”
I nodded with satisfaction.
As expected, for the breed of geniuses, there are temptations far more powerful than money or life.
The answer to the riddle that had consumed their entire life.
If they could verify that, jumping into hellfire was simply an engineer’s instinct.
“Good work. You have him waiting in the parlor, right?”
“Yes. He is waiting patiently.”
I stood up and smoothed out my clothes.
It was time for a meeting that would change history.
“His Majesty, Ulrich I, King of Bohemia, enters!”
With the shout of the Chief Chamberlain, Konrad, the heavy doors swung open.
Inside the parlor, standing beneath a magnificent tapestry, a man jumped in surprise and straightened his posture.
Johannes Gutenberg.
He was not the solemn old man from the history books, but a young man who still looked nervous and sensitive.
As I entered, he bowed so deeply his back seemed to snap, his face filled with obvious tension.
“I, I greet the great King of Bohemia. I am Johannes Gensfleisch of Mainz.”
Perhaps because he was terrified by the rumors of the ‘Heretic King,’ his voice trembled thinly, but his etiquette was impeccable.
It was an attitude that mixed the survival instinct of needing to stay alive and the social graces of a noble-born man.
I sat slowly on the throne and looked at him.
“Raise your head. You have had a long journey.”
“N-no, your Majesty. Thanks to your... consideration, I arrived comfortably.”
Johannes carefully lifted his head.
The sound of him gulping down dry saliva echoed loudly in the quiet parlor.
He moved his lips for a moment, then, as if he could no longer hold it in, he spoke cautiously.
“Your Majesty. I beg your pardon, but there is one thing I must ask.”
“Speak.”
“The reason I left Strasbourg and came all the way to this distant Prague is not... because I wanted the money and title you promised, but for one single reason.”
Johannes pulled a crumpled note from his pocket with trembling hands.
“This content I received through your knight... is this truly the truth?”
“And if it is?”
“Then, please tell me.”
In his eyes, the fear of the Heretic King remained, but deeper than that, an unbearable intellectual curiosity and longing were burning.
“What exactly is the ‘final key’ that will complete my design? Lead is too soft, and iron is too hard. What on earth must I mix to make the perfect type?”
Heat gradually filled Johannes’s voice. It was as if he had forgotten he was standing before a King.
He was not asking a monarch, but begging for knowledge from an unknown master who could provide the answer.
I rested my chin on my hand and answered in a low voice.
“The reason you have failed until now is simple. Lead shrinks as it cools. That is why when you pour it into a mold, the edges of the letters get crushed or the surface warps. Isn’t that so?”
“T-that is correct! Exactly! It is as if you were watching my experiments right beside me!”
Johannes nodded violently.
It was the riddle he had been agonizing over for years, locked in his room, spitting blood.
No matter how precisely he carved the mold, the result that came out after cooling was always blunt trash.
I declared firmly, as if prophesying.
“The answer is Antimony.”
“...Pardon?”
Johannes blinked at the unfamiliar word. I rephrased it into a term he could understand.
“What alchemists call Stibium.”
“Ah...! T-that gray metal that breaks easily? You mean... I should mix that into the lead?”
Johannes’s brow furrowed. His expression was full of doubt.
It was a natural reaction. To the craftsmen of the time, antimony was nothing more than an impurity that came out when refining silver, or a useless rock used only for medicine or cosmetics.
“But your Majesty, Stibium shatters like glass when struck. If I mix that in, the type will not be able to withstand the pressure.”
“That is only true when it is pure. But when mixed with lead, the story changes.”
I raised a finger and continued my explanation.
“Listen well, Johannes. Almost all substances in the world expand when hot and shrink when cold. The lead and tin you were using are the same. That is why they shrink while cooling inside the mold, and eventually, the shape of the letter gets crushed.”
Johannes gulped and focused on my words.
“But this antimony is different. It has a very peculiar property. When it hardens from liquid to solid, it actually expands in volume.”
“Ex-expands?”
“Yes. Just like how water grows large enough to break a jar when it turns into ice.”
I raised my hand and mimicked a tight squeeze.
“When the lead tries to shrink inward while cooling, the mixed antimony expands and cancels out that force. No, it actually uses that expanding force to push the metal into the very fine corners of the mold.”
“······!!”
Johannes’s mouth hung open in a daze.
It was an expression as if lightning had struck his brain.
“Furthermore, antimony makes the soft lead hard. Lead, tin, and antimony. If you mix these three in the proper ratio, you create an alloy that doesn’t wear out even after thousands of impressions, and can engrave letters on paper as sharp as a razor blade.”
“My God...”
Johannes shuddered.
It was a theoretically perfect... no, a clear answer that he couldn’t help but recognize as the truth the moment he heard it.
“That is the key you have been searching for your entire life.”
I tossed a thick stack of parchment I had prepared in advance onto the table for Johannes, who stood there with his soul seemingly departed.
“And this is the door you must open with that key.”
“Pardon?”
Johannes took the parchment with trembling hands.
And the moment he turned the first page, his eyes widened as if they would tear.
“T-this is...!”
A precise pressure control device, an improvement on the screw press used for squeezing grape juice.
A typesetting structure that fixes the type without shaking.
The position of the paper feed tray and the leather pad that applies ink evenly.
Even the perfect alloy ratio of 80 lead, 3 tin, and 17 antimony.
The appearance of the perfect printing press, which he had only faintly envisioned in his mind, or had tried to grasp like a cloud through countless failures, was contained entirely within those blueprints.
“Oh, Lord! This is impossible!”
Johannes flipped through the blueprints, forgetting even to breathe.
Between the sounds of the parchment rustling, groans of awe erupted.
“How... how can such a thing exist? This was only in my head... no, it’s even more perfect than what I imagined...!”
Johannes slowly lifted his head to look at me, then immediately fell to his knees.
The fear of the Heretic King that had been directed at me until a moment ago was gone. In its place, only desperation remained.
“Your Majesty, who on earth are you!”
“What do you mean?”
“The person who designed this! Which craftsman is it? Is it a technician from Venice? Or a sage from the East? Please, I beg you! If I could just see them once and ask for their teachings, I would give my life!”
I chuckled and pointed at myself with my finger.
“He’s right in front of you.”
“Pardon...?”
“I made it. In my head.”
“...!!”
Johannes’s mouth dropped open. He looked back and forth between me and the blueprints as if he couldn’t believe it.
A King who was not only versed in administration and war but also in metal and machinery.
It was hard to believe by common sense, but the evidence before his eyes was too clear.
I approached him as he sat there and held out my hand.
“Johannes. I can draw the blueprints, but I don’t have the time to carve them out of iron and wood. And I’m not exactly gifted with my hands. So, I need someone to be my hands.”
“...”
“I will clear all your debts in Mainz. I will also resolve the lawsuit in Strasbourg. If you wish, I will build you a three-story workshop in the heart of Prague and pile up mountains of the highest quality lead, tin, and antimony.”
To him, who had been rolling in the gutter, chased by creditors, it must have been a dream-like offer.
But I didn’t stop there.
“In exchange, you give me the results.”
“Results... you say?”
“Yes. One month. At the latest, within one month, you must complete this machine and print the first publication.”
I leaned over and stared straight into his eyes.
“This is not a toy that will end after printing a few books. I will change the world with this.”
A low but heavy declaration.
I gripped Johannes’s shoulders, which had stiffened with shock and fear, with all my might.
“Until now, truth has been a power monopolized by the few. It was a treasure that priests kept locked behind the fence of Latin, passing it around only among themselves. But from now on, that will not be the case.”
I pointed out the window toward the streets of Prague.
“I will print the truth like freshly baked bread and share it generously with the starving souls. And I will make it clear to the Pope and the Emperor. That what they should truly fear is not the Heretic King, but the ordinary people who can read and think for themselves.”
Gulp.
Johannes’s Adam’s apple bobbed violently.
His invention would turn the world upside down.
As a technician, what temptation could be more perfect than this?
His expression twisted strangely. It was the face of a mad technician, a mix of fear and ecstasy.
Johannes placed his trembling hands on the floor, stood up, and knelt on one knee.
This time, it was not out of coercion, but out of genuine reverence.
“Since your Majesty has solved the riddle of my life... I will repay you with results.”
He bowed his head deeply and swore.
“Even if I have to grind my soul together with the lead, I will print your Majesty’s truth into the world within a month.”