3.36: Forward

AMMIMT just turned One Year Old!

Thank you so much for reading A Modern Mind in Medieval Times!!

I relaunched AMMIMT on 22nd of September 2025, exactly a year ago.

It has been a long journey. This series began as a bunch of rants I had written about civilization and governance. When the author of Wisher Beware series abandoned it just when it was about to enter the city-building phase, I couldn't ignore the call to write it myself. I was also inspired by the crazy success of Max Level Archmage, not realizing how difficult achieving even tenth of its success would be. I hope you have enjoyed reading AMMIMT as much as I've enjoyed writing it. I sincerely appreciate every comment you've made, every rating, review, follow, favorite and subscription of yours.

If you are a Patreon subscriber you may have noticed I've only uploaded two new chapters in the last two weeks. That's because I'm rewriting parts of Book 1. It's going to be 25% bigger and better than the original. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support.

Yours Truly,

C. S. Valiant.

“My lord?” Wolmar asked, face creased in confusion.

“We’re going to test the new sail on the ships.”

“But we barely tested it on the boat!”

“And it already demonstrated that triangular sails work. Now we’ll attach one to the bow and another to the stern of a ship and see how they perform.”

He sighed.

“As you say, my lord.”

I spent the rest of the day working with Wolmar and his men.

The sailors running the ship didn’t say anything, but their annoyance at us was hard to miss. It burned in their eyes, as we fiddled with their vessel, asking them to adjust a rope here, shift a spar there. We tried new configurations, most of which turned out to be duds.

Their irritation was soon replaced by bafflement once we got the ship out of the harbor and began sailing it in a figure eight in the open ocean.

Then came amazement.

The men who had been on the boat with me took charge of the smaller sails. Once they found the right angles, the ship responded more tightly, carving tighter turns in the water, especially when we turned towards the wind.

That alone could be the difference between victory and defeat in a naval battle.

Our ships did not have the sleek lines of a caravel, but they were now slightly more free from the tyranny of nature, capable of sailing when others would struggle.

The sailors struggled with handling the new sails, cursing and shouting at each other, figuring out how to best operate them.

Wolmar assured me that they would become fairly good in a matter of days.

Days I did not want to wait for. So I gave them one, telling them to get good. It lit up a fire beneath them. They began trying different maneuvers that made me hurl my breakfast into the sea.

By the time we were finished, the sky was beginning to turn orange.

Wolmar promised me that he would have another ship rigged similarly by the next day.

“That was quite an experience, Sire,” Jaklen said at the end of the day, wiping his sweat covered brow, as he walked alongside me, our boots digging into the wet sand.

“Let’s hope you don’t have to use it.”

He nodded silently.

Back in Cradle, I met with the Elders, Aprilia and Lothar over dinner to discuss my plans.

“One hundred men?” Erickson said in alarm.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“We have reasons to believe that Duke Stormhaven might be planning a rebellion against the Queen. If he sends a ship or two to attack ours, I want him to receive a proper reception.”

Bram shifted in his seat.

“Isn’t that—” he hesitated. “I know you are about to marry her, but won’t this entangle Chadom in problems that aren’t ours?”

“Elder, marriage or not, our fates are entangled. The Queen’s safety is essential for our future. Only through her can I turn Nahnon into a stronghold that can rebuff Vozoran. If anything happens to her, all my work in creating an alliance with Nahnon will come crashing down.”

Besides, Reshma was with her. I would personally go to rescue both of them if I had to, but I kept my words limited to Chadom’s interests.

“Her current heir, her cousin, is being groomed for leadership by his uncle, who I haven’t met. What if he does not agree to an alliance? You know we won’t survive alone.”

“But with those new marvelous weapons can’t we…”

“Hole ourselves up in this valley? And do what? Keep fighting until we run out of men or ammo? No. Despite our favorable geography, our country is too small. We don’t have much strategic depth. If the enemy manages to capture our coastline, we literally have our backs to mountains. Second, we don’t have any source of saltpeter. We are dependent upon Nahnon for it.”

His face wilted.

The trauma of the exodus was clear on their faces, but we had to move forward.

Aprilia found my hand under the table and squeezed it in support.

Erickson breathed out loudly. “Alright. We need to help them, but why two ships? And a hundred men is half our military.”

“One ship can be easily surrounded. A second one will force an attacker to divide their forces. It can also turn back to alert us. Fifty men aboard each of them, trained in the use of repeating crossbows, will make the ships extremely difficult to capture. Mind you, the men will be there to protect the cargo; nothing more. Hopefully, they will have an uneventful journey to the capital, where they will unload the weapons, then return without making any stops.”

“But what if the worst happens?”

“That’s why we are manufacturing cannons and powder as fast as we can, and the General is already training more men in the use of crossbows. Our home will remain just as safe.”

He turned to Lothar. “What do you think?”

“It is risky,” he admitted in a quite tone. “Losing a hundred trained men would hurt us badly.”

He met their eyes.

“But we do need the Queen on our side. And I don’t see the ships getting captured easily with a hundred men onboard.”

Erickson sighed, then turned to me.

“If you believe it is the right course of action, Sire.”

“It is.”

As we walked back to our house under the dark sky, Aprilia slipped her warm fingers between mine.

“You are not going yourself, are you?” she asked quietly.

“No. I have too much work here that needs my personal supervision. I wouldn’t add much to the expedition.”

She remained silent for a moment.

“I meant whether you wanted to see them.”

Oh.

I squeezed her hand.

“I will, in a few weeks.”

She looked up.

“I’m not in that much of a hurry to leave you,” I said.

Her lips quivered in a faint smile.

The next morning, I went to the Bay with Lothar to see the soldiers and sailors off, as they took the ships out to the sea for another trial run.

The sky was gray, with a steady breeze rolling from the sea. Perfect weather to test the effectiveness of the new sails in unfavorable circumstances. It would also test how the sailors and soldiers dealt with it and worked together. It was an extra day that I could have eliminated, but I couldn’t send ships full of men hurling their lunch into hostile waters.

They didn’t need me for any of that, so I turned back.

As we approached Cradle, I spied little white and gray blurs bouncing in the large pasture next to the dozens of sheep. The eight puppies were learning to guard and herd their charges.

The noise of hammers on wood and chisels became louder as we approached the settlement.

Cradle was taking shape.

Not fast enough.

The craftsmen hadn’t even finished building the five hundred crossbows I had promised Laira, when I had inducted another hundred men into our military.

Now they had to make a hundred more, and the harvest was almost upon us.

The construction of houses would be delayed even further.

While Lothar went back to the city to train more militia men, I guided my horse to the industrial district through fields of yellow, next to the shores of Wendau, my four guards riding behind me.

Master Almar and Ansel were still trying out different mixtures of clay, grog and graphite for a crucible that would survive the Huntsman method, so I left them to their research.

In the lathe workshop, another cannon had been finished.

The Ducklings stood next to their handiwork.

Well, mostly Aramid’s work, slowed down by him having to teach them how to not mangle their hands in the lathe. Still, they all looked as proud as new parents, as they explained to me what they had learned while making it.

All except Frida.

She did her best to hide it, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

I took the lanky girl aside.

“Hey. You don’t look happy.”

“I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I…” she hesitated. “I don’t want to make weapons, Master.”

“Oh. Alright. I understand.”

Her eyes widened.

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re the one introducing all these—”

She stopped herself, clapping both her hands over her mouth. Terrified eyes looked at me.

“What’s with that look? I am not going to punish you.”

She looked at me in disbelief.

I exhaled loudly.

The Messiah nonsense had gotten to them as well.

I sat down on one of the stools.

“Yes, I am introducing all these weapons, and I might have to introduce even more fearsome ones. Not because I enjoy it—”

Her expression betrayed her thoughts.

“Yes, I enjoy making and firing them,” I admitted, “but not on real people.”

Her shoulders relaxed.

“But we’ll have to keep making more because they are necessary.”

“That is what scares me. They will kill so many people.”

“Let’s hope we don’t have to use them.”

I paused.

“Have you heard the saying, ‘Better to have and not need than to need and not have?’”

She shook her head, her twin tails flying.

“I fear we are going to need them, and it’s better to be ready.”

“Is there no other way?”

“I don’t know. I will certainly try to establish peace once I’m in Nahnon, but we must be ready for the worst-case scenario.”

Her slender shoulders sagged as she finally breathed out the tension she had been holding.

“I can assign you work that isn’t directly involved in making weapons,” I said softly.

Her eyebrows raised in hope.

“But,” I continued, “everything contributes to war in some way. Food feeds the soldiers. Clothes protect them. Roads move them. Everything is related.”

She nodded slowly.

In acceptance, if not understanding.

The next morning, I was back at the Bay, standing in front of a hundred soldiers, half of them veterans, and half of them the new recruits.

They all stood in a line, shoulders pulled back and eyes fixed ahead.

“This is not merely a cargo delivery mission,” I said out loud, “but a milestone for our nation.”

The flag of our nation fluttered above me.

“You are not going there to fight, but still, this is going to be our very first naval expedition.”

I scanned their faces.

“We have finally grown strong enough that we don’t need to hide in our mountains and forests anymore. We can now go beyond our borders and help others.”

Some of the men’s expressions hardened.

I suppressed a sigh.

“I know the word Nahnon is essentially a curse to many of you. They did terrible things to you, but it wasn’t every one of them.”

I let them absorb those words.

“I ask you to trust me that those weapons are not being sent to support the people who caused your suffering.”

Some of them looked down, shifting in discomfort. But not everyone.

I ignored them.

I had to trust Lothar, who had picked the men himself.

“I hope you’ve gotten used to being at sea,” I continued. “You will be sailing into potentially hostile waters, carrying weapons meant to protect my fiancée.”

My gaze hardened.

“Under no conditions must they fall in the hands of our enemies.”

The earth shook as the men stomped their feet in unison, their discipline overcoming any reservations they had.

Lothar looked at me pointedly.

I sighed.

“May God be with you.”

Wagons from the industrial district arrived soon, carrying four hundred repeating crossbows and crates of bolts. I had ordered the rest given to our new soldiers, so the poor craftsmen would have to build a hundred more by the time of the wedding. The soldiers began unloading the weapons, carrying them down to the waiting ships.

“I thought you’d be going with them,” Lothar teased.

“I would, if I didn’t have work to do,” I said bitterly. “Work that shouldn’t even be necessary.”

Jaklen and Rafiel saluted to us as they left to lead the troops.

“Rafiel gets sick on ships. Why didn’t you take his place?” I asked.

Lothar shook his head. “No. My place is here. He’ll get used to it.”

The slight breeze strengthened and the ships’ sails began snapping, as the men on the docks cast off the mooring ropes.

Below the fluttering flags of Chadom, Jaklen and Rafiel saluted from their ships, which caught the wind and began making their way toward the narrow safe space out of the harbor.

The white sails soon became dots against the gray sky.

I watched them until they disappeared.

We had taken another step forward, full of risk, in our journey as a nation.