It's been five years since he was summoned to the capital by the queen, and to his surprise, he suddenly found himself engaged and later on married to Duchess Ioanna. At first, he thought the marriage was done out of convenience, but later on he found out that duchess has refused a number of her suitors and even turn down several potential matches made by the royal match maker, and when the Queen herself had confronted the duchess and told her that she needs to marry someone and produce an heir for her house, the duchess literally told the queen that she wanted Lerris. A morganatic marriage is not new to the kingdom, and its generally accepted among the nobles, especially if there is an express need to produce an heir.
His title remains as is, a baron, not that he had cared about titles, but he did care about Ioanna especially after she had born him a son and a daughter, and she had been a good wife to him, although her duties as the duchess and his duties as the head of Royal Academies and Military College often kept them apart for months on end, but he always made sure that they were always together during the winter season. Ioanna had also known his little tryst with his properties and did not seem to mind about it, but out of respect to her, Lerris made it a point to let Maya and Karin stay at the manor house back in Sophia, his very own town at his own barony. The name of the town came from the ancient Greek word Sophia, was unanimously chosen by scholars, teachers and instructors from the various schools and academies in town, as the word roughly means wisdom or wise.
He did not expect his small settlement could grow into a large town since he first establish it five years ago, but since the academies and schools began opening up, it draws people from all over the realm, some had even come from the outer territories. Refugees coming from the east also settled inside, bringing their own culture and trade with them. From the initial area of 10 square kilometers and inhabitants of less than 2000, the settlement quickly grew to over 20 square kilometers and its population literally exploded, mostly due to the influx of refugees coming from east, and grew to over 20,000 in less than five years. More farms sprung out around the periphery of the town, and the town quickly become prosperous, even surpassing the county's capital which is Tihany. The countess does not mind the whole thing, after all, the taxes from the revenues that his town generated, along with the taxes collected from a number of telegraph station was more than enough to fill her coffers. And with the heavy presence of the Nightwatch makes the town relatively safe even at night.
Aside from his small settlement growing into a town, a lot of things had happened after he got married three years ago. Both the Royal Science Academy and the Royal Engineering Academy had made leaps and bound in their discoveries. Electricity and light bulb had become a common thing that every household inside the town of Sophia had electricity, and the streets were brightly lit, and all of it came from two sources, the coal fired steam powered electric plant, and from a dozen helical wind powered generators.
The Royal Armory, now under the leadership of Lydia had produced newer bolt action rifles with a 10-round box magazine, heavy machine guns, newer breech loading field guns, light breech loading mountain guns that can be broken down into smaller pieces and transported by pack animals.
As the invaders kept marching west, the Queen authorized the formation of four additional divisions, and two of those division were permanently stationed at the citadel guarding the entrance to the Eastern Marches, and the other two division was sent to the eastern border of the Southern Marches. She also authorized the formation of Southern fleet that is used to guard the Red Sea to which Lerris himself had help in designing the ships, which he based it on the nineteenth century naval iron clad steam ships from his previous life, and arming it with the latest field guns for long range engagement and heavy machine gun for close range engagement.
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A New Life in a Parallel World
FantasyA man in his late forties suddenly found himself in a body of a young boy, in a parallel world. To survive he has to adapt to his new surroundings. (This is my first novel, fantasy genre, which I wrote out for fun)
