Tyranny Of Steel Chapter 1: Transmigrating to Another World

Lt. Julian Weber surveyed the construction site under his unit's charge. With America's engagement in the Afghan war drawing to an end, he remained tasked with erecting a bridge in a remote wasteland for some damned nation. One key lesson from his four years serving as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was clear: it was foolish to openly mock the high command's folly.

Therefore, he held his tongue while he and the other officers charted the project, as the enlisted men toiled relentlessly on the enormous bridge that offered no real benefit to U.S. troops already withdrawing en masse from the country. Indeed, "fleeing." Though Julian held no fondness for a pit like Afghanistan, he viewed the retreat as a colossal defeat, especially since the Afghan National Army plainly couldn't stand against the Taliban without American backing.

To him, America had poured over 2.2 trillion dollars and countless lives into the conflict, only to abandon it unfinished, dooming the fragile democracy they'd propped up in Afghanistan to its fate. It echoed the disasters of Iraq and Vietnam, with outcomes everyone knew too well.

Even with his inner outrage at the strategic blunder, Julian personally welcomed escaping the area. He far preferred lounging in homeland base barracks, diving into strategy games, city-builders, and farming sims. In his off hours, he immersed in such games or delved into history, philosophy, politics, economics, and outdated tech.

Truth be told, he was a highly learned man, topping his Civil Engineering class at West Point. From boyhood, engineering had captivated him. Hand him a toy, and he'd rather dismantle and reassemble it than play normally.

Entering his teen years, he devoted hours online or in libraries to studying history, the Industrial and Agricultural revolutions, tech leaps, and replication methods. Blessed with a photographic memory and superior IQ, he locked all that knowledge away forever.

In college, he poured energy into studies, grabbing extra electives beyond need; upon graduation and military entry, he embodied a living encyclopedia spanning humanities to hard sciences. Naturally, this left his love life barren.

Owing to how he filled his spare time, he stayed resolutely single with zero dependents. Not even a pet, since deploying meant burdening relatives with it, a chore he spared everyone.

Still, here he sat in the Middle East, overseeing a build in a nation the U.S. Military had set a full pullout date for—just one month off. The top brass's logic escaped him, but it boiled down to yet another massive squandering of taxpayer cash.

Sure, the Afghan National Army might leverage the bridge tactically, but couldn't they construct it solo? A rhetorical musing, of course, given his low expectations of ANA competence, which never failed to disappoint.

As these petty thoughts swirled, he overheard Non-Commissioned Officers bantering nearby about war's-end celebrations. These veterans, worn down after years in the fight with nationalism long faded, shrugged off the nation's setbacks here; homecoming was all that mattered. He couldn't fault them for it.

Right as an NCO started detailing their schemes, a massive blast erupted afar, followed by the shrill whistle of an incoming shell arcing toward Julian. One notion flashed through his mind as the projectile hurtled down.

'Fuck my life!'

And with that last notion, the shell's detonation swallowed his awareness, along with the nearby officers' lives. He perished completely and without question.

...

Berengar jolted awake with a shout, his raspy voice reverberating through the spacious stone chamber. His eyes scanned the surroundings wildly. After a thorough look, he realized no artillery shell had obliterated him; rather, he lay upon a grand bed topped by a canopy. By his bedside stood a girl in early adolescence, staring at him with eyes full of fear. Henrietta, his little sister, was already quite beautiful despite her tender age, possessing long blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes like the sky.

As he stared at the terrified girl, a vital thought raced through his mind.

'Henrietta? Sister? Since when did I have a sister? What is going on? And why was that my first thought upon seeing this stranger?'

Berengar knitted his brows while probing his memories; clearly, two distinct sets lingered in his mind. One belonged to the body he now occupied—Berengar von Kufstein, son of Sieghard von Kufstein and heir to the Barony of Kufstein. He had reached twenty years of age this year.

The other memories came from Julian Weber, a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who met a tragic end in Afghanistan during a Taliban assault. Had he been granted a second chance at life? Exactly what was happening here?

Before he could delve deeper into his predicament, Henrietta clasped his hand, tears pouring from her stunning azure eyes.

"I thought I lost you! Thank God you're alive, big brother!"

She reinforced her words with the sign of the cross and a quick prayer in Latin, a tongue Berengar identified immediately.

Berengar reclined against his bed, still musing over his circumstances as the original Berengar's life memories surged into his consciousness. This realm was an alternate version of Earth, locked in the late medieval era. His family controlled a modest barony nestled inside the Holy Roman Empire's frontiers. Though plenty of historical happenings echoed the world he once knew, stark divergences abounded.

Antiquity's timeline stayed mostly unchanged, yet events afterward veered wildly from Julian's reality. The East-West Schism never fractured the church, preventing the Orthodox and Catholic branches from growing apart. Their bond remained friendly instead, amplifying the Papacy's dominance beyond our own history.

The West never branded the Byzantines as heretics when Crusades were proclaimed. Upon reclaiming the Holy Land from the Saracens, it fell to the Byzantine Empire owing to their strongest claim. Consequently, Byzantium endured as a Mediterranean juggernaut, spared the crippling damage of the Fourth Crusade that sealed its doom in the near future.

Countless prominent figures from our timeline had been supplanted, alongside sweeping transformations in the Holy Roman Empire. Take its present form: the Kingdom of Italy and its ruler held sway above all. The Kingdom of Germany lingered as a lesser entity within the Empire, hurtling toward civil strife as feudal lords battled for the crown.

Such shifts were merely a fraction of the timeline's alterations. Innumerable more existed than Berengar could summon from memory alone. To uncover the timeline's key variances and the world's power layout, he'd need to investigate meticulously during his free moments.

Bombarded by the clash of dual memory banks, Julian—now Berengar—felt a pounding headache building and massaged his temples. Henrietta mistook the gesture for sickness, abruptly ending her prayer and bolting from the room. Her exquisite noble gown swirled as she fled, calling out just one thing.

"I'll go get the physician!"

Berengar recoiled at her words; based on his grasp of medieval healing, such care posed greater risk of harm than remedy for his woes. Still, his throat burned with thirst, rendering him powerless to halt his fleeing sister. Thus, he remained solitary, tormented solely by his thoughts and a mounting migraine...