Then I died
it was nothing to be ashamed of, but ....
But damn, a cow, a damn cow, the nerds who had made up the statistics that it was more likely to die from a cow than a shark had been right.
I was calmly taking care of my fields when one of my animals started to behave strangely. When I went to check it, I found that a cow was extremely aggressive and decided to run me over with its weight, throwing me to the ground to finally attack me with its hooves and with just one good blow to the skull, everything went black
Making it obvious that I had died
Now you might be wondering why am I so calm even after dying, it is because I can reincarnate
What had happened now was nothing new under the sun, as I had been through similar experiences multiple times
I don't know if it is a special ability, but every time I die naturally, or violently, I am reborn in a new body, keeping completely the memories I got in my previous life.
A sensational ability depending on who you ask
Because I had achieved in a way eternal life with some of its benefits, since it was useful for example to have engineering studies for the next life, not having to be hours and hours stuck looking at books to understand what I was doing because I remembered everything perfectly.
The problem, everything has its damn problem; otherwise it would be excellent to have accumulative knowledge in all my life.
It is that when I am reborn, it is not in the reality we know, there is always something that changes, there is no coherence and some known facts changes.
like the Carthaginians won the Punic wars and Rome never became an empire
General Belisarius achieved the reconquest of Italy and later the other provinces that had been lost with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.
Or in other types of cases, I can be reborn in very advanced timelines
As when I was reborn in a dark future where there is only war or something like that because I had to work 16 hours a day in monstrous conditions where the air was barely breathable and if I refused they would turn me into a forced servant or execute me as a traitor and I had to praise an emperor with blind loyalty who was also my god.
So, death was no stranger to me, I had died more times than I can remember
Allowing myself when I am not obligated by something or someone, to satisfy my hunger for knowledge, taking advantage of the fact that I can remember almost everything I learn in one life and use it in the next.
So with the passage of several centuries, I have learned many important things, strategy, accounting, engineering, politics, and general knowledge in many other branches of knowledge, but also a lot of useless knowledge because of the constant variables from where I was reborn a lot of knowledge was only useful in those conditions on planets where the force of gravity is 3 times stronger or there is no resistance by air due to the lack of atmosphere of a planet.
I have also learned many languages but in the same way with the knowledge, I have learned languages so rare that I have never used them again, but learning is learning, and I am not complaining.
This has led me many times to try to apply my knowledge in these lives in times I have been burned at the stake for being a witch or where my knowledge is not considered
But on some occasions, I became a rich merchant who had more wealth than most countries and who only looked to increase his wealth even more
When using my knowledge, I created a religion about a flying spaghetti god
I had become a nobleman by merit, where I acquired power and wealth only to be stabbed in the back by an insane wife, who thought I was cheating on her with someone else.
Even with all my knowledge, I cannot control where I was born, I was always born in the most humble parts of society, which forced me sometimes to have to work all my life in manual labor just to survive because it was very likely that the ruling class would see progress with problems or new technologies with greed and eliminating its creator, that is me.
but anyway, this is already a habit, at first, it was hard to get used to it as I thought it would be only once or twice until I lost count of how many times it has happened that I have begun to accept this fate with some normality since there is nothing I can do to avoid it.
Even though I was surrounded by darkness I still had the perception of my body and how slowly the darkness was disappearing by the growing light that illuminated my sight, it is about to start again the eternal cycle which I was stuck in.
Again, I only saw darkness to hear some words that were common when I started this process again.
''It's a boy'' said a strong voice in a language that was familiar to me.
'I felt some metallic noises, and then I was spanked'
'Even after years of experiencing this, to control the reflex of crying when spanked is impossible to control, and I had to do it, cry and cry a lot'
'to my surprise, I managed to open my eyes and see clearly, quite rare as it happens to be blurry when this happens, and I could see how they were washing me and wrapping me in clothes and see the bird mask of the man who was wrapping me up'
While observing my surroundings for information, I managed to hear something
''We have to tell .... that his wife didn't survive the birth. it was too hard for her'' said the man with the bird mask to a man in gothic armor.
Gothic armor, a Germanic design, maybe a Germanic country, because of the language they are speaking maybe, but with my experience, it would be very foolish to assume this information.
they quickly took me from the room where I was born and placed me in a crib, where they let me rest for a while.
Although I was immobilized by the clothes up to my neck, I could see that, at all times, there were 4 men in armor in my room, and they watched very cautiously the wet nurses who came to feed me.
I must be someone important or powerful or both at best, I could enjoy an easy life once and for all and not have to go hungry living like a peasant until I could earn a few coins.
As the days went by I was surprised by the speed at which I was growing, in just one month I had grown to the point of being able to crawl, but more surprisingly, no one seemed to be surprised, even one of the doctors with a bird mask said that I was growing slowly, and he was afraid that I would not pass to maturity and that I would die prematurely.
My father was conspicuous by his absence, but I had everything I needed for my healthy growth, I drank milk 3 times a day and had my cloth diapers changed twice a day, the life of someone who doesn't have to do anything.
More months passed and still no news from my father, as far as I could understand, they had personally assigned a specific knight for my upbringing, it was Charles of Orleans, a knight, who was to teach me to read and write'.
'I was growing up too fast, and I still didn't know why, but with a little luck, I'll be able to find out.
--------------------------------------------
Within 2 years I had the body of a 7-year-old and had already learned plenty of things from the information I got.
Charles was a knight of French descent from a noble family, but he was kidnapped a few months after his birth by a group of Teutonic knights and scouts from Finland who were looking for the descent of one of the champions of the kingdom of France, the operation was successful, and he was trained to become a Teutonic knight.
Charles is aware of all this and seems not to care and is pleased with his life, he says that everything that has happened to him is the will of God, which makes it clear that Charles is quite devoted to the religion he believes in, he has become one of the best knights in my father's kingdom being considered the most lethal in duels, but he is as educated as mortal, he knows 6 languages which he speaks fluently he knows the ancient texts of the Greeks and has been my mentor in subjects I do not handle.
I understood that I am the crown prince of the kingdom of Prussia, my name is Wilhelm which was given to me by letter by my father who was fighting a war and to my bad luck losing it, unlike the ''common'' timelines the kingdom of Prussia had been formed much earlier and extended over the whole kingdom of Poland and Lithuania having a border with Russia.
The nobility had the ''blessings'' of god to justify their accelerated growth, and their enormous cognitive capacity, long life span. There are some Prussian nobles who saw the creation of the kingdom and the incredible strength as a gift from god to the nobles so that they would be the ones to rule over the commoners, something necessary since it is repeated to the peasants all the time that they should serve the nobility since they were chosen by god to rule them because by numbers the nobles are not even 1% of the population.
There was an extreme overpopulation in Europe, and with the technology of the time and the knowledge that existed this produced the perfect breeding ground for disease, but fortunately, the crop they planted was extremely productive enough to continue to maintain the continuous population growth, but it seems that a limit has already been reached because it is enough to stop the production of some fields to produce a famine throughout the continent.
In matters of technology, gunpowder had not been considered. There was a small attempt to use it as a weapon, but the church banned it as a cursed weapon and the idea was forgotten even after the religious schism in other parts of the world it seems that it is the same they did not conceive it as a weapon, and they continue with the style of war of pikes, maces, and crossbows.
with this, in mind, I continued to enjoy my life as royalty and studying for what in a few decades would be my job, but it is my father's job which for the moment I do not know him.
-----------------------------------------
Or so I thought, my disgraced father died when I had reached seven years in this world or reality, by the standards of my kingdom I am a teenager, and I was asked if I wanted a council of regency as it was not uncommon for very young nobles to take the reins of government by military tradition, many nobles die a year from these conflicts, leaving their sons in the administration.
everything was very fast in a single battle, thousands, thousands of nobles had died, in this process, whole houses of nobles died and the Teutonic order that was the knights who protected the royal family had lost their grand master.
I was quickly crowned king, making me head of state and leader of the Protestant church of Prussia, in terms of power, I had almost absolute control of the Prussian state.
This would be good, but my kingdom is on the verge of collapse, the treasury is empty, what is left of the army are practically untrained peasant levies and a few knights.
I wanted to kill my deceased father, he had destroyed everything my grandfather had done, I wanted to enjoy a good life in a reincarnation, but he ruined everything, he lost so many battles and wasted money building churches in the middle of the war.
I tried to calm down, this would be very interesting, at last to test all my knowledge, for the first time I would have the almost absolute power of a monarch and not be a whispering advisor.
My first problem was my relatives, they did not see me as a king fit for the times, a group of my distant cousins had tried not to take the throne away from me, since the figure of the kings in Prussia is almost divine with their status as representatives of god on earth as the head of the state church, but to force me into a regency council and use me as a puppet.
Aleksanteri, a Finn who had been chosen among his brothers as the new commander of the Finns since the previous one had died with my father, managed to warn me of what was to come.
Aleksanteri was sincere. He did not expect me to survive. He already saw the destruction of the Hohenzollern kingdom and only provided me the information because he felt bad for me, before escaping and looking for a new lord to serve.
with this information, I gathered my most loyal men, the Teutonic knights, that their elected master was my master and father figure Charles and together, we managed to put the conspirators arrested and sentenced them to death.
I condemned my relatives to be beheaded, I had to make a tough decision so that they would not consider me weak, because if the nobility still considered me a child they would try again, while carrying out the execution of my relatives I could see the Finn's smile slowly growing as the heads rolled on the floor.
Although the doubt of my government was gone, I still had the problems, lack of funds and soldiers to continue fighting, and I had an enemy army at the gates of the capital.
I had to do all kinds of political juggling to try to rebuild the Prussian army, borrow gold from the merchants of the Hanseatic League, there was a Prussian nobleman who had a warehouse full of armor, axes, maces and crossbows which I was forced to buy on credit as it was impossible to get so much military equipment in a short time.
In three months, I managed to assemble a decent army to present battle to the enemy, but unlike my predecessors, I decided to take a different way of fighting, I would choose the battlefield and if I didn't like it I would deny combat, and we would continue using guerrilla tactics to cut supply lines and attack groups of soldiers that were separated from the main group.
This way of conducting warfare, although dishonorable to the standards of the knights, worked the bodies of the enemy began to pile up, thousands died every day from ambushes led by the Finns and the light cavalry and many more died from starvation or disease as they were cut off from any help from the main army'.
I had won every battle I had fought, there was certainly no merit in defeating an army tired from having to stand guard every night to prevent my scouts from coming in and cutting their throats while they slept, hungry because I had extracted all the food sources in the area and prevented their supplies from reaching them as we constantly ambushed their convoys and thirsty and almost all the water wells were poisoned.
This form of warfare had shattered the army of the Catholic League, and in a short time had succeeded in seizing the initiative and bringing the war back to the Catholic territories.
The largest army in years had been formed as a coalition of French, Germans, Danes and Swedes formed a coalition to deal a lethal blow to the Catholic league, and they gathered troops from all over the Habsburg territories, Italy, Hispania, England, Austria and Hungary, the Catholics had the numerical superiority and the quality of the Spanish tercios was legendary, without cannons it would be impossible to defeat them in the open field, that's why they had generated the greatest infiltration in history.
Aleksanteri led thousands of his men into the night, burned the enemy army's supplies, poisoned the animals' water and killed many commanders while they were still preparing for the battle that would define this thirty years war.
This left them almost without cavalry and the shortage of command was obvious, they had two options, fight or flight, both with their pros and cons, because if they fought and lost they were without supplies and surrounded by the enemy and if they escaped our cavalry would attack day and night while they retreated.
The Catholics attacked the battle lasted for hours, almost the whole day, but we managed to win, and the rest went on as it should, we chased the survivors and negotiations began, the Catholics had no choice but to negotiate or pray that we would not burn Vienna to ashes.
Everything went as expected, They surrendered, although we also had to give in on some things since my kingdom was still almost half destroyed, the threat from the east was still growing and with the tactics, I had used I had guaranteed the biggest famine of all time, it was only the time of the harvest when we would begin to see all the disaster I had generated to win.
I was in my war camp as we prepared to return to Berlin, I was making plans for the future to stabilize my kingdom and give me a life of relaxation for my long, long life.
But I saw how everything around me stopped.
To my surprise, I saw a giant metallic ball almost 2 meters high
I looked around me and my men were pinned like statues, even as I waved my hand towards them
I stood up and approached the ball that was motionless in front of me and I stayed watching it for a long time until I decided to touch it.
When I touched it, the sphere began to absorb me, even when I tried to fight it, it slowly enveloped me until it consumed me completely.
The ball continued to grow until it absorbed my entire war camp, with all my court and soldiers who had not yet begun to return.
For what seemed like a long time, I kept watching what was happening as I had no idea and to be honest, I was terrified because I had never experienced anything like this before
But out of nowhere, the metal ball disappeared, and my camp was completely transported to another place, since I could not see the city that was close to our meeting place.
Screams began to be heard inside the camp, and many of my men ran desperately.
Almost by instinct, I began to give orders to calm the situation and try to understand where we were.
After a few minutes, I managed to re-establish order over my camp, and we started to find out where the hell we were'] 'my astrologers had no idea where we were.
My astrologers had no idea where on earth we were, they didn't recognize any stars.
The scouts hadn't found anything that could indicate where we were either, but to be honest, I was getting desperate too, I had a considerable army by now and the supplies wouldn't last long, we've only got about a month after that we're at the mercy of fate.
2 days passed and no luck either we have found some small villages, but we had not yet approached to talk as we could generate a conflict with the lords or rulers of the area and starting diplomacy as an invasion force does not seem reasonable.
but information gathered all my officers and nobles in my tent, Aleksanteri had brought news, a cavalry force was approaching.
''Then your grace how do we proceed?, we cannot stand idly by and wait for those enemy forces to attack us'' said lothar , heavily bandaged, still suffering from his ribs, as this commander had been wounded and captured in the previous battle.
''We don't know if they are enemies, only that they are on their way, so I will go out with a contingent of cavalry to meet them while you prepare yourselves in case something happens., Charles come with me, I need your mace in case we come to blows and Aleksanteri follow me in case it is some language you know'' I said looking at the knight and the Finn.
Charles nodded, the rest of the Prussian high command went to take positions and give orders to my army and Aleksanteri silently followed me
I rode alongside a large cavalry group composed of heavy cavalry and knights of the Teutonic order,the ride was short,until we could see the cavalry host approaching the area
''What language should we speak, Charles?'' I said thoughtfully.
the knight showed a thoughtful face
''Latin is the lingua franca of the European continent, surely they know how to recognize it'' said the night looking at me through his visor.
''don't let your guard down, my king. If this ends badly, retreat to the camp without hesitation, your life is worth more than your honor currently'' said Aleksanteri behind me.
finally, we approached the host carrying heraldic banners of wolves, fish and eagles, we carried a white banner to parley
''do you recognize any heraldry?, it's none that I've been taught in the books of noble lineages'' I said, looking at my companions
Charles moved his head from side to side and Aleksanteri just raised his shoulders saying that he didn't know
as we approached 2 men came out of the host, one very young with wolf heraldry and one old with eagle heraldry
''I greet you, I am Wilhelm von Hohenzollern, with whom I have the pleasure of speaking'' I said using my best Latin in the hope that they could understand us.
''We do not speak High Valyrian'' said the old man in medieval but still understandable English.
''They speak English, my liege, do you remember your lessons?'' said Charles in a cheerful tone.
I nodded my head
''but I speak your language, I greet you, I am Wilhelm von Hohenzollern, with whom I have the pleasure to speak''.I said with a respectful tone.
''I am Lord Jon Arryn'' said the older man.
''I am Eddard Stark'' said the younger one.
'oh, shit, I know where we are'