Reborn In 3rd Century Rome with Future Industry

December 20, 220 AD, Fundus Ferratus, Gallia.

Following his address to the workforce, Lucius retreated to the villa.

The Syndicate Council was not yet the meritocratic assembly he had outlined in the *Codex Umbrae*.

The laborers of Fundus Ferratus were tough and loyal, but the majority of them could not read a logistics ledger.

Until the literacy programs took root, elections would be a disaster. Instead, Lucius had appointed the men who had proven their competence to act as his board of directors.

The council was an oligarchy of experts... Aulus, the master scribe, managed the bureaucracy and the paper mills. Decimus oversaw the blast furnaces.

Wulfric commanded the training yards, and Kallias, the chemist, directed munitions research.

Lucius’s *Codex* allowed the Forge Master to dissolve this council at will, override any vote, or strip a director of his rank with a word.

He had designed a corporate structure that shielded him from management while consolidating executive power in his hands.

Pushing through the doors of his chambers, the chill was chased away by the warmth of the hypocaust heating beneath the floorboards.

Isolda was standing near the window, wrapped in a mantle, looking out over the chimneys of the valley.

As Lucius approached, she turned, her eyes softening with a warmth she reserved for him.

Lucius closed the distance, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing a kiss to her temple. "How is the empire’s strategist faring this evening?"

Isolda leaned back into his chest, resting her hands over his.

She offered a smile, staring out at the smoke rising into the sky. "Do you mean the strategist, or the heir?"

Lucius froze. He pulled back to look at her face. "Isolda... are you certain?"

"I missed my moon-blood weeks ago," she replied, turning in his arms to face him.

She placed his hand against her stomach. "The Greek physician you hired confirmed it this morning. We are going to have a child, Lucius. A son, if the gods favor us."

A wave of emotion crashed over Lucius. He pulled her into an embrace, burying his face in her hair.

He was terrified of breaking her, yet he wanted to hold her closer than possible.

As he held his wife, a ghost from a past life brushed against the edges of his mind.

He had lived in glass towers, stared at spreadsheets until his eyes bled, and died without leaving behind a legacy.

No wife, no children, just a forgotten bank account and a funeral...

Fate had thrown him across centuries into a brutal era, but it had given him the canvas to build something eternal.

The iron he was forging, the walls he was raising, and the woman resting in his arms... this was his true life.

After a moment, Lucius pulled back, keeping his hands on her shoulders. Isolda’s expression had shifted.

The warmth had receded, replaced by the focus of a warlord’s daughter.

"The Emperor is dead," Isolda stated.

Lucius did not flinch. He had anticipated the collapse since the rumors reached the trade routes.

"When will Governor Marcellus move his forces?"

Isolda didn’t hesitate; she had been debriefing Aulus’s spies all afternoon. "Marcellus is a coward masquerading as a conqueror. He will pull the city garrisons north to fortify the borders within the week. He hopes to ride out the chaos while the Legates butcher each other for the throne in Rome."

Lucius nodded. "If Marcellus pulls the garrison north, Civitas Aurelia will be undefended."

Isolda reached up, looping her arms around his neck. "Then I suggest we march on the city in a month. It will give Valerius enough time to drill the pikemen, and Kallias enough time to refine the next batch of explosive clay."

"A month is perfect," Lucius agreed. "When we take the capital, we control the river ports. From there, we choke out the Guilds and monopolize the trade routes."

Isolda leaned in, brushing her lips against his in a kiss.

When she pulled back, she tilted her head, a smirk on her face. "Should I begin addressing you as Governor Lucius?"

Lucius laughed. He reached up and tapped the bridge of her nose. "Not yet. I refuse to wear a title I haven’t conquered by right of steel."

Isolda pouted, pressing her body closer to his. Despite the burdens of statecraft, she was a woman infatuated with her husband, and she made no secret of her desires.

Lucius smiled, but he grabbed her wrists, unwinding her arms from his neck. "No. The physician instructed that you need rest for the first trimester. The humors must settle."

"I am a woman of the Goths, Lucius, not some fragile Roman glass!" Isolda protested. "Women in my tribe march with the warbands until the water breaks."

"And infant mortality in the forests is a tragedy I will not replicate in my house," Lucius replied.

He knew the realities of medicine, and he was not going to risk his wife or his heir for a night of passion.

"You will rest, Isolda. That is an order from the Forge Master."

She glared at him. Huffing in defeat, she allowed him to guide her toward the bed.

Tomorrow, Lucius would spend the day on the fields of the *Castra Umbra*.

The ballista crews needed to coordinate their firing arcs with the advancing pike formations.

His military had swelled over the winter, and he was confident that he could seize Civitas Aurelia and put down any resistance the patricians managed to scrape together.

When the time came for Governor Marcellus to call upon the provincial estates for war taxes, Lucius intended to send the man a cart full of iron slag and a refusal.

It would drive the Governor to madness, leaving Fundus Ferratus unchained to launch its offensive on the capital...

Lucius was unaware that Tribune Quintus and ten thousand imperial veterans were marching south with orders to eradicate his bloodline.

But even if Lucius had read the Legate’s orders, it wouldn’t have changed his battle plans.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!