Reborn In 3rd Century Rome with Future Industry

December 25, 220 AD, Gallia.

Lucius had planned to march within the hour, but practical realities quickly stayed his hand.

For three days, the army of the forge remained at the captured rally point. Lucius set to work transforming the remnants of the Seventh Legion’s encampment into a logistical hub for the Syndicate.

If they were going to march on Civitas Aurelia, their supply lines back to the blast furnaces of Fundus Ferratus needed to be impregnable...

During this occupation, Lucius oversaw the integration of the camp’s non-combatants.

The captured quartermasters, scribes, and baggage handlers expected to be shackled, whipped, and sold into the mines as slaves. That was the Roman way.

Instead, Lucius set up a desk in the center of the camp and had the prisoners lined up.

"You are logisticians," Lucius told the lead scribe, tossing a pouch onto the table.

The pouch clinked with the sound of silver denarii. "You will tally my supply wagons. You will map the river routes. For this, you will be paid double the rate the Emperor offered you, and you will sleep in heated tents."

The scribe stared at the silver, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. "You... you are paying us? We are prisoners of war, Dominus."

"..." Lucius sighed. "Do your jobs well, and you will die wealthy men. Try to sabotage my ledgers, and I will strap you to the front of a ballista. Is that clear?"

The scribe swallowed, scrambling to grab his wax tablets. "Crystal clear, Dominus! We serve the Forge!"

Despite the reputation Lucius was building on the battlefield, his administrative touch was pragmatic...

So long as the acquired camp workers did not attempt armed sabotage, they were treated with a level of dignity unheard of in the third century.

There were pockets of dissent — mostly from a handful of wounded legionaries too proud to accept medical treatment from the men who had slaughtered their brothers — but Lucius ordered his guards to ignore the insults.

Before the army prepared to move out, Lucius ensured the northern choke point was locked down.

He detached three hundred *Custodes* from his force, leaving them behind with a battery of four ballistas and crates of Kallias’s clay.

Word of the slaughter in the valley would reach Legate Rufinus in the north...

When the general marched south to avenge his Tribune, he would find a fortified bottleneck commanded by men who knew how to break a Roman shield wall.

By the dawn of the fourth day, the supply lines were secured, the wounded were stabilized, and the Syndicate’s army was primed for the push.

Lucius mounted his warhorse, the scales of his armor absorbing the sunlight. He rode to the front of the column, flanked by Valerius and Amalric. He looked back at the sea of pikes and the carriages carrying their artillery.

"Form the marching column!" Lucius shouted. "We march for the capital! Advance!"

Over two thousand iron-shod boots stomped the earth in unison as the army of Fundus Ferratus surged forward. They left the ruins of the encampment behind, turning their eyes south toward Civitas Aurelia.

The realities of the battle did not dampen the spirits of the *Custodes*. Instead, the dominance of their victory had ignited a pride within the ranks.

They were commoners, freedmen, and former pit fighters, yet they had annihilated the pride of the legions...

As they marched down the Aurelian Way, a chant began to ripple through the vanguard. It was a working song, bellowed by the coal-heavers in the mines to keep time while swinging their pickaxes.

*"Strike the iron, feed the fire! Break the chains and build it higher!"*

The voices of a thousand armored men singing in unison carried through the air, accompanied by the creaking of the ballista carts.

Valerius, riding to Lucius’s left, shook his head with a sigh.

The commander watched his Forge Master humming along to the mining chant, a smile painted across Lucius’s face.

"Dominus, if I may speak freely," Valerius called out over the marching column. "Why do you insist on fighting in the front rank of the phalanx? If a stray javelin takes your throat, this army fractures, and your empire dies with you."

Lucius’s smile twisted into a grin. He adjusted the reins of his horse, looking over at his general. "If I don’t bleed in the mud with the men, how can I expect them to trust the armor I forge for them?"

It was a noble response, and Valerius nodded, a sense of respect softening the lines of his face.

But it was only half the truth...

The thrill of crossing blades with a veteran and watching his engineering dismantle the military superpower in history was a drug he couldn’t put down.

Lucius knew he was no longer a good man.

If the heaven of his past life existed, he was certain he would not be walking through its gates.

He was building an empire on a foundation of chemical fire, shrapnel, and shattered legions. He was manipulating the economy, weaponizing the underclass, and stepping over corpses to secure his monopolies.

He did not lose a wink of sleep over the morality of his actions...

In an era where weakness meant crucifixion or slavery, morality was a luxury he couldn’t afford.

History, he knew, was fickle about how it remembered conquerors.

The scholars of the future would likely not record the thrill he felt while watching Tribune Quintus’s camp burn. Because Lucius intended to write the history books himself, he would ensure he was remembered as the Great Innovator... the visionary who dragged Europe out of the dark ages, abolished the slave castes, and brought industrial prosperity to the masses.

"We are less than a day’s march from the capital walls," Valerius noted, pulling Lucius from his reflections.

"If Governor Marcellus has locked the gates, we will have to deploy the breakers to shatter the hinges. It will be a breach."

Lucius chuckled, patting the neck of his warhorse as he gazed toward the southern horizon.

He thought of Isolda, and the operatives she had unleashed into the city shadows days ago.

"Do not worry about the gates, Valerius," Lucius said. "By the time we arrive, I have a feeling Governor Marcellus will be distracted to remember how to lock them."

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