Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 92: Siege Camp

Upon arriving at the outskirts of the Titan Industrial Zone, Ragnar and his "Mobile Strike Wing" immediately established a hidden observation post on a ridge overlooking the siege.

Unlike the noisy, chaotic sieges Ragnar had broken before, this operation required surgical precision.

He wasn’t trying to destroy the enemy and the city; he was trying to exterminate the infestation while preserving the real estate value.

Ragnar peered through his brass telescope.

The sight made his blood boil.. not with the rage of a berserker, but with the cold fury of a property manager.

Earl Godwin’s men were swarming the outer residential district. Smoke curled from the Model Tenements.

But worst of all, Ragnar saw a group of Saxons trying to pry the bronze dedication plaque off the main factory gate.

"They are scratching the finish," Ragnar hissed, lowering the telescope. "That plaque cost three hundred silver pennies."

General Bjorn stood next to him, chewing on a piece of dried beef. "They have the factory surrounded, Director. If we fire the cannons, we risk damaging the blast furnaces. The insurance won’t cover friendly fire."

"Precisely," Ragnar snapped, collapsing the telescope with a sharp click. "We cannot use heavy ordnance. We need a targeted layoffs strategy."

Ragnar turned to the elite unit gathered behind him.

These weren’t the rank-and-file pikemen. These were the "Loss Prevention Specialists"—men equipped with the new "Type-2" repeating crossbows and belt pouches filled with flash powder.

"Gentlemen," Ragnar addressed them, his voice low and metallic behind his visor. "The enemy believes they are the besiegers. They believe they have the factory trapped. Tonight, we are going to teach them the difference between a ’Siege’ and an ’Encirclement’."

He pointed to the campfires flickering in the ruins of the residential zone.

"We are not attacking the line. We are attacking the management. Our goal is Earl Godwin. Once the CEO is removed, the subsidiary branches will fold. Am I understood?"

"Assets acquired, Director!" the Specialists whispered in unison.

"Signal the factory," Ragnar ordered.

A signalman lit a fuse on a specialized rocket—a cardboard tube filled with strontium salts.

It hissed into the night sky and detonated with a brilliant, blinding crimson flare.

Inside the factory, Leif the Lesser had been waiting for this exact signal.

He stood by the main pressure valve of the boiler room, his face smeared with soot, looking like a demonic raccoon.

"That’s the Director’s memo!" Leif shouted to his exhausted engineers. "Initiate Protocol: Venting!"

"But sir!" an apprentice cried. "The steam pressure is at 120 PSI! If we open the external vents, it will scour the courtyard!"

"Exactly!" Leif grinned maniacally. "Open the valves! Let’s give them a steam bath!"

Three engineers spun the massive iron wheels.

HISSSSSSSSSSSSS!

From the exterior pipes lining the factory walls.. pipes the Saxons thought were merely decorative.. jets of superheated steam blasted outward.

The Saxons camped near the factory gates didn’t even have time to scream.

The white cloud engulfed them, boiling them in their armor! 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

The siege camp erupted in panic as men scrambled away from the "Dragon’s Breath," blinding themselves in the fog.

"That’s the distraction," Ragnar noted, watching the chaos from the ridge.

"Go! Go! Go!"

Ragnar and his fifty Specialists didn’t charge with a war cry.

They sprinted in silence, rubber-soled boots absorbing the impact. They bypassed the outer pickets, slipping through the gaps in the Saxon lines caused by the steam panic.

They reached the edge of Earl Godwin’s command circle.. a commandeered tavern in the residential zone.

A Saxon housecarl, holding a stolen leg of mutton, spotted the grey-clad figures emerging from the smoke.

"Who goes there?" the housecarl shouted, dropping the meat. "Identify yourselves!"

Ragnar didn’t slow down. He raised his left hand, holding a glass sphere.

"Flash out!"

He spiked the sphere onto the cobblestones.

BANG

The magnesium powder detonated with the brightness of a welding torch. The housecarl screamed, clutching his eyes, completely blinded.

"Clear the room!" Ragnar commanded.

The Specialists raised their repeating crossbows.

Bolts flew in a rhythmic staccato. The blinded housecarls guarding the tavern perimeter dropped before they could even draw their swords.

Ragnar stepped over the bodies, his boots crunching on the broken glass.

"Reload," Ragnar ordered calmly. "We are going inside."

Inside the tavern, Earl Godwin was drunk. Not on ale, but on the perceived victory. He sat at a table, surrounded by looted silverware, toasting his captains.

"To the Vikings!" Godwin laughed, raising a stolen tin cup. "May they rot in their stone box!"

"My Lord!" a captain shouted, rushing in from the kitchen. "The fog! The factory is breathing smoke! And the men... they are screaming about lightning!"

"Lightning?" Godwin slurred. "It’s a clear night, you fool."

The front door of the tavern exploded inward. Not from a kick, but from a breaching charge.. a small bag of gunpowder hung on the latch.

Splinters flew across the room. Through the smoke walked a figure encased in matte-grey steel, a yellow sash across his chest, and a sallet helm that looked like the face of a faceless god.

Ragnar strode into the room, flanked by two Specialists who immediately leveled their crossbows at the Saxon captains.

Godwin scrambled backward, tripping over his chair. "W-Who are you?"

Ragnar flipped his visor up. His eyes were cold, calculating, and utterly unimpressed.

"I am the Landlord," Ragnar said. "And you are violating the noise ordinance."

"Kill him!" Godwin shrieked to his remaining bodyguards. "He is but one man!"

Three Saxon elites charged. They were big men, wielding heavy Danish axes.

"Suppressing fire!"

The Specialists behind him didn’t aim; they just swept the room. The repeating crossbows unleashed a hail of bolts.

The bodyguards danced a jerky, bloody jig as the steel shafts punched through their mail and gambesons. They fell in a heap at Ragnar’s feet.

Ragnar stepped forward, kicking a heavy axe out of the way. He loomed over Earl Godwin, who was now cowering under the table.

"Please!" Godwin begged, holding up a silver candlestick. "Take it! Take the silver! I surrender!"

Ragnar looked at the candlestick. It was one of the mass-produced ones from Sector 2. Worth maybe five pennies.

"You broke my gate," Ragnar stated, grabbing Godwin by the collar and hauling him up. "You burned three residential units. And you traumatized my night shift."

Ragnar dragged the Earl toward the door.

"Where are you taking me?" Godwin wailed.

"To the factory floor," Ragnar said grimly. "I want you to explain to my Site Manager why his safety record has been ruined."

Outside, the battle was already over.

The Saxon army, terrified by the steam venting from the factory and the sudden explosions in their rear, had broken.

They were fleeing into the dark, leaving their weapons and their looted spoons behind.

Leif the Lesser emerged from the factory gates, leading a team of engineers armed with pipe wrenches and heavy spanners. They looked exhausted but vindictive.

"Director!" Leif shouted, running up to Ragnar. "We saved the pressure valves! But the paint job on the east wall is ruined."

Ragnar threw Earl Godwin at Leif’s feet.

"Here is the vandal," Ragnar said. "Put him to work."

Leif looked at the terrified Earl. A slow, cruel smile spread across the Site Manager’s soot-stained face.

"We are short-staffed on the coal-shoveling crew, Director."

"Perfect," Ragnar nodded. "Indefinite internship. No benefits."

Ragnar looked around the Titan complex.

It was battered. There were scorch marks on the brick, broken windows, and debris everywhere.

But the blast furnaces were still humming. The production line had not stopped.

"General Bjorn," Ragnar called out as the main force of the Imperial Corps arrived to secure the perimeter.

"Director?" Bjorn asked, leaning on his hammer.

"Conduct a full damage assessment. I want a bill of materials for repairs by sunrise. And Bjorn?"

"Yes?"

"Get someone to polish the dedication plaque," Ragnar said, wiping a smudge of soot from his armor. "It looks unprofessional."

With the siege broken and the "Hostile Takeover" of the Titan intruders complete, Ragnar could finally turn his attention to the bigger picture.

He had secured the North. He had secured the Midlands.

But in the South, Princess Judith was now the Regent of Wessex. The trade embargo was lifted, but the political landscape had shifted.

"Leif," Ragnar said, staring at the venting steam pipes that had terrified the Saxons. "That steam... it moved an entire army."

"Yes, Director. It burned them quite badly."

"No," Ragnar murmured, his eyes widening with a new, dangerous idea. . "I mean... it moved them. If it can move men... it can move wheels."

"Director?" Leif asked nervously. "You have that look again."

"The look of profit, Leif," Ragnar smiled.