Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 155: Takedown

After dining with his executives, Ragnar took a bath before entering the guest room he was provided in the Guildhall of York.

It was down the hall from Princess Elfwynn and Elfrida’s. However, he had no intention to visit either of them in the night. Elfwynn was his COO, and fraternization was against company policy.

As for Elfrida... well, she was a liability he intended to restructure, not acquire.

As such, he made sure to latch the doors and windows to his room thoroughly. One could never be too careful.

If Ragnar were in the modern era, he would probably sweep his room for bugs before resting, but this was the medieval world; such sophisticated espionage did not exist at this time.

As such, he was able to sleep the night away without concern... aside from the occasional nightmare about declining profit margins.

By the time the smog-choked dawn rose, Ragnar had naturally awakened; after all, his body was used to waking up at such an hour to check the early market reports.

Despite this, he was left with nothing to do as he had no major audits while he was in York, and most of his workout equipment was back in City Titan. As such, he decided to do a small workout, where he did his usual routine of pushups, sit-ups, and cane-assisted squats.

As for his pullups, he would not be able to do such a thing as he lacked a proper bar.

As such, he skipped it for the day and went on a limp around the city walls, though he dressed in a simple grey cloak to avoid any assassination attempts that might occur on his journey.

After his journey was over, he returned to the Guildhall where he intended to take a bath. However, the moment he opened the door to the bathhouse, he noticed that there was a figure already inside the wooden tub.

Her back was to him, steam rising from her shoulders as she scrubbed herself with a rough sponge. Ragnar immediately recognized the severe bun of hair to be Elfwynn’s.

He stared at the back of his Chief Engineer for several seconds, calculating the probability of this being a trap, before coming to his senses.

By the time he came back to reality, Elfwynn turned around, her glasses fogged up, and her mouth agape. She looked like she was about to scream. As such, Ragnar quickly shut the door and leaned against it, breathing heavily.

"That... was not in the schedule," Ragnar muttered to himself.

Elfwynn immediately sunk into her tub with embarrassment after Ragnar shut the door; she had utterly forgotten to lock it, usually relying on her "Do Not Disturb" sign which had fallen off. As such, she was struggling to cope with what had just happened.

Ragnar, on the other hand, briskly walked away as if nothing had happened, his cane clicking rhythmically on the stone floor. As he was doing so, he thought to himself:

That stays in the confidential files.

Afterward, he arrived in his room and waited until a time where he felt as if Elfwynn would have left the tub, which was a safe thirty minutes.

After waiting, he returned to the bath where he knocked on the door with the head of his cane. When there was no sound, he entered, stripped, and began his bath.

It was an exceptionally long soak as he tried to purge the image of his COO from his mind; in times like this, he wished he didn’t have a photographic memory for details.

After getting out of the tub and dressing in his black tunic, Ragnar returned to the main hall, where Elfwynn was waiting for him, sitting at a table with a stack of blueprints, fully clothed and looking mortified.

Ragnar had no desire to address the incident directly, and as such, he merely sat down across from her and poured himself a cup of coffee.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Elfwynn adjusted her spectacles and asked the question on her mind, her voice trembling slightly.

"Director... did you see the quarterly projections?"

Ragnar played the part of a professional and dodged the awkward situation that presented itself.

"The steam... obscured the data. I suppose that’s a good thing for confidentiality."

Ragnar’s words relieved Elfwynn immensely. The way he communicated his sentence made it sound as if he was not the least bit interested in her as anything other than an asset. As such, she let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

"Good. Efficiency is victory, after all."

Ragnar nodded, taking a sip of his coffee.

"Indeed. Now, about those coal shipments..."

Elfwynn relaxed visibly. If they were talking about coal, everything was normal.

She quickly launched into a detailed report about the tonnage arriving from Scotland.

*****

After crossing through the hallways looking for Elfwynn, Ragnar soon found himself face to face with Eadric, the former Ealdorman and current Sanitation Manager.

Eadric did not have the most pleasant expression on his face. Instead, he stared at Ragnar with an intense gaze of fury, as if his heart contained the fires of a smelter in its depths.

Ragnar could tell by the look on his face that Elfrida had said something; as such, he met Eadric’s furious gaze with a condescending smirk behind his monocle.

Eadric, however, noticed Ragnar’s expression and immediately assumed it meant his guilt. He approached Ragnar and tried to latch onto his collar, screaming about "stolen valor."

However, before he could do so, Ragnar had simply raised his silver cane and hooked it around the man’s ankle, tripping him instantly. Eadric fell face-first onto the stone floor with a pathetic thud.

Though Ragnar was by no means a grappler like General Bjorn, he had gone through basic self-defense training in his past life, and as such knew a few tricks he could use to subdue a clumsy middle manager.

As Ragnar leaned his weight onto the cane, pinning Eadric to the floor, he began to chastise the man for his inefficient attempts.

"You know, Eadric; it is not productive to assault your superiors during business hours. You should learn your place in the org chart!"