Chapter 30: 5.6 Back Down

Coils... Oh! Like the ones on the back of the old refrigerator that we used to own. So Seigels could work like that too? The possibilities were endless! But while that explained the lack of evaporation... "Where's the water coming from?"

The elder flashed me a knowing smile as he explained his process. "You see that rod up the mouth of the vat, Rouge?" he asked as he pointed towards the top of the vat with his hammer. "I also etched countless of those unclosed circles onto its body, making it cold. After the revelation that Seigels can be molded to our needs beyond being used for tools of war, I realized that something cannot be made out of nothing, and all of our sweat has to go somewhere."

I blinked at him with amazement in my eyes. This guy just discovered the water cycle somehow... in a world where education was at a premium.

How smart was this old man?

"During winter, whenever a few of the Dezimals showed up with their armor exposed to the cold, I noticed something forming on the metal plates. Something that glistened for but a few moments before disappearing once the metal started heating up."

"Water," I pointed out.

"Exactly," the old man nodded. "So I applied what I learned and built this contraption."

Amazing. I just witnessed the natural process of discovery right before my eyes. This was what humanity was all about, in my opinion. Survive, adapt, overcome, optimize; the end result of basic scientific theory and logic.

"Wow..." I whispered more to myself as years of engineering courses vaguely came back to me. "The logistics of building this thing would've been a nightmare..."

If he was the only one that built this massive contraption, then he'd have to haul every piece of scrap that he could get away with. The guards- wait...

An idea struck me as I closed my gaping mouth. This was a place only Nenners could access. It'd be dangerous, but with the water here, it could actually aid in this place's sustainability. I took a brief glance at Lise before turning my head back towards the elder. Yes.. this could work...

"Sir," I found myself bowing out of old habits from my old life. "I know it might sound out-of-the-blue, but I ask that we stay here in this place."

This was the perfect place to hide from our pursuers. Along with being borderline inaccessible for anyone that wasn't a Nenner, it was the best place to do things away from prying eyes. Already, I had a few things I wanted to test out. The old man looked kind enough. Hopefully, he agreed to us shacking up near his greatest creation.

"Why are you bowing?"

I immediately straightened my back at his curious observation. I really have to stop doing that.

"It's a sign of respect, sir," I explained as I raised my head to meet his confused grey eyes. At the edge of my periphery, Lise quickly bowed as soon as my explanation came from my lips.

"Never heard of that kind of behavior in my long years of living," the old man wondered while rubbing the scruff of his grey beard. "And stop calling me 'Sir.' I'm Baccus. I'm no Imperial Dog."

"As you wish, Baccus," I corrected.

"And as for your request, I distinctly remember you two having a place near the ration station," the elder recalled as he looked at me with a tinge of doubt. "Why stay here?"

"We-" I caught my tongue just as my sister stepped up beside me. "I... I killed Aria the Blutmond."

...

"Hahaha! Surely you jest?" the elder put a hand on his stomach as he tried to catch his breath. "Now what's the real reason? Was it so that little Lise will never go thirsty again?"

I tried to quickly remove the forming scowl on my face as Baccus laughed in a way that you'd expect an old man to laugh in a drinking session. While I didn't really fault him for thinking that I was joking, it still stung my pride that he thought I was lying.

"Look, we're not here to steal your water," I explained, rather, pleaded. "We're running from the Emperor's Dezimals."

...

.......

"It's true!" Lise exclaimed, one hand on her chest as she put one foot forward. "We fought the Blutmond and killed her!"

A brief silence engulfed us as the old man seemed to mull on his thoughts, the sounds of industry filling the air as I felt myself sweating more than what I already should in this heat. Now that I thought about it, it really did sound like I was trying to stay here to have access to something I'd never had in the eighteen years that I've lived in this world, which was refrigerated water. I'd understand if he denied us. He did build this thing to serve as an emergency supply for everyone in the Furnace, not for himself or a select few.

"I've seen you work, young Rouge," Baccus began as he twirled his hefty hammer with one hand. "Your ability in smithing was the talk in the forges for quite a while once the others saw your skill."

"H-Huh?" I felt my cheeks flush from the praise.

"Yes, indeed. We were quite impressed with your technique and unorthodox methods of etching Seigels onto your products," the elder chuckled as he placed a hand on my shoulder. "You remind me of a certain someone I used to work with back in the day, actually. I wonder where he is now..."

W-w-wait! I-I didn't understand! Why was he putting a shoulder on my hand- er- hand on my shoulder?

"Yeah! Big Brother is cool like that, isn't he?" Lise chimed in with as much admiration she could possibly muster.

"And you're being trained by him, no? Little Lise?" Baccus smiled as he dropped his hammer in favor of placing his other hand on the girl's shoulder. "From what few glimpses I've seen of your work, I can already tell that you're improving by leaps and bounds under his tutelage, yes?"

"Rouge's the best teacher I could ever ask for~"

My heart hammered inside my chest as a familiar feeling that I didn't want slowly came to the surface. Stop! Stop praising me! My head will explode from too much confidence!

"Young Rouge," I heard the elder speak to me as I tried to calm myself down. "You already know what my answer to your request will be. No need to pretend to be someone that you're not."

What? Huh? I didn't even know if he already accepted us or not! And he expected me to already know the answer? Well, I kind of expected him to say yes anyway- No! Bad hubris! Bad!

"So we can stay?" my sister asked hopefully.

"Of course," Baccus stated as if it was the clearest fact in the world. "Anyone is welcome here."

My mind spun at the statement. "Th-Thank you!"

And I meant it with every fiber of my being too. It was a place far away from any guard that could report us. I was sure that our trail was far from being cold at this point in time. If we could ride it out here, then maybe we could think up of a better way to escape aside from fighting our way through the Imperial Army.

"Th-Thank you, Gramps!" Lise tearily thanked the elder in front of us, taking my old mannerism to heart as she bowed as deeply as she could. "We promise we'll escape together!"

"Escape?"

A record scratch screeched in my head as the word came out of his confused mouth.

"Escape where?" the old man asked.

"To the outskirts of Mathem!" Lise proudly exclaimed, my eyes widening as my sister continued on with her claims. "We can start our own country!"

I stared flabbergasted at my little sister's fervent claims. Where was she taking this from?

Baccus chuckled at the joke of an idea. "Little Lise, there's no escaping the Furnace," he lamented as he ruffled the girl's short brown hair. "We can only work for our daily bread and hope that we get selected by decent Zahler as a partner."

The pessimist in me agreed to Baccus's statement. There was no way, as untrained as we were, could we mount a proper escape against assuredly trained Zahlers and competent Dezimals. Their sheer numbers alone could probably smother us in a heartbeat. I stared pityingly at Lise, wondering if she finally saw rea-

"Big Brother has a plan!"

....

What?

"He smart! He has many ideas that I can't even begin to understand them all!"

I cringed at the speech that Lise was giving to the old man. I didn't remember making plans for this. "Lis-"

"He can make Seigels appear without ever needing to etch it onto the metal!"

The tension that came over me was palpable as soon as she uttered that last sentence. Slowly, I faced the source of the aura that was threatening to smother me.

"...Is this true?" Baccus was staring at me intensely.

"It's true!" Lise continued to put words in my mouth as she regaled him with my teachings. "He also said that we can make sickness disappear with what she called 'Medicine!'"

"Fascinating..."

I staggered back as my sister all but hard-sold me to the elder in front of us. No. When did I say all of this?! Was my mind that scrambled by that blue-bvtch that my memories were starting to fail me even after her spell was broken?!

"Rouge can lead a rebellion!"

My mind scrambled for a way out as an unwanted pressure mounted my very being. All the while, a niggling thought entered my brain as the possibilities filtered through my head. For all I knew, it was just a product of a delirious craze when I first thought about it, but could it actually be done?

Could I actually stage a rebellion like this? Free ourselves? Just with science alone?

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