Chương 45: 8.1 Pressure

200 F.Y.

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We should've had enough time.

"Brother! The guards are closing in!"

I gripped my katana with grim determination, its edge still left dull due to my attention being too stretched onto other projects that I couldn't find the time to actually sharpen the damn thing. And while I also didn't have a rifle on me, I was sure it wouldn't matter in the long run.

"What do we do now?!" a few of my fellow Nenners shouted from behind me. "Rouge!-"

"I know, dammit!" I shouted. "Stay calm!"

It was a rout. Somehow, the Dezimals had caught wind of our brewing rebellion and forced most of my fellow Nenners to fall in line. The others that managed to escape were now with me in the dead center of the Furnace, having braved the heat to escape their pursuers. They were gaining in number these past few days actually, but I didn't think that they'd grow large enough to almost fill the entire Central Hub of the Furnace.

Then again, that was probably why we got caught red-handed in the first place.

"Stay calm?! How are we supposed to stay calm?!" a Nenner shouted at me in despair. "We're fucking surrounded, boy!"

"Yeah! Isn't this your idea in the first place?!"

The jeers were getting louder. Fvck... How do I get us out of this situation?!

"Please listen!" I heard Lise shout behind me, her voice straining as she tried her best to placate the simmering mob. "Bro- Rouge will get us out of this! Have faith-"

"Faith got us into this situation in the first place!" another shouted, a woman this time. "You all promised that we'd be free if we helped you! Well, guess what? The Dezimals finally caught on to us!"

"You killed the Blutmond, right?! Then surely you can handle a few Dezimals!"

I tried to tune out the crowd's heckling, doing my best to try and focus on the task at hand. But that was doing little to ease the growing feeling of anxiety growing within me. Already, the unwelcome and familiar feeling making itself at home inside my chest as the jeers grew louder in my ears. I can feel my stomach churning, my hands clamming up despite the unbearable heat around us.

Pressure... This was pure and distilled pressure...

"P-Please! Calm down!" I barely heard my sister's pleas amongst the sea of dissidents. "We'll get out of this!"

"Indeed," another voice, Baccus, added. "I am sure that young Rouge will see us through."

"Are you sure, elder Baccus?! What assurance do we have that this plan of his will work?!"

I could feel their panic seeping through me as the call for me act became louder and louder. The pressure.... We didn't have enough time to arm everyone with rifles, and even then we weren't able to test and see who was even capable of firing one in the first place. Our morale was low, our position was hilariously undefended... Could we even afford to mount a defense like this?

"Master's plan will work!" Emeraud shouted behind me, a rifle of her own make assuredly in her grasp. "As long as we all work together-"

"It's not all sunshine and rainbows now, isn't it?" a younger voice piped up. Another disgruntled Nenner. "It's fine to dream about freedom if it's not your neck out on the chopping block. You foolish rookies and your dreams-"

"We can make it happen!" Emeraud interrupted. "I'm sure Master-"

"Master, huh? Well, what's 'Master' doing now?!"

Thinking through the pressure, that's what. These idiots just refuse to let me think.

"He's thinking!" My sister defended, her hopes in me being carried by her small voice as she addressed the crowd. "He'll think of something!"

My hands trembled on my katana as I felt my eyes get heavy with unshed tears. Not out of despair, but out of sheer rage at my lack of preparation. I should've thought about this. There was no way that a build-up of this size would go unnoticed. And now they were all paying the price of my mistake.

With the pressure to perform now at an all-time high, would I even be able to think of something? To perform as I had hoped I would? I was never the type to flourish when I'm nervous. I liked to be meticulous. I liked to have things laid out for me before I acted.

This was all an accident. This was Lady Luck trying to make me pay for being lucky enough to kill Blutmond because the woman seemingly wanted to die by my hand.

"He better think fast then," I heard one of the Nenners sarcastically remark. "I can already see some Dezimals starting to brave the heat."

I raised my head, and true to his word, I could already see glimpses of their telltale armor amongst the fiery-red blaze of our outskirts. The pressure mounted even further as I could faintly hear the warning the Dezimals were shouting at us.

"SURRENDER, DIRT EATERS, AND YOUR PUNISHMENT SHALL BE SWIFT!"

"Shvt! They're coming!"

"What do we do?!"

I could feel the panic coming from the crowd behind me as I refused to show my face to them. I wasn't done thinking. Or rather, I haven't arrived to a decent solution at all. I didn't know what to do just yet... For all of my experience with strategy games, it paled in comparison to actually planning something in real life with all of the consequences that came with it. We'll all die if I fvcked this up...

"Heh..."

I couldn't help but chuckle to myself. My fellow Nenners were all counting on me to lead us to freedom, and here I was letting the pressure get to me. No... I have to focus... do something... think something up... There's got to be something we could do to get out of this mess...

"W-We should just surrender..."

"Maybe they'll let us off easy if-"

"Let me think, dammit!" I found myself shouting, the grip on my katana tightening enough to draw blood. "I'll get us out of this... Just wait..."

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