8.5 Pressure

With my mind set, I ignored the cacophony of shredded metal going on in front of me in favor of climbing the makeshift platform.

I turned to my sister and gestured toward the platform. "Lise, with me."

My little sister followed me as we quickly climbed up the haphazardly constructed struts on our way up to the platform proper. Once we reached the top, I quickly turned towards the enemy front.

"Kind of busy here!"

"Master?"

I promptly ignored Bernstein and Emeraud's respective greetings in favor of trying to process just how much Dezimal we had to fight off.

*BANG!*

Below us, I could clearly see the shieldmen doing their job as admirably as they could. No gaps in our defense as far as I could tell, all while they held the line with the rest of the unarmed group pushing back behind them. The enemy halberds, thankfully, hadn't managed to poke any holes into our defenses as of yet, but I knew it was only a matter of time before the enemy wised up and stopped throwing bodies into the killing field.

And speaking of which... Just beyond our shieldmen, the carnage was starting to pile up. Metal-clad bodies fell as far as the eye could see, some even being trampled beneath the footfalls of both armies as the next wave tried their hand at breaking our phalanx. I couldn't help but chuckle to myself...

It was actually working.

*BANG!*

"Young Rouge," Baccus grabbed my attention as soon as another salvo was fired. "I applaud your foresight for using our surroundings to our advantage."

Uhh... "T-Thanks..." I blinked at the sudden compliment. I honestly didn't know what else to say. I didn't expect that doing this exact strategy would actually work this well. I expected casualties, but so far, everything was going well enough.

"Brother will always find a solution," I heard Lise add from beside me as she still held her sword at the ready. "But it's not over yet, isn't it?"

I felt a number of eyes all look straight at me as soon as Lise turned towards me. I struggled not to laugh nervously as I steeled myself against the mounting pressure of leading a group hundreds of times larger than a five-man MOBA game.

Keep calm, ... They're not toxic gamers like your usual pubs...

"Far from it," I replied, my voice almost cracking from the amount of shouting that I had to do earlier. "They'll change tactics, most likely. They won't just throw bodies at us."

Although, I sincerely hoped that they did just that. As much as they outnumbered us by a large margin, we could better defend against a straight-up siege than an actual front-breaking war machine.

*BANG!*

"I concur. The Empire may be powerful, but that alone never won its wars," Baccus sagely added.

Chilling... But I supposed that was the case. One could never get too optimistic in a medieval environment.

Looking back at the enemy forces, I noticed that they were still throwing more bodies at us in futility. Not that I minded it, except for the amount of dead... corpses... now littered all over the place.

Bodies were literally hitting the floor... Chunks of flesh flying off as-

*BANG!*

Fvck... I was actually letting it set in... I have to stop thinking about this before I drown in a pool of my own guilt and potential war crimes.

Yes... I can worry about all of the blood on my hands later. And thankfully, another salvo shook me from potentially adding PTSD into my system. Instead, it allowed me to focus on the task at hand, which from what I could recall...

Info gathering... yes... Now-

"The Dezimals are retreating!"

-where was I- Wait, what?

"We're pushing them back!" a cry from the front line managed to reach my ears. "Keep at it!"

Huh? That was way too fast...

Doing a cursory glance at the Dezimal army, I noticed that they were indeed pulling back. Thankfully, my... fvck, I just thought of my fellow Nenners as RTS units...

"For freedom!"

Another cry from my fellow Nenners seemed to echo well onto the Dezimals as they visibly pulled back with a haste that I hadn't seen them do before... It really looked like they were giving up on trying to assault our position...

Wait, I'd seen something like this happen before...

I trained my eyes towards the far back of the enemy position, trying to find something, anything, that would necessitate a retreat this fast. Only to find...

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Tried as I might, I couldn't find some kind of siege weapon, if there even was any, slowly lumbering towards us. It honestly looked like they were... actually scared of us?

No. That was impossible. It'd be too easy if that were the case.

Beside me, the riflemen were just as confused as I was, as well as some of the few front-liners that I glimpsed below us.

"That's it?"

Bernstein voiced exactly what was in my head. Already, there was this weird air of disappointment hanging above us. This was our last stand? Our first ever blaze of glory? While I wasn't exactly wishing it would happen, surely a force this large would eventually overwhelm such a small contingent as ours if they played their cards right. So why?

Why were they running?

"Did we win?"

"Already?"

I could already hear my fellow Nenners on the front lines ask themselves the same question I was currently repeating nonstop in my head. The veritable army of Dezimals that I expected to eventually overwhelm us through sheer numbers had retreated... And I didn't know why.

"Brother?" I chipper voice addressed me. Beside me, Lise was already looking at me with something resembling pride and accomplishment. "We won, didn't we?"

I didn't know how to respond. Quite honestly, I didn't even know what I was doing anymore, just that I had to get everyone out with the least amount of casualties as I possibly could.

"Yeah..." I absently replied, my eyes still glued towards the retreating forms of our enemies. "I guess..."

"You guess?"

"It shouldn't be this easy," I explained to my curious little sister. "They could've easily overwhelmed us if they continued to assault our position."

"But we beat them back!" Behind me, Emeraud butted in, sharing the same enthusiasm that Lise held for me. "They're scared of our rifles, Master!"

I shook my head as I just couldn't help but feel like something was wrong, that there was something I was missing about this sudden retreat.

⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛