… one more step.

Nar breathed hard.

He huffed, blowing the tickly sweat drops from his nose.

He was dying to wipe his face, but the last time he had tried to, he had almost dropped Gad.

About an hour later since they had started walking, his arms were numb and tired.

His throat was scratched dry from the heat and his legs shook.

He swore it smelled burning somewhere, but that could just have been his brain catching fire inside his skull.

The pain he had initially felt had dimmed somewhat, becoming a constant sore that now only nagged at him.

He wondered if it was his HP, healing whatever damage the Pressure had and continued to cause him.

On the concerning side of things however, his stamina bar had already dropped by 19 points out of his grand total of 100 points. It came down a lot faster than he had expected, that was for sure. Meaning, he was probably using a crap ton of his attributes to hold Gad and keep going forward.

He wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be able to carry on. He or the others.

Behind him, there was only the sound of labored breaths under the static Pressure.

His foot carried him another step forward, and suddenly, he was unburdened.

“Woah!”

He faltered forward, weightless, trying to regain his suddenly unhindered balance.

“Are you okay?” Cen asked.

Nar looked back in disbelief.

“It’s… Gone…”

“What is?” Mul grunted.

“The-The Pressure. It’s gone!”

Before anyone could say anything, Tuk rushed forward, propelling himself with two powerful, long steps.

He froze as he walked out of the Pressure. Then he threw his head back and laughed.

The others hurried after him.

“Oh, my Crystal!” Cen said, her voice quivering. “We made it!”

“We made it for now!” Mul said, looking around him in suspicion. “It’s been forty minutes already. Maybe it will come again.”

“Forty-four…” Jul said, correcting him in a hushed tone.

Mul glared at her and the quam recoiled.

Seriously, Nar thought. How thick can you be?

“Hey… Can you let me down?”

Nar startled.

Around his neck, Gad’s arms were moving, and her legs searched feebly for the floor.

“Oh-Oh! Yeah of course. Hold on!”

Nar lowered his legs, allowing hers to come into contact with the floor. She leaned heavily against his back for a moment, trying to hold her own weight, then stumbled a half-step backwards. When she found herself steady enough, her hand came off his back.

Nar stood back up and looked behind him.

Their tank swayed dangerously on her feet. Her expression was neutral, and her eyes were lost in the darkness ahead of them.

Behind her, he noticed that both Tuk and Jul had offloaded Kur and Viy.

Kur was kneeling on the floor, while Viy sat against the wall, breathing hard and holding her head again.

Or is she covering her ears? Nar wondered. Putting the thought aside, Nar considered Gad again.

“Are you okay?” Nar asked, not only to Gad but to the other two as well.

“What happened?” Kur asked in reply.

“The Pressure hit us while we were sleeping,” Cen explained. “Jul realized that it came after exactly 2 hours and 30 minutes since the first one, so there was a chance that there was a pattern there. She also felt we should keep going. And since we had taken damage, we all agreed. We had hoped that we would come out of the Pressure, and we just did there. Took us about forty-five minutes.”

“So, that was the Pressure,” Kur said. “Crystal. I thought I was going to die.”

“Did you… Carry us?” Gad asked.

She swayed so much, Nar didn’t dare step away from her, in case he had to catch her.

“Yes,” Cen said. “It was the only way.”

“Thank you,” Kur said, looking up at Tuk.

“No worries, man,” the trugger said, patting his shoulder lightly.

Gad nodded at Nar and he nodded back.

Viy didn’t say anything, which made Nar frown slightly. Then again, she really didn’t seem well, with her pale, firmly shut eyes and shallow gasps.

“We don’t know if the pattern is right,” Cen said. “Not yet. But if it is, it’s going to happen again in…”

She looked at Jul.

“About 1 hour and 50 minutes,” Jul said.

Kur shook his head. “That’s not a lot of time.”

“No, it isn’t,” Gad said. “Did we continue taking damage while under the Pressure, or was that just from the first hit?”

Nar checked his HP, realizing that in the effort of keeping one foot in front of the other, he had forgotten to keep track.

78/100… Holy Crystal!

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Seeing the slow drop in what was effectively the only thing keeping him alive, really hammered in just how much danger they were in.

“It’s gone down…” Tuk whispered. “I’m down at 39 already!”

“Wait!” Kur shouted. “Don’t panic!”

Everyone stared at him, faces drained of blood and drenched in sweat.

“What do we do?” Cen asked. “If this keeps happening…”

Kur stood up, and took a deep breath.

“We’re going to keep walking. If we get hit again, maybe we will be closer to getting out of the Pressure next time. Also, I think that as long as we don’t suffer any damage, we will recover our HP.”

Nar frowned. I doubt we’ll recover it that quickly.

“But I’m open to suggestions,” Kur said, looking around. “We're in unknown territory now.”

Territory.

That was another new one. It was confusing though. It seemed to imply ownership of a piece of space itself.

“I think we should keep going…” Jul said, in her usual low voice.

Kur considered her for a few seconds.

“You were right in pushing us to get us out of the Pressure,” Kur said. “We would’ve taken a whole lot more damage had we stayed. And there’s no telling if the three of us would’ve even woken up in there. You’re our scout. We’ll do as you say and keep going.”

“It was just a feeling. She could have just been lucky!” Mul protested.

Kur looked down at him.

“We’re not workers anymore. We are connected to the Source now, whatever that is, and the System. We have attributes and classes and skills. Who knows what changes are about to, or are already happening to us? Her’s is the scout class. If she feels like we should keep going, we’re going to keep going. Unless you have a compelling argument not to?”

Mul tutted and looked away. “Fine…”

“Good,” Kur said. “Viy, Gad, can you walk?”

Viy stood up without a word. Her legs shook, but she didn’t look like she wanted to be carried anymore. Or ever again.

“I’m okay,” she said. “And I can carry my weapon now.”

“Ah, yes, me too! Thanks again, guys,” Kur said, smiling at Cen.

Cen smiled back as she retrieved Kurs scepter from the pile she and Mul had dropped the weapons in, and handed it to Kur.

“We’re a party. Don’t worry about it,” she said.

Kur’s smile widened. “Yes. That we are. But thanks nonetheless, for carrying us and our weapons. And thank you, Jul, for guiding us.”

The scout turned a deeper shade of dark gray-green. “Y-yes. No problem.”

“We’ll be counting on you from now on,” Tuk said, beaming at her.

“O-of course!”

Nar found himself smiling at the quam as well.

He still found it strange that hers was a non-combat class, but if she was able to act as their guide and sort of path advisor, he would drop any worries and grievances that he might have. She would be the one pulling them all with her, and that more than made up for the lack of another DPS.

“Alright, then” Kur said, when they had all recovered their weapons. “Let’s not waste another second. Remember to take jell-o at regular intervals. Somehow, it’s even hotter out here than in the factories.”

********

Nar watched his HP slowly tick back upwards.

As the minutes passed, bringing the next predicted wave of Pressure closer and closer, the little green bar in his UI slowly filled back up, even as his stamina continued to decrease.

It had become apparent to him that they wouldn’t be able to keep walking forever, though.

Without Gad on his back, the stamina drain was much slower, but it was still happening. That had to mean he was more exhausted than he had first thought, and was now tapping into this energy from the Source to keep going.

It’s crazy…. Nar thought, We haven’t even been gone for half a day yet! How can things be this bad already?

He had been told, again and again, to his face, that he was a sinner and that he was going to suffer as he deserved. But he hadn’t expected it to be so harsh right from the start.

“It’s about to come again,” Kur said. “Five minutes. Get ready everyone.”

The party came to a halt.

Nar checked his HP again.

87/100. Guess that will have to do.

He glanced at the ring tosser. Nar couldn’t see his face but he wondered if he was okay. From what Tuk had said earlier, Nar surmised that the trugger either had less [Constitution] than him, and thus less HP, or that he was more susceptible to the damage. Perhaps, it was even a combination of both.

Whatever the case was, he hoped Tuk, and everyone else, had recovered enough HP to take the incoming blow. He didn’t fancy waking up to a corridor full of dead people. It would be horrible to be left alone in those dark corridors, slowly losing his mind and HP under the Pressure. Plus… They didn’t seem like bad people. He didn’t want them to die.

With a sharp inhale, Nar gripped his sword tighter.

It was not like he could do anything against the all-encompassing and invisible Pressure, but still, it gave him some reassurance.

Actually, hold on! I can do something!

He had his skill, [Strong Defense].

The skill was still pretty much a mystery to him, with its [???], but surely it would help him, if only in its meager 7% damage mitigation, in enduring the Pressure, no?

But should I use it? 15 points of stamina is a lot of stamina, and I’m already down to 71. With another 15 gone… And there’s no way to know if this skill will even help against the Pressure either.

He weighed the skill in his mind. Maybe he should ask Kur.

No. I don’t… Yeah. No.

He would have to explain the skill to him, and the others would hear. He didn’t want to have to face their pity, disappointment, or, in Mul’s case, anger, at just how bad his class and skills were.

I won’t use it for now. Let’s just see what happens. If things go bad… Then, then I’ll use it.

However, what would it mean if things went bad? Could they get wiped out already? On their first day? They weren’t even that far out yet!

He had expected the Climb to be hard, but not impossible. Maybe he had been wrong.

“2 minutes!” Kur said.

Nar pushed every thought out of his mind and focused on his clock.

The seconds dragged by, slowly taking away the minutes with them.

“10 seconds!” Kur announced, uselessly. Everyone was staring at their clocks now.

Nar watched the shifting seconds, unconsciously tensing his whole body.

“5 seconds!”

Jul gasped.

Oh no, Nar thought, staring at the quam. It really is coming!

The Pressure blew past him like a physical force, forcing him backwards and to kneel.

How is this even fair? He thought, his willpower blasted to shreds within seconds.

Then, he was out.

Sometime later, he was himself again.

He stared at the ceiling, unchanged since they had started walking. In fact, the whole corridor had remained the exact same featureless, blank yellow.

Pushing really hard on the sanity there, aren’t You.

Everything hurt once again, like ten people had gathered to beat him up. And he wasn’t being dramatic about it. He actually knew what that felt like.

One time, not long after they had their punishment decided for them, a bunch of Clean had ambushed a group of them as they returned home. It had not been pretty.

He had been left bedridden for days, but a few of the Clean had walked away with his bite marks on them at least.

It had been a huge deal, and the Clean had threatened to exile them all. Again. As if the whole thing had been their fault.

Typical…

He swallowed the bitter memory with his pain and forced himself up.

Again, he was the first one awake.

I wonder why…

It was clear he had the most resistance to the Pressure out of all of them. He was followed in that regard by Cen, Mul, Tuk and Jul roughly together, then the last three, Kur, Viy and maybe Gad, in that order?

He wasn’t exactly sure, nor had he been able to figure out why that was the case.

He probably had a higher [Constitution] than Cen, but that didn’t explain Gad. As a proper tank, she probably had double of what he had, if not more. However, she was one of the weakest against the Pressure.

None of his other attributes seemed relevant to it, which left him scratching his head. Though there were the two [???] unknown attributes to consider.

Well. Nothing I can really do about it right now, anyways. I’m sure it will make sense at some point.

Right as expected, Cen stirred awake first. A few seconds after, Mul followed her, then Tuk and Jul at about the same time.

“Again?” Mul asked, taking in the three members of the party still downed. “Seriously? Are we going to have to carry them all the way up?”

I hope not, Nar thought, considering their prone figures.

“I’m sure they’ll get better at it,” Cen said. “Gain more resistance to it or something.”

“It’s kinda surprising it’s hitting Gad so hard though,” Tuk said. “She’s a tank. Shouldn’t she be the best one at taking damage?”

“Maybe this is different,” Cen said. “We don’t know, and it doesn't matter anyway. We should get going. Right, Jul?”

They all turned to the scout and she gave them a nod, not meeting their eyes.

“Ugh, whatever. Let’s just get it over with,” Mul said.

“Why are you complaining? You’re not even carrying them!” Tuk said.

Nice! You go Tuk! Nar thought.

He had spoken exactly Nar’s mind. He was carrying Gad for Crystal’s sake. And he wasn’t complaining about it!

Mul’s face turned a deeper dark gray, and a vein grew on his forehead.

Cen slapped his shoulder.

“Drop it!” she hissed at him.

Mul glared at Tuk, but let it go. Instead, he got up and started gathering weapons in silence.

“The pile is his problem, man?” Tuk muttered, loud enough that everyone could hear.

Cen made a grimace, but she didn’t apologize for her brother’s behavior.

And neither should she, Nar thought. She’s not responsible for his tantrums. What did he expect? For it to be easy?

Scoffing in derision, Nar got up and helped Tuk with Kur.

Soon, they were on the move again.