𝑶𝒱𝐿xt.𝗇t
The time had arrived.
Rui had spent the remaining quarter of the day in contemplation of what Fushin Hunfer and his lackeys were hiding, but eventually, he stopped. He had already inferred a lot of information through deductive and inductive reasoning, but there was a limit to how much he could learn through that route. The more he tried to deduce further, the less reliable and baseless his conjectures would become. It was ultimately a wasteful mental exercise. He could not conjure up new information out of thin air.
(‘I need to be careful though.’) Rui sighed.
He had already concluded that whatever they were hiding was not malicious against him, it was at most convenient exploitation that would aid in their goal. Rui was quite certain that their conviction to reclaim their hometown that had been colonized by the Britannian Empire was very real. He could feel it in most of them to a strong degree, and it made sense.
These were all former soldiers that defended their fort and hometown, they all had some family or the other that was currently being ruled by the Britannian Battalion and exploited to provide value to the Britannian Empire.
One reason he wasn’t too alarmed and paranoid was that he had relatively high assurance regarding the magnitude of the matter. For example, it certainly couldn’t be something that would definitively get Rui killed or defeated but would spare them all, that was inconceivable even if Rui entertained wild possibilities.
Anything that was guaranteed to kill Rui would absolutely be guaranteed to annihilate all of them, it would be foolish to put him and themselves in that situation. Perhaps if it were done by the average person, Rui wouldn’t put it past then, but Fushin Hunfer was too shrewd to do something that foolish. At most this was a calculated risk.
“Besides, this might actually turn out to be good, ironically,” Rui chuckled. There were certain possibilities that he had come up with that was actually favorable to him. He wouldn’t mind those possibilities coming true.
He whiled away his time considering these thoughts, even while he was in his room, having dinner; food pills. Hours passed until the time was nigh.
“Squire Falken.” A person called out to him from the outside. “It’s soon time. Please be on standby.”
“Will do,” Rui replied back.
He got up, heading out of the tent as he made his way to the core of the main camp. He could feel the air growing tenser the closer he headed toward it.
The atmosphere was taut as everybody was stiff with nervousness and determination.
Rui made his way to the camp headquarters.
“Squire Falken, it’s time, we will dispatch in about half an hour once the very final step is undertaken. You recall your position and all the details of the plan, correct?” The old man asked with a respectful tone.
“Every word.” Rui shortly replied.
Rui would be stationed at the vanguard of the army as they approached the fort, as they had previously agreed.
“But I have another idea.” Rui suddenly spouted.
Everybody paused as they looked at him nervously, last-minute changes were rarely a good thing.
“The night is dark, I think I should sky-walk to the fort at a certain elevation and attack from the sky when the Hlorn weapon is brought out. It gives me an eagle-eyed view of the entire fort and allows me to know exactly when it is brought out. I could even relay information to you if you need it. And it has a better element of surprise and would increase the likelihood of the operation.”
To his surprise, Fushin agreed with that course of action.
“If that is what you want, then that works too.” He simply responded to Rui, earning the surprise of everybody.
In reality, Rui did not care much about which approach he took. This was simply a clever plan he had undertaken to gain more information from the man. He wanted to see Fushin’s reaction to a last-minute change in the plan. If he objected hard to the plan even though the end result of the plan would be the same, then Rui could be certain that whatever he was hiding had something to do with the position he had given Rui in his strategy of attacking the fort.
But the fact that he had no problem with Rui detaching far away from the army and going his own way showed that it wasn’t particularly important to him where Rui was prior to the actual commencement of the assault. Meaning whatever he was hiding didn’t have anything to do with anything before the actual conflict itself.
Of course, with how shrewd the old man was, there was a possibility that he figured out Rui trying to gauge more information from him, meaning it was entirely possible he had said that simply to throw Rui off.
“On second thoughts, I think I’ll stick to the original plan,” Rui commented.
“That works too.”
Rui did not want to separate from the army because if he was with them, anything bad that happened to him would also happen to all of them, by sticking with him as tightly as he could for as long as he could, he was binding his fate to theirs. If he was hit by a nuke, then they would also be hit by a said nuke. There was almost no way he could exclusively become the victim of something for the time period that they were all together.
Time passed and eventually, every single final preparation was made. The entire camp had been neatly divided into their respective units and everybody was exactly where they were, with everything they needed and knew everything they needed to know.
“Zurtuns,” Fushin addressed them, just before they were all about to be dispatched. “Today is the day. Today is the day we reclaim our home and our people. Today is the day we reclaim what they have taken from us! Today is the day we win this war! FOR VICTORY!”
“FOR VICTORY!!!”
“FOR HOME!”
“FOR HOME!!!” The army echoed.