Chapter 29: Pressure
1086 Words
“In this quiz, you are going to enter three different kinds of rooms. Each room has a ciphertext message that you need to decipher. Each ciphertext problem that you would decode is a clue. A fragment of the greatest clue you would be needing to get to finish the final question.”
Terrified, the students looked at the giant huge door standing firm in their front. A metallic door that has an arc shape, and as if the gates of royal palaces Tristan watched in every royal-themed movies and animes he saw.
Tristan clenched his fist. A cold sweat broke from his nape, and travelled down towards his back. He bit his lip, and intently stared at the giant door.
“But, Professor Buenaventura, are we all going to the same rooms? Would it be disorganized if we all went to the same room, and solved the problem? One of them might spy one or another group. That’s bothersome.” From the group of students, one had asked.
“Oh, it’s not a problem!” said their Professor. “Once you enter this gate, you will be segregated according to the designated group you have allied to.”
Earlier, when he finished solving the encrypted message from Professor Buenaventura’s challenge, she commended him and his group, promising about the one hundred thousand dollar-prize. Then, she tossed a coin towards Holder, and energetically said that he would be needing the coin sooner or later.
After that, she immediately told the students that they will have a surprise quiz. Holder knew that it wasn’t a normal quiz. It was a deadly challenge—once again.
She instructed the whole Class Zero to stay with the group that they currently have, because that would be the group they will be having along the quiz. The quiz, as what Professor Buenavista said, is right behind the closed metallic door on their front.
Now everyone on the group of Tristan relies to him. He was the one who made a successful answer to the encrypted message earlier, that is why he felt the overwhelming reliance of the group towards him. With that, he felt pressured.
“Tristan, you alright?” from his back, someone tapped his shoulder, making him jolt from shock.
Tristan saw Seven and his bluish eyes, looking at him with a smile and a noticeable curiosity. “Huh? Ah, yes. I was just … trying to compose myself.”
“I think you’re pressured.”
“A bit,” Tristan admitted. “Knowing that the quiz would be about ciphertext decoding, I kind of feel a little bit tense.”
“Because you think we would rely on you and your knowledge about it?” asked Seven.
“Huh?” Tristan was shocked. His disorientation made Seven tap his shoulder once again.
“Remove that tense feeling inside you, dude. While we expect that you would greatly help us, that doesn’t mean we’ll be totally relying on you,” said Seven.
“I…” he gazed at the ground.
“Have you forgotten that inside this Class Zero program, everyone has a high intelligence level?”
Tristan gasped, and looked back at Seven with a realization.
“Dude, that just means that everyone in here is a competitive student. That also means … we won’t just slack around and let others do the job on the quiz. No, everyone here is different. Even that naïve Amara, she wouldn’t be able to pass through this place if she was not mentally and physically skilled student. Just like you. Just like everyone here.”
Tristan swallowed.
“That also means we partially despised you because you managed to answer the question, wherein we could answer it too, had we known the algorithm.”
Tristan could somehow hear the voice of a demon inside Seven’s voice.
“I could answer it, and not you. That is why…” Seven once again tapped his shoulder. He once again looked at him, straight to his bluish-dead eyes. “You don’t have to worry about carrying the group. Because we won’t let that happen.”
Tristan looked at towards Rain and the others. They were in the corner of this rugged, dusty place, and doing something to make the time pass. But Tristan noticed one thing in common to them. Their eyes. He had seen those kind of emotion most of the time—every time he would stare at the mirror, and everytime he would look at the eyes of his opponents.
Eyes of competitiveness.
Seeing that, the bother in his chest went off. Miraculously. Seven once tapped his shoulder again.
“You’re all good. Rain asked me to remove the worried expression on your face. Glad that I did.”
“Rain?”
“Yeah, she’s been kind of hesitant to come and talk to you because of your cold expression earlier in the room, when you accepted Amara.”
Tristan once again looked on the ground. He pursed his lips. “I guess I have to reconcile with her.”
“Better do that, dude. Or else that Blaze guy might replace you. Look at them, they’re talking to each other seriously.”
Tristan looked at her once again. Now he was the one who tapped Seven’s shoulder. “Thanks, man. I’ll talk to her later.”
Seven went back along with the group, and made a conversation with Timmy and Tammy. Tristan sighed, and listened back to Professor Buenavista who is talking in the front, and giving orientation about the game.
“Lastly, I want to say that this quiz activity will last for four days.”
Four days.
The students started to have a commotion after Professor Buenavista.
“Professor, why would it last four days?” asked one of the students from the other group. Tristan waited for the professor’s answer.
“Well, simply because I would never give a quiz that is easy,” she shrugged, and pouted her lips, “I always prefer preparing quizzes that would challenge you and your mental and physical capacity. After all, you’re all geniuses here. So why bother making a hard-level quiz?”
The students of the Class Zero gave her another silent treatment—which she was used to now, already. They stared at her as if she was a beast or a demon that would soon attack them, and would bare her grinding teeth towards their neck.
“So hard that you might die,” she added.
- Writer
