Aurora Over a Dead World

Chapter 11: Cruel, But Realistic

"..." I finish drawing several complex diagrams on the board, what nowadays is considered old physics, useless rules for the use of vectors — useless not because they don’t work, but because they can no longer be absolute rules, so learning them helps, but you shouldn’t get stuck on them.

"This here, students, is what’s in your core curriculum, the same thing you should have learned at age fifteen, but deliberately ignored because you were arrogant and thought you were above the rules." Most of them didn’t even bother to actually study.

Except for Eirwen, who, being obedient most of the time, followed the standard curriculum of studies. I honestly don’t understand why Eirwen is my student. She may have this small problem of sometimes not obeying important things and a certain lack of control over her own powers.

But it’s MUCH milder than the problems of the others, who are so problematic they border on chaotic, so I’m genuinely curious as to why she wasn’t simply handed over to another teacher for calmer private lessons and a gentler approach.

"You, ice princess, what’s this formula here?" I tap the back of my pen against the board.

"It’s Snow—"

"?"

"Snow Princess—"

"Did I ask? Don’t be so conceited, little ice cube. Those ’titles’ aren’t a gift. It’s just the government’s way of using your achievements to talk about how amazing their work is, while if you cause problems, your names get used instead, so no one connects one to the other."

"After all, people are kind of idiots. They end up not realizing that a name and a title belong to the same person." It’s happened a few times — a "Hero" being celebrated only by their title, and when that "Hero" screwed up, they appeared on every network using only their name, so almost no one noticed it was the same person.

In these times where the media is totally controlled by the government, the population doesn’t know much about their heroes, and they even fear the Kairas because of their absurd powers.

After all, while all of us fight in wars, millions of people just live their lives oblivious to the chaos, death, and risk they face with every second of existence.

"L-Little ice cube?" Eirwen makes a strange expression as if being called little ice cube was incomprehensible.

"That’s right, little ice cube, a small cube of ice. Do I really need to explain the basics to you? Are you an elementary school student by any chance?"

"W-Where’s your respect? I have excellent grades. Naturally, I know what you meant, but it’s very disrespectful to call someone little ice cube in such a pejorative way!"

"Oh, oh, I was pejorative!! How about that, so you know how to use fancy words? Then tell me, what’s this formula here?" I tap the board again. The atmosphere in the room is shit. Rouge practically doesn’t pay attention, staring out the window.

Edith and Charlotte stare at me intensely for different reasons, and Tanya looks at me as if she wants to kill me. I don’t doubt she’ll fire a heat beam at me based on how she’s looking at me, and the other one is like a quiet ghost in her corner, not even worth my mention!

"I-I refuse to answer. Respect is a two-way street!" She furrows her brows at me.

"So just because you’re called a princess, you think you deserve immediate respect? Respect is earned, and if you’re here and haven’t done anything to deserve respect, then I don’t owe you a thing."

"That’s why you killed ten thousand people." When I say that, everyone looks at me, as if I had said something taboo, then they immediately look at Eirwen, who seems hurt.

I know full well what her file said. Obviously, it told me to avoid talking about it, but since when do I obey people I don’t like? Fuck Astrid. This icy bitch killed people precisely because of this kind of attitude.

"..." She bites her lips as if she’s about to cry.

"Don’t cry, or I swear I’ll throw you out the window. I hate people who cry. Here, to me, your life has no value until you do something to prove it’s worth something."

"I like results. I’m practical, and in practice, all I have is a bunch of incompetents. At your age, I was killing monsters and people who threatened the safety of millions." I’m harsh, because they need someone being harsh to actually learn.

"And younger than you all, I was fighting like crazy to survive, so I don’t want anyone coming to talk to me about respect. You don’t respect me, and I don’t care about that, but don’t expect me to give respect when I’ve barely seen you be useful for anything."

"M—"

"Shut it, little flame. I didn’t tell you to speak." I say coldly to Tanya, who was about to spout some crap.

"Now, little ice cube, tell me, what’s the best way to simplify this crappy formula on the board? Be smart. Don’t talk about physics as if it matters here." The formula on the board is the basic physics that explains how metals absorb heat and cold, but I don’t want that as an answer.

"..."

"Come on, you froze ten thousand people. I don’t think it’s hard to deduce how you did it, is it?" She stands up and tries to leave, but I intercept her, grabbing her hand. For the first time since I saw her, she opens her eyes and stares at me.

"..." The temperature in the room starts to drop while I hold her in place.

"I didn’t give you permission to leave. Do you think I’m afraid of you, little ice cube?"

"U-Urgh..." She lets out a small whimper of pain when I squeeze her wrist.

"If you don’t stop freezing this room, I’ll break your arm." I squeeze tighter to make it clear I’m serious.

"...A-Absorb heat... and... convert it into cold thermal energy..." She gives the answer I wanted as the room stops cooling. Looking at the classroom glass, you can see the micro ice crystals that had started to form.

"...That’s better. Go back to your seat, and if you want to leave, ask permission and say why. Otherwise, stay quiet in your spot." I release her as she returns to her seat, looking like she wants to cry.

In physics, when you absorb heat from the environment, it needs to be dispersed, but if you disperse it back into the environment, everything returns to the same temperature or something close to it. But with vectors, you can absorb and convert heat into cold, which is how Eirwen generates the initial cold she needs.

She doesn’t just generate a colder temperature; she also absorbs all the heat near her to cool and refrigerate the environment more intensely, using the heat as a kind of thermal fuel for her own power.

’Great, more damaged parts...’ I look at my arm. I can see that the joints of the arm that touched her nearly froze. Fortunately, it’s not too much damage. I just need to do some light repairs later, and everything will be fine.

’My deduction was right.’ I researched with Nexus the autopsy of the bodies accidentally killed by Eirwen, and obviously, their deaths were mostly due to lack of body heat. Their bodies lost every last trace of heat instantly, starting to freeze rapidly and turning into ice statues.

Which implies that during the use of her powers, Eirwen doesn’t control the absorption of heat correctly, and worse, she can’t quite control how cold everything around her gets, so instead of just freezing things nearby, she freezes even the atoms of matter.

’I had thought she was weaker... what a little freak...’ It seems I underestimated how strong an elemental power can be.

"Let’s get back to class, and I hope no one else here decides to try showing off their powers to me. I have a very limited fuse, and you just burned through more than half of it right here..." I return to the board, to explain to them a bit more about how the influence of basic vectors has changed with vector control.