Aurora Over a Dead World

Chapter 13: Militarily Cataloged Monsters

"..." I open the door to my apartment, completely uninterested in anything. I just want to finish the light repair on my arm and go to sleep, so I close the door and head to the kitchen, tossing whatever looks minimally sufficient to give me some energy into the microwave.

"I guess this’ll do..." I turn the microwave on to heat up the food while I grab the tools from a box to repair the damage Eirwen caused with the cold.

"..." I sit down in the kitchen chair, first using a wrench that uses magnetism to unlock the internal mechanism of the device. After all, a prosthesis like mine doesn’t use screws, since they get in the way during fights.

I hear the internal click of my arm’s connection module, and it promptly uncouples. Honestly, I’m glad one of my abilities is controlling electromagnetism. Thanks to that, my arm isn’t so easy to detach in a fight.

It’d be awful to throw a punch and have the whole arm shatter because the model is weaker than it should be.

"Dammit..." With my other arm, I lift the prosthesis, seeing ice crystals on the part of the control mechanism that allows the arm to move. If it had frozen a little more, the arm would have locked up.

"Haaa... at least it wasn’t destroyed." I grab another tool and a stand, coupling the arm onto the stand and starting to heat the ice crystals with another tool to melt them.

"Nexus, is the installation finished yet?" I try to talk to Nexus through the television. I tried to install him yesterday while repairing my arm because of Tanya’s attack, and he was supposed to be fully adjusted.

"[Affirmative, the installation was a success.]"

"..." I turn my attention back to my arm, wondering who else is going to try to break it. It’s only the second day since I met those girls, and my arm has already taken damage twice. At this rate, I’ll have to charge Astrid for the repairs.

"Hey Nexus, how many monsters are currently attacking the island?"

"[Currently, there are 982 active occurrences where special agents are handling the cases. There is no current occurrence that requires a Kaira.]"

"...I see. So those chumps are out there... Could you pass me what the government released as information to the public?" Over the last 50 years, the government has done everything to "censor" the problems in a way that only leaves the surface exposed. I want to know how far they went.

"[Here is the list.]" Nexus brings up a file on the television, more specifically a pamphlet. While I adjust the pieces of my arm, I read the television. I can do both because I know every piece of my prostheses by heart.

============================ Terror =============================

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================ Destruction ============ Death ===================

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Generation 0 ------------------------------------- 0 ----------------------------------------- Generation +

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== Hunter --------------------------------- Great Disaster ----------------------------------- Demon

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== Yet0 -------------------------------------------------||-------------------------------------------------Yet9 ==

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============= Beast ------------------------ + --------------------- Devourer ============

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======= Heavy Mutant ----------------------- ||----------------------------- Light Mutant =====

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======================== Common Class ==========================

General Classification = Monsters are classified from 0 to 10, with each number signifying the monster’s danger level.

0 = Null Danger, or almost Null.

1 = Extremely low danger, generally poses no life threat to anyone.

2 = Still a low danger, but they become capable of taking the lives of ordinary people, although most would lose to a healthy and strong person.

3 = From this point on, ordinary people should no longer try to fight them. They can kill groups of people on their own and have relatively high physical capabilities.

4 = A fear monster class 4 can no longer be killed by a human. Their bodies could hardly be wounded by common weapons and are extremely dangerous to any ordinary citizen.

5 = Fear Monsters with considerable strength, capable of destroying houses and even small buildings. There is no way for normal humans to kill them and, in most cases, even to damage them, requiring someone specialized to appear to kill the monster.

6 = Class 6 monsters are already extremely dangerous and lethal, requiring someone suitable and experienced for their elimination. Most humans wouldn’t even realize they were being killed by one, as they are already beyond the standard human capacity of perception.

7 = Class 7 Monsters represent extreme danger to specialized people, so from this point on, they are monsters of a category that requires calling the Kairas for combat.

8 = A classification that already makes it impossible for any specialized person to fight. It is mandatory by protocol to call the Kairas to solve the problem.

9 = Class 9, they are dangerous monsters, representing severe danger to the population, specialized people, and the Kairas themselves, generally requiring a squad of Kairas or high-level Kairas.

10 = General Classification of the Anomaly type, given to any monster too strong to fit into any of the previous classifications.

Extra = Civilians reading this data, be aware that numerical classifications do not define even 50% of a monster’s strength. They only define what apparent strength the monster has, requiring an evaluation of the monster’s category, because high-category monsters even at class 0 represent a severe threat to any life form, and depending on the category, Kairas are necessary to resolve it regardless of its numerical classification.

"I see... it’s pretty simple, but intuitive. The government was clever." They didn’t hide everything, but they didn’t reveal much either. I get interested in the rest, so I keep reading carefully.

Description of Categories:

Common Class = They are extremely weak Fear Monsters. They are so common and fragile that ordinary citizens can eliminate them, and in general, despite being aggressive, most are incapable of causing harm to humanity and tend to run away or hide when they see humans.

Heavy Mutant = A species of Fear Monster that resembles animals, people, and even objects, but with obvious mutations that make it clear that thing is not natural to the world. They are usually not strong, but it depends on what kind of appearance they have.

Light Mutant = They are weak Fear Monsters, which slightly resemble living beings. They are not capable of resembling objects, but they can appear to be something natural at a rate of 80%-90%, so it’s necessary to pay attention to suspicious deformities. They are usually not a very big threat, and even among the strongest of them, at most they can kill ordinary civilians.

Beast = They are Fear Monsters that resemble bestial beings, not necessarily animals, but they tend to have appearances that carry traits like those of quadrupeds, arthropods, cetaceans, among other beings of four or more legs. But they can also have chimera-type traits, like an agglomeration of various monsters, or be bipedal but full of fur. They tend to be a dangerous threat, with great physical capabilities.

Devourer = They don’t have a fixed appearance, but they all carry the same characteristic of hunting to consume any living thing they find. Their strength depends on what they are personifying, and their capabilities tend to be unknown until the moment you encounter them. It is highly recommended to face it in a trio or more people.

Great Disaster = It has an extremely deformed humanoid appearance, usually emits a heavy aura, and is extremely strong. It can devastate from blocks and neighborhoods to even cities depending on the abilities and appearance it has. It personifies the fear of general disasters that humanity possesses and usually has elemental powers of nature.

Hunter = They are monsters that focus totally on hunting humans, ignoring anything else that is not a human. They have extreme strength, extreme speed, and 100% of them have powers. They are extremely dangerous and have advanced intellect, being able to set traps and even wait calmly for days, weeks, and months for a "quality" prey.

Demon = They are extremely brutal fear monsters, with extreme sadism, and they love to see the fear and despair of humanity. They tend to capture and toy with their victims before killing them. They are efficient predators that only toy with victims they consider weak, but tend to eliminate any living being they consider dangerous to themselves, even other fear monsters if there is a lack of prey. They all always have a guaranteed power, and their appearances always have a variation of 50% humanoid, 50% bestial.

Yet 0 to 9 = It is a special classification, given to fear monsters that have a 100% humanoid appearance. They personify humans and try to infiltrate among them. Their true appearances are kept "compressed" inside their flesh, and when revealed, they unleash their real forms. Their strengths vary greatly, and there is a 70% chance of them having special abilities, in addition to having the guaranteed capacity for metamorphosis, which they use to flee and disguise themselves. They tend to target solitary humans and are cowardly hunters that only fight if necessary.

Generation 0 to Generation + = They are monsters that received a high category because they emerged among the first 100 generations of fear monsters. Because of the alarming speed with which such monsters pass through generations, the first 100 generations carry dangerous traits and unstable powers that haven’t adjusted perfectly and haven’t gained stability. They are complex monsters with varied appearances, but their numbers are limited to monsters that were born in the past and survived through time.

Destruction = One of the highest categories. It is given not based on the monster itself, but on its capacity for mass destruction. A monster of the Destruction category can easily devastate entire cities and even bring down floating islands with a few attacks, being a threat that must be eliminated as soon as they appear.

Death = The second highest category, given to a monster that has the capacity to eliminate 90% of all life forms. It doesn’t necessarily mean the power to extinguish humanity, but rather means that if someone fought against them 1v1, only the 10% strongest in the world could have a chance of winning. Thus, when they appear, the strongest are sent, or immense groups are dispatched to kill it.

Terror = The strongest Fear Monsters, the literal most destructive and deadly representation of humanity’s fear. An extremely limited category, given only to specific monsters.

Extra = To the civilians reading this, be aware that the monster category is made considering not the strength of the monster, but the notion of danger it represents to humanity and what humanity thinks of each monster. Therefore, the list goes from left to right, indicating the worst down to the tolerable, with the monsters on the right being the most "problematic" compared to the ones on the left in the graph.

"Hahahaha, that’s insane! They really said everything, but didn’t say shit!!" I laugh at that. It’s hilarious because they completely hid the Nemesis in there. No wonder the army rookies don’t even know the Nemesis exists.

"Aahhh... it’s really comical that they hide the strongest monster." The explanation is good, the details are correct, which makes it seem coherent and calms the civilians who have a "list" of threats, but they deliberately conceal the fact that the true monster among monsters exists, humanity’s greatest enemy.

"...Time to eat." I hear the microwave beep, so I ignore the rest of what’s on the screen. It’s all stuff I already know.