Aurora Over a Dead World

Chapter 20: Commander

"C-Commander Nadir?" An assistant speaks up, surprised, as I take a heavy box from her hands when I see her struggling. I give her a smile and keep walking while she follows me.

"That looks heavy. Since I’m heading to the same place as this delivery, I figured a little help wouldn’t hurt," I tell the assistant after noticing she was having a hard time with it — it’s a pretty heavy metal box.

"Th-thank you so much, Commander!! You’re so kind," she thanks me, excited, trailing behind me as she pulls a communicator from her pocket.

"Commander, since you’re already back, that means we’re going down to the Horizon, right? And where’s Commander Zenith? She’s usually always by your side."

"Yes, we’re heading down to the Horizon. Resources aren’t going to collect themselves, after all. And there’s a good ruin nearby — Aurora Island will pass right over it soon, so we’ll have a window for it." Aurora Island never stays still so monsters can’t attack it, so we always have to descend fast and return within a margin of one month at most.

Because even though Aurora Island moves slowly, it won’t wait for anyone, and if it leaves, whoever got left behind will have a hell of a time catching up to it again because of the monsters along the way.

"As for Zenith, she’s not coming. She lost her position, so she’s working as an instructor at the academy now," I tell the assistant. I’ll have to inform everyone later that she’s out for the time being.

"That’s good, right?" she says, making me stop.

"Good? Why would that be good?"

"Well... she’s kind of weird, isn’t she? Like, she’s super rude! Disrespectful toward her superiors, and honestly, she talks to us assistants like we’re incompetent!! It was only a matter of time before she got demoted, and I think it’s better this way! Nobody liked her anyw—" She cuts herself off when she sees my stare.

"..." I hold myself back from bursting her tongue with my powers. I take a deep breath to keep my expression as neutral as possible.

"She’s the reason you assistants are still alive. You should be more grateful to those who defend your lives, since it’s thanks to them that you’re not forced to go out delivering things in combat." Zenith is rude, admittedly, but she’s undeniably someone truly good who constantly saves lives.

One example is the fact that one of the first things she did when she became commander was pull assistants out of the dangerous work of delivering packages, and she spoke with some superiors to replace them with semi-autonomous vector machines. For a while, the costs went up.

And everyone only saw that fact — it got more expensive, so they criticized her. But when it worked and the delivery success rate shot up while assistants stopped dying, no one praised her. They just ignored it after having criticized her idea that proved itself right and only needed time to show results.

"...I-I’m sorry, Commander Nadir. I think I spoke out of line." She tries to apologize, but I just ignore it and keep walking, noticing that I dented the metal frame of the box in a moment of anger.

’These useless worms... how dare they think badly of Zenith...’ Unlike Zenith, who can’t act gentle or polite — who struggles with those actions — I can, and that’s the only reason people see me as more "pleasant" than her.

How absurd. Zenith and I are so alike. It’s ridiculous that she gets scorned when she’s saved so many here, time and time again.

If it weren’t so Zenith could have a better life, I would never have accepted being commander of this pack of incompetent worms. I’m only here for her — so she can have money, status, and government support.

And even then, I have to listen to crap from an assistant who knows nothing, when Zenith was only demoted because of me.

"..." Trying not to dwell on it too much, I soon reach my destination, handing over the box and slamming the door in the assistant’s face, who doesn’t seem to understand why she upset me.

"Commander Nadir, is there a problem?" I hear a voice I know well and look toward her. Seeing that she’s here, I can only sigh at the sight of my Vice Commander.

"Cecilia, what are you doing here?" I don’t like Cecilia much because she’s in love with me, and Zenith clearly gets angry with me for not keeping Cecilia at a distance. But Cecilia is my Vice Commander, so keeping her away isn’t exactly an option.

Cecilia is a tall woman with short, dark gray hair, rabbit ears, large breasts, and a relatively slender yet seductive build. She has green eyes and a consistently rigid posture.

Honestly, her personality is fine. She’s analytical, gentle, obedient, subservient, but also cold when she needs to be, and her power is good too.

It’s [Disorder], which allows the user to cause disorder in basic vectors near them — mass, velocity, energy, among others — the equivalent of a rabbit chewing through the important wires of a machine.

Her only problem is precisely that she makes it clear she’s in love with me. Honestly, if she weren’t so competent, I really wouldn’t want to have to be near her.

"I came to help you, Commander Nadir," she says with a smile.

"Shouldn’t you be on the other side of Aurora Island, commanding over there so we can descend all three teams at the same time?" I question her, trying to figure out what she did about that.

"I’ve already handled it. I got everything ready and left someone trustworthy to give the order. Once I activate the signal, the teams will descend with a delay of only ten seconds compared to your team. That’s why I thought it was appropriate for me to come help you now that you no longer have Commander Zenith to complement the command."

"...How do you know she was removed from her position? I haven’t actively told anyone yet."

"...News flies, Commander, especially among superiors. Now... how about we go do what needs to be done? The sooner we prepare everything, the better. After all, it’s a one-minute window for us to descend from the island to the ruins in the best possible time, so we need to be ready not to delay even one second!!"

"...Fine. For now, take over Zenith’s positions. But don’t do this again — abandoning your post to come to me. I would have managed everything even without Zenith here. It’s dangerous for the soldiers on the other side to have no one in command." Cecilia, despite having a strong power, isn’t much of a fighter.

Her power is more of a very useful support ability — meaning she would help her allies a lot in a confrontation against monsters, and now those same allies are without someone so useful backing them up.

"I understand, Commander Nadir. I deeply regret having made the wrong decision, but I believe you are more important. So if there were problems here, it could compromise the mission. My coming to help is an insurance that everything will go well."

"...You... forget it. You’re right. Let’s just get this done." I decide not to argue. It’s obvious she’ll come up with every possible excuse for why she came, but I know damn well why she came, and I don’t want to waste time on it.