Aurora Over a Dead World

Chapter 47: A Complete Flop

"...Students, today I’ve prepared a simulator mission for you based on my personal experience. It’ll help you learn how to save people without causing so many problems because of your powers," I say to the five inside the simulator.

To my surprise, Eirwen came to class, while Ashlyn obviously isn’t here.

"I’m going in too, but I won’t participate. Your mission inside the simulator will be simple. You’ll be in a ruin from Aurora Island, but just a piece of it."

"I don’t know if you’re aware, but sometimes pieces of Aurora fall, usually the fault of monsters. Aurora’s civilian rescue system normally makes the piece fall to the ground safely."

"But unfortunately, civilians end up on these broken-off parts, and it’s our duty to go rescue them immediately. Today you’re going to go through that experience. You’ll have to save 500 people in 10 minutes, get them to the transport vehicles, and prevent them from seeing monsters." When I explain this, I see recognition in Eirwen’s eyes.

It was the same type of rescue her father used to do. Unfortunately, it’s something that happens quite often. Aurora is an island that’s been flying for many years. Obviously, various materials have deteriorated, making parts, especially around the edges, fragile. They break and drop people down below the island, just as monsters sometimes attack from down there.

Aurora was fortunately designed with this deterioration in mind, so there’s a complex technological system beneath the island that keeps it afloat. Thus, the pieces that break off still maintain this system, which lands the broken part even if it’s incapable of keeping it flying.

"Of course, I’ll have to impose some restrictions. Tanya, you’ll be part of the direct rescue team. You won’t fight monsters. Honestly, you’re a risk to civilians, and also a good meat shield, since you’re strong. If any monster reaches them, you can defend, so you’ll be doing that."

"Eirwen... you’ll stay in the vehicles monitoring the cameras that are raised by the vehicle’s antenna to record fear monster signatures in the area. These cameras only see monsters, so most of the time they’ll just be showing a black background."

"The rest of you... do whatever you want. Decide among yourselves what’s best, just remember the time limit." Before Tanya can try to complain—something she was going to do because she opened her mouth and furrowed her brows—I turn on the simulator.

While the students already appear in the mission area, I look at some interesting options in the simulator.

"Monster control... this is pretty interesting..." I activate this option while selecting a relatively weak monster, a kind of dark red arthropod. It resembles a centipede somewhat, but in place of a head, it has an enormous circular mouth.

Made to swallow its prey whole and grind it with its thousands of teeth that spin inside, this monster is almost a meat grinder. With a 10-meter body and an overall height of 2 meters, it can easily fit an entire person in its mouth and grind them up.

"Oh..." I gain a tactical controller, a kind of glove for controlling the monster’s movements, along with a screen. On this screen, I see what the monster sees, allowing me to control it properly.

"Well, students, I’m going to show you that even a weak monster becomes dangerous if it’s smart..." Instead of starting by attacking right away, I make the monster begin to dig using one of its abilities to expose and expel the inner part of its mouth, using its teeth as a drill to bury itself and move around.

’...They’re doing well...’ I look at the side camera that shows their perspective. They all started acting quickly. Charlotte, because of her power, decided to go alone to the farthest civilians with teleportation and rescue them at a great pace, despite only rescuing one person per portal, a cost that’s far too high.

A frustrated Tanya searches for people and starts carrying them while some scared civilians follow her, asking irritating and constant questions. It’s expected of her, and there’s nothing unusual.

’She just yelled at two civilians... what a disappointingly flawed brat...’ You don’t yell at civilians. They’re scared; of course they ask a lot of questions.

"Ohh... Rouge is doing well." Rouge started hunting monsters in the area, eliminating them at an excellent pace. Normally this isn’t recommended, but she’s shredding the monsters from afar with atmospheric blades of compressed air.

’It’s like watching an air cannon. Smart use of range...’ Edith is the one who surprises me the most. She’s at the rescue trucks preparing poisons, but handing them to the wounded to relieve pain.

After all, not every poison is necessarily lethal depending on the dose—a use I hadn’t thought of before.

’It’s true... Edith can apply her power to medicine too... she’s more versatile than I’d deduced. That’s great.’ I let some time pass, and in 7 minutes they managed to rescue 300 people. A good number, although in a real mission the number would probably be lower.

’Rouge would have been better off saving people.’ Watching everything, most of them did well, but Rouge could have saved people using her instincts and sharp sense of smell to find them, and using her powers to literally carry dozens of them to safety.

"Well, you can’t expect the best from each of them on their first missions... and Rouge did well keeping the monsters away with almost no help." Tanya arrives at the vehicles bringing more people. I decide to eliminate her first. Her power is too fast for the monster I’m controlling to dodge.

"..." The others get closer right at the moment they see what I’m about to do, and fortunately, they won’t have time to arrive and attack.

I make the monster emerge from underground right where Tanya is, exploiting a blind spot in the vehicles’ fear monster detection camera. Tanya kicks the ground complaining about something, distracted. When Tanya leaves the ground, suspended in the air because the soil is opening up, she seems confused.

But before she can understand what happened, the monster devours her in front of the civilians, who fall into despair. You can hear the agonizing sound of flesh and bones being ground up.

"I see. Tanya was disconnected from the simulator. It seems she felt a lot of pain..." Rouge, to my surprise, is the first to reach the monster. She propelled herself by generating an explosion of air beneath her.

"..." I make the monster bury itself again and emerge near the civilian truck. The monster coils around the truck and crushes it, forcing the surviving civilians to come running out of the truck.

"This should reduce how much Rouge can attack without killing random people. Now..." Watching the students’ camera, I see that Charlotte is planning a surprise attack, trying to shorten the distance cautiously. A good strategy considering her range limit.

This would work if I couldn’t see the camera showing her. I immediately make the monster strike the vehicle, throwing it against Charlotte, who is hit and pushed back before she can tear through space and defend herself.

Edith, who is the closest, throws a poisonous mixture on the ground, spreading a purple mist. I think about pulling the monster back, but considering she’s inside it, I conclude it’s not lethal, so I don’t retreat. In fact, I make the monster advance toward her.

Edith gets chills seeing this thing that looks like a giant insect running toward her and, in panic, jumps on top of a vehicle, partially getting out of range. But I make the monster strike the side, pushing the vehicle and knocking Edith down. With a quick body spin from the monster, Edith falls straight into its mouth.

She still manages to grab onto the sides of the jaw, but before she can move, everything below her hips is ground up. She dies a few seconds later as the monster spins its head, tossing the other half of her onto the ground.

"...They’re not using what I taught them. And what the hell is Eirwen doing!! She needs to stop staring at those empty cameras and come help..." They learned to defend and minimize the damage attacks cause as much as possible, but so far I haven’t seen any of them using that.

I work the other screen, sending them a warning to use what I taught them. When the warning arrives, Rouge is the first to charge against the monster with a kick. I make the monster dodge, which barely works.

But Rouge spins her body in the air, applying wind to her body as if it were a blade that’s part of her. With a downward kick, she slices a piece of the monster off, and before I can make it retreat, she spins her body into a horizontal kick, hurling the wind blade from her leg.

The cut cleaves the monster completely, breaking the chitinous armor and killing it quickly. I click my tongue, dissatisfied with the results.

"Rouge was the only one who started using what I said and became too confident... I don’t get it. These girls have so much potential. Why are they so hapless? Eirwen literally did fuck all! She was the one who would have the most advantage by freezing the ground."

"...Well, I can’t blame Eirwen too much because she’s still recovering from what happened before, but Charlotte losing so easily irritates me..."

"Charlotte was incapacitated by a car being thrown at her... maybe... what they lack is a sense of danger? Is that why Rouge shows herself to be so superior in combat capability and quick decision-making?" I think about this for a moment.

Maybe that’s the problem. None of them have a sense of danger, but they all have too much confidence in what they can do. They weren’t prepared to adapt quickly to any situation.

No one taught them to act first and think later. That’s why Tanya couldn’t react before becoming food, whereas I would have been able to react by dodging, dragging the sky beneath me.

"Yes... that makes sense. They had relatively peaceful lives at the academy, never had to perceive and react to danger immediately... while Rouge seems like someone relatively experienced with hunting... maybe her family hunted monsters and she was partially taught..." I deduce a few things as I look at the time.

"15 minutes. They were 5 minutes late and lost Tanya, lost Edith, and Charlotte broke her legs and some bones... what a fiasco. But considering I was controlling the monster, it’s natural they lost... although I expected more from all of them. Only Rouge did well..." Obviously, most monsters aren’t capable of being that intelligent.

But there are many intelligent monsters, and worse, there are those with intelligence equal to or superior to human intelligence. If they can’t learn to adapt quickly, they’ll never survive.

"Well, it seems I’ll have to focus 100% on teaching them to react correctly to danger that appears unpredictably and sudden changes in a fight. We’ll use the simulator a lot in missions like this until they get the hang of it."