Aurora Over a Dead World

Chapter 48: Leadership

"Commander Nadir, it’s always incredible to see your strength," Cecilia says as she watches me carry a solid engine block.

"It’s just a few tons. You could do it too."

"I know, but it’s hard for me, whereas you carry that thing like it’s light. I’ve always wondered why you’re so strong," she asks in a questioning tone as I set the block down on the conveyor belt.

"It was a lot of training." I trained relentlessly, pushed myself to the absolute limit so I’d have the power to protect Zenith. Combine that with what the chip did to me, and I ended up with physical strength above the norm compared to others who also have the chip and trained their bodies.

"You’re so modest."

"...Cecilia, don’t you think Aurora Island’s floaters look strange?" I ignore her, looking up at where the island is.

"..." Cecilia looks confused as she glances up and notices the floaters do look strange, but she seems even more confused than I am.

"They are strange... but I don’t understand?"

"You didn’t read up on this?"

"No, I skipped the subject about the island’s floaters." When she says that, I remember Zenith also skipped anything related to this subject.

"Aurora Island came into being ever since humanity started having problems with monsters. It began as an island in the ocean, but staying on stagnant ground meant the island was under attack at all times."

"Using the new vector technology, stabilization platforms, anti-gravity floaters, and a powerful controller were built at the island’s center. The stabilization platforms keep the island from fragmenting."

"The floaters fight against gravity to keep it in the air at all times, and the controller is the battery that keeps everything running and regulates the power output for all of it."

"Naturally, all of that works in layers, but... the island looks kind of... tilted? Look at that side over there. The island seems to have tilted as if it’s about to fall on that side, while that other side looks like the floaters are working at maximum output." It’s still a giant island.

Naturally, even with the machines at maximum output, the unevenness is quite small, but you can notice it if you look closely.

"Is this a really big problem, Commander Nadir?" she asks uncertainly. I look around and walk over to a regular soldier who’s supervising the area.

"Hey, you. Can you notice an unevenness on the island? Like picking up a table and lifting one side slightly."

"..." The soldier looks up, even opening his helmet.

"Yes, Commander. It looks a little misaligned."

"...I see. Thanks for the answer." I walk away from him.

"Cecilia, this is a problem. He’s a person with no direct vector powers and he can notice it. It seems the unevenness isn’t as small as we imagined, since we’re very far from the island in terms of height."

"If it’s unleveled like that, it could end up breaking the stabilizers. Later, we’ll need to report it to the superiors so someone reduces the output on the right side and increases it on the left side."

"You’re very perceptive," she says, when in reality I was only looking up because Zenith is up there.

"I bet some rookie pressed the wrong button and unbalanced the output on one of the sides. Honestly, those people are a bunch of lazy asses. They should be more responsible with this," I say, sensing the strange silence. Cecilia agrees with me as I decide to ask a question.

"Cecilia, don’t you think the environment is too quiet? You know, I’m genuinely looking for things to distract myself, but honestly, all this silence bothers me."

"And everyone looks the same too." Silence is a bad sign, because it means two things. Either there’s nothing nearby, which would be a positive scenario but also extremely rare.

Or there’s something very strong nearby, and that something strong is dangerous even to normal monsters. We’ve been on this mission for hours and haven’t seen a single weak fear monster, and ruins usually always have monsters.

"I noticed, and I feel uncomfortable too. Actually, I feel like I want to jump into a hole, and considering I’m a ’rabbit,’ I don’t think that’s a good instinct to have."

"Hah... of course we wouldn’t have the luck to run a collection mission without fighting for it, right? I wonder where it is and what its strength level is. I hope it’s below demon level. We’re lacking strong personnel for that right now," I say with a practiced sigh.

This kind of situation isn’t something to panic over. It’s happened so many times it’s almost a dull routine. Not that it isn’t risky, it’s just not as uncommon as we’d like it to be.

"Let’s load just a few more things and leave. It’s better to retreat with what we have than to have to abandon everything if it turns out to be a very powerful fear monster," I say, grabbing my communicator and sending a silent alert to everyone. Immediately, the entire team of a few dozen people starts calmly gathering the equipment.

"You know, Commander Nadir, your calmness is always so comforting. I like how you’re always so serious and skilled, but instead of just retreating, shouldn’t we investigate first to see if there’s a threat?"

"..."

"No. Usually I would always investigate the threat level or whether one exists because Zenith is by my side and her spatial power allows for long-range detection. Without her here, all that’s left is the military equipment, which is far inferior and can’t accurately detect things underground."

"Wasting time on that is simply unnecessary. We’re just leaving with what we have. After all, too much greed has never helped humanity, and it’s not about to start helping now."

"Besides, half of our team are people with no powers carrying vector weapons... dead weight." I end up letting my thoughts slip out for a second.

"I don’t mean to say they’re useless. Everyone has their roles, and I value their help a lot, but they can’t help in a fight against relatively strong monsters. It would be terrible if they died because we decided to stay," I smile, retracting what I said earlier, even if it’s true.

"Okay, Commander, let’s take what we’ve managed to get then... but Commander, if there really is an enemy here, as soon as we turn on the transport platform that uses the same floater system as the island..."

"This ’thing’ will probably be drawn in. After all, the vector changes caused by this equipment are far too high."

"You’re right, but for now we can only wait and see. It would only be a problem if this possible monster could fly, which, let’s be honest, is relatively rare." Many monsters, because they’re based on humanity’s fears, end up taking on the appearances of more common fears.

And fortunately, there aren’t many aerial predators that humanity would have an extreme collective fear of. The worst ones are the fear monsters that come from very abstract fears, like fear of death, or fear of space, as well as fear of natural disasters.

Among some other fears of that type that could generate truly dangerous aberrations.

"But—" I give Cecilia a stern look.

"Don’t be greedy. I wouldn’t like to leave now either. There are many good pieces of old equipment to take, but it’s better to leave with what we’ve gained than to push our luck."

"Are you feeling that lucky, Cecilia? Lucky enough for eighty people?"

"...No, Commander Nadir. You’re right. It’s not good to gamble with luck and lose what we’ve already gained and also take casualties... it’s just a real shame. There’s so much valuable stuff here. It would be very useful."

"Lately the government has been demanding a lot of battery materials. Apparently the government really wants nickel, silicon, silver, aluminum, silver-zinc, and if possible, they also want lithium-thionyl chloride."

"Some of the batteries in this city have that. If we could get enough, we’d have some time off... I think I was just being lazy, but you’re completely right. Lives are worth more than maybe getting one or two days off," she says, looking sad.

"Don’t worry, I understand you. It’s annoying having to work without rest. Who knows, maybe next time, right? Besides, we’ll launch probes into the area and see if there’s anything. If there’s nothing, or if there is something but it leaves, we can come back here. Aurora Island will still take a good while to completely fly over these ruins."

Unfortunately, any position below commander has no flexibility whatsoever. Even commanders have relatively limited flexibility, but it’s much better than other positions that almost never get breaks, depending on the role, of course.

If it’s rescue, they actually get plenty of breaks because they depend on having people to be rescued, but collection and monster hunting usually never have breaks because those are things that happen all the time.

"Commander, considering the probes will need some time to scan the area, what will you do in the meantime? Considering, of course, the scenario where we leave here without being attacked."

"...I think I’ll just train a little, and then read some books."

"Commander, you’re a sweetheart, but your idea of rest is a bit strange. Do you really need to train first? Shouldn’t you enjoy the rare leisure time you could have a little?"

"It’s not good to get rusty. One day without practicing already reduces what I can do, even if it’s a tiny fraction. But if you want to join in," I propose for her to come with me.

"No, I’d rather stay on camera monitoring. Training with you is something painful, but thanks for the offer."

"What a shame," I give her a smile as we board the platform along with the other soldiers. The platform turns on and begins to rise very slowly because of all the extra weight.

’The platform can handle up to five hundred tons, but even so, the platform itself weighs nearly twenty tons, and we’ve filled almost all the space...’ The speed at which it rises is painfully slow and tedious, but everyone keeps their guard up for a possible attack even when it’s already climbed some level above the ground.

’A few days off...’ I think about what Cecilia said about rest. That would actually be nice.