Chapter 127: Trust

"...Commander Nadir, what do you think of this?! Does it look good enough? This is our newest onboard security system!! It uses standard physical systems to attack and a great tracking system!! It’s perfect for dealing with Nêmesis!" Cecilia says to me with a smile as she shows me a design.

"Looks impressive. I already tested it myself, and it detected me no matter how I tried to bypass it," I tell her as she picks up a sheet of paper and puts it on the table.

"Yes... I mentioned that to show you this... What do you think?" She asks somewhat timidly as I approach to see what’s on the paper, and I notice that it’s a very detailed weapon design.

"Did you make it yourself?"

"Yes! I had some free time, and I wanted to help. I know the development team is already dealing with this. For some reason, they predict that Nêmesis will attack us or try to infiltrate us, so they changed the security protocol. Because of that, we have more time since they reduced the patrols."

"That’s why I thought I’d provide one of my own ideas." I look at her design, and this is exactly the kind of thing that means she could already be a commander if she didn’t keep refusing promotions.

"It’s very good, but doesn’t it seem a little slow? It looks like it uses a locking mechanism to fire a stake. Even though you made something incredible that can fire ballistic stakes at the speed of sound using only simple mechanisms without anything vector-based, it’s still something that would be easy for such a powerful monster to dodge." The stakes in the design are made of ordinary reinforced steel, so they’re heavy.

"Eh... I know, Commander Nadir. It’s pretty obvious that it isn’t perfect! But I feel like I’m getting somewhere. Do you have any ideas? Zenith was always very creative, so maybe you have some creative idea to help me too?"

"Hmmmm... what about using hot air and pressure to explode and launch the stake? Like an extra burst of force when the mechanism fires the stake? Besides, this thing is way too large. A weapon this big and obvious wouldn’t work, so you’d have to compact it a lot more, which would probably reduce its power considerably." When I say that, she seems discouraged.

"...You’re right. I guess I’m not very good at this."

"You don’t need to get discouraged, Cecilia. The design is good, and it shows effort. Unfortunately, I’m not the best person to give opinions on this. I don’t know much about building weapons, just the basics!"

"Okay... I guess I’ll leave then. Sorry for interrupting you."

"Wait, Cecilia, I just realized something. If we reduce the size, it would become much weaker, but who said anyone needs to do that? Now that I think about it, we could install this on a vehicle and make an even larger version to give it even more power. That solves the speed problem." When I say that, she looks thoughtful.

"Oh... that’s a good idea. I’ll send my design to the development team so they can take a look, and I’ll add a note about making it larger to see what they say. Thank you, Commander Nadir." She smiles as she starts hurriedly walking out the door.

"It was nothing..." Almost no one knows that Nêmesis infiltrated us and was among humanity, but the way the government found to disguise the problem while also raising the alert level was to blatantly lie to our faces.

They said they had improved the Nexus and the simulator, and because of that, they managed to increase its probabilistic prediction range, and now it would reach some imaginary percentage showing the chance of Nêmesis attacking us, basically predicting the future through probability.

It isn’t unrealistic, but anyone with even the slightest knowledge of simulation would know that this kind of machine would quickly see billions to trillions of possibilities using all kinds of data before giving a percentage, meaning it would almost never be accurate.

But it seems to have fooled most people who don’t understand this kind of thing. I didn’t understand it myself, but they explained it to me because I knew that Nêmesis was among us.

"I wonder what Zenith must be doing right now... She’s probably sleeping. It’s getting kind of late... I should get some rest too. There’s more collecting tomorrow." I close the computer. Working overtime is terrible, and it isn’t even paid.

"I wish I could call her... unfortunately, I can’t right now... hahaha, she’d be really angry if I broke the rules just to tell her good night." I don’t want to disturb her sleep, so I let it go.

...

...

...

"TANYA, TURN THAT OFF!! STOP OVERLOADING THAT DAMN BATTERY!!!"

"NO!!! IT’LL STABILIZE!! I CAN DO IT!"

"TURN THAT SHIT OFF!!" I yell at Tanya, who is overloading a car battery. She tried to generate light, but instead of using something actually made to generate light, she decided that a battery was a suitable light source when it wasn’t even made to produce light.

I kept some distance so she would have room to do whatever she wanted, but now the battery is obviously unstable, making a horribly loud sound of metal twisting and cracking.

"!!!" I realize it’s going to explode, so I run toward her and grab her. I immediately drag the sky like a wall. The battery explodes, causing a chain reaction with the rest of the things she tried to use. Several fragments fly toward us, but I block everything, protecting Tanya.

"..." When the explosion ends and the cloud of dust clears, I look at Tanya, who has a smug smile on her face.

"You may have gotten in Professor Zenith’s way, but I managed to generate light!" She says as if making a battery so hot that it becomes incandescent were the same as generating light to send a signal.

"Idiot."

"What!? Why the insult!!? I’m not an idiot, I’m brilliant and amazing!! Look what I managed to do!!!"

"You didn’t see that it was going to explode!? Tanya, I didn’t get in your way! I saved your life! Did you lose all your neurons after a few hours of training!?"

"Ghhhm!!" She makes an irritated sound as she moves away from me.

"You don’t know anything, Professor! Just look! Take a look at the result." She shows me a small white sphere in her hand. It’s a solid point of light, the result of her crazy attempt to generate light with an old car engine.

"Great, you created a sphere of light at the cost of almost blowing yourself up. That seems like a VERY equal trade, right?" I say sarcastically, although the fact that she managed to generate light through incandescence is impressive.

’It reminds me of one of the light bomb prototypes...’ It isn’t merely a strong light, but photons accumulated together. In the bomb prototype, it would literally blind anyone permanently. It was discontinued because there was no way to contain photons in a way that allowed them to be used offensively as originally intended.

’Even though I’m angry, she accumulated the light’s photons inside a stable sphere... besides that, she managed to do what I asked, using something that already existed so she’d spend less of her own powers.’ If this thing bursts, we’ll both go blind.

"Tanya, get rid of that thing. Don’t use it or we’ll have problems. Okay, you actually did it, but this is dangerous... not to mention the way you managed to do it is dangerous too. This isn’t exactly what I wanted you to do." I can sense what it is because of the way it behaves in space.

"Then admit that I did it right, Professor Zenith!! I put a lot of effort into making this, and it wasn’t easy at all."

"...Whatever, you did well. Now get rid of it, because if it bursts, it’ll damage our eyes and...!!!" I panic when she drops it, but then the sphere dissolves in the air, dispersing the light steadily instead of causing an aggressive explosion.

"..." She has an arrogant smile on her face, knowing exactly what I felt at that moment.

"Why does everything you do have to go to the extreme, Tanya? You’d go blind too if that thing burst, or worse, we’re too close. It could injure our skin too, causing horrible burns." Honestly, Tanya is incredibly blessed when it comes to power, not only because of how quickly she learns, but also because of how well she controls those powers.

"Hehehe, that doesn’t matter. I think I finally understood what you meant! It’s not that difficult!! Now that I understand, look what I can do." She moves her hand, making a streetlamp go dark. Then it shines intensely, and the bulb bursts from being overloaded.

"...That’s not what I—"

"Shhh!! Look at this!" She interrupts me and then makes all the lights on the block shine and flicker intensely. Then they all burst. She turned something that was supposed to transmit a code into something destructive.

"..." I can’t say she’s wrong. She understood the message. She can use her variant to control existing light sources, and naturally, while obeying physics, when she pushes the light to the extreme, objects like the bulbs break.

"Haaa... let’s stop training for today. It’s late, and you need to take it more slowly. That was genuinely dangerous. If I hadn’t been here—"

"I know. That’s why I practiced like this, because you’re here to protect me." She gives me a very sly little grin.

"...One day, you students are going to be the cause of my death. Stop relying on me protecting you so much. Next time, I won’t do it again."

"Okay! I’m going home then. See you tomorrow night, Professor."

"...Aren’t you going to class in the morning?"

"No, I’ll have to miss it. Family matters. But I’ll show up for training, here at this place at the same time, right?" I confirm it with her as she heads for the exit. I end up giving a small smile when I realize just how much this arrogant girl trusts me.