Chapter 516 – Hellish frost [22]

The hours following the defeat of the Crown Anomaly, as I had officially started calling it, were some of the busiest the Organization had faced in quite some time. The aftermath caused by the Crown Anomaly turned out to be far more significant and devastating than a quick sweep through the city had initially made it seem.

At first glance, everything appeared relatively calm. But as the teams began investigating the extent of the damage and assessing the consequences left behind, it quickly became clear that the situation was a little more complicated than expected. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it, the material damage ended up being relatively minor.

Considering everything that could have happened, it was almost surprising that the buildings had remained practically untouched. There were some isolated cases of damage, mostly involving vehicles and smaller structures, but nothing that could really be considered serious given the scale of the incident.

For the most part, they were simply inconvenient losses that could be dealt with given enough time and money. And, honestly, I was pretty sure the Organization's High Council would take care of that. Surprisingly enough, when it came to repairing collateral damage and dealing with the aftermath left behind by an anomaly, they could actually be pretty reliable.

As for the total number of casualties caused by the anomaly... well, they weren't nearly as high as you might expect from an event of this magnitude. However, that didn't mean the situation had been any less serious than it appeared. A lot of people simply hadn't been able to save themselves.

Most of them were homeless people, individuals who were already living in precarious conditions and ended up being caught by the cold before any help could reach them. Even with my intervention, it hadn't been enough to save many of them. And they weren't the only ones who succumbed. A few small apartments had also ended up completely frozen.

Literally. The walls, furniture, and everything inside them had been covered in a thick layer of ice, turning those small spaces into massive concrete freezers. To someone looking from the outside, it might have looked like nothing more than a strange and frightening scene.

For the people trapped inside... Well, their fate hadn't been anywhere near as kind as I would have liked. Even after everything was over, it was hard not to think about those people. I might have managed to prevent an even greater tragedy, but that didn't change the fact that, for some of them, I had simply arrived too late.

Deep down, I knew that, technically, it hadn't been my fault. In fact, the fact that I had been the one to put an end to the anomaly should count for something in the end, right? I'm not necessarily saying the situation wasn't awful. I mean, all the people who died had been complete strangers to me, so it would be a lie to say I cried my eyes out over every single one of them.

I didn't even know their names. But that didn't mean I was incapable of feeling anything. I might not exactly be human anymore, but that didn't mean I'd suddenly turned into a monster overnight. I could still feel compassion, discomfort... and even guilt, even when I rationally knew that some things had simply been beyond my control.

In any case, that wasn't even the real problem. The thing that was actually starting to bother me was something else: I was seriously beginning to question all these events that had been happening ever since I woke up in the forest. First, my sisters started appearing one after another. Then anomalies began popping up all over the city like cockroaches.

And, by some extremely convenient coincidence, all of this was happening in exactly the same area where I'd woken up and where my sisters were appearing as well. Coincidence? Maybe. But honestly, I'd have to be incredibly naive to believe that.

It was as if someone were deliberately taking all the pieces and placing them right in front of me, one after another, waiting for me not to notice the picture that was beginning to take shape.

And I could be distracted. But not that distracted. Anyway, I decided it was better not to think about it too much. If I kept following that line of thought, I'd probably end up spiraling deeper and deeper into questions about things I had no answers to. And, honestly, I wasn't in the mood to waste my energy trying to make sense of something that probably wouldn't make any sense for the time being.

So it was better to move on to a less... depressing topic. Like, for example, my newest anomalous power. I'd acquired the ability after crushing the Crown Anomaly. Although, at first glance, there wasn't anything particularly innovative about it, the power could be summed up pretty simply: Cryokinesis.

That said, it wasn't exactly as though I could simply create ice or freeze things. What I could actually do was remove thermal energy from a specific area and redistribute it somewhere else. In other words, I wasn't really creating cold. I was simply taking heat away from where I didn't want it to be.

And, to be honest, that distinction made the power considerably more interesting. I still wasn't sure what the ability's maximum range was. I hadn't had the time, or a particularly suitable opportunity, to properly test its limits. Still, there was one thing I'd already noticed.

Even while I was inside the base, I had the distinct feeling that I could freeze something several miles away, provided I had a clear line of sight to the area. It was a strange sensation. I simply had to look at a particular place and, somehow, I could feel that I was capable of interfering with the thermal energy in that area.

Maybe the range was even greater than I imagined... Which, now that I thought about it, was probably something I should test someday. Preferably somewhere nobody could complain if I accidentally froze something. For one thing, I didn't even try to hide the fact that I'd gained this new power from Emily or Laura.

I couldn't think of a single logical reason to do so. I trusted both of them, and besides, letting them know also gave me a few... safety nets. I mean, even if the High Council suddenly decided I was too dangerous to keep alive, they'd probably think twice before sending Emily, Laura, or anyone else from the facility to try and eliminate me.

I made sure to make that very clear. I started showing up out of nowhere at different meetings involving Emily, Laura, and some of the other scientists. Sometimes, I'd simply appear in the middle of a discussion without being invited, greet everyone with my best smile, and act as though this were the most normal thing in the world.

Naturally, I also made a point of showing off my more charming side. I'd chat casually with the researchers, crack a few jokes, show genuine curiosity about subjects that had absolutely nothing to do with me, and, every now and then, even manage to get a few laughs out of them. But whenever the subject turned to the High Council... Ah.

That was when my attitude changed completely. I made absolutely no effort to hide my dislike of them. Quite the opposite, actually. I made my opinions perfectly clear, all while keeping the same carefree smile on my face. The message behind all of it was simple. I trusted Emily and Laura. I also trusted some of the people working at the facility.

But the High Council? They'd better think very carefully before messing with me. Because if they decided to turn me into a problem, I'd make damn sure their problem became something much, much bigger. In other words... Mess with me, and I'll mess with you. And, honestly, I was almost certain they wouldn't like that very much.

I won't claim this was exactly the best way to encourage the High Council to leave me alone, but, to be completely honest, they all seemed so terrified these days that sometimes I could practically hear them going silent on the other side of the door, carefully checking the room to make sure I wasn't there before starting a meeting.

If Emily and Laura weren't constantly giving me those looks of pure disapproval, I'd say the whole situation was pretty damn funny. But since that clearly wasn't the case... Well, yeah. I definitely wasn't sorry. After all, those old bastards had been complete assholes to Emily and Laura.

If they were a little more cautious before making their moves now, maybe that would even get a few things through their thick skulls. Of course, Emily and Laura didn't need to know that those were exactly my thoughts on the matter. So, as long as they kept looking at me like that, I'd simply adopt the most sensible strategy possible: Pretend I was sorry.

Maybe lower my head a little, put on a guilty expression, and agree with everything they said while they chewed me out. Not because I actually regretted anything, obviously. It was simply a matter of survival. After all, surviving the High Council was easy. Surviving a lecture from Emily and Laura... Now that required caution.

Anyway, those were the main events that followed all the chaos caused by the anomalous ice-powered crown. Nothing that necessarily required me to intervene personally to resolve. I mean, I could have simply thawed everything out much faster. When I tried doing that before, though, I realized I wasn't just removing the ice from the environment.

Somehow, I was also drawing the cold out of the bodies of the people who had been caught up in the whole mess. That was definitely not something I wanted to do. So I had to exercise much finer control over the power, gradually removing the ice while making sure I didn't interfere with the people's body temperatures again.

The process ended up taking much longer than I'd have liked. It took a few days, about a week and a few extra days, to be more precise. Still, in the end, everything went smoothly.

The people in the city naturally remained wary of the unusual cold in December, and honestly, it was hard to blame them after everything that had happened. But little by little, they managed to return to their normal routines.

The streets became busy again, businesses reopened, and, at least on the surface, the city began to regain the sense of normalcy it had before the whole mess. Personally, I was hoping that would last for a while. A quiet week would've been great. Two would've been even better. Unfortunately... It didn't last.