Author's Note: I wanted to post earlier today, but the site was down >_

Also, Shout out to those who helped me PR. Mostly Kyren.

***

Frozen Heat - Initiate

I was smiling mischievously with my head full of the carnage and destruction I could cause with dry ice bombs. .

I admit, It was a childish thing, and even in a time like this, I couldn’t help but yearn for something...cool. I mean, explosions are pretty damn cool, right?

While I was thinking such things, a knock from behind brought me back to reality.

I turned around, just in time to see Cielle and Hina walk into the storage room.

Hina sighed while saying, “We couldn’t find anything useful, how about-- what’s that?”

Her words suddenly cut off as her eyes became fixated on the white mist seeping out of the open freezer.

I smiled and answered, turning my head back towards the container.

“It’s dry ice. Lots of dry ice.”

It was true, at most, there was about 5 pounds of ice in this single container. I’m not too sure, but I’d venture a guess to say that that was a lot.

“Ooh…” Hina remarked, wide eyed, as she moved closer to look at the material.

I nodded while I secretly used [Identify]

In no time, a blue panel of information popped up in front of me.

Dry Ice

Solid carbon dioxide. It is cold to the touch and may cause immediate frostburn.

There wasn’t as much information as the other chemicals I identified, rather, it was quick and straight to the point. Although it wasn’t like I needed information. I knew enough of the basics of dry ice to know that I could manipulate it to produce destructive results.

In the wrong hands, it would be dangerous and rather harmful to people. In our current situation, it could prove quite useful.

From the corner of my eye I could see Hina and Cielle nod to each other, while a look of relief floated to their faces.

Seeing this, I couldn’t help but smile. I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who sees merit in this find.

“It’s a good discovery right? I’m sure there will be plenty of uses… primarily, explosive uses…”

My words let out a hint of my true excitement towards the end. Going by my tone, it was readily obvious that some child like mindset had set in, urging me ever closer to the path of destruction and dry ice bombs.

“Explosive? You want to create dry ice bombs?” Hina’s voice asked dubiously while she turned to look at me with squinted eyes.

The way she spoke dampened my original excitement. I lowered my head slightly, while a hand went to my head and scratched awkwardly. A nervous habit that I developed during middle school.

“Er, um, yeah. I-I thought it might be a good idea… why?”

Hina sighed.

“No, there’s nothing wrong, but rather… I think that might be a bit of a waste and frankly…”

She hesitated for a moment, but continued talking regardless.

“Well, dry ice bombs might not be as effective as they seem.”

“Eh? What do you mean?” My voice rose an octave, while in the back of my mind, a sense of danger regarding the fulfillment of my new dream (making dry ice bombs) suddenly became evident.

“For one, there’s a better way to use the dry ice.”

“....”

Hearing my silent protest, Hina continued with a bit more bravado than usual.

“Dry ice is essentially solid carbon dioxide. It continually emits Co2 and if we use it properly we can effectively take out the werewolves without much effort.

If we place the dry ice inside the room, Co2 will eventually flood the place, forcing the oxygen upwards- er, let me rephrase that - since Co2 is heavier than oxygen, the air will essentially be displaced upwards. Anyways, in this process hypercapnia will set in. Eventually though, the symptoms will continue until the were-wolves eventually suffocate from lack of air, or more specifically, lack of oxygen.

As long as the ventilations are near the ceiling,which they are, this should allow for enough Co2 to build up until eventually all the wolves die. Thus, we just need to seal the door closed until then. This shouldn’t be too hard of a task, considering all the wolves are asleep. Dry ice is essentially an odorless material, so its highly unlikely that the wolves can sniff it out.”

I stayed silent for a while, before a defeated voice rang out from my throat.

“You- you’re surprisingly well educated….”

Hearing my sardonic compliment, Hina’s eyes widened for a minute before she shyly laughed.

“Well, I’m a bit good at chemistry…” she modestly responded.

“Nnn… Hina’s class rank is number 3…” Cielle silently added from the back.

“Ooo~ I feel so relieved being with such a dependable person.” I laughed dryly as a bit of resentment seeped out of me.

It wasn’t that Hina's plan was wrong but… with such a plan, I wouldn’t be able to make dry ice bombs. It was a childish thing, even I admit that, but I couldn’t really help it. After spending a week trapped here, with nothing but repetitive hunting to entertain me, frankly, I was growing quite bored.

Even if it was childish, I wanted to see an explosion or two.

“.....Incidentally, I’m also ranked third within our class….” Cielle spoke up once more, a hint of pride in her voice.

“Is that so….” I answered, almost half mechanically.

This apparently wasn’t the type of response she had hoped for, as she pouted behind her mess of hair.

I ignored this though, and further lamented.

I sighed again, which prompted Hina to talk once more. She began explaining the risks, and dangers dry ice bombs would bring, as if to hammer in the final nail in the figurative coffin of my dry ice bomb dream.

“Dry ice bombs might not be enough to handle them. First, the wolf hide seems to be thick, and the blast might not even penetrate through. Despite the noise it produces, dry ice bombs are surprisingly weak. To humans, they can cause a lot of damage, but to such a fanciful creature, I doubt any serious damage will result.

Plus, any big explosions we might decide to create by piling together more dry ice in a bigger container may result in damage towards the computers. That would defeat our true purpose.”

I couldn’t take much more of her explanation, and sighed out. Defeated, I conceded and abandoned my short lived dream.

“Fine, fine, no dry ice bombs. I get it.”

Hina nodded satisfactorily.

Pushing the regret deep into my heart, I steeled myself as I began issuing orders out to the two girls. Our half concrete plan was already devised, so it was about time for the actual action to begin.

“Since you’re the one who came up with the suffocation idea, get everything ready. Cielle help move the dry ice onto that cart of yours.

I’ll be a bit busy preparing. Although the original plan for now, is to avoid conflict and kill the wolves as quietly and with as less action as possible, we can at least take precautionary measures in case something goes wrong.”

I nodded affirmatively towards the two girls as I turned my back to them and walked over to the chemical cabinet.

Before the silent attack, I needed to prepare.

****

We walked back over to the computer lab.

Hina and Cielle were both wearing protective gloves, a small measure to fight off the hot burning sensation of the dry ice.

Hina and Cielle worked together to push a heavy set cart across the blood stained, and half destroyed, hallway. Unlike before, instead of being filled only by Cielle’s rather lightweight [Dark Gemini], the cart was filled to the brim, holding two containers filled with 5-9 pounds of dry ice, alongside the ever present container of [Dark Gemini].

As we quietly walked, Hina’s voice cut through the air, as she directed a question my way.

“...What’s up with the bottle?”

Her eyes fixated on the plastic water bottle I had in my hand. Inside it was water that filled half of the bottle, as well as various nails, screws, magnets, and whatever other small metal object I had managed to find.

My voice cramped as I replied back, “Er, i-its a precaution. Don’t mind it.”

I developed a cold sweat as Hina’s unconvinced eyes prodded my silent back.

I walked further ahead, ignoring Hina as she whispered, half to herself, more to me, “As long as you don’t do anything stupid…”

****

10 minutes later, we arrived in front of the Computer Lab.

I peered through the stained door window and smiled. The wolves were in the same state we had left them in. The darkish gray furred leader slept soundlessly towards the back, while all the other subordinate wolves quietly congregated in the middle.

Seeing this perfect scene, I lamented over how we could have just as easily, set down a giant dry ice bomb directly in the middle of such a group.

Ah, I could only whimsically sigh out, thinking about all the destruction it would have caused.

I shook my head, and returned to where the girls waited; 5 meters away from the computer lab, behind a wall, in a perpendicular hallway.

I relayed my recent scouting’s, “The wolves are still asleep. Going by the time, we have about 5 hours left before it gets completely dark.”

Hina nodded at this. “That’s good. We have plenty of time then, since at most it’ll only take about 10 to 20 minutes to completely suffocate them. As long as they stay asleep for a good majority of the time, by the time they notice the lack of air within the room, they should be too sluggish to do anything about it.”

Hina smiled to herself, from the looks of things, she seemed satisfied with how things were developing.

Despite my own apprehensions, I chose to stay silent.

For one, I was still a bit depressed over the lack of ice bombs within this plan. Also, a more important issue, was the concept of experience distribution. Although, essentially, all three of us would work towards completing this plan, I knew that only one person would receive the experience. The question here is, who does the experience go to? The person who puts the ice into the room? The one who shuts the door closed?

Would we even receive experience in the first place?

It was a simple question which brought up a much more complicated concept that I still knew little about. How the game mechanics worked in reality was quite an unknown, even to me. So I was left only to ponder away without any real conclusion.

But for now, I chose to swallow down such complaints, and listen in as Hina seemingly took charge. Truth be told, I couldn’t see much error in her plan, and seeing as she knew more about chemistry than me, it would be better to let her be the one who comes up with the ideas, well, for now anyways.

Interrupting my train of thought, Cielle chirped up quietly with a question of her own.

“How will we get the dry ice into the room?”

For a moment, both Hina and I paused. This was indeed a good question. While they may be asleep for now, there still remained an inexplicable danger towards getting anywhere near the wolves.

From my side, I could hear Hina sigh as she said, “... I guess we have no other way, one of us will have to manually enter the room and put the ice-”

“Wait.” Before she could finish, my voice interrupted her, prompting Hina to stop midway in her explanation.

“I have an idea…” As I spoke, I immediately leaned over towards Cielle, which prompted a few round of cute ‘eeps’, which I subsequently ignored, as I whispered my idea towards the shy, face-covered girl.

At this time, Hina simply sat back and watched. Her expression seemed peeved, but I ignored that as well, while I continued to relay my idea towards Cielle.

After a while, I moved my head back and asked, “Do you think you can do it?”

Cielle readily nodded a determined bob of her head as she whispered softly, “Leave it to me!”

Being left out in the dark, Hina couldn’t help but ask, “Eh~, what’s up with all the secrecy guys? Let me in on the fun too! Tell me what you two were talking about!”

Hearing this, I simply smiled. “Well, there’s really no need to explain.” I spoke, “If all works out like I think it will, then Cielle here is about to show you.”

I nodded firmly towards Cielle, prompting an affirmative, “Nmm!”

A moment later, the contents within the container holding the dark blue translucent semi-liquid began to writhe and jiggle. A portion of [Dark Gemini] cut itself off from the majority and floated harmlessly towards Cielle.

Of course it didn’t stop there.

The blob changed its direction as it darted forward, towards the other container holding the solidified Carbon Dioxide.

The blob directly maneuvered into the open container, and a moment later it floated back up. On top of the [Dark Gemini] being supported by the translucent black goo, was a piece of dry ice.

I smiled as my eyes turned from the container over towards Hina, scanning for her reaction. At first she seemed confused, but not a moment later, her eyes widened in understanding and her face also morphed into a grin.

“We can move the dry ice into the room like that! This is perfect, its both quiet and we don’t have to risk anyone going inside that death hole!

How did you come up with such an idea?”

She praised, and directed a question towards me. Under normal circumstances, the one she’d praise would be Cielle, but it was readily obvious that I was the mastermind behind the new scheme.

I answered with downcast eyes while I fiddled a bit with the other container of dry ice.

“Well, I figured something like this was possible. [Dark Gemini] doesn’t go through physical objects, apart from people and monsters, and since Cielle knows how to control it, I thought something like indirect telekinesis could be done.”

“Indirect telekinesis…” She mumbled the phrase quietly to herself.

I turned back towards Cielle, and asked.

“Anyways, Cielle, do you think you can move all of the ice over to the room?”

Cielle nodded in response. She posed another question while I unfastened the lid off of the other dry ice container.

“W-where do you want me to move them to?”

“...Just spread the dry ice around the wolves. Make sure you don’t get any of it onto the actual monster though. Who knows how they might react to the cold.”

Cielle nodded as she prepared herself. The container filled with [Dark Gemini] once again moved, but this time, instead of just a portion of the matter floating, all of it was being manipulated.

I turned towards the computer lab door and silently opened it. While doing so, I motioned for the girls to be quiet while I prompted Cielle to begin moving the ice.

Cielle instantly went to work, pieces of ice began making their way into the computer lab.

While this was going on, I stepped back a good distance and prompted Hina to follow me.

As she began to make her way over to me, my eyes unconsciously fixated on Cielle’s small back. I thought about how good she was getting lately on controlling her new skill.

[She must be practicing….]

A spare thought like that floated towards my head as Hina stopped in front of me, and waited for me to speak.

Turning back to the person I had called over, I shifted my attention and said,

“Hina, I’m going to go check on the progress of the hunt. I want you to stay here with Cielle.”

Hina’s eye narrowed as she asked, “Check the progress? Can’t you just do that from here?”

I shook my head. “No, it would be better to do it somewhere else. I need a place with a better vantage point after all.”

“Then where will you--”

I instantly cut her off, as I pointed to the ceiling.

“The ventilation ducts. One of them probably leads towards the Computer Lab, so I’ll check the progress as well as how the wolves react to the dry ice from up there.

If I’m that high up, I should be safe enough from the carbon dioxide.”

Hina paused for a moment, as if digesting the information, before she nodded.

Seeing her nod, I also bobbed my head.

“Then I’ll set off, you two be careful. Also… if things go south, quickly initiate the contingency plan we thought up. Don’t hesitate, got it?”

I spoke as my eyes turned cold and my face went impassive. I looked dead on at Hina. I tried to convey, with as much fiber of determination as I could muster, about how truly dangerous this task was. Although in the end, I guess it just ended up becoming a rather sinister looking glare.

I saw her shiver for a moment, before she recollected herself. Hina then nodded vigorously while she held up a thumbs up and smirked.

“Who do you think I am, Mr. Mayonnaise? Your week long boot camp from hell was enough to toughen up little ol’ me. I doubt anything can shock me at this point.”

Hearing such a surprisingly lively response, I sighed out.

“Jeeze, ‘Mayonnaise’? That’s such a bad nickname, I don’t even know what to say... Only because my last name is Mayo…”

Hina quietly giggled upon my response. The earlier tension from before had inexplicably vanished as I turned to look down at the hallway floor.

“The “trap” should be set properly by now… but if anything happened…” I mumbled to myself while my eyes scanned the surroundings.

Seeing this, Hina sighed, crudely imitating my earlier display.

“You worry too much Hide. It might be an apocalypse, but if you're always so tense, you’ll sooner die from stress, rather than an actual monster…

… Actually, considering how strong you are, that might actually hold true… Anyways, don’t worry. Cielle and I will be fine, besides, I rate the success of this mission to be very high, so don’t worry.”

She once again gave me a thumbs up, as if to reassure me, but I couldn’t help but harbor a bit of doubt in my mind.

Maybe, since I wasn’t the one who thought up the bulk of the plan, I felt nervous. But regardless, this uncomfortable feeling of impending danger was very hard to ignore.

But still, I managed to bottle up such dark feelings, as I pushed aside my fear and apprehension, and began walking back down the hallway to where I saw an opening earlier to the ventilation ducts above.

As I left, I glanced back at the two girls, while I whispered hoarsely to myself.

“...Don’t die.”

****

Anyways, if you liked my story, follow, favorite, Rate or review, to help me out. Its the little things like that that keep me going.

Also, to the fans of my other work, sorry for the lack of updates recently. >_I have major testing going on like all through next week, so I've got to study for that. At most I can only update one fic, and I'm currently involved with Change, so bare with it for a while.

Also again, someone drew out some of the characters (mainly Hide, Cielle and Hina) as fan art. I enjoyed it myself, so I thought I might as well share it with you guys.

Fan Art