Chapter 317: How Much Worse?
"That insufferable! Limp dicked! Peewee brained!..."
Sylas watched all this in silence, not interrupting at all. That would just turn the fury onto him. He liked his peace when he could get it. He had no intention of interfering at all.
"... His suit pants are wound up so tight you'd think he was wearing a thong! ..."
Sylas nodded, pulling out his water bottle treasure and taking a nice swig as he listened.
"... Not the slightest hint of a print! He's got a pussy down there and I bet his ass shaves it too!
...
Sylas reclined, pulling out a piece of meat as he continued to listen. His stomach was already rumbling despite the fact that he had eaten just half an hour ago at most.
It seemed like when he wasn't feeding his body properly, things were all fine. But the moment he started taking his nutrition more seriously, his body wanted more and more.
"... God, he's such a bitch! You know he wears colored contact lenses?! What the fuck kind of grown ass man does that?! It's months after the damned apocalypse and he still has them in stock! How many did he fucking buy?!..."
Sylas continued to nod. It took a full ten minutes for Cassarae to finish her dressing down of this professor. The funniest part about it was that she had probably only met this man once or twice before, yet she had enough material for all of this.
Eventually, she just stood there, huffing and puffing. Sylas was convinced these were the first breaths she had taken in the last several minutes.
Clearing his throat, he spoke. "Okay, so what actually happened this time?"
"Fuck you," she said with a huff of breath. "He wanted to start an absolutely idiotic plan. No, saying that isn't enough, it was practically genocidal.
"There was news that the underwater portal would appear-"
"What?"
Sylas sat up completely, the amusement in his eyes vanishing.
"What? What's wrong?" Cassarae asked. Her anger seemed to fade when she saw the seriousness in Sylas' expression as well.
"This is a problem. A big problem."
Sylas stood up. He paced around, his eyes darting back and forth.
From start to finish, Cassarae remained silent. Sylas usually only got like this when he was thinking through something very important. But the problem was that usually, he was smart enough that he didn't need to consider things for very long at all.
The fact that he was pacing so hard now and seemed to have forgotten everything else could only mean that her words had inadvertently revealed something extremely important... even more so considering his stats should technically make him smarter now than he had ever been.
"You're sure that the portal was known about ahead of time?"
"That's what mom said."
"Any more details than that?"
Cassarae shook her head. "Mom was brought to a secret meeting where it was explained. It was only after that that all the problems started. The limp dick wanted to open up yet another portal. He apparently had one on standby to an extremely hot place and wanted to disrupt the normal ecosystem.
"The problem is that that progress wouldn't be slow or gradual at all. He might as well have wanted to dump a whole bunch of toxic sewage into the ocean."
Sylas frowned. Something wasn't adding up.
Much the same way the portal beneath the ocean wasn't draining it completely in just a few days, neither could a portal to an extremely hot location change the situation instantly either.
The specific heat of water was extremely high. It would take a lot of energy to raise the temperature of a small part of it.
It was true that many fish were not good with warm waters, but this wouldn't instantly change anything either. Still, this should be why Professor Broussard wanted to take this route. When the creatures sensed the warmer waters, they would definitely leave.
'Unless I'm underestimating this... draining the ocean is one thing, but superheating a small portion of it... that would be much easier. Plus, the warmer waters would...'
Sylas' expression flickered again.
He remembered the tall waves and the raging storm. Warmer weather definitely came with more violent storms on top of everything.
Was it a coincidence?
"Stop dragging me along here, what are you thinking?" Cassarae asked.
"This Professor Broussard is a problem."
"I already know that."
Sylas shook his head. "It's worse than just his idea being stupid. He's being purposely malicious."
This time, it was Cassarae's turn to frown.
She already knew that the man was a dick. If not, things wouldn't have gone so far over just a disagreement in philosophy.
Her mother seemed docile, but when she was enraged, she was no less volatile than her father. The moment he brought up this plan, she was fiercely opposed to it.
Technically speaking, it sounded like the perfect plan. The warmer waters would cause a lot of marine life to migrate away. When they were further away, they'd be less likely to sense the fluctuations of the portals and flee further.
On top of that, the creatures that came from the hot portal would find themselves drowning at the bottom of the ocean if they ever appeared, while creatures coming from the first underwater portal would suffer the same fate.
Cassarae's mother was fiercely opposed to the plan because they had no way of knowing if the migration patterns of creatures would stay the same with the addition of Aether. Plus, in this "experiment" of finding out, a large number of marine animals would certainly die.
This wasn't just about being a bleeding heart, environmental activist. But with the supply chains of the world cut out, they had to support themselves for food. The ocean had become a key resource for them and there was still plenty of fish they could catch closer to the shores to feed what remained of their population.
If the weaker creatures that they could still easily capture suddenly died, it wouldn't just be a genocide of animals... it would also become a genocide of humans.
"How much worse?"
"As bad as you think it would be for such a trusted member of the government to be working
for a System City."
Cassarae's expression changed.