There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 230 - 223. Night of Sparkling Lights (1)

Chapter 230: Chapter 223. Night of Sparkling Lights (1)

"You really pierced your ear?" Rina parted her lips, looking even more excited than Bassena, who technically owned the earring that was placed there.

Instead, Bassena kept staring at his hand and looked as if he was traumatized. Not that things went wrong--in fact, it was done superbly that Zein didn’t even feel pain except for the initial sting. Since it was done by pure magic energy, there was no risk of infection, and the wound healed fast. It only stayed red for an hour, and Zein already put on the earring when Radia and Rina came back from the emergency meeting.

Bassena, however, swore to never inflict any harm on Zein’s body again, ever. He only pierced the guide’s ear, by request, and he was horrified.

The Serpent Lord, who had no qualm smacking other espers in friendly training.

While Bassena still had a mental breakdown of ’hurting’ Zein, Rina held her commlink and, with sparkling eyes, begged the guide. "Please please please, let me take a picture!"

"Why?"

"Just because!"

Zein stared at the widely smiling tanker and turned his face away. "No," he said.

"Aww, come on!" Rina stomped her feet like a child about to throw a tantrum.

"We’ll have a picture later anyway," Zein gave her a reason.

The banquet of New Year’s Eve functioned as the peak of the annual gathering, the closing ceremony. There would be tons of journalists, and since it was a party, Zein was told there would be pictures to be taken.

"But you always refused those!" Rina pursed her lips, and Zein kind of thought that perhaps Dheera had rubbed too much on her--perhaps because the girl was a guide for Rina’s squad. "And I want to have a personal picture, personal!’

Zein shook his head and sighed in resignation. He was truly getting soft. "Later, before the banquet."

"That’s a promise!" Rina pointed at him before walking away with a giggle, back to the girls’ villa.

Again, Zein sighed and took a seat on the couch where Radia was smoking his golden needle. While patting the dazed Bassena, he asked the Guildmaster for an update.

"So, what did they tell you?"

"Nothing we don’t know already," Radia shrugged. "There’s nothing they can get from the interrogation, and they still trying to figure out what group are those people belonged to."

"They are that loyal?" Zein raised his brow.

Radia smirked. "That’s how these people usually are; cult and such. Thanks to you finding the exploding formation, we can rule out simple robbery from the equation."

Zein leaned back and closed his eyes, although his hand still move to caress the platinum hair. Cult...it reminded him of the Templar of Arms Master. Sure, it turned out that they weren’t actually a cult, but the loyalty that those people showed, the dedication, it was almost eerie and burdensome.

And that was only a loyalty toward someone; their Savior.

What level of loyalty would those people who came from a real cult with real faith show?

"This is my first time knowing there are people who prefer the world to be covered in darkness and death," Zein opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. He, who had been tasting the brilliance of the blue sky for months now, could not fathom wanting to be enveloped in those sinister gloom where death whispered from every corner.

How many people had wanted to escape that kind of place? Had they ever tried living within those suffocating pressure and blinding darkness? What kind of mindset one would have to be in, to desire such a thing?

Perhaps that was why he never knew such a group existed. People who had been living in the red-zone or the borderland wouldn’t want to be a part of such a group. Even the rogue guilds that became the king of the red-zone, would prefer to live in a place where they could drink alcohol and eat good meals lavishly. Things they would never be able to enjoy if everything turned into a Deathzone.

Leaning close to the hand caressing his head, Bassena looked at Radia with narrowed eyes. "But we’ll still investigate this on our own, right?"

"Of course," Radia scoffed, stating that Bassena was mentioning something so obvious. "We can’t interrogate those people ourselves, but there are still ways of tracing their movement once we found out their individual identity."

"Whether it’d a cult or a group or even a guild, it’s weird that they knew where the outbreak would be..." Bassena said again, before tilting his head to look at the Guildmaster better. "You have some theories, at least, aren’t you?"

"Hmm..."

Radia didn’t answer right away. He took his time to finish the golden needle, fingers tapping on the armrest. The summoned secretary, the one called Nyx, brought him a drink and a tablet containing a report--and only then did he speak.

"Do you know how many dungeon anomalies there are since that black gate incident?"

Bassena, who was about to lay his head on Zein’s shoulder, paused and straightened his back. "No, but I assume it’s a lot?"

"The exact number does not matter," Radia said before he took his drink while looking at the report. "What you need to know is that it’s increasing. And with that trend, I would not put my faith in a recorded number."

"Ah..." Zein, after thirteen years working in the red-zone, knew what Radia was talking about. "The rogue guilds."

Radia smiled deeply as he continued. "As much as the government and association tried to regulate dungeons, there’s a limitation on detecting them. Unless it happened in or near residential areas, dungeons’ manifestation could easily be overlooked. In that case, we relied on a report from civilian witnesses, satellite photographs, or military patrols."

"Unless they are found first by rogue groups," Bassena added.

"That’s right," Radia nodded as he swept the screen in front of him. "Dungeons that were found by rogue groups would not be recorded in the association’s database, so any kind of anomaly would miss our radar."

"And you think...the anomalies have something to do with this?" asked Zein.

Radia snapped his fingers to affirm the conclusion. "Remember your black gate incident? We established that the force of the Deathzone had the ability to connect the dungeon here with the Deathzone," the crimson eyes lifted with a sharp glint. "Whose to say that it never happened elsewhere?"

Zein blinked and turned his head to stare blankly at the table. They theorized that the force of the Deathzone had him as a target, but that was just their conjecture. While it might still hold true, there was no guarantee they didn’t have other motives.

"As long as the dungeon was cleared, no one might know there was an anomaly happening," Radia continued his deliberation. "Now picture this: a group was being brought to the Deathzone through this dungeon, and instead of fighting, they ended up...let’s say, cooperating."

Zein bit his cheek, recalling the image he saw through the Specter’s core. The massive march, the sign of organization. For all they knew, there was a being with high intelligence there.

"Cooperation, subjugation, we had no idea," Radia shook his head. "But there could be connections. The Deathzone force spared them by forging this connection, and...well, we might glimpse at the result yesterday."

Bassena glanced at the rather pale guide. Zein had told him what happened when the guide touched the Specter’s core, and now, it might trigger a lot of unwanted memories. He grabbed the guide’s hand, and he could feel the cold palm.

It wasn’t long though--whether Bassena’s warm hand or the earring’s effect, Zein grew calmer fast. He turned his gaze back to Radia. "So, are you going to look for those rogue guilds?"

"Seems faster than hoping for successful interrogation," Radia shrugged. He downed his drink and stood up, handing the tablet over to his secretary. "I’ll see you before the banquet."

When Radia left the suite, Zein let out a long sigh and closed his eyes again. One after another, it felt like the force in the Deathzone grew stronger and sneakier, and it pissed him off that they still had no confirmation of going.

"We’re close," Bassena whispered, and as Zein opened his eyes, he could see the pair of warm ambers.

Laughing silently, Zein reached up and scratched the esper’s jaw, leaning into the sturdy chest. It always fascinated him how much Bassena understood what was happening inside his head most of the time.

"Do we really have to go to that banquet?" Zein felt lazy all of a sudden.

"...yes," the reply came a bit hesitant, but the tone was firm. "Well, we don’t have to be in the banquet for long. Just go there, greet some people, be photographed a little, and we can hide somewhere until midnight."

"Hide somewhere?" Zein shifted around, looking at the esper with an arched brow. "We’re not going back to the hotel?"

"It’s a New Year’s Eve," Bassena shrugged. "They have fireworks at midnight. Radia might slip away, but I reckon the girls would want to see that."

Zein blinked, the light in the blue eyes came back for a little bit as he muttered. "Fireworks..."

"I don’t know if they can make it as good as the one in Althrea or Rexon, but since it’s a big event, it’s worth looking forward to," the esper grinned.

It was nice seeing Zein looking interested like this. Like the time when they talked about going to the sea. He grabbed the guide’s arm and pulled Zein to his feet as h stood up.

"Let’s get ready," he said. "Just think of it as eating good food and waiting for nice entertainment."

"What are you going to do if the food is not good and the entertainment is not nice?" Zein raised his brow in challenge.

"Well..." with a smirk, Bassena stepped forward and pressed his lips on the shell of the guide’s ear. "I just need to make sure you got them both later...and more."

"More?" Zein grabbed the esper’s shirt and pushed the man toward the bathroom.

Chuckling lowly, Bassena answered with a sultry whisper. "More."

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