There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 246 - 239. A Brother Instinct

Chapter 246: Chapter 239. A Brother Instinct

"This is fun," Rina looked at the Arena with a big smile and bright eyes. Now that the applicants stopped looking at them, she could stop pretending to be chic.

"Should have done this from the start," Ashur nodded in agreement.

It was different from watching their members train or dueling; there was a certain energy inside a competition with strangers, going all out when you weren’t with anyone you knew. The intensity to prove you were the best oftentimes either brought out the best or the worst in someone.

And the staff made sure each batch consisted of people from different backgrounds who were most likely did not know each other. Different academies, different hometowns, different Tower’s trial periods.

"How did you conduct a practical assessment before this?" Zein asked suddenly. Again, he was never involved in this kind of assessment before. Not even in the Borderland.

"They performed their skills individually in front of us," Bassena replied.

"Like...a showcase?"

"Yeah," Bassena glanced at the guide and chuckled at the unamused expression in Zein’s eyes. "Yeah, I know it’s lame."

"No," Zein replied dryly. "Just boring."

This time, the laughter came from the rest of the Captains, even Ashur. Sierra, the Captain of [Berkana] who was usually timid around Bassena and Zein, also giggled behind Rina.

"This is nice because we can glimpse at their personality too," Bassena said.

"Yeah, don’t one another one with a temperament like you, Commander," Rina snickered, and awarded with a flick on her forehead. "Ouch--Zein, control your man, please!"

The guide glanced at her pleading gaze briefly, before replying with a shrug. "You’re asking the wrong person for that."

"Just so you know, I’m totally adorable," Bassena smirked smugly at her. It was good that the Arena was totally isolated from outside sound because those young espers would probably lose their concentration if they listened to the assessor’s chatters.

"Ugh--disgusting," Rina twisted her lips and decided to just focus on watching the Arena. They could look at the performance later through the recording, but sometimes, cameras couldn’t catch the vigor these young sprouts showed. "Sierra, you should watch them keenly. Most of the new recruits would be put in [Berkana]."

"Yes, Ma’am," the sharpshooter nodded.

"Anyone catches your eyes yet?"

Sierra actually had never looked away from the Arena once, even while engaging in conversation. It was her trait as a sharpshooter to keep her eyes on things, and her sharp vision immediately found people she thought worth mentioning.

"Number 13," she said, narrowing her eyes for a bit as the applicant shoot a mana arrow toward the beast coming from above while jumping to another pillar.

Her assessment was met with approving comments. "Yeah, he’s pretty good, quite dynamic," Ashur said in agreement. "He can be put in several squads."

"The one who did not avert his gaze from us earlier? Yeah," Ulysses, the Captain for [Ehwaz] who always prioritized agility, chimed in. "Doesn’t have big firepower like number 8, but he’s agile and speedy. Very efficient."

"He’d been using his mana as weapons a lot, so I was kind of interested in him too," Florence, the magician, smiled.

"Looking at his reaction speed and awareness, he seemed to be good in unexpected situations too,"

Rina, whose squad was geared toward defense, wasn’t really interested, but she checked the applicant’s portfolio nonetheless. "Huh, a complete rookie; two trials within a year--not bad..." she was quite impressed while reading the form. "He was home-schooled? Whew--his teachers must have been veterans."

"Veterans, huh?" Bassena smirked. "That might be so. Lots of real-life experiences, at the very least."

Bassena’s remark sparked another bout of discussion. "I had been saying this for years, but an academy’s teacher should be an active esper! How could they teach espers how to raid dungeons if they haven’t been doing it for years--or even decades! Things change!" Ulysses clicked his tongue.

"It’ll be good if guilds are allowed to establish academies on their own," Ashur frowned. "Or at least, academies should affiliate themselves with guilds and have the members serve as teachers."

Florence sighed while diligently making notes about a few applicants that caught her eyes--good or bad. "They reasoned it’ll only become guild’s grooming pen."

"Nah--they’re afraid no one would want to come to the government then," Rina smirked. "Let’s stop this depressing topic--oh, that number 13 sure is feisty," she laughed when the young esper in question ducked to avoid a flying dagger from another applicant and threw non-threatening mana dust toward the perpetrator’s eyes.

"That’s a penalty."

Before Zein’s cold voice even came to an end, Bassena had already flicked his finger and a binding darkness coiled around the perpetrator’s legs, throwing the man outside of the Arena to be detained by the other staff. The man screamed his hand just slipped, but the staff coldly took him away.

The guide narrowed his eye and the frigidity surrounding him was enough to make even the other espers inching away in surprise. Bassena gently patted and massaged the guide’s tensed shoulder, who was finally breathing normally after number 13 just continued the test, unbothered.

"He’s tougher than I thought," Bassena whispered with slight laughter to ease the guide’s tension.

"He’s still just a kid," Zein frowned nonetheless. "Getting backstabbed is too much."

"Technically, they’re not really allies," Bassena reasoned, which was replied by the sound of Zein’s gritted teeth.

Just as Bassena thought--even if Zein pretended otherwise, his big brother instinct always kicked in every time he saw people around the twins’ age. Especially those he personally knew; from a pitiful guide, the chicks he’d been nurtured with his own two strict hands, or even a boy who used to antagonize him.

"Anyway, he’s good," Bassena commented with a shrug. He was skeptical at first, perhaps rather prejudiced from how rude the boy was before, but he got to admit, a family with a long tradition sure had its merit. Especially a family specializing in protecting something. Seemed like the boy’s confidence wasn’t without reason after all. "I don’t mind passing number 13."

"Amen," Rina chimed in with an intrigued smile. He concluded that the two must know number 13 personally, based on Zein’s reaction.

But well, everyone was also in agreement about number 13, so there was no need for privilege play here. Not to mention, Zein would never do something against his integrity.

That being said, trying to harm the kid for whatever reason was a bad--no, disastrous move. Rina wasn’t sure that it would end simply like this. That esper who was being escorted out had stepped in the worst minefield ever; angering Zein.

And angering Zein meant upsetting Bassena Vaski.

I hope you have had a good life before, boy--Rina prayed genuinely with intertwined fingers.

"We’ll see if the guides are also in agreement," Abel, who had been quiet because he had been watching the guides instead of the espers, said with a chuckle. The guides were also separated from them with a barrier, so they couldn’t hear their conversation.

"You think they’ll be able to?"

At Ulysses’ skeptical question, Abel shrugged. "This batch has a pretty clear contender, so if they fail to name the ones who contribute the most..." he made a slashing gesture. "Might as well kick them out."

"Rather than the person, the reasoning is more important," Zein added.

Florence tapped on her chin as she looked back and forth between the esper applicants and the guide applicants. "Actually, what should be the right priority for guiding?"

"Contribution," Zein answered briefly, but when the other espers looked at him with attention, he explained more. "Whatever the positions are, those with the most contribution should receive priority guiding. The pivotal people within the group who will most likely ensure the group’s survival."

"The leader, the strategist, the efficient attacker, the aggroing tanker--usually those four," Abel added.

"If a guide in an active field prioritizes guiding based on corruption level, the group will most likely collapse," Zein said grimly. "A lot of raids turned disastrous because some people act inefficiently and pile up corrosion responsibly. The precious capacity of the guide ended up being used to prevent those people from maxing out instead, putting the burden on the guide and the contributors that actually matter."

"What--then we just let the inefficient one erupt or something?" Ulysses tilted his head.

The blue eyes’ gaze shifted toward him, piercing cold like a pair of icicles. "It’s the squad leader’s job to pull out that kind of members before they caused further harm."

Bassena and Rina chuckled as Ulysses coughed awkwardly, averting his eyes from the guide with a sheepish grin.

"Anyway, we don’t expect these guides to make proper, on-point analysis," Abel smiled amiably, putting them in peace once again. "We just want to see some common sense."

"What if they write ’I’ll prioritize A because they’re hot’ or something like that?" Rina giggled.

"Pretty good common sense, not gonna lie," Ulysses, who had regained his wit, said with a shrug, which received a light-hearted laugh this time.

"There’s something I’ve been wondering," Zein tapped on the railing after the laughter died down, looking at the other guild members.

"What?" Bassena tilted his head.

In a genuinely intrigued tone, Zein asked; "Do you really accept people based on their looks?"

There was a few seconds of silence, before the laughter broke out again with the siren signaling the end of the first batch’s assessment.