There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 278 - 271. Dealing with a God

Chapter 278: Chapter 271. Dealing with a God

"So that’s why you want to become human again?"

Lucre smiled wryly. "Is it so wrong?"

"The desire itself? Probably not," Zein said. It was more...weird, than wrong, because he knew a lot of people who wished they could live eternally like the Celestial Beings.

"So...the method?" Lucre tilted his head.

Turning his head to look at the blue eyes that were identical to him, Zein said with a stern voice. "Are you telling me I shouldn’t be pissed about you wanting to take over my body?"

Lucre blinked his eyes twice, thrice, before grimacing. "Well, if you put it like that..."

"Just to be clear, I don’t want to be your vessel," Zein said firmly, clearly, not leaving any chance. "Not even if I die and you take over my dead body."

Lucre winced slightly at the guide’s aggressive tone. "That’s harsh..."

Zein scoffed. Sure, the man truly looked like he longed for that mortal life, the ’freedom’ he wished for. But no matter how much pity he felt for this...God, essentially, it wouldn’t be enough to make him willing to let go of the autonomy of his mind and body.

And above all else, it wouldn’t be enough to make him leave his esper alone.

"Oh, fine, perhaps someday through your descendant--"

"Hey," Zein glared at the man, although he himself knew he wouldn’t be able to have a descendant. Still...

"You don’t want to be my vessel because you already have your ego, right?" Lucre continued without addressing the guide’s protest, leaning closer and asking with a slightly lower voice. "What if I descend from the womb?"

Zein narrowed his eyes. Was it because Lucre himself was still young before he received Godhood? The man felt more cheeky than solemn.

"Honestly, I don’t even know if I would have any power once I came down," Lucre pulled his torso back and confessed with a sigh as he looked at the city again. "I really just wish I could be human again, and it’ll be better if I have no recollection of my previous life."

Zein crossed his arms and lowered his gaze to contemplate things. Indeed, his biggest ick about everything regarding Setnath’s descent was because he didn’t want himself, his existence, to be erased. But if the soul itself was put in a fetus, then essentially, whether or not Setnath--or Lucre, rather--had his power and memory from his previous life, he still would live a life that was his own and not another.

"How does this thing work? Can you really willing yourself to descend when you’re still in the womb?" Zein asked after a long silence.

"Hmm...it’s just a matter of programming, really," Lucre said, which prompted Zein to squint his eyes in confusion. The man chuckled and added an explanation. "Well, rather than ’will’ myself for it, I would put a mana sequence in your body, something like a code, within this mark."

Lucre tapped on Zein’s nape, which made the guide flinched for a bit from the touch. It was cold, almost lifeless, which reminded him that everything was just a projection of consciousness. "It will be carried through your genetic code, to one of your descendants. It could be in your lifetime, or maybe way after you’re dead--I don’t even know when,"

Zein listened to the explanation keenly, but one thing just kept bugging him. "But I can’t have children," he said, in a flat tone with just a hint of regret.

A hint of regret that wasn’t there before he met Bassena.

Lucre paused for a bit before tilting his head here and there, and even closed his eyes as if he was pondering deeply. In the end though, he just shrugged. "Well, you’ll never know."

"What?"

"Let’s just say I’ll risk it," the man laughed and looked at Zein with the gaze of a salesperson trying to rope a deal. "So? How is it?"

* * *

Zein slowly opened his eyes, instinctively reached up to rub the mark on the back of his neck. It still felt tingly from where Lucre touched him earlier, and he could sense that the mark had an additional rune inside those intertwined circles.

He took a deep breath and sighed, looking up at the shining fragment nestling comfortably in the tree. Slowly, he tried to move his body, and aside from a slight stiffness, he didn’t feel as exhausted as usual.

Huh--seemed like it was true that he needed a medium.

Zein turned his head and found the Medium there, looking at him in clear amusement.

"What?"

The Medium smiled, a bit cheekier than usual. "Please wait a bit," she said, and Zein belatedly realized that the pale blue eyes weren’t glowing.

The Medium stood still and closed her eyes, putting her intertwined hands in front of her chest. While waiting for the Goddess to descend, Zein stood up and brushed the grass from his knees, looking around the Sky Garden. Elena and the Saintess were no longer there, and the falcon, curiously, had come down and perched on a light post near there, looking at him keenly. So he stared back at it.

[Oh, you’re finally done?] the echoing voice greeted Zein when he was in the middle of a staring contest with the falcon. Zein turned around and raised his brow, finally asking what he always inquired about after touching the fragment.

"How long was I..."

[Around three days]

Zein blinked and parted his lips. "That long?" he couldn’t help but exclaim. Perhaps because he didn’t feel tired, not he felt like someone who had just spent three days without doing anything. Sure, he felt a bit stiff, but other than that...

He looked down at his clothes; uniform, coat, and everything. It still looked pristine without stinking. He didn’t even feel hungry; perhaps just a bit thirsty. "Are you sure?" he tilted his head.

[I had a feeling you would take a lot of time, so I suspended your body] the Goddess shrugged.

"Suspended..."

So it was like his ’time’ had stopped? The time around him was going as usual, but his body was frozen in time; no organs or even cells working, which was why he didn’t feel hungry, nor his body was sweating and needing the bathroom.

How convenient.

[Do you have a nice chat with him?]

"I met Lucre," again, Zein rubbed the mark on his nape. It had stopped tingling, but he was reminded of the ’code’ being carved there.

[Who?]

The guide stared at the Goddess with deadpan eyes, and only after a few seconds had passed in silence did she clap her hands. [Ah! His human life!]

Suddenly, remembering Lucre’s story, Zein narrowed his eyes and stared hard at the glowing eyes. "Were you also the one who established the tournament?"

[...] the Goddess blinked, her glowing eyes seemed to try recalling a memory from a long, long time ago. [I...did not participate] she answered finally.

"But you knew about it?"

[Yes] she smiled; the dry, emotionless smile of a deity whose life was so detached from the mortals. [I was the one who told him how to attain Godhood]

...huh. So there was a reason why Frejya seemed to have a big attachment to Lucretia and her descendants; including him. "What about the Snake Bearer?"

[Opiuchus? Hmm...] the Goddess looked up and tapped her chin in contemplation. [Maybe? I have no relation to him, but Setnath befriended quite a few of us...]

And then, the glowing eyes shifted and focused on Zein, narrowing slightly. [Did you talk to him too?]

"Yes," the guide nodded. But he recalled that God never talked about Frejya, so it seemed like they really weren’t related, despite being the same Celestial Beings.

[W-where?]

For some reason, the Goddess seemed to be flustered--or was that annoyance? "In the Tower, of course."

[...] again, the Goddess stopped, and this time, she seemed to stare blankly into the empty air, before cursing under her breath. [And he didn’t tell me?! That f--]

She pressed her lips and closed his eyes in palpable annoyance, clenching her fist so hard that Zein couldn’t help but become worried about the Medium. But she did a breathing exercise a few times before exhaling long and opening her eyes again in her usual calm and collected manner.

And it might be his imagination, but Zein had a feeling the falcon scoffed and threw its face away.

[Huu...pardon me for that] the Goddess smiled sweetly again, as if the earlier outburst was a lie. Well, Zein didn’t mind that; he preferred it that way, making them feel less...detached.

"Is there anything happening during these three days?" Zein asked, glancing at the commlink in his wrist which had lost its power. It seemed that although the Goddess had suspended his body, the device attached to him wasn’t included.

Not that it had any use here anyway. Elena told him that the commlink did work in a special room, however, so that the Temple wouldn’t be truly isolated from the outside world.

...should he ask for permission to use the room? Had he known about that before he met Elena, he would have used it to inquire about things in Althrea.

Wait...three days...

He swiftly looked up to the Goddess, but the pale blue eyes were no longer glowing, to his surprise. Did the Goddess just...run away?

"Umm..." the Medium opened her mouth and spoke slowly with a sheepish smile. "Lady Frejya said...’please control him’...?"

And right after that, before Zein could even react to her, the door opened and he heard the high-pitched voice that belonged to Elena. "Mister! Mister!!" she jumped at the entrance in panic, the white rabbit Cloudy in her embrace. "I think you need to come down!"

Without even needing to ask what was going on, Zein had already found the answer from the blast of mana he felt the moment the door opened.

A very familiar mana. A very familiar mana filled with anger and fear.

And darkness.

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