There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 333 - 325. The Price for Loyalty

Chapter 333: Chapter 325. The Price for Loyalty

To be exact, it wasn’t about the shadow guard, but something similar. Zein told the summoner about what Senan asked of him last night; something that he kept thinking about the whole day.

"The Iron Shield, huh..." Radia rubbed his lips. "They asked to be your brigade?"

"I don’t even know what a brigade means, what they are for," Zein shook his head. But he remembered the envious gaze Senan had at his bodyguard, as well as their pledge to follow and protect him. "When the old man told me about it, all I could think about was the shadow guards you put on me."

Zein paused for a bit. All this time, he had always called them shadow guards, because that was what they were doing; guarding him from the shadow. Radia too, simply called them back in front of him. But he knew those people did more than just guarding, especially after seeing how they were handling the aftermath of the attack this morning. They did clean-up, they investigated, they moved and dis everything Radia--or probably the Mallarc--asked for.

As if reading Zein’s mind, Radia replied without missing a beat. "I can’t tell you their name--the name of their...let’s say ’brigade’," he smiled teasingly. "They are a group of people that my House had been cultivated from the start, contracted to live in the shadow of the sentinel community."

"Shadow..."

Radia called his secretary for some water to soothe his parched throat before continuing. "Their job is solely to do what we told them to do--just like regular employees, basically; only with more hazard risk and a strict non-disclosure agreement," Radia smiled. "They are active espers, but not actively going into dungeons. They will never put their name out there, and only a select few can show their face, like your bodyguard. If you want to simplify it, though..."

Radia tapped on his lips, looking out of the window with a deep smile on his lips. "They are formed to be our dirty hands."

The crimson eyes could see how the guide stiffened. "It’s something that every Old House had, although each has a different way of cultivating it. For example, contracting a smaller clan,"

"Like Golden Viper?"

Radia smiled and nodded. "There’s a House that recruits orphans and develops them to be the House’s loyal vassals, or, like the House of Ishtera, it was a vassal house that had been formed organically ever since the House itself came into existence."

"Wait--so you’re saying that the Iron Shield...the Kovacs, is already something like your shadow guard to the House of Ishtera?" Zein raised his brow, the hardened look in his eyes dissipating gradually. The concept of doing ’dirty work’ put that practice in a negative light, but when he thought about it, the hands only got as dirty as the mind that moved them.

"Well, weren’t they constantly looking for their young master all those times?" Radia smiled at the slightly widening blue eyes.

Zein fell into a contemplative state, and Radia watched the blue eyes go deep and conflicted.

"Do you know what the biggest difference is between supporting vassals that exist organically and groups that are made to obey?" Radia asked.

It seemed like a question that Radia would answer by himself, but after half a minute of silence, Zein realized the summoner waited sincerely for him to come up with an answer. So he leaned back and crossed his arms to ponder about the matter.

He didn’t need to think for long, however, since the difference was there already in what Radia said before; one group was akin to employees, and the other one had persistently looking for an unknown young master for decades.

"Loyalty?"

Zein had been thinking about it all this time; the Kovacs were such loyal people. Even Arlo, who had no heart in the business of the Templar of Arms Master, kept calling him ’Young Master’. And the fact that they still wanted to work under him even after he dismissed them to pursue what they wanted...

"Not entirely false, but all the Houses’ hands had loyalty to some extent," Radia smiled, before patting a stack of paper on his desk. "The difference is, with vassals like the Kovacs, you don’t have to buy their loyalty."

Zein blinked, and Radia continued, glancing at his summons. "The shadow guards are paid employees, and even my summons...I paid them with my mana," he said, to which the summons reacted by lowering their head. "If I ran out of mana, or stopped paying the employee, they might just go away."

"That’s..."

"Some of them might be loyal enough to continue working without that payment, but I wouldn’t be too sure of that. After all, our relationship is made through contract," Radia snapped his fingers, and the summons--except for Nyx--disappeared slowly. "But," the crimson eyes curled while looking at Zein, "the Iron Shield doesn’t have that kind of contract with the House of Ishtera."

"The company..."

"There’s no one pressuring them to keep honoring that agreement they made with your grandfather, and no one will judge them for it, since no one knows," Radia shrugged. "Yet they still looked for you, despite not succeeding. They never touched your inheritance, and by what you’re telling me, they still want to serve you even after you left them."

Zein frowned slightly, unconsciously clenching his jaw. ’Leaving’ them felt like such a cruel and accusatory phrase, but Zein could not refute the truth. He was the one who said he didn’t want to have anything to do with the Templar of Arms Master.

Sure, he was still maintaining their relationship by helping Arlo, employing Lisa, and pointing Senan as the overseer of the construction. But it was like...making a contract with an employee, if he could borrow the words.

"That kind of loyalty..." Radia chuckled. "It’s something coveted by all Houses."

It wasn’t something that naturally happened. The loyalty the Kovacs had for the House of Ishtera stemmed from their lifelong bond as comrades in arms through the difficulty of surviving the Apocalypse. And again, it was forged through the betrayal of others. While they could say the same with the other Old Houses vassals, there was something those clans didn’t have; a central figure.

The House of Ishtera, and the loyalty of the Kovacs stemmed from one root; the Savior, Lucretia. And now, that loyalty was passed down to her last descendant.

"I’m an opportunistic person, so I would have made them my personal squad a long time ago if I had those kind of loyal people," Radia chuckled. "Since I know people with that kind of loyalty won’t betray me."

Zein narrowed his eyes at the smirk on the summoner’s face. Not because he thought Radia was being horrible, but because he knew it was natural for people to think that. Zein just thought it was unnecessary for him, who preferred to be alone.

But was it the truth?

He had changed. He wasn’t alone anymore, and he was no longer thinking he should be alone. If he thought about it, his rejection came from the prejudice he had against the Templars of Arms Master, and later, because he wasn’t keen on the thought of subjecting others. Not to mention, he wasn’t ready for the whole being patriarch thing and Old House stuff; he took the name mainly so he could disband the clan.

But he had stepped into the world more; the world that kept getting bigger and bigger, and forced him to broaden his horizon. He had more people he cared about, more places he wanted to protect. Even now, he could see he was no longer seeing the clan thing as something...burdensome, complicated, or negative.

"Can you give me some concrete advice?" Zein asked with a sigh as his heart and mind did their own battle.

Radia laughed and, easily, as if he had prepared the answer for a long time, threw a question. "Didn’t you say you want the members of the Templar to do whatever they want?"

"Yeah, so..." Zein paused, blinking as Radia curled his lips.

"Is it not their wish to follow you? To protect you?" Radia smiled. "If that’s what they want, I don’t see any problem with granting it."

Zein sat there blankly for quite some time, and Radia let the guide deep in his mind while he took care of more work regarding the production of the advanced purification device they would bring to the Deathzone. There was also the agreement he had to contemplate involving mercenary groups the guild contracted, and the cooperation proposal he had to revise before sending it to the borderland.

Anything to make him busy.

When he re-summoned the secretaries he dismissed earlier, Zein’s commlink beeped like an alarm--or a signal. It was a text from Bassena telling the guide that Senan was about to go out with Arlo, and that the old man wanted to bid him farewell.

Zein did not move right away, closing his eyes for a bit. When he opened them, Radia saw a new conviction, and, as the guide stood up, he remarked.

"Tell me if you want to pull out the guards I plant on you."