There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 349 - 341. Secretive Relic

Chapter 349: Chapter 341. Secretive Relic

Radia opened his fist, staring at his palm with eyes blurred by tears.

There was a small, rectangular item there. He brought it closer to his eyes for inspection, and found that there was nothing on its plain black surface. There was a thin line across in the middle, which seemed like an opening, and he pulled on it.

"What..." Radia frowned, the agony in his heart was now replaced with confusion and curiosity. "This is...a flash drive?"

For a minute, Radia was just sitting there, on the floor, motionless, staring blankly at the ’gift’ Han Joon had just given him. An ancient item used in the Old Age. He recalled it was remade and gained traction a few decades ago, in his father’s generation.

People used it to store data they didn’t want to save in their commlink, things they didn’t want to spread from accidentally connecting it to the interlink. But it gained temporary popularity from couples using it to exchange secret love letters.

That being said, using it required someone to have the port to read the data inside, and not anyone had that kind of thing lying around their house. Adding to that the limited memory capacity. So the trend dwindled and the item became a rarity; a forgotten relic, even.

So the question now was...why did Han Joon give this to him?

Radia looked at the flash drive for ten seconds more, before standing up and snatching his coat. He met the mansion’s butler in the hallway, who widened his eyes at the bloodstain on Radia’s dress shirt.

"Y-Young Master?"

"I’m going out," Radia told the old man briefly. "I’ll drive by myself, so tell the chauffeur to take the black one out."

"But where are you going, Young Master? Aren’t Master Calix and Madam Laurel on their way here?"

Radia took a deep breath and stopped to turn toward the butler, forcing a smile to appear on his lips. "Yes, so wait for their arrival. I won’t be long...hopefully."

Ignoring the flabbergasted old man, Radia walked down the stairs toward the garage. By the time he arrived, the chauffeur was already waiting for him with a readied car.

"Thank you, Herman," Radia nodded at the chauffeur. "Please get ready to pick my parents up."

"Be careful on your way, Young Master."

Radia gripped the car’s door hard when he heard that. Like a douse of cold water, the words prompted him to stop and take a deep breath before entering the car.

Yeah, he needed to be careful. Let’s not drive hastily. A few minutes faster wouldn’t make any difference.

Only after telling himself that did he finally start to drive his car away, just a few minutes after midnight. He put the destination into the navigation system and fell into a deep ponder.

There were only two reasons he could think of why Han Joon would give him a flash drive. Just like what he had been leaving to Han Shin, it could be a trace; a hint of what he had been doing and where he would be next. But...it could also be a will.

Radia looked at his hand. The blood had dried, staining his skin. The pale face, the haggard look, the dark eyes...Joon did not look okay. The man had always managed to look fine in every condition; he had been trained to not even wince while being whipped since he was a child. What kind of thing did he have to face for him to look like that?

What scared Radia the most was when it was both a trace and a will—that Joon felt whatever he fought now might get to him and wished someone would take his place after he passed.

Radia gripped the steering wheel hard to steady his breathing. Calm, calm down—he exercised his breath while chanting what Joon said to him. Soon. Be patient.

Soon. When is ’soon’? What is soon? Soon everything would be over and he’d be back? In what shape, though? Would he be back on his legs, or in a bodybag?

"Haa...this is not working," Radia bit his lips. In the end, the only way he could stop thinking too much was by looking into the flash drive.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have any readers in the mansion. But he also didn’t think just any reader could open the item. Knowing Joon, the data would be under several layers of protection. He needed someone specialized in cracking this kind of thing.

And he knew he would never be able to sleep before knowing what was in there.

It took about twenty minutes to arrive at his destination, and by that time, he managed to get calm enough to button his coat, cover his bloodstained shirt, and clean his hand. Hiding the red hair beneath a cap, he got out of the car and entered the building that looked like any rundown shop.

The door of the shop had no visible lock, but the handle had a fingerprint recognition that would lock itself if it didn’t read the registered identification. The door opened with the bearest sound, to a dusty-looking dungeon material shop. There was no one in the shop, but Radia walked to the back of the room without hesitation, heading to the door that read as a ’break room’.

Obviously, it wasn’t a break room. The peephole scanned his eyes and, after a few seconds, the door clicked open. This time, the room behind it did look like a break room, with a pantry, a small kitchen, and shelf upon shelf of food. The almost full big trash can in the corner of the room told him the owner of the place hadn’t left the room for a while.

Radia walked through the neat dining table toward one of the two doors; this time, it didn’t have any elaborate lock. But unlike the other room, this one was a bit messier, with cables running around between screens on the ground, connecting them into one seemingly unified entity.

"You don’t even tell me before coming, now?" a woman was lying between the screen, peeking her eyes beneath a pair of googles.

"It’s an emergency," Radia replied simply, taking off his cap.

The woman raised her brow, and her upper body while at it. "What? You need me to scour the dark web again?"

"No," Radia threw the black flash drive at the woman, who deftly caught it. "I need you to open it, Masa."

The woman, Masa, who was known more as the Link Infiltrator, widened her eyes at the flash drive in her palm. "This is military issued," she frowned before flicking his gaze upward, finally catching the grim inside the crimson gaze.

And she knew enough not to question it too much, immediately pulling a multi-reader hub from a drawer, connecting it to a lone computer that she did not plug into the interlink. Before she plugged the flash drive, however, she pulled out a set of tools and started dismantling the item’s black cover.

"I don’t think you’ll give me a compromised item, but I’ll check for any tracker first."

"I don’t think there is one, but go ahead."

Of course, Radia couldn’t know for sure. But he didn’t think the military would fail to find Han Joon if the man hadn’t gotten rid of any tracker placed on him. It was probably a whole reason why his commlink was dead, and he had to wear an artifact instead.

It didn’t take long for Masa to check on the flash drive and finally plugged the item after finding out it was clean. Again, the first thing she did was check for any infiltrators and corrupting programs inside.

"This part is also clear," she said, before running the file and met with a wall. "It’s a fourteen-character password, have any idea?"

"Numbers?"

"Numbers and letters," Masa touched the hub and mana flew in her eyes and fingers, finding a clue they could use. "Two numbers-nine letters-three numbers—in that order."

They paused for a few seconds, until Masa snapped her fingers. "Dates?"

Radia stared at the empty dashes on the screen. "Zero-six-september-552."

Masa raised her brows, but entered what Radia told her anyway. "Oh, it works!" she exclaimed, only to roll her eyes as the system hit another wall. "There’s more; two numbers-three letters-three numbers...huh, this must be m-a-y, right?"

"...twenty-two, 562."

Without hesitation, Masa put the sequence inside, and it was another match as before. "Oh, spot on! This will take hours for me to crack it the usual way," she whistled as they met another wall. "Alright, I think this is the last one. There are six letters this time, so...it should be a-u-g-u-s-t."

She looked at Radia, waiting for the rest, and saw the summoner holding his trembling hands white uttering the numbers. "Eighteen. 565."

With a crisp sound of affirmation, the flash drive finally opened itself for them, bearing a single encrypted file inside. While Masa clicked on the file, Radia could no longer hold himself and crouched down, holding his head and gasping silently to try and keep himself breathing.

September 6th, 552 NA. The day Han Shin was born. The day the mother and sister died. The day Han Joon and Radia met for the first time.

May 22nd, 562 NA. The day they had their first kiss. The day they claimed each other.

August 18th, 565 NA. The day Radia slashed Joon’s neck. The day everything crumbled.

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