There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 412 - 404. Late Education

Chapter 412: Chapter 404. Late Education

"What are you?" Senia clutched tightly to her bottled water while staring intensely at the guide sitting on the other side of the table.

"I’m a guide," Zein only glanced at her briefly before getting back on reading the clan’s financial report he was supposed to peruse earlier.

"No, you’re not!" Senia bit her lips hard, feeling all confused and frustrated, but also in awe and fascination.

When she asked for guiding the second time, she remembered to be careful and reached out her hand slowly, even forcing herself to say please. Finally, she wasn’t getting bombarded with nauseating feelings. It didn’t necessarily feel good, although it was still faster than any guide she ever tried--including the Saintess.

She frowned, recalling a sliver of soothing sensation he felt briefly in the previous guiding. And so, by the third cleansing session, she pondered about how she should ’ask’ this time. Senia might be ignorant, but she wasn’t stupid, and she could learn from the previous event.

This time, she asked first, using ’please’ and a polite gesture. Only after the guide told her to give him her hand did she move closer, and this time, she could feel that nice, soothing feeling washing away the heavy corrosion inside her body, to the point that she let out a contented sigh without realizing it. This time, the nice guiding lasted until the end, until her corrosion went down to yellow-level again.

"That’s it," the guide said. "I have to guide my esper too."

It was then that Senia finally thought...oh Gods--this guide had been guiding her three times and he looked fine, and still going to guide a Saint-class esper...

Senia knew Luzein Ishtera was the Saint candidate, but she didn’t think the Saintess in Mago Temple took more than one cleansing each day before, and...the Saintess that she knew didn’t give her this soothing sensation during guiding.

It was truly incredulous--and that was why she blurted out the questions; What are you? This guide was truly...

"I’m a guide," the man still gave her the same answer.

"No! There’s no way you’re just a guide!"

"No," the blue eyes flicked toward her again, the piercing blue that made her shudder from getting reminded of that awful, nauseating feeling earlier. Unconsciously, Senia flinched and lowered her head. "You’re right, I’m not just a guide, because there’s nothing as just a guide."

Senia lifted her gaze and looked at the guide inquisitively with the genuine confusion of someone living in a bubble. Zein sighed and put down the document in his hand on Bassena’s lap, before crossing his arms and staring down the girl in front of him.

"You seem to think that Espers are superior beings whose position is above anyone else."

Senia frowned slightly. "Is there any reason not to think so?"

"Why? Because espers have powers?"

"Obviously," Senia shrugged; the haughty expression came back to her face. "We prevent humanity’s annihilation by clearing the dungeons. Isn’t it natural for the others to revere us?"

Ah...this esper supremacist view was so rampant in the end-zone that it had become boring for Zein. It was everything that was wrong with this world; that caused severe discrimination and inequality. Five hundred years after the apocalypse, this kind of view is still taking root in society.

No, rather...

"It’s like you’ve never read history books or something," Bassena scoffed from where he was sipping his coffee on the side.

"Why would I need to read something like that?" Senia pursed her lips.

"Because if you do, you’ll know that espers would get annihilated without guides," Bassena rolled his eyes. "Although, if you have just a bit of brain, you should have figured it out naturally."

"Are you calling me stupid?!"

"Aren’t you?" Zein tilted his head. "Can you fight if I didn’t guide you?"

Senia closed his open mouth, pressing her lips as the bottle in her hands crumpled even more.

"Can you?" Zein repeated the question.

"...no," the girl admitted. "B-but...without espers, the guides and civilians won’t be able to fight the beasts!"

"That’s a given," Zein let out an exasperated sigh. "But who told you that one side needs to be superior? Be it espers or guides, no one could survive without the other, and without the civilians running the society, the world would collapse without food or infrastructure. Hell--you won’t have that equipment you wear now, or sit in that chair, or have the water you just drank."

Senia blinked, unconsciously shifting her gaze to the crumpled bottle in her hands. She...had never thought about things like that before.

All she knew was how to get stronger, so she could escape from the environment that kept trampling her. She had to get stronger, so she wouldn’t end up as just another tool. Things like history or society didn’t help her with getting stronger, so there was no need for her to care much about it.

And guides...guides were just another tool for her, just like how regenerative serum was a tool. Besides, it was natural for guides to cleanse espers, since their survival also depended on the espers.

That being said...

For the past few weeks, as she was no longer the ’princess’ after a new ’queen’ was taking place, Celestia had changed its policy about guides, giving them more power, even voices in the executive meetings and the guild decision-making. The guides whose position was elevated, now could choose whether or not they would guide the espers that came to her.

Obviously, most of them refused her.

It was infuriating, but Senia just scoffed and went to the Temple. Without Varion’s influence, however, she had to wait like in any other place, and because the Saintess was still on probation, she only met a High Priest instead.

It wasn’t that the world started to treat her badly. It was just...normal. It was what other espers experienced; those without too much privilege, who weren’t spoiled with connection to authorities. But staying as a ’normal’ esper wasn’t cut it for Senia, who had either lived at the bottom, or the very top.

And she started to get afraid again.

Afraid that someone with more power would trample on him.

Things like they needed each other in this world might sound sweet, but...

"But...then why..."

it wasn’t the reality that she was familiar with.

"Why did those people treat me so badly before I was awakened, and just cowered in fear after I became five-stars?!" Senia bit her lips hard and clenched her fist until her knuckles turned white.

That was what the world was in her eyes; a place where people either get trampled, or do the trampling themselves.

She heard another soft sigh, and the guide asked her calmly with a voice akin to a gentle spring despite the disappointment within the blue gaze. "Are those people good or bad in your eyes?"

"Of course, they’re bad!" Senia sprung to her feet and slammed her hands to the table, the bitter memory of her childhood flooding in.

"And you want to become them? To do the same as what they did?"

Senia froze, eyes blinking slowly as the guide stared at her with not just disappointment, but also a pitiful gaze.

"If you hate them, you shouldn’t become one of them," the guide sighed and added dryly. "That’s just pathetic."

Slowly, Senia lowered herself back to her chair, eyes looking dazedly at the table. Obviously, she had never thought of these things too deeply. She had been a victim in the past, and immediately turned into the perpetrator afterward. She had never stopped to think that it was wrong, because it was the only reasonable view for her.

And no one around her--not the people who treated her like a dirty mat, nor the people who turned her into a formidable five-star esper--teach her about the right thing to do, or the right mindset to have.

Until now.

"Oh..."

And the rest of them were either too scared to say anything, or just talking shit about her instead of correcting her.

For some reason, Senia felt...warm.

It was a weird sensation. Despite being looked at with a cold gaze, she didn’t feel annoyed. The guide was essentially scolding her, and she ought to feel angry and humiliated, but...

Right. Now that she thought about it, she had never been scolded. She was beaten, yelled at in anger and mockery, slapped and stabbed when she couldn’t satisfy the instructor’s goal, but no one...no one had ever given her advice and reprimanded her with a reasonable voice.

Without realizing it, the knot in her stomach and her back was loosening a little bit. She wondered if it was just a leftover sensation from the nice guiding earlier, or...

Biting her lips in a newfound embarrassment, she lifted her gaze to look at the guide. He was beautiful and cold, but also calm and...safe. Yes, this man was harsh, but he had never looked at her with hostility.

Perhaps...what she needed wasn’t a ’King’? Perhaps...she didn’t have to be a Princess too...

"Senia Azra," the guide spoke, and Senia flinched. Her heart unconsciously beat faster at the simple fact that the man called her name. "You don’t need to be superior to live well. You just need to be able to live with other people."

Did she truly? Would people stop trampling on her if she stopped being powerful?

But then, she realized that she had no power in this place; in the Trinity compound with Bassena Vaski’s eyes on her, and a whole arsenal that Radia Mallarc could move with a snap of his fingers. And yet, there she was; her injury swiftly healed, and her corrosion immediately cleansed.

She had no power here, but she was fine.

"People could change when they leave their previous environment," the guide said again, the blue eyes seemed to be staring at a distance. "But in the new environment, you have to adapt to the new rules to survive."

Perhaps, what she needed, was a teacher. A proper one.

A guardian.

"Can you do that?"

Her fist still clenched tightly, but Senia nodded.

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