There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 503 - 496. Spoil of War

Chapter 503: Chapter 496. Spoil of War

"Captain!"

"Stop," Zein raised his palm, prompting the guides to freeze in their place. "I have no energy right now, so you have to do it gently."

Only then did he spread his arms and let the guides hug him. He had to explain to them that he was fine and merely tired from destroying the fragment. After making sure everyone was alright, he gave them the impending work of guiding those who were fighting earlier, including the ones from Anzus since he couldn’t afford to guide anyone at that time.

When he went to the outside command tent, which was in front of the armory instead of the stadium, he passed through the team that was in the middle of extracting the dead worm’s mucus to be used on their stone wall outside the safe zone.

...which seemed to no longer be safe anymore.

"...they’re pretty clever," Zein heard Bassena’s voice the moment he entered the command room. "They targeted the border between two purification devices’ range where it’s the weakest."

"Like a red-zone?" Zein commented as he took a seat on the couch where Han Shin was covering his ears and eyes with a pillow while muttering I didn’t see it, I didn’t see it...

Bassena nodded. "I have no idea if they planned it precisely, or if the Stone Eater just went by instinct."

"It was going around outside the chamber when we arrived, so maybe the worm was looking for a weak link?" Kei suggested.

"Perhaps," Bassena shrugged, crossing his arms as he watched the recording of the fight he didn’t partake in. "The question now is what to do with this passage--no; what to do with the whole system."

"Should we create a team of scouts to map the place?" Kei tapped on her lips in contemplation. It would be a hard work, and a complicated one. But honestly, finding a new place to explore was pretty thrilling. "We can just map the one connected to the main passage we took, and sealed the rest."

"Wouldn’t that make our force quite thin?" Ashur frowned slightly.

Bassena closed his eyes and held his sigh. It didn’t seem so before, but this time, they realized how important numbers were. The Deathzone was truly vast and treacherous; not only should they think about the surface, but they also had to consider what was underground. Even if they used the mercenary, their total personnel would still be less than two hundred.

Before, they thought it would be enough to defend the base with a few people while spreading the other to the secondary base and the other outpost. But after the breach today, they had to re-evaluate their plan.

"Why the long sigh when everything went well?"

Suddenly, they heard the familiar voice that triggered their instinctive reaction to straighten their back and focus their mind. Except for Zein and Han Shin, as well as Bassena who was already standing, the rest of them stood up in attention, looking at the deep red hair and the pair of crimson eyes of the man entering the tent.

"Guildmaster!"

"Huh?" Bassena raised his brow in surprise. "How are you here already?"

"Because I can," Radia shrugged and sat down naturally on a chair that Kei politely took out for him. "Fill me in."

In a true Radia fashion, they didn’t even bother to do any greeting or warming up to each other. Bassena, Kei, and Ashur made their respective report one by one about the finding of the shards, the fight with the Specter, and the battle on the surface. Zein also listened to the report keenly since he wasn’t there when they were exchanging stories earlier.

After listening to them, Radia leaned his head back and closed his eyes while tapping the armrest slowly. Ah...it had been a while since Zein saw Radia do that, and for some unknown reason, it gave him a sense of ease and peacefulness.

"We need to find a new way to communicate," Radia said after a while. "A system we can use even without a link signal. Obviously, something more elaborate than a burning paper."

"Any idea, Boss?"

"Obviously not," Radia replied with a smirk while taking the cup of coffee that his secretary provided out of nowhere. "Maybe the military has something. I’ll ask him next time."

Han Shin, who had become a half-zombie from the dreadful encounter with the giant worm, suddenly lifted his face. "Did you talk to hyung? How?"

"Money is always an answer," Basena replied instead as Radia only sipped his coffee with a smile.

"...how much?"

"Why do you want to know?" Radia chuckled. "You can visit him normally since you’re a family member."

There was a hint of bitterness in the summoner’s voice. Zein somehow felt that if they had more time back then, Radia would have dragged Han Joon to the registry office so they could become ’family’ instead of a lover. It was funny, however, that Han Shin didn’t even know about this.

"I can?!"

"Only twice a year, but yes," Radia nodded and stood up. "Let’s see that passage bow, shall we?"

Naturally, Han Shin refused to follow them.

The rest of them accompanied Radia outside. He walked slowly, steadily, looking around the place while humming as if they were in another green-zone neighborhood. It forced the other executives to slow their pace too, and Zein, who followed from behind, could see how their shoulders finally relaxed.

"Looks better than the pictures," Radia nodded in satisfaction. "What are the damages?"

"All residential places," Ashur replied. "One building and four tents."

"Hmm..." Radia looked at the carcasses of the Stone Eater near the barricaded passageway. "There will always be a weak link within the range. Identify those and make sure to move any critical structure away from those places."

"Yes, Sir."

"Leave the weak area empty and use it for assembly or training instead."

"Understood," Ashur replied readily. "I shall do that now."

"Good," Radia nodded and watched Ashur and Iore go back to the command tent, before resuming their walk to the passage. "We should let the interpreter machine run and check on it regularly."

"I’ll tell Shin later," Bassena turned to look at the shining crystal atop the spire. The light was shining brighter since there were also two smaller shards rotating it, asking to play.

When they arrived at the hole in the ground, the espers were still busy moving the remains of the beasts away so they wouldn’t accumulate trouble like a wight or a lesser Specter. Gus and Zhan had rolled away and tucked themselves inside their rooms to sleep off the exhaustion, so the chambers were only filled with the cleaner team.

"What should we do about this?" Bassena asked as they stopped in the middle of the chambers so Radia could see the Stone Eater’s path.

Kei pulled up the map she had been drawing since the first time they fell through the desert. Well, rather than a drawing, it was an automatic map generator that combined her spatial skill with Mortix’s technology. They had only been passing through one main channel, but she also marked every hole they saw along the way.

"The system is massive, probably as big as the black desert," Bassena frowned. "There must be places used by colonies to avoid the sand tornado. Most of them were probably in the horde, but who knows if there are more."

"That’s why I think it’s better to explore the whole place," Kei said rather excitedly. "We should map the system and see if we can find any exit point. It’s also good if we can determine the danger and seal any useless passage."

"Exit point..." Radia muttered. "Yes, we’ll need that if we want to cross the desert safely."

After all, they wouldn’t be able to proceed with the expedition if they couldn’t do that. The only way for them to go east and reach what should be the sea was through the black desert. Of course, there might be another way, but they would have to either go through the mountain range, or through a deep ravine. Both were in the middle of investigations by Zein’s special teams, but seeing how they hadn’t come back, it didn’t seem like the path would be easy.

"Go and arrange a team of scouts," Radia gave his permission. "Take the mercenary as guards and cleaners. Focus on mapping, so tell them not to engage with any miasmic creatures above their level."

"Yes, Sir."

With a new assignment, Kei left the group to deal with it immediately, while Radia looked at the passage beyond the chamber, which was used by the advancing Specter. "Isn’t this a blessing in some way?" he chuckled. "Now we have an underground system all for our own. If we use this well, there will be a lot of benefits."

"...like the one beneath the Mortix Hill?" Zein remarked, recalling the complex passageway that could also act as a bunker.

Radia smiled and gave the guide a wink. "Let’s install more purification devices and communication beacons. If we don’t seal the one above, the signal should be able to get through, albeit with difficulty."

"Alright."

"Now," Radia turned around to face Bassena and Zein, the only two left. "You can tell me about the vision."