There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 506 - 499. Moving Forward

Chapter 506: Chapter 499. Moving Forward

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Bassena’s eyes twitched as he looked at Lex.

The secretary--who was in a combat uniform instead of a suit this time--stared back unimpressively at Bassena. "Taking care of your ass, Boss."

"I don’t need a taking care," Bassena scoffed. "There’s no showbiz in the Deathzone."

"But there’s paperwork," Lex arched his brow.

Bassena clicked his tongue and swept his hair exasperatedly. "Haa...after I went and did all that to keep you away from this place..."

"Wow, almost sounds like I’m your lover or something--I’m touched, Boss," Lex patted Bassena’s back with a smirk. "To show my gratitude, I’ll help you so you can have even more time with your real lover."

"Isn’t that what you have been doing all this time?" Zein chuckled.

"Exactly!" Lex snapped his fingers. "Nice to see you again, Alice’s Boss."

"Pfft--how is she?"

"Having fun managing your school’s administration," Lex shrugged before returning to Bassena. "Come on, Boss; show me my desk! Chop chop!"

Again, Bassena’s eyes twitched. Zein had no idea whether he left Lex behind out of gratitude toward his secretary, or because he wanted to run away from this man. Either way, it was fun to see their dynamic again. Lex seemed to come with a vengeance for all the time Bassena caused him headaches and working overtime, and Zein was looking forward to watching it.

"I never thought the reinforcement is you," Zein glanced at Jock, who bought all of Zein’s former shadow guards along.

Well, they didn’t have to work from the shadow anymore, so he couldn’t call them that again.

"This is still Mortix’s endeavor after all," the bodyguard said with a subtle smile. Ah, he was no longer a bodyguard too--Zein realized with a chuckle. "Master Radia is right; this place looks better than I thought. We had thought that the pictures were maybe went through a lot of editing, but..."

He looked around the base. They were right outside the stadium, where the base’s critical infrastructures were. It offered a clear vantage point to the western side of the base, as well as a part of the northern side. The four watch towers looked like strong pillars supporting the zone, but Jock could see the real core of the base on top of the stadium’s arena.

Nestle on top of the spires was not one, but three shards--two of which circulating a bigger one in the middle. "I didn’t know there were three already."

"We got it when you’re on your way here," Zein replied while observing the people who Radia sent to the Deathzone.

There were more members of Trinity, and Arlo was immediately getting scolded by Senan in the corner. Aside from Zein’s former shadow guard, House Mallarc sent more of their people. And then, finally, there were more mercenaries--groups that finally agreed to join the operation after seeing that it wasn’t a mere suicide project.

Good; they should have enough people to establish their second base now. The problem was...

"They don’t want to move," Zein sighed. "They got too traumatized by the last attack, and now they screamed when I even brought the ’m’ from the move."

"What are you going to do, then?"

Zein glanced at Jock and smirked. "Would you like to join the next excursion? We’ll be picking up another shard."

"Won’t say no to that," the former bodyguard chuckled. "I’ll sort out my kids’ room for now."

Zein nodded and shifted his attention to the new provision provided not just with Radia’s money, but also by House Mallarc. It wasn’t just food and emergency rations, but also more equipment and weapons to fill their arsenal, as well as more materials to fortify their defense.

The best thing, however, was something that got airlifted to the Borderland right before this additional provision entered the Deathzone. It was a set of devices that read certain patterned vibrations through the ground and air. Each vibration would be translated into a letter that could be caught by the paired device without any link signal.

"Each letter needed three seconds before we could send another, so...no long message," Kei explained after reading the whole long manual.

Bassena stroked his chin while his brain churned. "So we need a way to convey things concisely. Perhaps like a code word?"

"Agreed," Ashur nodded. "It doesn’t have to be complicated. Just something for a type of emergency, numbers, and ranks of enemies."

"We can consult this for the other codes," Han Shin lifted a manual book he fished out from the bottom of the box. "It’s a military manual."

"Hah--he really managed to get stuff from the military?"

"Ey--it’s my brother-in-law. Of course, he can do anything."

Bassena scoffed. "Saying that won’t make him give you an early pass, you know."

"...it won’t?" Han Shin pursed his lips.

The arrival of this new communication device brought the vigor that had been slightly lost because of the last incident. Now that they could communicate with each other even if they were trapped somewhere, they could plan more and venture further.

"Kei, what about your scout squad?"

"We’ve been mapping the area around the exit, but as you know, we dare not go on an overnight expedition," the scout reported. "We can start to do that once we finalize the code and get this device working. Ah--that means I can’t go to the mountain with you."

"It’s fine. We’ll go with Ben since he’s the one finding the path," Bassena nodded.

"Anything we could do?" the representative of the newly arrived mercenaries, an older lady from the south called Safiya, asked.

"You should acclimatize yourself with this place first--your people too, Jock," Bassena pulled out a folder and skimmed through it. "I’ll send people to explain the system we have here; there will be night watch, regular patrol, and weekly clean-up to make sure the area around the base is sterile."

Bassena lifted his head and suddenly smirked while pointing to his back with his thumb. "My dearest secretary will make a draft list for the rotation."

"I am?"

"Of course, you are!" Bassena smiled charmingly at the unimpressed secretary. "I’ll pick some of you to accompany the scout mission inside the underground system, and another..."

Bassena paused and turned to look at Zein. "What about the hunting team?"

"I received a report that they’ll be back tonight or tomorrow morning," Zein tapped on his commlink. "They managed to locate some traces of the dark purple mana, so we can send an attack force after assessing it for a bit."

"That’s what you’ll do," Bassena snapped his fingers toward Jock and Safiya. "We’ll be going to fetch another shard while you get used to this place, and we’ll assign you to some mission after we get back. Try to get a feel of how much your corrosion level increases for each skill you use. The marsh is a nice place to practice since wight and lesser specter usually came out every few days."

"Please submit your self-assessment to the guide with glasses in the clinic," Zein added. "It’s important to schedule your cleansing since we have limited personnel here."

The mercenary representative, who was a bit overwhelmed, just nodded wordlessly. She received an assigned empty field to put her members’ tents, as well as an even longer explanation about the base from the other mercenary who had been there since the first reinforcement.

The only thing she could think was that the news outside was too outdated. This place didn’t have two--but four watchtowers. There were three layers of walls outside the base, and one of them was made of a beast’s material. She could see a whole mysterious underground system near the eastern border that was said to be so huge and encompassed a whole desert.

Her mercenary, however, wanted to cry at the nice compressed tent that was no different from a small apartment, an established water and sanitary system, and a fully functioning kitchen with a generator. They could eat a decent meal, sleep in a comfortable bed, and even take a shower freely--things that they barely get when they entered an overnight dungeon raid or a mission in the middle of nowhere.

To think they could have better accommodation in a place that was even more nowhere than their usual nowhere...

"Hah! Why didn’t we take this job from the start?" one of them laughed after they were done setting their tent--which only needed a push of a button.

"Because we thought we would only become a sacrificial pawn," Safiya shrugged. "I mean...no one ever attempted this before, so how would we know?"

"Are you sure they won’t still make us a sacrificial pawn, though?" a still skeptical member asked.

"Don’t worry, they aren’t like that," the mercenary who guided them around and told them about the base said. "Didn’t you hear that the expeditions were always done by the executives? Sir Vaski and Sir Ishtera had always been in the front line since day one."

"...well, I know now."

Safiya looked around in satisfaction. Just as they talked about it, she saw a group of espers with Bassena Vaski and the pretty guide, as well as the leader of House Mallarc’s soldier who traveled with her going down the hill toward the eastern wall. Ah, right--she did hear something about fetching a shard?

That thought brought her eyes toward the shining beacon on top of the big stadium. Three shining crystals gave off a warm light that made her feel like she was basking under the sun, even if she could also see the thick darkness surrounding the base.

Ahh...she knew now that those people who thought she was dumb for accepting the offers were wrong.

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