There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 532 - 525. Jailbreak

Chapter 532: Chapter 525. Jailbreak

The first thing Agni did when he opened his eyes in the morning was to check the other side of the bed.

It was still cold.

He chuckled into the sheet and lifted his sore body up, wincing at the leftover wound in his body. The healer had patched him up well, but a lot of internal wounds could only be healed with time. Taking a deep breath to quell the dull throb on his side, he snatched a shirt from the chair beside the bed, smiling as he brushed against the slightly warm backrest.

It was a challenging walk to the command office, but thankfully, the Captain’s quarters were only a floor below it. He was awarded for his effort with the view of his sulking boyfriend making a morning coffee--even though there was a perfectly functioning coffee maker in Agni’s room.

Holding back his chuckle, Agni leaned into the scout and kissed the man’s neck. "Are you still punishing me?"

"Yes."

The answer was curt, but it put a smile on Agni’s face anyway. At least, this time, Ron answered properly instead of ignoring him like the past two days. He touched the scout’s waist, and when Ron did not scoot away, he circled his arm there.

"If you want to punish me, you should sleep in my bed and elbowed me ’accidentally’ in your sleep--that’ll be pretty hurt, I think."

"I’ll consider it."

"Wouldn’t it be better than watching me sleep in that chai--ugh!" Agni grimaced and clutched his stomach, laughing when he saw the nonchalant expression on the perpetrator’s face. "Are we even now?"

Ron gripped his cup, fighting the urge to pour the content on the berserker’s head--not that it would do anything to a heat-resistant person like Agni. He sipped the coffee silently as he digested the crumbs of his anger.

It was hard getting upset with someone who was badly hurt, however--especially someone he loved. Wasn’t that why he refrained from sleeping on the same bed? Even his furious heart would melt if he felt the scorching heat of this man’s skin.

Well...it had been three days already, anyway.

Still, he couldn’t just let it go with a simple jab. "If you’ll end up making yourself die anyway, don’t bother scolding me like that again."

"But I’m doing it to avenge you, honey..."

"Don’t act cute with me," the scout gave a sharp side-eye glare. "I had no choice in my case, but there was no need for you to aggravate all of those fragments."

Agni chuckled and pressed another kiss on Ron’s neck. "I get it, I get it--I’m sorry, mm? Will you please come back to my bed tonight?" he whined--something that he could only do with this longtime lover of his. "I can’t wake up with a cold--hmm? what’s that?"

A signal from the communication device connected to the Deathzone’s main base filled the command room with a beeping sound. Worrying that it was another emergency, Agni approached the screen with a scowl. However, his brows smoothened immediately when he read the message.

"What is it?" Ron asked with a mix of curiosity and concern.

"Seems like Zein is finally taking a vacation."

* * *

"How’s the media?" Radia asked the guild’s management executive while Bassena and Zein went back to their apartment to get ready for the funeral.

"Divided, as usual," the public relations department head reported. "The main source of news was from those who visited the Deathzone right when the ambush happened. Some said the operation was doomed to fail after seeing the ’reaper’."

Radia raised his brow. "Reaper?" he rubbed her lips before scoffing. "That’s what they called the fragments?"

"I guess it’s because of the hooded feature."

"Hmm..."

Well, the fragment also happened to chase them with killing intent, so it wasn’t really off the mark.

"But the rest is supportive," another said, pulling out an article and flicking it to the center screen. "The Daily Rexon made a long column about us; not out of criticism, but still leaning toward the good side."

"It’s good enough," Radia gazed at the cityscape and the giant screen sprinkled in the commercial area. Some of them had news highlights flashing, and one of them was bound to be the big battle in the Deathzone. "Media is like a duck; they’ll follow the bigger one."

"So there’s no need for our journalists to move, Sir?"

"No, we can’t play with information in a case like this," Radia narrowed his eyes slightly. Perhaps, if there were no casualties. Perhaps, if there were no reporters that day. But they had both, and then some. "If we utter a lie, the deceased’s family would know."

But it wasn’t like they were doing bad. It could even be seen that they were doing well. No reporters were hurt, thanks to Ron and Helios, and Naomi took care of them well afterward. Different articles came out with different vibes, but the only one that mattered was the one coming from the most experienced and named reporter from the Daily Rexon.

And the man wrote a reasonable, factual piece--even talking about and praising the Borderland Unit, which almost never got any coverage at all. Some reporters also decided to wait at the border to see what happened rather than going back to certain safety.

"We don’t really need any media play anyway," a manager of the support Department said. "People had been predicting that we were going to be annihilated during the first year, calling us stupid and such. It’s such a big battle, but to only lose four lives is something worth being--"

"Only?"

The manager--and everyone else--stiffened at the cold voice. The department head buried his face in his hand, cursing his subordinate inside his head.

"Only four?"

Radia turned around, and the look in those red eyes got them to lower their head. It was scary before, but now it was terrifying.

"Even one is someone’s precious child," the red eyes flashed. "They are someone’s lover, friend, colleague. They are your colleagues."

The manager stuttered in dread. "I...misspoke, Sir..."

"Someone from PR should not misspoke."

The Guildmaster would rarely show it when he got angry, as opposed to Bassena Vaski, so when he did show it, they felt like their heads and careers were on a chopping block. Even if they weren’t the ones who invoke the wrath.

The department head swallowed his sigh. "I will take care of him, Guildmaster."

The cold eyes swept the trembling manager. "I will not tolerate another ’misspoke’, young man."

"Y-yes, Sir!"

The room, which was already tense before the conversation, got even more stifling, as if they were about to receive a mass layover. Radia turned to look outside the window again, sighing. "Haa...let’s get this over with," Radia glanced at the broadcasting station cars that started to come through the compound’s gate. "We still have a lot of important things to do."

"Yes, Sir!"

* * *

Prisons were never a nice place to be, but the military one was still better than most other prisons--except for those used for the rich, which only looked dreary from the outside but were basically a comfy apartment on the inside. But the military prison was the only place where they utilized the prisoners for dungeon work, so they were treated fairly well.

One of the privileges was having a TV screen in the mess hall.

It was usually set to play some movies or documentaries channel, but during lunch that day, there was breaking news cutting the movie at the climax. The ex-soldiers were shouting in protest, and some demanded the guards to change the channel, but when someone at the back cleared their throat, all of them suddenly went silent and continued their meal quietly like a bunch of obedient puppies.

Within the silence, the content of the breaking news could be heard clearly. It was a press conference about the recently talked about operation in the Deathzone. Now, that was actually a topic that pulled their interest.

What was more interesting was that the one who spoke during the press conference wasn’t someone from the PR department or one of their ’talent’ like Rina Solstice, but the Radia Mallarc himself.

It started with a standard announcement of the incident that happened lately in the Deathzone during the first reporter’s visit, which ended up with four dead and one into a comma. Naturally, the soldiers looked at each other with a raised brow--because why did they act like they were expecting no one would meet their end in a place like that?

But well, they reckoned people who joined a big named guild did not expect to die anytime, unlike them soldiers.

The announcement was followed by a public apology to the family of the deceased member and all those things. What made the soldiers perk up and lift their heads from their lunch was the short clip of the battlefield that they played on the screen behind the guildmaster.

Naturally, the clip was made using a dark-vision camera, but soldiers like them could easily discern the clip--which was why they almost had a heart attack in the middle of their lunch.

Creatures they had never seen before, which looked as destructive as a dungeon’s boss monster, freaking Stone Eaters, a bunch of figures they reckoned were the ’reapers’ those reporters talking about, and fuck--what the fuck was that giant thing? They thought it was a mountain until they saw the many eyes moving their pupil like a manic beast from their childhood nightmare.

As if the scene wasn’t surprising enough, they even announced what that creature was;

A fallen Celestial Being from the war that made their planet plunge into the age of the apocalypse.

They parted their lips in a silent surprise, which was broken by a chuckle that made them flinch.

"Ah, feels like it’s time for me to get out of here," Han Joon tapped the table slowly, clearly, and the guards tried hard not to sweat in their spots.

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