There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 646: Side Story 2. Dance of Flame and Shadow - 5

Chapter 646: Side Story 2. Dance of Flame and Shadow - 5

"You were sent here because of other people, and you were sent to the afterlife because of other people too..." Agni sent a puff of smoke into the empty space in front of him and watched the grey haze melt into the murky air. "Shouldn’t you at least think about your family first before those strangers, Cap?"

Ah, guessed he was the Captain now.

But then again, Nolan did think about his family...however inadequate it was. At least, he had some savings that should go to his family when he was sent to the Borderland and sent the meager salary he got here to his wife’s account.

And then there was that conversation too.

’Hey, unlike me, you don’t have to stay here forever,’ the man had opened the conversation with an uncomfortable preamble--at least for Agni.

Naturally, he quipped back with suspicion. ’What the hell is this? You’re going to ask me to do something annoying, aren’t you?’

And the man continued without care. ’You know I have a son, right?’

’No.’

Nolan had laughed at Agni’s annoyed tone. But after working together for more than five years, it wasn’t a hard thing to realize that the berserker didn’t mean most of his reaction.

’I’m not going to ask you to take care of him or anything, just...’ the man had a bitter, regretful look on his face. The face he often made after getting banished to this borderland without any opportunity to see his family. ’Make sure he’s not doing foolish things like his Dad.’

’I don’t know...’ Agni grumbled. ’What if it’s genetics?’

’Isn’t that why I asked you for a favor?’

’I mean, genetically stubborn.’

Nolan was only laughed at that time. Agni had grumbled then, but the fact that he didn’t say ’no’ again meant he’d remember that request at the very least, and the Captain knew that.

Since he was annoyed, Agni had jokingly asked a question then. ’What if he wants to go here?’

’No.’

The answer had come with a sharp tone that Nolan rarely used. The brown eyes that usually exuded kindness had turned sharp and dark as if there was a shadow looming over the man’s face. Agni still remembered that face even years later.

’I don’t know if he’s even awakened, but no matter what, I won’t let him stay in this hellhole.’

It was the face of a protective father who finally realized he was too late to protect his family. Nolan knew that by staying in the borderland and keeping his family away, he would never be able to see his son. But at the very least, he wanted that boy to live a better life than he ever was.

"Haa...what should I do?" Agni crushed the cigarette in his palm, feeling his head throbbing. "He’s here, Cap..."

* * *

The boy was there, waking up, and chose violence.

"Get this off me!"

Ron yelled, screamed, hollered when he found himself waking up in a strange place with both of his wrists shackled. It was two metal bands with around half a meter long chain, so he still could get up and kick the bed, kick the table, kick the door until someone called Agni to tell the Captain that his rabid squirrel had woken up.

When Agni returned to his room with a breakfast package for the young scout, he was greeted by a hurl of pillows, jacket, books, and about everything the boy could grab from his considerably empty room.

It was a good thing he didn’t put his claymore in his bedroom.

Agni sighed and put the breakfast bag on the table. He caught the tantrum boy and, this time, connected the chain to the bed. "Calm down, and let’s talk first."

"No! Get this off me!"

"I can’t if you don’t--" Agni tilted his head and caught a kicking leg. Seemed like not being able to use his arms meant it was time for some leg action. The berserker took a deep breath and turned his head toward the woman smirking at his door. "Do you know how to handle a kid?"

"Would I work here if I knew?" Esther scoffed. Being a nanny would be much better--financially and mentally--than spending time in the borderland. "Besides, I’d be pissed too if I woke up with a shackle on my wrists."

"Not helping."

"Never meant to," she shrugged; the smirk on her face just aggravated Agni’s headache. "It’s fun seeing you struggle against a kid."

"Get out," Agni groaned and rolled his eyes as her laughter reverberated through the hallway on her way out--and then quickly snatched the scout’s hands. The wrists and fingers had turned red from constant pulling. "Stop it, you won’t be able to take it off; even I couldn’t."

Ron gritted his teeth. More than the chain preventing him from getting away, he was more disturbed by the metal around his wrists, which seemed to temper with something inside him. "Fuck--what the fuck is this?"

"It’s sealing your power," Agni replied with a shrug. "I can’t get you running to the Deathzone again."

Fuck--no wonder he couldn’t use his mana to melt into the shadow anymore. He glared and tried to kick the berserker again. "I said it’s not your business where I can or can’t go!"

"And I said it’s my business who goes in and out of the Deathzone."

"Lies!" Ron barked to his face. Agni felt like the kid would bite him for real if he moved closer. "Your only job is to prevent those creatures from crawling out! Now get this off me!"

Agni closed his eyes and managed his breath. Inhale...exhale...he repeated the advice that the kid’s father used to tell him. Ron was still trying to pull the chain off and even tried gathering his mana. Every time Agni wanted to talk, the kid snarled and glared at him, as if he wanted to out-talked him.

He hadn’t even recovered from the memory travel he had in the emergency exit’s stairway, and he almost emptied his weekly pack just from this alone.

"Haa...I can’t do this right now," Agni shook his head and turned around.

"Where the fuck are you going?"

"We can’t talk before you calm down," Agni clicked his tongue while turning back again and disconnecting the chain from the bad. Not from the shackles, though. "Just stay here and try to keep calm."

There was a bathroom in the Captain’s bedroom, so Agni wouldn’t have to be worried about the kid’s biological needs. He grabbed the breakfast bag and put it in the scout’s hand so the kid wouldn’t use it for throwing things again--not that there were still things left to be thrown around.

"Eat that," he said and this time, really walking away. "And those shackles won’t come off before you calm down, so don’t bother."

"Fuck you!"

The curses bounced on the closing sturdy door, and Agni could still hear them while he was leaning his back against the wall beside the door, including more kicking and banging. Well, the kid would stop once he got tired.

Damn...never thought he would have to babysit a twenty-year-old.

"Haa..." Agni massaged his throbbing temple and muttered to the murky air. "He seems to inherit your stubbornness for real, even though I had no idea where that feisty soul came from."

Wouldn’t people just stop if they were told not to go somewhere? And if that somewhere was a place that everyone was desperately trying to avoid, wouldn’t you stop even more? He couldn’t understand why the kid was so desperate. If it was possible for them to retrieve Nolan’s body from the Deathzone, he would have done it a long time ago.

Although...ah, it was actually possible that the kid didn’t know, and thought they were only refusing to pick the body. Was that why he decided to come to the Deathzone itself?

But...it was already a year. Even in the regular zones, a corpse in the wild would have been gone in a year--only a skeleton would remain if they were lucky. But in a place like the Deathzone, corpses did not just remain as flesh and bones to be feasted upon.

No. Being feasted upon was technically right. Only...it wasn’t beast who feasted upon human remains. It was the miasma, the malice that would turn death into something worse than death.

Wraith. The tattered cloaked creatures roaming around the Deathzone were created from the feasted remains of both dead humans and beasts, consumed by miasma and spitted out as foul beings.

Nothing...nothing would remain of Nolan Hertz and everyone who died inside the Deathzone.

Agni raised his hand and stared at three bracelets circling his wrist. Soldier tags. The names of his two colleagues were there, and another one had his. But he wasn’t able to retrieve the last one. The most important one.

Now, the only proof of that man’s existence was throwing a feisty fit inside the Captain’s bedroom. The room that used to be occupied by that man.

As Agni stared at the soldier tags on his wrist, he suddenly realized something. "Ah, crap..." he slammed his head against the wall. "I have to talk about his death to the kid too, right?"

And then he wondered, how much...how much did they tell the kid about his father’s death?

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