There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 144 - 139. Maybe

Chapter 144: Chapter 139. Maybe

In a small, highly secured conference room of Mortix Holding, nine people sat around a round table; three researchers, five espers, and one guide--this was the core member of the Deathzone Reclamation Project belonging to Mortix and Trinity.

Of course, there were more people who knew about this project, but the one who had significant voice and decision-making power within the project was the one seating around that table.

Of eight people besides himself, Zein was only familiar with four of them; Selena, Eugene, and two ’founders’ of Trinity. But he knew the other researcher was the one in charge of dissecting the Specter Core, and one of the other three espers was the Chief of Mortix’s intelligence and the boss of the shadow guards. The other esper, who looked like an average businessman, was Mortix’s Chief Secretary, and the last esper, as it turned out, was Bassena’s direct subordinate; a member of [Anzus].

Unlike other squads, the member of [Anzus] acted more like a special task force that only received missions directly from Bassena or Radia, and they were left to do whatever they wanted until the bosses called for them. Since they were scattered around the Federation, they didn’t even use the guild’s guide service, and just got cleansed wherever they ended up in. Thus, Zein hadn’t met anyone from [Anzus] so far.

And of course, the first thing the esper did when she met Zein was to stare. She stared at Zein--who coincidentally wasn’t wearing his mask due to the biometric identification needed to enter the room--and then at Bassena, and then back at Zein again. And the only thing she said after that was; "My condolences," before taking her seat.

Bassena refused to tell Zein her name after that.

"Alright," when Bassena was busy glaring at the esper, Radia tapped the table to turn their attention back to the agenda. "I don’t think I need to explain why we’re having this emergency meeting right now."

Emergency meeting. So urgent the matter was that Radia even pulled out an emergency summon to get that female esper--who Zein finally found out was called Kei--back in Althrea. So urgent it was that Bassena and Zein had to head there immediately before even having any time to rest after handling the outbreak.

Without wasting time, Radia gave a signal to the Chief of Intelligence, a man called Orion, and a screen came up from the projection in the middle of the table. Various recordings and news from the past few hours were on display there. The most notable one would be that of Althrea, with snippets of Bassena’s [Nightfall] and the cleaning process.

But they could also see news about various places in the Eastern Federation, all bearing the same headline; a sudden outbreak. Two green-zones, five yellow-zones, and six in orange-zones all over the region. All happened within the last eleven hours.

"I’m still waiting for reports from my red-zone’s informants," the female esper, Kei, added in. She was apparently in charge of surveilling and communicating with guilds and groups outside of Althrea, along with a small team of three other espers. "But looking at the trend, it probably happened as we thought."

Staring at the few pieces of paper in front of him, Zein suddenly wondered about his old acquaintances in Araka. Were Alma and Zach still there? After Umbra was gone, who took their place as reigning Lord? Perhaps he should try to contact them too, not just the borderland’s unit...

"Althrea received practically no damage other than a ruined riverside, thanks to Sir Vaski and Sir Luzein. But this also means--"

"That they’ll summon me," Radia leaned back with fingers weaved on his lap. "Right now, an emergency assembly is happening in the Capital too, and it’ll be safe to assume that Protocol Aspen will be in effect tomorrow."

Zein leaned to ask Bassena what Protocol Aspen meant, and apparently, it was an emergency assembly involving the top five guilds’ Guildmaster, the Patriarchs of twelve prominent Houses, the representatives of ten top companies, and the Chiefs of critical government bureaus.

"So you’ll be attending it, this time?" Bassena raised his brow.

Trinity, however mighty it was, could not yet be considered as one of the top five guilds. Size-wise, Trinity was still a medium-class guild, and a young one too, since it was established less than five years ago. The Mortix Group and the Mallarc, on the other hand...

"I’ll be there as Mortix’s Chairman and the Mallarc’s representative," Radia replied casually, before sweeping the room with his crimson eyes. "The association will reveal that we requested evacuation before the outbreak even happened, so there will be a lot of questions there. I won’t be able to dodge too much since the entire federation’s security is at stake, which is why we are gathered here today," he paused for a bit to make sure they knew the real agenda of their meeting. "To decide how much we will reveal and how much we should hide."

Zein narrowed his blue eyes for a bit. He tried to keep his expression straight, but he couldn’t help but frown. He felt it; the difference between a layman who only knew what the higher-up decided to tell him, and the one who made the decision. The conflicting interest between upholding justice and keeping benefits.

He caught the crimson gaze, and knew Radia could read him from the man’s subtle smile. "I’m not saying we should lie," Radia said, and Zein felt like it was directed at him. "But we should decide what we can share without jeopardizing our chance of winning the reclamation project."

Of course, Zein understood what Radia was saying. They held so much information that could cause an uproar in the community should people find out. From Bassena’s mission to Zein’s vision. And there was no way they could mention it to anyone outside. It was just...looking at the other zones that got hit by the outbreak made his heart heavy.

The infrastructure damages...the civilian casualties...it brought a lot of unwanted memories that got him a little bit sensitive.

"But..." the Chief Secretary, who was keeping his silence for a while, suddenly spoke up. "Are we certain that this outbreak had anything to do with the Deathzone?"

"Actually, not really," Selena replied with a shrug. "Different from the black gate anomaly, there was no way to find out if the outbreak was being influenced by Specter or any hidden power from the Deathzone. But someone in the Capital would point out the timing between the black gate incident and the outbreak, and make a connection with the increasing rate of anomalies. There will at least be someone presenting this theory in the assembly."

"And what about us?" Kei asked. "What is our theory?"

Radia looked at the researcher in charge of the Specter cores, and the man, Fei, pulled out a report from his commlink. "The only thing we’ve managed to get from the cores is the record of their signature mana waves. From there, we managed to create a detection program, and had been testing it on the remnant of the black gate."

"The remnant of the black gate had mixed energy," Eugene chimed in on the deliberation. "But thankfully, we could easily identify them," he paused and glanced slightly at Zein before continuing. "Because one of the energy has a similar mana wave with the shard fagment in our possession."

So their theory that ’the one who broke the dungeon was the shard’ could be concluded by that. "And the other energy has similar mana waves with the Specter core?" Zein asked, to which the three researchers responded with a nod.

Fei tapped on his commlink again to show them another data. "This came in just now; the analysis on the remnant of the yellow gate from today."

Zein looked at the data briefly, before turning his head toward Bassena, who immediately explained. "It has twenty-seven percent similarity with the mana waves from the Specter core."

The guide frowned at that. In other words, the outbreaks truly had something to do with something in the Deathzone. Again, the blue eyes stared at the papers in front of him, filled with the familiar handwriting of his acquaintance.

Earlier, just as Bassena gave his report, Zein was busy with something else. The Chief of intelligence had given him a letter from the borderland. It looked like a normal letter, but the envelope was fitted with a special holographic lock, and it was hand-delivered by a member of the intelligence department--probably that 4-star esper who pretended to be a delivery man before.

The envelope simply stated that it was a friendly letter from Ronan Hillard. But while there was a page dedicated personally to Zein, the rest of the letter was a report regarding the use of the device Mortix sent to the borderland last month--the one that functioned to detect anomalies.

And as they feared, there was also an increase in activities within the Deathzone.

"This is..." the table fell into silence for a while, and Zein felt a sense of deja vu. It hadn’t been long since they talked about this in Radia’s office. But back then, they didn’t think whatever force active in the Deathzone was capable of creating an immediate outbreak. "Do you think something like this will occur often from now on?"

"Don’t jinx something like that!" Selena hissed in response, and the table was filled with sighs.

Except for Bassena, who tilted his head in contemplation. "I doubt it," the esper said, and the other turned their gaze at him. "It might happen again, but I doubt it would be ’often’."

"Why?"

Bassena turned his head to look at Zein while answering. "Because it took too much energy," he said. "Remember the Specter inside the city ruin? It cast a powerful isolation magic, but couldn’t repeat that during the time we took to find it."

He shifted his gaze toward the center of the table again, before looking at Radia. "No matter what kind of entity it was, it still needs to exert a great amount of energy to cause such phenomena. Look at the chart--" the amber eyes fleeted between the data of the anomaly and outbreak, with the data from the borderland. "Yes, there’s an increase of activities in the Deathzone, but during the five days of the black gate incident--"

"It was the calmest in the Deathzone," Radia smiled as the other let out subdued exclaim, the crimson eyes dancing between lines and numbers floating in the air. "Seven days; two days before the black gate, and five days during."

Zein blinked at this revelation, before looking at Bassena with slightly widened eyes. The esper, meanwhile, leaned back on his chair, the same smile that Radia made was painted on his face. "So it seems like whoever it is the culprit behind all this needed to focus their energy on one effort. Interfering with one dungeon is one thing, but creating simultaneous outbreaks should drain much more energy," he looked toward Orion and Kei next while continuing. "If we can observe the activities in the Deathzone and relay it in real-time, we should be able to anticipate things like this in the future."

"Mm," one corner of Radia’s mouth curled upward in response. "So it seems to be the time we stationed someone permanently in the borderland. We need to know what the status of the Deathzone today too, so we can make a plausible hypothesis."

With that, the meeting continued in the direction of this new effort. But while the rest of the table was talking, Zein was still staring at Bassena, who finally looked at him with a raised brow and a smirk. The esper leaned down and whispered teasingly in the guide’s ear.

"Why? Did you start to fall for me?" Bassena grinned, enjoying the rare moment of stun in the guide’s face. But in the next moment, it was him that was left stunned, as Zein answered him without blinking, with a melodious voice that sounded like a trance.

"Maybe."