There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 145 - 140. Keeping the Ship Afloat

Chapter 145: Chapter 140. Keeping the Ship Afloat

Maybe...maybe?

Bassena froze, eyes staring wide at the lips that just let out that simple, quiet word. He couldn’t register anything that the others were discussing right now, because...maybe?!

Did he hear it right? Did Zein--the Luzein--just admit that he grew feelings for Bassena?

Of course, Bassena knew that Zein treated him differently than other people. After all, he was in the business of desperately seeking a signal of progression in their relationship. The gentle taps, the hair strokings, and the soft gaze that Zein sometimes gave him were filled with an affection that the guide did not provide to others. And Bassena was proud of it.

But even though he could see the trace of affection in Zein’s gesture, it was a different matter hearing the guide admit to it. Because it meant Zein was admitting that his attraction to Bassena was no longer a mere physical thing. Because it meant that Zein was starting to open the gate to the stone wall surrounding his heart.

And Bassena didn’t even know what he did to warrant such progression.

"Can you...say that again?" Bassena whispered softly, with a slight tremble in his voice.

Unfortunately, the blue eyes blinked once and Zein reapplied his defense, again putting on that cold, nonchalant face as if that two seconds of tenderness were a lie. "No," the guide averted his gaze and leaned back on his chair, putting distance between them and crossing his arms, as if erecting a defense inside his heart.

Bassena had no idea whether he wanted to laugh or cry.

"You’re flirting is cute, but please do it later, yes?" Radia tapped the table suddenly, prompting Bassena and Zein to focus on him. "We’re not done here."

"I thought you’re doing well there without me, Boss," Bassena grinned, and Radia almost threw his pen to the unruly kid.

"Enough--focus now," the crimson head shook and sighed, before shifting his gaze back to the tablet in front of him. "I’m going to assume that the government will decide to speak about the reclamation act during this meeting."

"Would that be bad for us?" Zein tilted his head with a slight frown, and Radia raised his brow in response, smirking at the word ’us’ coming out of the guide’s mouth. Thinking back to the day Zein was so reluctant to be part of Trinity, the guide seemed to change a lot these days--in a good way.

"Not really," Radia shrugged. "I don’t believe that we are the only ones who knew about this plan. Big guilds like Celestia and Azure Sky, or those who had connections with the government probably knew about it already, so it’s just a matter of making it ’officially’ official," he let out a sly smile, tapping the armrest while contemplating further. "But that is precisely why we need to keep beneficial information to ourselves. Things like Specter cores and the shard, obviously, shouldn’t be known to anyone, and that includes any device and research derived from those two."

However, it was also imperative for Trinity and Mortix to show their willingness to cooperate with the government by providing data. After all, they should show them that they could be trusted with the reclamation project, and that they had enough knowledge and prowess to go with it. Feigning ignorance and pretending as if they knew nothing about the anomalies and the outbreaks would hurt their credibility too much.

"It doesn’t matter to say that we were lucky with the outbreak, since it’s true," Bassena shrugged. "We were coincidentally there when it happened. Zein was the one who sense it first, but they won’t question it even if you say I’m the one who found the breaking gate instead."

"But we still need to raise awareness about the Deathzone, no?" the Chief Secretary responded. "Can we do that without revealing too much?"

For that, Zein readily gave a solution. "You said they might ask about the black gate incident too, right? In that case, you’ll probably provide the video recording of the raid."

"Of course,"

"Then, let’s just say that the miasmic energy that I feel during that sudden outbreak is similar to the one coming from the Specter," Zein tapped Ron’s letter--the one written for him, not the report--with his palm. "You can use this too if you want, emphasizing that I had used to specter’s presence in the borderland."

Ron had written about mundane things that the unit members were doing in the past few months, including whining about the increasing specters within the jungle periphery. Of course, the specter that they talked about was the low-level ones, not the ones with the core like what they faced deeper in the Deathzone. But no one else needed to know about that.

"Even if they checked with the unit, nothing about the high-level Specter would come out, since only Ron and the Captain knew about it there," Zein shrugged. "And then you can use it as a pretext to request an official permit for stationing our agent there."

The people around the table raised their brows, and Radia smirked at that. "For someone who seemed to want to warn the world so much earlier, you sure are quite shrewd, Mister Guide."

Zein just rolled his eyes in response. Well, as much as he felt like they played interests and politics too much above people’s safety, Zein was also quite a pragmatist. He was already in Trinity’s boat, so he might as well keep it afloat. Rather than putting the chance in another’s hand, who might botch the project altogether, he much rather put his trust in Mortix and Trinity--trusting Radia’s unscrupulous mind and Bassena’s prowess.

He let out a sigh. It was still two months until the annual assembly, and even if they win the bid, they wouldn’t finish the preparation until the beginning of summer next year. He just wished that nothing serious happened before then--nothing catastrophic, at the very least.

Zein felt exhausted suddenly, even though he did nothing today aside from watching Bassena’s one-man show. But when he thought he could finally go back to the dorm after the emergency meeting concluded, Radia told him to stay.

"There’s something more?" Zein asked while creaking his neck after the others left the room. Bassena, of course, invited himself to stay.

"I don’t know how long I’ll be away, so I’ll just tell you about it now," Radia too, looked as exhausted as him, somehow, leaning back to his chair.

The crimson eyes stared at Zein before glancing at Bassena, who kept following Zein like a lovesick puppy. Bassena tilted his head inquisitively, probably wondering why the guildmaster was acting secretive and hesitant. But Radia shifted his gaze back to Zein before speaking carefully.

"It’s about that Templar organization," Radia said, and he could see an instant reaction in the guide’s eyes that slightly hardened. In an even more careful tone, he added. "And probably your father too."

Bassena finally understood why Radia was being hesitant. They knew it wasn’t a pleasant topic for Zein, and he might not want others to hear about it. To be honest, even though Bassena was there when Zein talked about his latest vision, he never heard anything about it having anything to do with Zein’s father.

So even though he was rea~ly curious about it, he knew his boundary. "I’ll go," he said finally, but before he manage to lift his butt from the chair, Zein had beat him to it.

"It’s fine," the guide said. "Just stay."

Zein leaned back and closed his eyes for a bit. There was nothing special behind his decision, he thought to himself. He already told Bassena a lot about his mother, and the esper knew about the vision regarding the Templar too. He might as well heard about this one, because Zein felt like he might end up telling Bassena about it in the future. So he just saved the effort, really.

Strangely though, Radia still looked hesitant about it. He tapped on the armrest with one hand, and massaged his temple with the other. The crimson orbs gleamed mysteriously as the man stared at Zein and Bassena, and he even asked for confirmation.

"Are you sure?"

"Mm," Zein just nodded affirmatively. But the hardened expression on both men’s faces did not allow Bassena to feel happy about being included in Zein’s business.

So he just sat there in silence like a good boy, listening to the conversation obediently, telling himself to never butt in unless one of them asked him a question.

"I’ll say this in advance, but I had yet managed to find out your father’s name," Radia started the topic with an unpromising premise. "All we got is a codename, or rather, what the opposition used to call him."

"So are you saying that the man in the photograph is indeed my...father?" Zein asked with a frown, still feeling unsure about using the word at all. "And what is that about the ’opposition’?"

"We’ll get there in a bit," Radia raised his palm to stop the questions from flowing. "First; yes, we believed that he was your father. We managed to get an account from the owner of the photographs, and thankfully, she remembered about them when we show her the pictures."

Zein widened his eyes in surprise. "Really? Something from thirty years ago?"

"Because it was memorable, she said," Radia smiled slightly. "She conveyed that she had ’never seen a couple that beautiful’" Radia quoted, staring at his commlink to read the report. "Which was why she still remembered it. And from how she described it, she believes they were indeed lovers."

Here, Radia paused to let Zein digest the fact first. When the pictures came to their knowledge before, Zein was still battling about whether or not that man was his father, because knowing that someone from Setnath’s worshipper cult imprinted his mother was as devastating as having a scum like Marshall Todres parading as a father for him.

But now, the guide could no longer deny the fact.

They waited in silence until Zein took a deep breath and exhaled long. The guide stared at the ceiling for a while, before finally speaking. "But you don’t know who he was?"

"We don’t know his name," Radia corrected. "What we know about him is what he got from his enemy’s log."

"Right, you did mention about ’opposition’," Zein nodded. "So what was he called?"

Radia chewed the inside of his cheek before replying. "They called him the ’Paladin’."