There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)-Chapter 61 - 60. Unfamiliar Peace

"What is this?" Zein stared at the suitcases that came knocking in his room.

Reina did say she would send him the clothes she made in his image, but Zein never thought it would be this much. And not just that, she didn’t send it in package boxes, or even shopping bags. It was inside suitcases, in three different sizes.

If he had to use one word to describe her, it would be ’storm’. As if determined to annoy Bassena, she dragged Han Shin from his lab to follow them for their lunch, to which the healer agreed wholeheartedly. Zein ended up being dragged everywhere that day, including getting a haircut and experiencing the agony of accompanying a young woman shopping.

He was in a daze the entire time, getting pushed inside this circle of childhood friends that seemed too eager to welcome him in their midst. But it was better, he thought, than sitting around people who kept flinching at him because he had a scary vibe or whatever.

They didn’t let him go until after dinner, to the point he questioned if these people abused their power to skip work and have fun instead. He came back to his room with a bag full of snacks which the energetic couple poured on him.

Not that he minded.

But before he was done relishing his long-awaited alone time, someone knocked on his door, and now he was staring at the suitcases. He didn’t even have to open them to know what was inside, since the overly enthusiastic sender included a catalog that seemed to be personified for the guide, down to the combination he could wear.

Zein had no idea if he would really wear them, or if he had places to wear them to, but he sent a thank you message to Reina nonetheless. Either way, just like Bassena said, he lacked available clothes, since he came to this place without really planning to stay.

And he remembered what Abel said to him; that wearing more casual clothes would soften his impression, maybe made him look less like a grim reaper. He was also glad that Reina considered all of his answers and only sent him what he might like—those with long sleeves and calm, muted colors.

The best thing from the pile, however, was the sets of workout attires that he immediately fished out of the medium-sized suitcase. It wasn’t included in the catalog that Reina made, but she told him it was part of his uniform sets.

Of course—a combat guide would have a physical training regime after all.

After diligently storing the clothes in the closet, Zein stared at another amusing thing on the table; a bank book and green-zone residential permit.

He had thought he needed to acquire them himself, but the guild had already taken care of it, and both were accessible through his commlink. A bank account was one thing, but...to think he could get a residential permit in just a day...

It was a testament to the might of Trinity—or rather the Guildmaster. Zein had no idea whether he should say ’wow’ or ’as expected’ at this point.

Even after being deducted for tax, he still had more than a million in his new account, something that he never dreamt of—not even within his plan of moving up five years ago. A residential permit that he’d been trying to get for twenty years, obtainable in just a day.

It was so absurd that the room was filled with his bitter laughter.

If—if only...

If only he tried to run away with his brothers without caring about the contract with Umbra...if only he went straight to the Guide Centre in the orange or yellow-zone...even if they had to use some illegal means to cross over...

Would his life change earlier then?

Would his brothers stay alive...then?

That night, Zein ended up using the workout outfit and running around the compound until midnight.

Until he was too exhausted to think about anything.

* * *

"Good choice," was what Abel said as a greeting when Zein came to the seventh floor the next day.

Following the Chief Guide’s advice, Zein came wearing one of the clothes Reina sent him. Well, he didn’t really have a choice too, since his combat jacket was hospitalized. He took a deep red shirt, thinking that it was the closest he could appear as an A-class guide.

With his new neatly cut hair, and without the bulky, battle-worn combat jacket, he did look less scary and tense, even while still wearing the black filtering mask.

Zein woke up rather late that day, and since he didn’t really have anything to do until a lunch appointment with Eugene and Anise—the expedition’s researchers—he had a lazy morning where he spent time finding out the name of every plant in his room.

It was already half past ten when he came, and the seventh floor was packed with people, unlike yesterday. The hall was filled with espers waiting for their pre-cleansing turn, as well as guides fleeting about. Eyes were upon Zein as he walked to the waving Abel who stood leaning at the front desk, but they were filled with curiosity rather than guard.

"You don’t wear your badge?" Abel asked while pulling on Zein’s arms and folding the guide’s sleeves neatly like the excellent caretaker that he was. He admired how nonchalant Zein was, even as every pair of eyes were trained at him.

"I’m not on duty yet," the tall guide answered firmly.

"I didn’t expect this, but you’re actually the type that goes by the book, aren’t you?"

Zein didn’t quite understand what that meant, but Abel wasn’t wrong. Despite living in treacherous land, Zein always abided by the rule; it was why he never breached his contract, and he was strict in his principle. Probably why he took care of the twins too.

Abel kind of understood why the Guildmaster set him to be a mentor, not just a member of the new division.

"It’s crowded," Zein commented, eyes watching the screen showing the packed guiding schedule.

The siblings seemed to work hard today too, eyes glued to their computers. But they still greeted Zein dutifully, since he was officially their boss too.

"Because it’s Friday," Abel replied while looking at the tablet in his hand, eyes perusing the report keenly even as he gave an explanation. "It’s the last day to fill the weekly quota, so most idle espers go raiding the eternal dungeons today,"

While the safe zone around the Temple was free of dungeon spawning, the rest of the area was not. Even in the green-zone, dungeons could still spawn in the middle of the street. It was because the phenomenon called dungeons was actually a portal of dimensional rifts, the byproduct of the Celestial War.

The green-zone was safer not because there wasn’t any dungeon, but because big guilds were residing there, and the leaking miasma from the dungeon was easily eliminated by the energy wave from the fragment of Setnath. In the red-zone, the leaking miasma would persist and seep into the land, the water, the air—everywhere, making living almost unbearable.

Dungeons had a core, which supplied miasmic energy to maintain the portal. It needed to be destroyed for the portal to close. Left alone, the beasts coming from inside the rifts would come across and invade the Earth—it was what they called an outbreak.

But sometimes, dungeons with no core appeared; a mutation. With no core, the dungeon could not be destroyed, and so, it needed to be maintained. But that kind of dungeon also brought profit from the endless materials inside the rift. In other words, it was a mine. Guilds, companies, organizations, and governments were in competition to own such dungeons. Typically, big guilds would have at least the right to several of these eternal dungeons.

Of course, that included Trinity—or rather, Trinity and Mortix.

"Is there no raiding on the weekend?" Zein tilted his head. Dungeons had no closing time, so why were they so worked up before the weekend? Or were espers only worked on the weekdays?

"Not for us," Abel drew his signature on the tablet, and shoved it to the female sibling. "The government regulation stated that we have to lend the dungeon exploration to the small guild, to help them develop their esper,"

Zein raised his brows. He didn’t know that, since the government decree never reached the red-zone. Dungeons right was always a brutal competition there. Giving other parties a chance to take profit from owned dungeons was a totally new concept for Zein.

"We take a fixed rental fee no matter what the result of the raid is, in exchange for having free time on the weekend—it’s quite nice, don’t you think?"

"So the guild will be closed on the weekend?"

"No," Abel shook his head. "That’s just the case for eternal dungeons. But we also have the regular dungeons to work on, and the regular guiding sessions. The one who got a fixed weekend time is the management—the second and third-floor guys."

"Hmm..." Zein chewed the inside of his cheek. He realized now that the way things work here was totally different from the one he was used to. "I think I need to study for a bit..."

Abel smiled at the way those blue eyes actually shone in curiosity rather than frustration. "You can access the archive from your link, but if you prefer to read in paperback, the library is just below," he tapped the floor with his foot lightly. "But the archives’ accessibility is determined by rank, so you need your badge inside, remember that,"

"Mm, thanks..."

Abel brought Zein inside the office hall, then, where more civilians were working. Zein finally met the one in charge of computing the guide’s data, as well as Abel’s secretary, whose always chained to her desk.

"They’ll designate someone to be your assistant too," Abel said, to Zein’s astonishment. What would he need an assistant for? "Here, this will be your office," the smaller guide proceeded to open the opaque door in front of his own room.

He truly got an office too? Zein peeked inside, staring at the desk and the set of couches, at the empty bookcases and cabinets. The only office he knew was the one that belonged to Captain Agni, and that place felt more like a war council room with all the maps and weapons.

"I never knew guiding is a desk job," Zein muttered.

"Pfft, of course not. Guiding is a clinical job," Abel chuckled. "But managing the guides is a behind-the-desk job."

That was the main purpose of Zein coming to the seventh floor today; to check on his workspace. He didn’t need to come since he wasn’t on duty yet, but from what Bassena told him, the members of the new division would be selected from the available guides, so there was merit to come and scrutinized potential candidates.

Or so he tried—but his time was used up to discuss things about this office things, so he had no time to even check the guide lounge until his lunch partners arrived.

It felt quite different looking at Eugene and Anise in their sophisticated white coats instead of the enhanced suits they wore in the Deathzone. But somehow, they also looked even more exhausted than when they had to walk all through that dark jungle.

Once they saw Zein’s masked figure, however, their expression brightened considerably, just like Reina the previous day, waving their hands energetically as if they had just seen a shard fragment. Well, technically...Zein was a fragment too, although they didn’t know that.

The change was such a stark contrast that it drew the attention of people eating peacefully in the restaurant. Thanks to that, Zein found the poor PR people he saw yesterday were having their lunch at a nearby table, as they stood and nodded to him politely, still looking like a zombie.

What kind of news flood did they need to stop actually? They looked like they had not slept a wink. It was so pitiful that Zein told the waitress he’d pay for their meal, while thinking of asking Bassena about the circumstances.

But it seemed like dragging Zein for fun yesterday cost them their free time, since he found out that Han Shin was holed up in his office now, finishing the research paper he’d been neglecting, whereas Bassena had to fly to the Capital for commercial shooting.

So Zein spent the lunch discussing when he would go to Mortix’s lab and how their cooperation would ensue. Most of it, though, was he listening to the researchers gushing out about their troubles with their research. Eugene had always been talkative, but the usually quiet Anise also turned energetic when it was about the things she was interested in.

Zein could see they wanted to talk about the shard too, but unfortunately, it was a confidential subject that was banned from being discussed outside the confine of the lab. So they ended up talking about the Deathzone experience instead, and Zein committed the researchers’ thoughts to his memory, since he thought it would be useful for the new division’s training regime.

Thinking about his new job—which no longer just guiding now—turned Zein’s direction to the library. He had nothing to do anyway, so he resolved himself to fill the gap in knowledge that he severely lacked. All his know-how derived from self-teaching, and the way people did things in the safer zone was markedly different from what he used to.

And that was how he began his life in Trinity—by meeting people and studying in the library, having peaceful lunches talking about nostalgic things and future plans.

It was weird. When he was contracted to Umbra, they told him to guide immediately. During his time in the Borderland, he was put on duty an hour after arriving. Now...

Now he even had a leeway to feel like he had nothing to do. Things were calm, peaceful, and orderly. He was given time to acclimate himself to the guild’s environment. There was no threat, no sense of danger.

It was weird. It was uncomfortable.

Zein felt his body itch—he wanted to run around, to move his body rigorously. His vessel was begging to be filled with esper’s corrosion.

To think he once wished for a day where he need not guide and just rest all day, enjoying life...

Had it ingrained too deep inside his body and mind? He couldn’t be lazy even if he wanted to be. For the first time in his life, Zein thought;

’ah, I want to do some guiding...’

And then, the next day, he cursed that thought.