There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)-Chapter 790: Side Story 4. Endless Journey - 71

Kar tilted his head. "Coaching?"

"Yeah, so..."

"Let me explain, Sir Ishtera," a woman came behind Byul, who Kar knew to be the manager and the CEO of Byul’s agency.

She started by explaining how things work. The production company usually contracted an action school for this kind of action movie; the action school would provide training, stunts, and action choreographers for the filming. For a story with esper characters, the action school had its own contracted espers as trainers for the last stage.

"Why do you need me, then?" Kar asked curiously as they entered the elevator.

"That’s..." Byul scratched his neck awkwardly. "I criticized the esper and he got angry, refusing to train the actors afterward."

The manager continued the explanation then, telling Kar how condescending the esper had been since the start of his coaching--which started about three days ago. Not only that, he used the standard of real espers for the actors in the training, even though they were non-awakened.

"It’s completely different from the training I received from you and Uncle, Hyung..." Byul frowned and clenched his fist. "I had spoken to the movie director, and she said she had told the school’s director about it. But the esper was mocking us today because of that--telling the actors that they shouldn’t pretend to be espers and such. The young actors were scared and someone finally got injured today, so I couldn’t hold back and raised my voice--I was really angry."

Byul bit his lips hard as the manager told Kar about how the esper said he would no longer train them. The movie was set in an esper academy, so there were a lot of young actors involved. They didn’t have enough courage to stand up for themselves, even though they had been feeling so exhausted and in pain the past three days.

Truthfully, they could just go without the esper’s teaching--since it wasn’t really helpful in the first place. But having no esper involved in the production when it was a story about one would diminish the movie’s credibility. If the esper talked to the press, it could jeopardize the movie further.

"Can he do that? Isn’t there a contract or something?" Kar held his baby’s hand and rubbed it for a few seconds before the elevator stopped.

"At this point, the production wants to solve the problem as quietly as possible. A legal case will affect the filming, and it doesn’t fix the initial problem," the manager explained. "And...to be honest, we are also afraid of direct retaliation from the esper."

"I’m sorry, Hyung..." Byul sighed again. "I told the production team I’ll get another esper to teach the actors since I was the one who lashed out at that esper."

"Forgive me, Sir Ishtera. I was the one who suggested Byul to contact you."

"No, you did good," Kar patted the actor’s head before stepping out of the elevator. "If you didn’t contact me and I find out after things escalate, it’ll end in a much, much messier way."

The manager flinched at the esper’s gleaming eyes. She had seen Bassena Vaski before when she was still working for Rina, and she still remembered the dangerous-looking eyes from back then. She swallowed quietly and led the esper to the training hall.

Even though the lamps were blaring inside the hall, the atmosphere was gloomy. There were the actors huddling in one corner, while the production crew were talking with the action school people in the middle. Interestingly enough, the esper who said he refused to teach and stormed out of the place earlier was back, wearing the same haughty expression that had been infuriating Byul for days.

When the manager entered the room, the esper immediately sneered. "So, where’s this esper you said you’ll bring? Must be some jobless esper if they can come in ten minutes."

The manager stopped briefly and grimaced for the esper’s future, but the esper saw it as a sign of inferiority. Well, it wasn’t like he didn’t have any base for this. Most espers were busy with their jobs, especially those who were in a guild. The only espers who weren’t busy were rankers who only worked for high-ranking dungeons or those who were so pathetic they couldn’t get any job.

But there was no way a high-ranking esper would be willing to come and teach a bunch of unawakened people when they could get ten or twenty times more money from just a single dungeon raid.

To get someone in just ten minutes after calling, that person must be a jobless rookie desperate for a gig.

"Jobless, huh?" a man with a low voice entered the training hall. "Well...it’s indeed been a while since I raided a dungeon."

"Hah! As expec...ted?

The esper froze, and so did everyone else. He might only mildly known three years ago, but after returning from a successful Deathzone reclamation, there was no one in that room who couldn’t recognize that face and those striking eyes.

"S-s-saint class..."

"Karna Ishtera?!"

"W-why is he here?"

While everyone was frozen in shock, the manager walked toward the production crew to inform them about Kar’s involvement. Rather than wasting time with the staggering esper on the other side, Byul took Kar to the actors on the corner.

The actors, most of whom were teenagers and young ones around Byul’s age, stared at Kar in a daze; half-amazed and half-scared--perhaps still traumatized by the other esper. The older actors, who probably held the role of academy teachers, gathered themselves quickly and greeted Kar politely.

Haa...even in this day and age, the hierarchy between awakened and non-awakened was still prevalent. Even famous actors needed to be cautious because even if they could sue, an esper’s fist and magic were still faster. ƒгeewёbnovel.com

Thinking about his baby’s image, Kar copied his dad’s showbiz persona and smiled charmingly--which required no effort at all with that face. "I heard you need coaching? Would you mind having me?"

The actors froze again for a few seconds, before replying excitedly. "Yes!"

Even if it was hard, they would have bragging rights about working together with the Hero of Northern Mountain. The teenagers were especially excited, asking Byul about taking pictures with Kar.

Kar didn’t really care about the contract or whatnot--he was sure the manager and the production crew would sort it out. He just told Uncle Dia about it as formality--after all, there was no way Uncle Dia would let his husband’s nephew be in distress.

And he was right; Radia told him to do whatever he liked, even offering the action school to make a contract with Trinity instead--firing the problematic esper in the process. Kar only cared about the coaching, however.

After almost three years hanging out with the rookie faction, Kar had developed a deep understanding of all kinds of positions and skills of an esper. Being taught by Han Joon, he could finely adjust training for non-awakened and discussed a more flexible and flowing choreography with the grateful action teachers.

But most importantly, the young actors no longer felt intimidated. Kar had been training Byul at home, after all--he was well-versed in coaching actors already. The youngsters’ energy reminded him of those rookies in the Deathzone, so it was rather nostalgic.

In the end, he even agreed to take some pictures with the young actors, after they were begging Byul--as a proxy--for days.

If there were difficulties...well, probably how hard it was to hold back from showing Byul affection. He purposefully didn’t look in Byul’s direction and held back from using his hands around the actor--otherwise, he might start patting Byul’s head or stroking Byul’s cheeks out of habit.

Thankfully, Kar being there could be reasoned by the manager working for Rina Solstice before. Everyone knew that Rina retired to be together with House Ishtera’s Chief of Staff, so most people thought Rina was the one asking Kar for a favor.

So, even if the pictures of him teaching the actors surfaced from various social media accounts, it didn’t seem like people particularly connected him to Byul, or shone light on their relationship. There were several pictures of him interacting with Byul, but while some people found it cute and started making those shipping stuff he didn’t understand, most just thought of it as normal since Byul was the lead actor.

Anyway, he only coached for a while, before a rookie team from Trinity took over, so there was not much gossip going around. Aside from using his name to boost the movie’s anticipation, Kar retreated from the filming site.

He had no idea how much longer he could go on holding back when Byul was around.

Turned out, keeping it a secret was pretty rough.

With that, he thought his involvement with the movie was over. The filming had begun and he waited patiently for his busy lover at home. Well, at the guild too. Teaching the young actors made him miss working in the field again, so he asked his uncle to give him raid missions again.

It was right after one of these missions did his commlink blared red with an emergency notice.

A dungeon break had occurred near a certain filming site.