There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Chapter 1. The Red in the Red-Zone

Zen had thought he was already desensitized to destruction.

From the day Umbra got him his fake license with a new name ZEN written on it, he had come into countless dungeons and massacres. He had guided espers in the middle of blood and miasma.

He thought nothing would faze him anymore.

But as he stared at the smoke and fire and the cloud of miasma behind the barricade, he was frozen. He was reminded of the first time Umbra brought him inside the dungeon. He was thirteen. He came inside with a clean uniform. He came out drenched in blood.

He remembered the dread and fear gripping him from the four-days excursion. The many nights he spent in nightmares, how much stomach content he threw up across the week, how much beating he received for failing to do any guiding during the next month.

What he felt right now was very close to that time.

As he stood there, he remembered the event four days ago, when one of Umbra's executives came to him, asking—hiring—him to go to the dungeon. Zen had refused then; he was just freed from the suffocating contract, and he wasn't about to waste it on another job right away.

Now, seeing the fleeting shadow of rampaging beasts inside the emergency barricade, Zen couldn't help but think...if he came to the dungeon, would it be different?

He was but a mere guide, but a guide could make the difference between esper's availability to keep fighting. It was conceited to think one guide like him could make a difference, but there was a thought, guilt, a wish that maybe...just maybe...the outcome would be different.

That the destruction in front of him could be avoided.

With that though, he walked dazedly towards the barricade. But before he could even touch the fence, his shoulder was grabbed strongly, and he was yanked back.

"Who are you? You can't go in there if you're not Esper. It's too dangerous now!"

Zen turned his head at the voice. It was a man wearing an Esper Agency uniform. There was no government bureau in the red-zone, so the man must come from the orange-zone.

Good, then it meant Espers were being dispatched. Of course they would be, otherwise, the miasmic beasts would cross over to the safer zone to look for another victim.

Zen wanted to breathe a relieved sigh, but he couldn't. The sounds coming out behind the barricade were telling him that the situation was fierce and chaotic.

"The resident..." there was only one thing he needed to know right now.

The man loosened up his grip on Zen's shoulder. It seemed that he inferred Zen's hastiness as someone whose family members were exposed to danger, so he could understand it somewhat.

The Esper looked grim, and spoke in a heavy tone. "There are some that were able to evacuate. Perhaps yours were—"

Before the man could finish his explanation, there was a loud dull sound against the barricade. They watched as a man—an Esper—crashed into the barrier before deftly rolling on the ground. About twenty meters ahead, a miasmic beast was swaying before falling to the ground with a sword sticking out of his chest.

"Sir Bellum!" the agency's worker ran toward the crashing Esper, helping the man up.

Steel Blood Askan Bellum was a 3-star Esper that was only there accidentally. He just finished solo raiding a dungeon on the orange-zone when an emergency alert of a dungeon break sounded. He was immediately requested to deal with the break that already breaching the residential area of the red-zone.

It was a stroke of bad luck. People didn't really care about a break happening in a red-zone. But since the beasts breached the residential area bordering the orange-zone, there was a fear of border crossing.

Managing a dungeon break was the responsibility of the guild involved. But the guild seemed to be wiping their hands off, so the government had to step in. Unfortunately, the Espers working around this remote, desolate area was the one who wasn't good enough to work in a better place, so Askan had to bear the brunt of stepping in. He also couldn't hope for a good reinforcement, since guild Espers didn't like to work without good payment.

Askan sighed, dusting the dirt from his clothes. 'I don't mind working pro-bono, but...' he lamented inwardly. He came here straight from the dungeon, and he felt the heaviness inside his body. It wasn't the problem with stamina, but the accumulation of miasma from the previous dungeon.

He looked at the chaotic residential area—or what it was supposed to be. It was now a trampled ruin, more or less. He heard the red-zone mercenary groups were moving to help, but the real problem wasn't with the number of Espers.

'We don't have enough guide...'

Just then, as he was about to walk away, his hand was grabbed by someone.

"Hey, what are you doing?! I told you not to come he—" the agency worker was shouting, but Askan held his palm up to stop the man. He looked at the one grabbing his hand instead.

It was a man—a young man it seemed—with pitch black hair and deep blue eyes that reminded Askan of the ocean. That was the extent of the things he could see, because the man wore a filtering mask and an outfit that covered the rest of his skin. Just one glance and Askan knew the man lived in the deepest part of the red-zone, hence the appearance.

What stopped him from snatching his hand off was because immediately, he felt the heaviness in his body being lifted. He looked at the blue eyes that getting lighter, from the deep ocean into a serene lake. "Are you...a guide?"

There was no answer, but he didn't need confirmation either. The feeling of miasma getting flushed out of his system was palpable.

Askan was astonished. He had been an active Espers for ten years, and had received various guiding. But it was the first time he felt such a calm and refreshing guiding. It was as if there was a spring flowing inside his system, cleaning him up thoroughly.

'There's such a good Guide in a red-zone?' he was so flabbergasted that he ended up just staring dumbly at the Guide

And not just that, the process was fast. As a veteran, Askan knew how much corrosion accumulated inside his system. By his estimation, to get him into a yellow level safety would take a B-class guide for about fifteen minutes. But this guide did it in a mere five minutes, and he still went on.

"That's enough," Askan grabbed the guide's arm to stop the guiding. "I can make do with this. If you can still go, you should use it for the other espers in the emergency base."

But the guide still gripped his hand tightly, even though the guiding had stopped. A low voice, muffled by the mask, flowed into him. "My brothers..."

Ah. Askan caught the gaze of the eyes that had turned deep blue again. He knew that gaze, he saw it often during dungeon break.

Desperation. Fear.