There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 34

Chapter 34: Chapter 33. Where Fragments Meet

"What do you mean we can't take the shard?"

The three researchers almost jumped in front of Zein, eyes widened in horror. It was as if their research fund had been canceled out of the blue. Bassena had to pull Zein back before he got pounced. He had seen enough of Han Shin throwing tantrums in Guildmaster's room.

"Just like I said," Zein shrugged and casually explained like he didn't just shatter people's hope and dreams. "The shard had already taken root for a long time. If I had to take a guess, this is the place where the fragment fell originally, and the other shards scattered from here."

"Wha..." Han Shin looked at him with glassy eyes. "Like an anchor?"

"Like a core," Zein looked at the shard floating there. He had never thought there would be a day he would explain something to other people, being the ignorant and less knowledgeable about things as he was. "If you want to form a fragment, you have to bring other shards here."

"And we can't take that away?"

"Can you take the one on top of the tower away?" Zein asked back.

They fell into silence then, as the answer to that was obvious. "I don't know how the Tower looks or functions, but this...domain, probably works the same way," Zein looked up, at the sturdy dorm formed from sturdy woods. "Minus the trials and everything."

"Since there's no deity to fuse the power into fragment..." Bassena muttered.

They looked around the 'domain' then, the fortress made of trees and the abundant lifeforce felt like a different world altogether. There was a rich scent of mana that made the esper feel like they were inside of the dungeon, except that there was no miasma here.

Right—like they were inside the floor of trial.

"Ah..." Han Shin sighed. They had been so preoccupied with just finding the shard that they haven't been stopping and pondering enough about the place in more depth.

"S-so we can't really take it back?" Anise sat back down with a slump. "We can't even examine it back home?"

"Can't you just...I don't know, do the research here?" Zein tilted his head. It might be a little bit complicated going here, but as long as they brought enough food, they should be able to last for a long time here. And if they established a safe route with the power that Mortix and Trinity had—

"That's impossible, unless we move the whole lab here," Eugene sighed. And with that, Han Shin and Anise followed with even bigger sighed, and the picnic turned from chaotic to depressing.

The three poor researchers continued to eat in silence, brows and lips cast down, shoulders slumped in heartbreak. Zein didn't mean to be a harbinger of despair, but what could he do? Coaxed the shard?

...hmm.

Zein stood up, leaving the depressed researchers and the other espers mulling about around the luncheon. He took Bassena's hand and pulled the esper away wordlessly.

"You're going there?" Bassena followed the guide to the edge of the lake. Surely, there was only one reason why Zein took him there suddenly.

It would be nice if the older man took him for some romantic escapade, but the guide's rather serious gaze told him otherwise.

"Can you just send me there?" _{ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com}

"Without platform? You don't want others to come too?"

Zein nodded. "I can't afford disturbance."

"I have to come with you if we use shadow step," Bassena tilted his head down to look at the guide, waiting for the answer with anticipation. It was written all over his face that Zein couldn't help but smile.

It was just a flash though, and the smile vanished in just a second, to Bassena's dismay. It was clear that Zein drew some kind of line to not indulging Bassena's attachment too much.

That being said, Zein spoke in a light tone, tapping the esper's cheek with the back of his hand lightly. "As long as you keep quiet."

Of course Bassena would keep quiet. He would even breathe as quietly as he could if it allowed him to be the exception. With a grin, he grabbed Zein's waist and enveloped them in darkness. At this point, Zein had grown familiar with the shadow step's sensation that it felt as comfortable as just stepping through portals.

This time, Bassena transferred them right in front of the shard and Zein reached out instantly so the repelling force wouldn't hit Bassena and threw the esper to the water.

As soon as he clutched the shard, the domain dimmed just a little bit—like a cloud shadowing the sun. Just like the feeling it gave out, the shard was warm in Zein's hold, it made him wonder what kind of celestial being Setnath was.

Was the deity as warm as the shard, or was it just the obvious product of the deity's soul fragment? What happened to Setnath after his soul and celestial body became a scattered fragments?

As he questioned all of these, Zein was sinking slowly into the shard's consciousness. When he touched the shard before, he was only briefly communicating with the crystal to find out what kind of environment this place was in. He had no basis for this, but he thought: what if he could communicate more with it? After all, at the end of the day, it was a piece of soul.

Zein didn't think much; he just thought of trying something after seeing the depressed state of those people. And even now, he had no concrete idea of going about communicating with a piece of crystal. He just tried doing it like he was guiding, diving inside the shard's system. Sinking deeply, sinking deeper.

Bassena caught the guide's swaying body and looked at Zein worriedly. But the man was closing his eyes peacefully as if he was just sleeping; hands still clutching tightly into the shard even as the rest of his body slacked against Bassena, the mark on his nape pulsing so strongly that even the esper could feel it.

"It's a good thing that I come along," Bassena muttered, imagining Zein's figure dropping into the hard root surface had he stayed back. "Really, what are you, Zein?"

* * *

It was bright. A sea of brightness. No, a void. In Bassena's core, Zein could visualize a sea, the body of water itself. But here there was nothing. It was what he imagined the inside of the shard to look like.

After all, the shards was glowing in bright, white light.

[ah, a guest. How long has it been?]

There was a voice. Behind him? All around him? Zein tried to look around but realized he couldn't. He had no control over his body at all—was he even had a body here? Obviously, he couldn't speak too.

[hmm, is this your first time? No wonder you couldn't do anything at all...]

Huh, what? So he would be able to move and speak if he did this a few more times?

[how unfortunate...you were supposed to come to me years ago. Seventeen years, is it?]

Zein sighed. If he could move or speak, perhaps he would have the energy to be shocked. But now he just wondered who this voice was. It sounded like a male, but with all the distortion and the confusion of losing his senses, Zein couldn't be sure.

Honestly, he was just hoping he could find a way to uproot the shard, or probably ask this one about the location of the others.

He certainly never thought he would hear something about himself.

Seventeen years—it was pointing to his awakening time then. What, so It thought Zein should come all the way to this treacherous land when he was ten? Crazy bas—

[no need to be spiky, child. I had no hand in the twisting of your fate. And no, you don't really need to come all the way here]

Ah, now Zein was sure who this voice belonged to.

The moment he was sure of it, the bright void melted, like sculpted ice under the blazing sun. The white space unfolded into trees. Rows and rows of trees, like the one caging and protecting the domain outside.