There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 394

Chapter 394: Chapter 386. A Dying Star

"Zein, I need you to do something for me," before they left the Chairman’s office, Radia gave the guide homework. "Can you find out how many shards there are in the Deathzone?"

"I’ll try," Zein nodded, feeling that it was time that he conversed with the shard again.

And so, rather than returning to the guild, Zein and Bassena headed to the basement research lab. It had been a while since he last saw the team there, with how busy he was, so the welcome was rather boisterous. It wasn’t just the researchers; a device attached to the glass that separated them from the shard also beeped repeatedly, and the screen on top of it flashed the word MISS repeatedly.

"The interpreter can do it in real-time, now?" Bassena whistled at the device.

"Of course! We keep increasing the capability so we can converse smoothly with the shards," Eugene said proudly. "There’s still a second or two delay, but that’s almost nothing, right?"

"Eh--even calls through link got delayed that much sometimes," Bassena shrugged, before looking at Zein with a grin. "Seems like you’ve been neglecting it too much."

Zein chuckled as he walked to the door of the shard’s chamber. "I know."

The door let out a familiar hissing sound as he stepped inside the chamber. The pure, refreshing air that reminded him of the Temple welcomed him along with a soft vibration coming from inside the tube. The glass surface of the tube lowered into the pedestal to reveal the shining, pulsing shard which vibrated even harder as Zein walked closer.

"Do you miss me?" he put his hand on the shard, and it let out a buzzing sound like a purr of a domestic pet.

Unlike before, his consciousness didn’t instantly get sucked inside the shard’s memory. Perhaps because there was no longer any remnant of memory left for him to peruse, or perhaps because he had reached an understanding with Setnath in the temple.

This time, however, he had wished he could obtain some memories. Still with his palm against the shard, Zein sent his consciousness inside, conversing with his soul rather than his mouth.

I need your help--he told the shard, which pulsed softly under him. Do you know how many are you?

Zein then recalled the image of the whole fragment he saw in the Temple of Freyja and the Tower of Ophiucus, hoping the shard would know what he meant. The way it glowed softly told Zein it understood, but the stuttered, unstable vibration told him it was a difficult thing to answer.

Is there any shard’s location you know?

This time, it buzzed more enthusiastically. So there was, and as Zein sent more of his consciousness inside, he was once again getting sucked into a memory. Though blurry, it was a familiar one; the ruined city, but not yet buried underground. From how bleak it looked, it seemed like the tragedy had happened, and the thickening miasma encroached on the place that the shard tried to protect.

It was lonely, and he could feel the shard’s sadness. In this loneliness, it tried to reach out to its siblings--the other shards. But the thickening miasma limited its senses, and it could only sense three other shards. One of them was the core inside the tree dome, and the other two were inside other settlements.

That should be good enough. But Zein suddenly thought of something after he knew he could still access some memories.

Can you show me the moment you got separated?

The shards buzzed sharply, as if gasping in surprise, before following it with erratic, energetic vibration. Zein’s vision immediately blurred and shifted until he felt like hurling out his lunch. The landscape was flashing backward, so fast that he couldn’t follow it. Until, finally, the vision stopped, and Zein felt himself falling freely towards the ground.

Ah. This must be the memory of the fragment when it came to this area. The land had been marred with miasma, but it was nowhere as thick as today’s Deathzone. The grotesque jungle wasn’t formed yet, and many cities still tried to defend themselves, yet to get swallowed by darkness or buried by dirt.

But Zein couldn’t get more chances to observe the place because a heavy, condensed power of concentrated miasma suddenly struck him--or rather, the fragment--and the collision between the two powers shattered the fragment into pieces.

Zein wanted to look into the creature who produced such a force it could contend with the fragment’s power, but he immediately recalled the main objective of him asking for this memory. He swiftly focused his eyes and mind to look at the shattered fragment, counting all the shards before they scattered away and hit the ground helplessly.

As he plummeted into the city that was yet to get buried underground, he saw a silhouette of a huge, giant-like entity with countless blazing white eyes, scorching like a dying star.

* * *

Once again, Zein gasped for air as he let go of the shard, wobbling back slightly as his legs lost the energy they once had. For a while, he only blinked in a daze, still feeling like freefalling, until he realized he was leaning against a warm, sturdy wall of flesh and muscle.

"Oh," he looked up to stare at the protective gaze of ambers; the warm fire erasing the cold feeling he received from those white, giant eyes in the shard’s memory. "Oh, thank Gods it’s you."

"Who else would it be?" Bassena smiled and helped Zein straighten himself. "Get anything useful."

"It’ll be such a waste of losing all this energy if I don’t."

Bassena chuckled and held his hand, leading him out. "Should we get you some sweets? We can go to a dessert cafe--It’s been a while since we go anywhere," the esper asked with a cheery smile.

"You’re asking for a date?"