There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 423

Chapter 423: Chapter 416. Bare Minimum

"Ah, right; have Mago contacted you?"

It took Zein a while to collect himself from his new gift before he realized the Goddess was asking him something. "Huh? Ah, yes...the priests visited me."

"And?"

Zein patted his knees and stood up, feeling slightly wobbly. He shook his head to regain his balance before replying. "I gave them some demands as a condition for me to forgive their Saintess."

To Zein’s surprise, the Goddess laughed. "Good, you do that," she nodded. "She shouldn’t let Her children go around irresponsibly in the world--at least, I won’t let Her children disrespect mine."

"Am I yours, now?"

The Goddess just smiled cheekily and turned around with hands stretched behind her back.

"Anyway, I’ll talk to Mago about telling those children of Hers to agree to your demands."

Zein raised his brow as he followed her back to the garden. "Do you even know what my demands are?"

"I don’t need to," she glanced back with a smile. "I know you enough."

Zein had no idea if that statement was supposed to be reassuring or alarming, considering that they had only ’met’ two times thus far. Sure, it was almost on a spiritual level, but...

Oh, whatever. He just got a ’little’ gift, after all.

At the edge of the inner garden, she suddenly paused and turned around. "I don’t know if I can come down again before you return," she said, reaching out to brush Zein’s hair from his sweaty forehead. "Good luck, my child. You’re doing something good, so there’s no need to be doubtful or hesitate."

Zein didn’t say anything, just blinked and looked at her with a clear, firm gaze in those brilliant blue eyes. She smiled and nodded, before turning around and continuing walking. The moment She stepped out of the inner garden, Zein immediately knew it wasn’t Her any more.

* * *

"Here you go, it’s getting bigger."

Zein received the black marble from the Saintess. It was only as big as the marble children usually play with--as big as a grape, at most. But now, it has expanded--not too much, just as big as a plum, but it was still weird that it became bigger.

"It’s probably going to get bigger and bigger with time," the Saintess added.

Zein already knew that the inner garden had a different flow of time than the rest, which was why not even the Saintess could go there without the Goddess’s permission. By the time he came out of the garden, a whole day had passed by, even though it only felt like half an hour long at most. Most likely, time passed the most when he was in front of the altar receiving the gift.

During that one day, the black marble had grown in size. As he cleaned himself in the suite provided for him--the same room where he stayed the last time--Zein wondered how much time had passed inside. A month? A year? It couldn’t be more, like? He frowned as he felt an uncomfortable twist in his stomach.

It felt weirder because, for him, it only felt like an hour since he saw Bassena enter this marble. The sheer thought of the time discrepancy between them right now was unsettling.

And how much he would need to wait until Bassena came out?

They had planned to stay in the Temple until Bassena came out of the marble, so Zein needed to look for something to do while he was waiting for the esper--a distraction. The first thing he did was ask for link access.