There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 482

Chapter 482: Chapter 475. Clean Up

"Dungeon, huh..."

In the first place, Deathzone was created from dungeons that didn’t get cleared because, well...no one could. No tower was created, and so no esper was born in this region. With no one to kill the beasts and clear new sprouting dungeons, the miasma got thicker and became a perfect home for the creatures coming out of the dungeons.

Of course, with how thick the miasma was, even if humans used a detection machine, they wouldn’t be able to sense any dungeon, since the miasma coming out of the new dungeon would be masked by the Deathzone’s miasma. But that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be any dungeon.

"It’s where all those beasts spawned from, isn’t it?" Bassena shrugged. "That’s why they seemed to be endless."

But who knows? Perhaps if they slew more beasts than they could spawn from the dungeons, the Deathzone would be cleared of beasts one day. All they had to deal with was the wights and lesser specters then, who were created by the Deathzone natural evolution itself, before Zein united the shards into a complete fragment to get rid of the rest of the miasma.

The problem was...

"Based on what the Horins had been doing...it seems like the Fallen Star can generate dungeon, isn’t that so?" Zein narrowed his eyes. "Do you think It is staying in one It created itself?"

Bassena nodded. "You know...I had been thinking that the reason why the Fallen Star regenerates so slowly is that It is also a creature of mana. I mean...the Fallen Star used to be a Celestial Being, right? It used the same source of energy with the other Celestial Being, not miasma."

Senan blinked and spoke eagerly. "You mean...the miasma is also pressuring It?"

"Well, it explains why It stays in a dungeon," Zein rubbed his lips. "Perhaps until the mana exhausted, and then It hopped into another dungeon, and..." something suddenly popped into his mind. "That’s why It created the fragments even though it would weaken It further--because It needs a proxy in the Deathzone to manage the unruly beasts."

"Yeah," Bassena, the one with the responsibility to face this former Celestial Being, exhaled slowly as he threw his head back against his seat. Seemed like this entity became trickier and trickier to deal with. "Well...we’ll have to deal with that one either way."

"Right," Zein emptied his cup of coffee and tapped on the table before standing up. "Anyway, there’s no change in our initial plan, isn’t it?"

"Except for that special team you want to make--where are you going?"

Zein patted the esper’s cheek on his way out of the tent. "I’m still the Operation’s lead guide," he said. "What else would I do but guide?"

* * *

The guides that were part of the advance troops were among Zein’s best disciples. But they weren’t Zein. Even Dean, the only A-class guide aside from Zein, couldn’t guide half the amount Zein usually did.

Of course, not because they were inept.

In fact, thanks to Zein’s strict teaching derived from experience rather than theory, the guides in the strike division could guide better than their peers. Zein just had a vessel equivalent to what Bassena’s mana core was compared to other espers. And then, that vessel capacity was doubled by his ability to convert the absorbed corrosion quickly into pure mana.

That was why he had been taking on the role of guiding the damage dealers, who were twice the number of the defenders and supporters. These damage dealers, both warriors and magicians, were the people they needed the most to do the next steps in their base establishment; construction works.

After all, they would need magic and muscle.

Thus, the faster Zein could cleanse these espers, the faster they could start cleaning the path and building the facilities. And thanks to using all of his mana on destroying the Fallen Star’s fragment earlier, his vessel was empty. Right before the after the dinner, he kept guiding the espers--especially the ones who would clean the road, including his Iron Brigade members.

Once again, the other guides realized they were but mere chicks in front of the blue-eyed Phoenix.

Bassena might get a bit cranky because he couldn’t find any time to cuddle with his boyfriend, but it also made him work non-stop since he had nothing to do with Zein being so busy. By the time Zein finished his cleansing for that day, Bassena had managed to finish making a whole schedule for the cleaning process, the construction, as well as security patrol rotation--not just for the advance troop, but the whole Operation members.

And as an extra, he even made a list of potential members for Zein’s special team. He was rewarded with a short, but nice cuddling time a bit before dawn, so all is well.

With their commanders working extra hard, the rest of the members couldn’t help but whip themselves. The cleaning process started right away with two teams--one to clear the ruined city itself to smoothen the construction process, and one to clear the path from the ruin to the edge of the Deathzone.

The first challenge, of course, was the marsh. They had to burn the leftover frogmen’s corpses, dry a long line of the marsh, and fill it with hard soil; making it sturdy enough for many people to cross easily, and if they could, for a vehicle to come too later on. They also installed another beacon and purification device there--just to smoothen the communication signal and make sure the new path wasn’t easily decayed.

To test it out, Zhan was having fun using his bike to run along the new path. Despite Gus and Shin praying a section would crumble and the bike would drown in the marsh, Zhan waved his halberd in triumph at the end of the path.