There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 75

Chapter 75: Chapter 73. Chasing Light

"He came often?" Zein asked then—since they were already on the topic, might as well satiate his curiosity.

"Sometimes," the Guildmaster answered with a light smile, and Zein couldn’t decipher how often was that ’sometimes’. Like...once a year? Once a week? "Drink?"

"Just water," Zein glanced toward the ’butler’ and other summoned creatures who were there again. "I thought you didn’t get along well?"

Observing the man, Zein saw the crimson eyes curled, and the lips beneath flashed a cold smile. "We didn’t," he said, with a slight disdain underneath. "As a matter of fact, I hate him."

Zein tried to remember the flushed, blissful face he witnessed earlier, the submissive whine and moans as he walked out.

"But I love him too," Radia, who was leaning back, rubbed his lips with two fingers, eyes staring vacantly at the desk. "Well, at least I love his body,"

"So you maintain a physical relationship under everyone’s eyes?"

Instead of answering, Radia cocked his head toward something on the table, a sealing box with something ominous behind it. Zein had never seen that kind of box—made of reinforced metal with layers of protection arrays carved into it. But from the size and the way it gave him a nostalgic creep, Zein could take a guess.

"A corrupted mana stone?"

"Oh~it’s so nice talking to people who don’t need much explanation," Radia exhaled in delight, the crimson eyes curled in satisfaction.

Ignoring that remark, Zein tilted his head in ponder. Bringing up this stone when he asked about their relationship meant that the one who got that stone was Han Joon, and it was being delivered today. Was that why Radia couldn’t help but succumb to the man’s whim, even ignoring his previous engagement with Zein?

Something else occurred to the guide then, and he raised his brow in realization. "Is this found inside that dungeon on Saturday?"

The presence of a corrupted mana stone would also explain the anomaly happening to the boss, especially if the mana stone was powerful enough to still give him the creep even after being sealed.

"My, my, aren’t you a sharp one," Radia chuckled, tapping his lips with his fingers, eyes gleaming in amusement.

Zein didn’t really appreciate being looked at like a plaything, so he tilted his head with a sneer behind his mask. "What? So you bartered this stone with your body?"

There was a silence when the summoned creatures stopped moving and Zein waited for Radia to lash out or something. But the man just laughed quietly and answered with a deep smirk, as the butler put a glass of water in front of the guide as if saying it was the end of the topic. What could Zein say to that vague agreement? He just felt like those two’s relationship became more mysterious the more he tried to dig around it.

Something weighed heavily on his mind though—why would Radia tell him that much?

"Is this your way of saying you trust me?" Zein leaned back and crossed his arms, trying to solve the mystery. "And so I should trust you too?"

Radia laughed and snapped his fingers, crimson eyes staring keen and sharp. "See, this is why you’re fun."

Rolling his eyes, Zein looked straight at the man and asked. "So what do you want?"

"For now, everything that you saw inside that memory," the crimson eyes no longer glint playfully now, and the sharp smile was strictly business. "Leave nothing out."

* * *

"I see," Radia nodded with closed eyes, body visibly relaxed, laying on a chaise lounge like a therapy patient. But the one who kept talking wasn’t him, but the man holding his hand with a mask on. "That’s a long movie to be watched."

It wasn’t his first time guiding while doing something else, but it was Zein’s first time guiding while talking nonstop, making a report.

Since Radia only had time until lunch, they decided to just multitask, guiding and reporting simultaneously. It was good for Zein anyway, distracting him from Radia’s mana core.

The man was like a marsh—it wasn’t deep, but vast and deceitful. Dark, dirty mud sedimented at the bottom, where countless poisonous red flowers grew. The roots of those flowers were connected to a cocoon of a crimson fairy with a black blindfold holding onto a silver line going up up up into the dark sky.

Probably toward a night star somewhere up above.

It was beautiful and eerie at the same time, but also...quite sad.

"What exactly happened between the two of you?" Zein blurted out unknowingly, couldn’t help himself with the growing curiosity.

He couldn’t understand the longing, when they were still in the same part of the world, still meeting up like before, even if it was done behind closed doors. What did it mean to hate and love someone at the same time?

The crimson eyes opened then, and Radia glanced at Zein with a smile. "I don’t expect you to be curious about that," there was a slight amusement in his tone. "Or are you trying to find some kind of answer for yourself in my reply?"

Zein twitched—it was never a good feeling being seen through. Radia narrowed his eyes slightly before closing them again, and responding with a calm, easy tone.

"I don’t think you’ll find one through me," the esper said with a smile. "Me and Joon...we’re already in a bad place. We can’t live without each other, but we can’t walk alongside each other. We are...poisonous to the core."

When the guide only looked at him in silence, Radia moved the hand that was connected with Zein with a playful smile. "Bassena...is a pure one. You should know that already."

"Mm," Zein could agree with that. While Radia’s longing for Han Joon felt desperate and blind, Bassena longed for Zein with a child’s stubborn innocence of a first love.

"Don’t worry about him," the man chuckled at Zein’s short reply, "I think it’s right for you to be sure about yourself first," the crimson eyes opened again, but this time, Zein could see self-mockery instead of its usual sharp glint. "It’s quite hard to get out once you’re trapped inside someone’s intense feeling."

"...is that what happened to you?"

Again, Radia laughed freely. "Us? Hmm—yeah...we’re trapped in each other’s tendencies."

"What—"

Just then, Radia asked him with a genuine smile on his face, as if the man himself also felt liberated. "Was that enough for you to trust me?" _{frёewebηovel.cѳm}

How adorable, Zein thought.

"Haa—hahaha!" Radia laughed loudly with a shaking shoulder, covering his mouth with a free hand. "So you’re basically like our purification device?"

"Well..." that was the kind of impression Zein had for the device as well—oh, it’s like me.