There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)-Chapter 430 - 423. Steadfast

"Four days and that girl looked like she had known you for her whole life," Bassena commented as their plane took off. With his vision, he could see the girl who was still waving her hands with a sad face on the ground. "I almost thought I truly left for three years."

Zein smiled as he looked out of the window. He couldn’t see as well as Bassena, but he could still make out the shape of Elena and the templars who guarded her. She had insisted that she would go with Zein until the safe-zone’s airport.

"We did spend a lot of time together," Zein reminisced a little bit. "Since she was the only one with free time."

"Well, you do have a soft spot for younger kids."

Zein glanced at the esper and smirked. "Ah, that’s right. You’re no longer younger than me, huh? Technically," he leaned away from the stunned Bassena. "I wonder if you’re still the cute boyfriend I once had."

"Y-you said cuteness has nothing to do with age!"

"But the younger ones do look cuter," the guide shrugged.

"Ugh--"

Bassena couldn’t deny that, and felt a sudden crisis. The serious, panicking face prompted Zein to break his stifled laugh. "Pfft--this is why I told you it doesn’t matter. Would it change things if you were older?"

"Well...I just..." Bassena pursed his lips and slumped on his seat. "I just thought you’d see me less of a brat that way."

Zein laughed and patted the esper’s cheek with the back of his fingers. "Rest assured; I’ll still play with you even if you act like a brat."

"But will you still love me?" Bassena dipped himself lower to the seat, peeking at the guide behind his hiked collar.

"Hmm...at this point, perhaps I will."

Bassena blinked his widened eyes. It felt more and more real that Zein was truly going to let him imprint on the guide. He couldn’t help but let out a childish, unseemly giggle every time he remembered it.

And then his giggle stopped when he felt a slight tingle on his skin. He looked at his hand, where the feeling came from, and then at Zein, who was stretching out his hand a little bit. freewebnoveℓ.com

"Is this what you told me? The long-distance guiding?"

"Mm," Zein nodded. "Tell me how you feel."

He had asked the espers he guided during the two days volunteering days, but they didn’t provide reliable information. In the first place, they usually get a guiding from low-class guides or apprentices, so they used to bad and at best mediocre guiding. No matter what, Zein’s guiding was a stark improvement and felt better than any guiding they ever received.

Moreover, Zein was wearing a high priest garb and was accompanied by templars as guards. Even if Zein guided them so awfully, those espers would still say it was the best guiding they ever had.

Bassena was the other way around--he had been used to Zein’s guiding so much that he couldn’t go back to any other guides.

"It’s definitely...slower and...not as smooth," Bassena said, closing his eyes. "If we’re using your term...hmm..." he tilted his head left and right, making Zein smile adoringly at the sight. "Ah, it’s like you’re taking water from a bucket and pouring it outside by scooping it bit by bi--why are you looking at me like that?"

"You’re cute," Zein said casually before mulling over Bassena’s words while the esper was dealing with the spreading blush on his cheek. "Anyway, it seems like the guiding came in intervals with a delay."

"Y-yeah," Bassena cleared his throat. "It’s not too much, just...if you do it in the middle of a fierce battle, it might break our concentration."

"I see," Zein rubbed his lips and continued to mutter to himself. "So we should try it during a battle practice too. Delay...what caused the delay? Something about mana control? Will the terrain affect the process? Hmm...what about espers’ mana during a skill..."

Bassena propped his cheek with his hand, watching the guide mumbling some calculations seriously. Zein was a veteran guide with almost two decades of career, so guiding for him had become as easy as breathing. Not even guiding Bassena provided a challenge for him. Professionally, it must have been boring.

As he watched the bright, focused eyes, Bassena couldn’t help but wonder if this was what Zein had done during the early stage of his career--making all kinds of calculations and analyses to seek the best way to guide. With the lack of formal education, Zein had to rely on older guides’ tips and experiment on his own.

Unconsciously, Bassena let out a soft chuckle, prompting Zein to turn with an inquisitive look. "You look like you’re having fun," Bassena said, tilting his head to see the clear blue eyes.

Zein widened his eyes slightly. "Ah, you’re right," he rubbed his smiling lips. "It’s indeed...fun."

It was fun enough that he didn’t mind reporting to Radia right away without even taking a rest first. Once again, Zein told the guildmaster about his conversation with the Goddess in more detail so Bassena could hear it too.

"I’m going to relay this to the borderland unit," Radia said. "But it seems like there’s no need for us to change our initial plan."

Radia seemed nonchalant, but Zein could see the summoner’s hand move to type a lot. The man also looked more serious than usual. Well, they had to start the project in less than two months, after all. No matter what, Radia must have been revisiting his plan repeatedly.

The same serious atmosphere could be felt in the whole guild. A hint of nervousness spread not only among those who would come to the Deathzone but even to those who stayed. The basement had never been empty before, but these days, each floor was packed with espers going into personal training.

Knowing that even the Bassena Vaski who felt like an existence above the sky was going through isolated training in the Temple, how could the ones who couldn’t even graze his toe dare to be complacent? The management had made sure that those who were going to go were getting freed of raiding duty, so they used the time to do some intense training.

And when espers were active, guides would have to follow. The clinic was getting fuller, and the receptionist siblings had to work hard to create a balanced schedule. Especially for the combat guides, who had to juggle between training and work. Well, for them, guiding was also a form of training, so they didn’t whine as much as before.

But aside from the main actors of the reclamation project, there were people who were even busier than them. Mortix group had to move every part of their subsidiary to support the project; the material processing, equipment making, and purification device production was on full ride.

Logistics had been moved bit by bit from all over the Federation to the headquarters in area-14, and a temporary warehouse had been built around borderland unit 04-2. They had also started to build temporary shelters and command centers for the advance troops who would come in July, to not crowd the borderland unit’s barracks.

Day by day, people felt the impending journey looming closer and closer. The management worked hard to make the environment conducive, including controlling media exposure. They had to balance between letting the personnel have their training in peace, while also letting the general public know that they were confident in completing the reclamation before the stipulated time.

But perhaps because of the busy atmosphere, not many realized that someone notorious had been joining them lately.

Senia had only been in the guild building once before, because her activity was mostly done in the eternal dungeon to train with [Anzus] squad. Two days after Zein came back from the Temple, however, she came to the guild building because Zein had been too busy checking on his chicks’ progress.

It was safe to say that her appearance made an uproar on the seventh floor. So much so that the black-uniformed guides were hugging Zein and shielding him from her.

If it was Senia a month before, she would have stomped her feet and cursed everyone harshly, before attacking them with a wave of debilitating magic energy. But now, she only pouted and puffed her cheeks while Zein patted his kids to let him go.

"It’s fine, she’s the guild associate now," Zein explained to his guides. The way they raised their arms as if ready to deploy the shield while hissing was like that of a threatened cat. In a way, he was proud that they had grown so much to the point that they didn’t cower in front of a five-star esper.

"But, Captain--"

"Brisk, Dean; didn’t you tell them?" Zein looked at the Hagalaz’s guides who should know about Senia already since they attended the training sometimes.

"Ah, I forgot!" Brisk said cheerfully while sticking his tongue a little bit while Dean averted the Captain’s gaze with a grin.

Zein shook his head and flicked the mischievous guides on their forehead. After convincing them that no guards or espers on the floor below would let an enemy in, they finally let Zein go. What an adorable bunch.

He shook them off and told Senia to follow him to his office. The esper was strangely quiet, still pouting, but her gaze was on the floor. Zein wondered if it was shame he felt from the girl. She already had people talk shit about her more vocally, but to be challenged and looked at with a gaze full of disdain from a group of people she looked down on before must have been a stronger wake-up call.

"So, how’s your homework going?"