There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)-Chapter 488 - 481. Second Expedition

"Aaah--this is it, this is it!" Zhan jumped on his feet as if doing some warm-up.

Perhaps he was. After all, they were about to embark on another journey; another expedition. After two months of doing nothing but building things and cleaning up the surroundings, the spearman had started to become restless. He did not become an esper to do some construction, and culling leftover beasts wasn’t very stimulating.

He was so close to asking the commander to just send him on a tracking mission like that Senia girl’s team, but then an order to move out was given.

What a good day.

But his excited head was immediately being smacked by his coworkers.

"I’m going to sew your mouth shut if you say anything unnecessary later," Naoya, the usually calm archer, said coldly. During this operation, he had been used the most to take care of the hundreds and thousands of beasts all at once--at this point, it almost felt like an abuse.

"I never knew your jinx was that strong," Gus cackled despite also hitting the spearman.

"Hey, I didn’t know too!" Zhan laughed, moving his formerly severed arm around. It was quite funny for him, and despite causing distress to others, he liked it that his ’wish’ almost always came true. "Hey, hey--what if I say things like ’we’ll going to find the shard right away’--do you think it’ll happen?"

"That’s not how jinx works," Gus shrugged. "Besides, you’re only saying that because you think there will be Specters or that hooded creature commander faced before near the shard, don’t you?"

Zhan grinned and this time, Naoya smacked the swordsman’s head. "I told you not to say anything unnecessary."

"Eeey~ what’s unnecessary about it? We already know there’s always a Specter near a shard," Gus rubbed the back of his head--it kind of becoming their squad’s thing at this point. "Besides, we’ll be the one to face a boss anyway."

"And they always come out with tons of minions," Naoya grumbled.

"Hey, hey, it’s fine~" Gus put his arm around the archer. "Think about it like this; I think we can all try the fifth-floor trial after we come out."

Naoya tilted his head, thinking back to what his grandfather used to tell him; metals become tougher when they get hammered. Well...he did feel his skill proficiency increased when he was faced with a situation that was more difficult than any he had faced before. He had to figure out the best way to use his skills against hundreds of beasts at once, controlling his splitting arrows with more precision.

Yeah; perhaps he could really attempt the fifth floor next time.

"Isn’t this what they called gaining experience in those games that Shin likes to play?"

"That’s right," Bassena propped his arm on Naoya’s shoulder too. "If you want to take the tower’s trial, the Guildmaster will give you permission to leave the campaign temporarily."

"What--really?!" Zhan exclaimed with sparkling eyes. freewebnøvel.coɱ

"Oh, you’re here, Commander?"

Naoya rolled his eyes and shrugged their heavy arms away. "What’s the point of leaving the Deathzone just to enter the tower?"

"What do you mean? We can get a new skill and everything!"

"If I’m out of the Deathzone, I’d better use it to get as much clean air as I could."

"Why so boring?" Zhan scoffed and turned toward Bassena. "But why are you alone, Commander? Where’s Zein?"

Bassena simply pointed at the shining beacon at the top of the stadium. "I can’t get closer, so..."

Different from the shard in the mountain range, they still had no idea where the other shards were. All they had was an approximation based on the direction of the scattering pieces that Zein saw in the vision. They had made a map to predict where those shards were, but nothing more. Especially, because they used an ancient map for a reference, and had no idea how much the landscape had changed and shifted after the day of the apocalypse. What was known to them based on the Borderland Unit’s hard work was just about five percent of the entire map.

Because of this, Zein had been conversing a lot with the shard in their base, hoping that the shard could feel something; a presence of the nearest shard, just as the core told him about the location of this particular shard.

At first, the shard was clueless. But it seemed to get rooted in the surface again strengthening it gradually. The synergy with the four purification devices also made a difference, and last month, it finally felt something. Just a vague pulse that Zein couldn’t feel. It could feel the pulse getting stronger gradually, and today, Zein came again to determine the location just for sure.

It was still only a pulse, even if it got stronger. Zein couldn’t feel it even if he tried his hardest. But it was enough. Once they got closer, Zein would be able to detect it better, and this time, they also had something that could help.

Something that he also gave to the other tracking squad; a compass.

"This thing is based on the compass you get from the tower, isn’t it?" Han Shin looked at the globe with a red arrow pointing into the stadium. "The one from last year?"

"Yeah," Bassena nodded, remembering the start of the mission that got him to meet Zein again.

In the past year, right after they got back from the Deathzone, the researcher team at the Mortix had been using the compass artifact to create another compass they could mass produce. They wouldn’t know how to do it normally; but thanks to having the shard with them, they were able to map out the unique energy the shard emitted.

And now, they could make copies of this compass.

"Why do we only have two of these? Shouldn’t we be able to deploy more teams if we have more?" Zhan tilted his head. Hell--he could try to roam the Deathzone alone if he had it, right?

Han Shin rolled his eyes. "Because it’s expensive, duh."

"How much?"

Bassena typed a number in his commlink and showed it to them. Even Gus, who rarely got surprised about even the weirdest shit, spewed out the water he had just drunk. "I can but a whole building with that!"

"I think I can make my bike fly with that," Zhan shuddered. "Okay, I won’t ask anymore."

"Once again, I am reminded of how much money the Guildmaster poured into this," Kei chuckled.

"Hey, there’s my money too," Han Shin puffed his chest.

"Oh, so that’s why you still haven’t bought a house, Shin?"

"What for? I’m going to live with Reina anyway," the healer huffed. He had finally sold that accursed manor that only bought suffering for himself and his brother, but he also had no interest in buying a new one.

And he knew Han Joon had no interest in buying one considering who the man was dating.

"Sugar baby and proud of it," Gus nodded and patted the healer’s back. "My kind of hero."

"You look like you’re going for a field trip instead of a dangerous expedition," Ashur, who would take the role of the base commander while Bassena was away, shook his head in amusement.

He felt that the members of Hagalaz were already a bunch of courageous people who could take on everything being thrown at them. But Anzus was just...different. They didn’t take on things--they came to greet them first. Even Naoya only grumbled because he had to take on so many beasts at once, not because he had to fight per se.

It felt ridiculous that he had felt envious of them in the past because Anzus was deemed more ’elite’.

They were not more ’elite’; they were just crazier.

"Isn’t it better for the PR if we look like we’re having fun?" Gus smirked, pointing at the camera that Iore brought while winking.

"That’s true," Kei chuckled while mounting her own ’camera’, which would be used to record their expedition. "We shouldn’t disappoint those who think we will fail miserably."

"Ooo...so scary~"

While Kei smacked Gus this time, Ashur turned to Bassena. "How long will you go?"

"If nothing wrong happens, we should be back in a week--ten days at most," Bassena said.

Based on Zein’s calculation from the shard’s estimate, the place they were looking for couldn’t be more than three days away if they walked all day. So, depending on how difficult it was to reach the shard’s exact location, they should be able to come back in a week to ten days.

That being said...

"If we’re not back by then--"

"It’s Protocol Iron Turtle, I get it."

Refract and Retreat. Cease all operations. Closed the gate until further instruction from the Guildmaster.

Bassena nodded. "We’ll be installing beacons too, so hopefully, even if the worst situation happens, we’ll be able to send an emergency signal."

Or so he said, but...

An emergency signal coming from Anzus did not mean ’call for help’--it meant ’don’t pursue’. Because...if it was something Anzus and Bassena Vaski couldn’t do, then no one would be able to do it. It would mean they had to enact Protocol Iron Turtle faster and the Guildmaster would ask a Ranker--or more--for help.

"Don’t you know saying things like that could become a jinx?" Gus poked his head between the two five-stars and whispered sinisterly.

He would have gotten a double smack from the two strongest damage dealers of their generation if it wasn’t for their beloved guide finally coming down to join them at the base’s entrance.

"Nothing change from the direction, but..." Zein said the moment he was within hearing range.

The espers blinked and looked at the guide Captain in attention. Zein raised his hand and stretched out his thumb and index finger.

"There are two now."

"...what?!"