There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)-Chapter 57 - 56. Guild Orientation

"Alright, let’s open the guild application now,"

The orientation, turned out, started from the commlink. Or rather, because Zein still hadn’t gotten used to it, Abel had to teach him more about navigating the device, especially the one related to the guild.

The guild app was an integrated function available for all guild members with a tiered system based on ranks. Since Zein was an executive, he had access to almost every function there was, except for the department-only archives. On their personal account page, members could see their assigned mission and schedule, their performance report and assessment, their incentives and salary, and even the list of their available benefits and credit point. freёnovelkiss.com

Zein skimmed through everything but his schedule page, which had been filled with guild orientation and uniform fitting for today. It kind of worked like his personal digital assistant, which would input any event arranged by the guild automatically, aside from things that he could input on his own.

"It will remind you like an alarm when it is nearly time, like now," Abel informed Zein while teaching him how to turn off the alarm. "The Guildmaster liked things to be in order and as planned, so people rarely slacked off here."

Zein wondered about yesterday, then. It must have been some big deviation for the Guildmaster’s day. Would he be royally pissed if Zein ended up rejecting the offer after messing with his schedule?

"That being said, the esper and guide have considerable freedom as long as their quota is filled. For the guide—well, you don’t really need that, do you?"

"I read about that one in the Guide’s policy section in the app," Zein replied while trying to navigate the compound’s map. He was too exhausted last night, but he did read some guidelines in the morning while enjoying the high-quality coffee he got after struggling with the machine for thirty minutes.

In the Borderland, the guides worked with a rotation system where five guides were on standby in each shift, with two shifts a day. They’d work for two days, rest for one, and then repeat. But here, each guide had a quota per class, cleansing a set number of corrosion per week. As long as the weekly quota was filled, they were free to do whatever they wanted. That quota also included the one they did inside the dungeon, although guilds rarely brought a guide inside unless the dungeon was too big and needed days to conquer.

Indeed, it didn’t concern Zein at all. He had no quota after all, as long as the five 5-stars were well-cleansed.

"What to do with this map?" Zein turned at Abel after opening the function. The guide helped him to drag and zoom across the interface, where he could touch each section of the map to access its specific function.

"Here, for example, you can see how many aircrafts are available and at what time slots before you ask for one from the logistics department. This here, espers could see if there’s a personal training room free for usage, and ah—if you clicked on the Arsenal icon of the first basement, you can see equipment and artifacts available for purchase with coins."

"That’s pretty neat," Zein commented, genuinely impressed at the friendly system. Abel also helped him set up a navigation AI to give him a beginner user guide around the app.

As they walked through the park, Abel explained the general structure of the guild’s building. Called the Trinity Tower, it had thirteen upper floors and three basement levels.

The basements were made of reinforced materials, dedicated for the esper’s training rooms and the guild’s arsenal. They had explored the ground floor lobby yesterday, so Abel just skipped that.

"The first floor consists of seminar rooms and private meeting rooms. When academies have a field tour for their students, we have them there. General guild meetings and events are also being held there usually,"

After that, the second and third floor was for managerial—HR, Logistic, Marketing, and Finance was situated here. Han Shin’s beloved department, R&D, occupied a whole three floors from the labs to the archive rooms.

"The seventh floor is for us Guides," Abel smiled joyfully. He looked considerably brighter talking about his workplace, which showed that he actually liked working there. "Like any other place, we have clinic-like setups, with bed and everything. There’s dedicated staff managing the room usage schedule and monitoring the guide’s quota..."

Apparently, the floor also had a lounge for the guides to relax in while they weren’t on duty, changing and locker rooms based on class, conference rooms, and an office area for the managing staff as well as the division head’s office belonging to Abel.

"I wonder if they’ll make an office room for you," Abel tilted his head as they entered through the rear entrance.

"Do I need one?" Zein turned his head toward the coffee shop, already planning to buy something later.

"Wouldn’t you? There’ll be a new division after all," Abel shrugged, pulling the slowing Zein gently toward the elevator.

Zein frowned—he never had anything resembling an office before, so he’d have no idea what to do with one. "I’m just a mentor and advisor, what would I do with an office?"

Abel glanced furtively at the tall guide with a smile on his face. "Don’t you think it’s nice to have your own private room?"

Zein raised his brow, looking at the smirking guide. It seemed like Abel already grasped Zein’s personality and knew what might entice him already, just from a few hours of watching and conversing with him.

"That does sound nice," Zein smirked behind his mask, and Able chuckled at the guide’s unmasked, sudden enthusiasm at the thought of having a place where he could be alone.

They paused in front of the elevator, waiting for it with three other staff in black suits—civilians. One of them, a tired-looking man in his late thirties with a silver badge greeted Abel.

"Guide Hertz, it’s rather early for you to be here," the man let out an exhausted smile, making Zein think that he hadn’t left the office since yesterday.

"Good Morning, Yang—did PR pull an all-nighter?" Abel looked at the three pairs of dark circles with a subtle smile.

The two staff laughed bitterly as their team leader shrugged. "Well, you know, gotta deal with all the fire that people pulled on Vice Guildmaster’s stunt yesterday," he covered his mouth as he let out a big yawn before adding more. "And we have to block any news about the new A-class guide for the rest of the week..."

The two staff sighed at the prospect of staying at the office for the whole week, and Zein stared at them for a while before opening his mouth. "Sorry about that,"

It was then that the three sleepy people froze, eyes widened and very much awake. They turned to look at Zein, and blinked repeatedly.

Abel, for the second time that day, enjoyed the experience of watching people getting flustered. "This is Guide Zein, this week’s banned content," he strangely sounded joyful as he said that.

"O-oh, yes, good morning...Sir,"

Zein nodded at the same reaction he got with the four guides earlier. As people who worked closely with the guild’s flow of information, they probably knew already how Bassena acted around Zein, and what kind of position this new addition had in the guild. So rather than being scared of his appearance, they just flustered about meeting a new executive.

They almost refused to get on the same elevator as the guides, but there was nothing they could do when both gold badges insisted on it. The three no-longer-sleepy people stood there, secretly stealing a glance at Zein as Abel continued his orientation.

"Floors eight to eleven are for the espers, but the one you need to know is the eleventh floor since it’s for the 5-stars only," The smaller guide pointed at the floor panels to quickly explain the rest of the layout. "You know about the twelfth floor already, so the rest is the topmost floor. Hmm...you’ll probably spend a lot of time there too..."

"Why?"

"It’s the Founding Floor—the Guildmaster and Sir Vaski are there," Abel said with a wink and a playful tone.

"Hmm," Zein stared at the panel. He could see that the thirteenth floor was only accessible through special clearance.

Zein narrowed his eyes for a few seconds, before he stepped toward the panel and tried accessing the thirteen floor’s clearance with his commlink. He did that half-jokingly, just trying for fun. But the floor’s button did light up, and the four people other than Zein froze.

"Oh, it worked," the tall guide said nonchalantly, pressing the button to turn it off.

"Wow, it really did..." Abel remarked amusedly, and Zein looked at the man in confusion. "For your information, I don’t have any clearance," Abel smiled at Zein’s surprised face. "If I want to go up there, I have to ask for approval first, and the clearance is given temporarily."

"...oh,"

"’Oh’ indeed," Abel smirked. "Well, it makes sense, since you’re responsible for both of them too,"

But it wasn’t like he needed that free clearance for the guiding though—it wasn’t like he needed to do it every day, and they could just give him temporary clearance every time he needed to guide them.

Rather than for guiding, Zein felt like it was just Bassena giving him free access so he could call Zein whenever.

They bid goodbye to the three workers and headed to the seventh floor. While Zein wanted to check out the basement for the training room, it might create some kind of dissent with the espers when the new guide division hadn’t been made official yet. And it was only right to see his working space first.

"It will probably be better to visit the basement with an esper. Well, going there with Sir Vaski might be the best option," Abel said as the elevator door opened.

Zein was greeted by a neat lounge in white. It looked very much like a clinic, just as Abel told him. A front desk with two black-suited staff acted like a gate—they were the ones managing the schedule for guiding sessions.

Like a clinic, a screen containing room numbers, the attending guide, and the scheduled espers along with the allotted time could be seen behind the front desk. Zein could see two doors behind the front desk that seemed to lead into the guiding rooms. Probably because it was still morning, the lounge was still empty. From the list on the screen, the earliest guiding wasn’t scheduled until two hours later.

"Due to our Guildmaster’s personality, the strike division only does dungeon raids within two time slots; the morning raid at ten o’clock, and the afternoon one at three p.m.—you should know the significance of this, right?"

Zein nodded. "The cleansing schedule," he observed the screen keenly. Having a fixed raiding schedule was the best for guides, because they could maintain their vessel capacity better with a regular guiding interval. "Do you start the cleansing three hours before the raid?"

"We did twice for pre-cleansing; the day before and three hours prior. And depending on the corrosion level after the raid, we do one to three sessions before the next mission,"

"Mm," Zein nodded. "That’s neat," it was clearly made to lighten the burden on the guide by dividing the absorption through several occasions. No wonder people said Trinity had the best guide treatment in the Eastern Federation. "But it must be tough for the one managing the rotation schedule."

Abel laughed and spread his hand proudly toward the two staff manning the desk. "Behold—our gatekeepers, the Sahaegi siblings!"

The two staff, who was already standing up the moment they spotted Abel and Zein, bowed politely like a perfect receptionist. "We have another one dealing with data calculation there," Abel pointed toward their left side, where an opaque door leading to office space could be seen. "My office is there too, by the way. Anyway, you two should receive information about Guide Zein already, right?"

"Yes, Sir," the cool-looking male sibling replied immediately.

"Hmm...5-stars rarely have their session here, so you might not use the place much, Zein," Abel tapped on the desk, "But they are still the ones who will manage your schedule regarding that, so you need to inform them about your guiding—you know; preferred method, rate of absorption, vessel capacity, rest period...things like that."

The siblings stared at Zein keenly, with sparkling eyes that reminded Zein of the researcher’s eyes. For people who managed guides like them, Zein who was in charge of all 5-stars and the Serpent Lord must have looked fascinating.

Taking advantage of the empty schedule, Zein stayed at the front desk answering all of the siblings’ questions, with Abel in tow because the division head was also curious about it.

Zein never measured his rate precisely, but he had enough experience to know his time when he guided different ranked espers. He gave them all of his time for every level of corrosion so they could calculate his rate, including the one he did with Han Shin and Bassena. Of course, he only mentioned the one he did with the hand-to-hand method.

The siblings’ eyes, which were sparkling before, turned blank as they filled the chart with Zein’s data. They didn’t bother to close their jaw when Zein mentioned his resting time. "As long as I don’t get burnout, a good night’s sleep is enough."

"So..." the stern-looking bespectacled female sibling stared at her note, blinking repeatedly, "it seems like you can take care of a whole strike squad on your own...Sir?"

"I had experience with that," Zein tilted his head. Ten years of his life were spent inside the dungeon for Umbra after all. "But it will be hard if I do that while guiding Bassena too,"

Abel bit his lips to stifle his laugh. The fact that Zein could guide Bassena Vaski to a safe level in a single day was already a feat in itself—something that not even he, the head of the guide division, could do. And yet this guide said it was only ’hard’ to guide Bassena and others on the same day, not ’impossible’.

"Then, for others 5-star espers..."

"As long as they are not on the brink of eruption, two-level pre-cleansing is doable in three hours," Zein looked up to do his own calculation. Bassena was truly something else, but other 5-stars like Han Shin didn’t have enormous cores, so even if he did it slowly, he’d need at most three hours for that. "But the same time frame will be needed if they are in a red state," he added.

Red was a state before black, which was near eruption, so guides always needed more effort to bring the level down to orange-level, the same effort they needed to bring down the corrosion from orange-level to green.

"Noted," the male sibling nodded, looking at Abel with eyes that were looking for confirmation. Was it true? Were this absorption rate and vessel capacity true?

Honestly, Abel had no idea. He had never witnessed Zein’s guiding. But last night, he requested the Deathzone expedition report with his golden badge privilege and a month’s worth of points to find out Zein’s performance. He only received restricted access to Zein’s guiding data, but it was enough.

Could he believe the report? Hardly. But would he doubt the report made by two of Trinity’s founding fathers? Absolutely not.

So he just smiled and nodded. He too, felt dumbfounded when he read the report.

The guide instinct inside of him tingled as he read it. Ah...he wanted to be an esper at that time, just so he could feel Zein’s guiding.

He wanted to quickly witness it; a guiding that was on par with a Saint.