There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)-Chapter 58 - 57. An Old Face

"I see," the male sibling nodded again. "Thank you for your cooperation, Sir, we will make sure to have the best schedule available for you."

It truly was different. Zein wondered if guides had it this easy in the safer zone or if it was just Trinity. He was used to being treated like a vacuum cleaner for thirteen years, and then being a demanded product with a packed schedule in the Borderland. He was already feeling weird not guiding anyone for the days he spent on the journey, and now it seemed like he even could take it easy.

After all, he was only responsible for five espers—two of which he was already familiar with.

"Then, do you have any preference?" the male sibling questioned further, as his sister inputted Zein’s data into the system.

"Preference?" Zein tilted his head, turning to Abel for an explanation.

"You know...like a quirk? Like...do you prefer guiding in the morning or afternoon, or if you need to do it while laying down, if you need a specific drink or food before, specific room temperature—things like that," Abel smiled while explaining, relishing in the widened blue eyes and deepening frown.

Of course, for someone who lived in the red-zone and worked in the Deathzone like Zein, having the privilege where he could enjoy a working environment that catered to his needs was a flabbergasting concept. The narrowed eyes stared at Abel as if they wanted to ask what kind of spoiled brats were these guides.

But then, he remembered Yath and his preference for good-looking espers as his patient.

"I don’t really care about the time or the place," Zein answered finally, turning back toward the siblings. A combat guide needed to be able to guide in any situation and environment anyway. "I don’t need to be stationary too. I can’t do it while fighting, but guiding while walking or running is possible."

Abel pressed his lips, covering his mouth with his palm to hide his dread. Ah...he could see it already—what kind of training the new division would have to endure.

"O-oh, yes, that’s good to hear," the male sibling broke his calm and cool façade for the first time.

"As for the method, I only do hand-to-hand..." Zein paused, his mind suddenly fleeting toward Bassena. But the esper seemed determined to separate the guiding and his personal pursuit, so he wouldn’t ask for a different method. Zein nodded, and quickly added as he remembered something. "And this," he tapped on his mask, "this stays on."

The siblings looked at each other. Honestly, it couldn’t really be called a quirk, since it didn’t directly interfere with the guiding process itself. But...they did feel curious. "May I know why?" the male sibling asked carefully. "Of course, you don’t need to answer if you don’t want to, Sir."

Abel leaned his body to the counter, head turned to look at Zein. He too, was curious after all. People usually hid their faces because of scars or burn marks. But Abel had seen the guide’s face three times, and it wasn’t the kind of face people usually kept hidden.

"It’s just a habit," Zein answered simply.

He knew he didn’t need the mask in the green-zone, with the fresh air free of miasma. And he didn’t need to worry about getting assaulted with his strength and the way Trinity treated their guides. But he’d been wearing a mask for most of his life, and he felt exposed without it. Vulnerable.

"I feel uncomfortable without it," he added, eyes dimmed a little and voice dipped lower.

Abel smiled and patted the guide’s back, thanking the siblings cheerfully. "Alright, thanks for the work, guys. Zein, let’s take a look at the lounge first," with that, he pulled the guide away from the slightly frozen siblings.

Zein tilted his head at the abrupt change of direction, but followed the smaller guide nonetheless. If the left side was the office area, the right side was framed with glass walls where they could see a relaxing space inside.

"The schedule isn’t just for the pre-cleansing, right?" Zein asked.

"Surely not," Abel nodded while opening the lounge door. "But pre-cleansing had priorities. The siblings will fit in a schedule for regular guiding sessions if there’s available room. Otherwise, the regular sessions usually started at 3 p.m.—oh, you’re all here!"

Abel waved his hand at the group of five guides sitting around one of the tables. Zein recognized three of them as the guides he met this morning in the cafeteria. He assumed the other two were also the dorm residents that already left early this morning. He could see they were pretty close since they lived in the same building.

"Brisk is not here?" Abel asked as the three stood up abruptly and the other two followed in confusion.

The female guide with glasses, Silva, glanced at Zein who was busy looking around the place, before answering. "He went to the archive for a bit, Sir, should I call for him?"

"No, no," Abel swatted the air with his hand. "Why are you all standing up? Sit, sit—I’m just showing Guide Zein around. Ah, you haven’t met these two yet, right?"

Abel patted the shoulder of the two guides that blinked confusedly. "This one’s Jin and this is Dana, everyone’s little sister," he rubbed the head of a petit young guide that reminded Zein of Yath—a female version of him.

"Aah—not my hair!" the girl slipped away with Abel’s laugh, lightening the tension of Zein’s presence for a little bit.

Just like how the other guides needed to toughen up more, perhaps Zein should also learn to soften his spiky aura too—Abel thought with a chuckle.

Although...that problem could easily be solved by getting rid of that mask.

"Once again, this is Guide Zein, who just signed a contract yesterday. He might look scary, but he won’t beat you or anything...I think?" Abel grinned, tilting his head at the tall guide. Zein was probably—no, undoubtedly—the tallest guide they had. Abel wasn’t sure about other places, but at least in Althrea, guides were mostly petit and slender.

Zein patted Abel’s shoulder ’lightly’, prompting the smaller guide to flinch. "You’re having fun, huh?"

"He definitely won’t beat you without a reason," Abel added with a wide grin. "So don’t give him one."

"Sir Hertz," the male Sahaegi peeked out from the door just then, "there’s a call from HR,"

"Oh, shoot, I forgot!" he turned toward the guides while patting Zein. "I have to go for a bit, so accompany Guide Zein in my stead, okay? I’ll be back shortly, Zein," and with that, he ran toward his office, leaving Zein with a bunch of anxious guides.

Zein felt funny. C-class guides were the average rank everywhere else, and since A-class was quite a luxury, they carried quite a bit of pride, especially in the end zone where the high-class guide was almost non-existent. Even then, in regular guilds, C-classes were still treated fairly well. There were even guilds where they could only afford to have C-class at the highest. It was why Zein’s fake license listed him as C-class, since it was already deemed high for red-zone.

And yet, here, C-class was the lowest rank, and so they acted quite timid, since anybody else was higher in position. Moreover, as a young guild, Trinity mostly recruited young espers and guides, those in their early to late twenties. A lot had never joined other guilds before Trinity.

Zein had no idea how to deal with these timid people, but he also didn’t think he needed to particularly mind his image or their mental state. So he just struck up conversation casually at the fidgeting group.

Or rather, he just collecting information.

"What do people do here when they are not guiding?" Zein asked, eyes darting around the room. He never encountered a ’guide lounge’ before—his space consisted of a clinic and a bedroom, and his days were filled with either work or rest.

They flinched a little bit at Zein’s sudden question, but the cute girl Dana recovered swiftly and moved toward Zein. From how she acted casually with her division leader, Zein could see that she wasn’t just looked like Yath, but as energetic as him too.

"Umm, we’re usually just relaxing—you know...to bring down the mental exhaustion,"

"Ah," Zein looked around again, more keenly this time. Guides absorbed the corrosion into their vessel, which connected to their mental states. Bringing down mental exhaustion meant their vessel emptied out faster.

Zein never really thought about it because he emptied his vessel differently. Now that he observed the space better, it was made to be very comfortable, with a snack station, game corner, and other things Zein had no knowledge of. The couch was soft, and the temperature was nice. It was truly made to be an oasis for guides.

It wasn’t just glib that Han Shin kept bragging about the guild. "Are all guilds set their guide space like this?" Zein asked the girl, since she seemed to be the mentally toughest one, despite her size.

"Of course not!" her eyes suddenly sparkled just like Abel’s earlier, when he talked about the guild. "Other guilds don’t have snack stations!" she announced proudly.

"That’s your point?" the one named Jin smacked the girl’s head lightly. "Just say that most guilds have no lounge."

"They don’t?" Zein asked, taking one of the seats that had been left empty for some time now.

"Some don’t, and some just provide regular rest areas," Silva informed him. "Just something like our meeting room."

"That’s right! My friend said she doesn’t even bother coming to the guild if she’s not on duty," Dana said energetically, seating herself back around the table.

With that, the others also started to sit back, forgetting their nervousness now that the conversation had flowed. "Well...in the first place, many don’t even have a leeway to rest in the guild, just keep nailed to the clinic."

"Oh?"

"It’s because not every guild could afford a lot of good guides. Trinity just has a lot for a mid-size guild, so we can manage to rotate with ease,"

"Yeah, we always maintained a 1:3 ratio, so it’s nice~"

That was a lot more than Zein thought. "How many guides does the guild have?"

"We have about ninety espers and thirty guides here—oh, right, would you like something to drink Zein? Or to eat—ouch! Why are you slapping me again?" Dana glared at Silva, who gave her an eerie smile.

"It’s ’Sir’, Dan. What are you doing calling an exec so casually, huh?" she hissed and pinched the flinching girl.

"H-huh?" the girl blinked and gasped. "Oh my god, I’m so sorry, Sir, I—"

"Zein is fine," the tall guide replied casually, easing his tone just like when he talked to Yath. "Just continue. So other guilds don’t have as many guides?"

At Zein’s softer demeanor, they were glancing at each other for a second, before smiling and continuing—it seemed like the new boss wasn’t as scary as he looked?

"Ahem—normally, the guideline for guilds is to have a 1:5 ratio between guides and espers," it was the one named Joan who talked now. "I heard that we procured a lot of guides because we have five 5-star espers, though."

"No, no—you mean four 5-stars and one Serpent Lord," Dana wiggled her index finger. "I heard about this too; when Trinity was first founded, they emphasized looking for as many A and B-class guides as possible because of Sir Vaski."

"Right, but after more espers came, it became difficult," Joan leaned forward and then the others followed as he whispered, "Chief Hertz told me that he needed five to six hours just to absorb one level worth of corrosion from Sir Vaski, and then most guides will experience burnout and the sensitive ones even have a nightmare after,"

"Yup! The guides would need longer time to recuperate then, making it inefficient for the guild. So in the end, Sir Vaski always went to the Temple, and then the other 5-stars did too..."

Zein, who was leaning back in his seat, looked at the huddling guides with a raised brow. They looked like they were talking about something scandalous, and it was quite funny. He chuckled silently, and then the quiet one, Nada, looked at him.

"Umm...Sir Zein, didn’t you come with Sir Vaski yesterday?"

And then their eyes were on Zein, and he just replied briskly as usual. "Yes,"

The mood shifted suddenly, as they seemed to lean and scooted closer to him. "Are you perhaps close with Sir Vaski? Did he bring you to be his guide?"

"Hmm..." he rubbed his mask, smiling behind it, and the deep blue eyes softened for a bit. "Something like—"

"Huh? What’s this? The dorm’s greens congregating and whispering about," Zein’s words were suddenly cut out by a loud, haughty voice from the entrance’s direction. "People might think you’re conspiring something, you know."

Dana frowned, and snapped her head toward the voice. "By people, you mean your group?" there was a spike in her voice, so Zein knew her relationship with the voice’s owner was bad.

"Watch your mouth, green. Since when someone like you can talk casually to an A-class like me?" the haughty voice continued from a slender, rather pretty man in a red uniform with a bronze badge attached to the collar.

Zein could feel the mood plummet instantly. So even in a place like Trinity, internal strife was unavoidable, huh? He tilted his head, feeling amused. He could hear the other’s whisper;

"Ugh—just when Sir Hertz and Guide Rian are not here..."

"So annoying..."

"It’s Arden, the A-class who joined last year," Silva, who sat the closest to Zein, leaned and whispered to him. "As you can see, he’s an annoying elitist who immediately made a clique on his own."

Now that he looked closer, Zein could see a group of people behind the man; four B-classes and one C-class who acted like the man’s entourage.

"There’s no rule saying that I can’t!" Dana stood up and crossed her arms in annoyance. It was clear that they had clashed often. The ’elitists’ seemed to think that the guides staying at the dorm were pathetic for failing to gain enough money to buy their own place.

The man, Arden, walked closer while sneering. "Hah! As expected, you can’t even understand basic—huh? Who’s this? I never saw you before," he suddenly stopped when he saw Zein and tilted his head.

It seemed like the regular staff and people who stayed at the guild compound had heard about Zein, but not the others who were just coming to the guild today. Rather than replying to Arden, however, Zein was staring at the back of the group instead.

"Are you a new esp—" before Arden could finish his sentence, there was suddenly a loud gasp from the back.

"Z-Zen—?!"

The gasp and shrieking were followed by a slapping sound over a mouth, and all eyes were trained at the C-class guide in the back of Arden’s group.

"Nora," The blue eyes pierced deep at the guide as Zein smiled deeply. A deep, cold voice flew out from behind the mask. "You’re not dead?"