There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 127

Chapter 127: Chapter 123. Foreboding Darkness

How could this be?

Zein gritted his teeth. He couldn’t see his surrounding, which reminded him of every mission he went through in the Deathzone. But while he couldn’t see, he could feel. His skin, his nerves, his cell remembered the sensation.

This thick miasma that felt so heavy on the skin, the shortness of breath it caused, the crawling eerieness upon his spine...

There was no mistaking it; the sensation was that of the Deathzone.

But...how?

"Captain?" Brisk asked again, shaking his arm, and Zein snapped from his shock.

He blinked slowly and took a deep breath, calming his mind. Right, he could think later. Immediately, he swipe the storage ring and brought out the dark-vision goggles.

"T-the flashlight can’t..." there was a frantic clicking sound from Zein’s left side, where Dean was.

Equipping his goggles, Zein informed the two guides. "You wouldn’t be able to. Artificial light can’t penetrate dense miasma," pressing the button on the side of the goggles, Zein could finally see his surrounding. "Wear your goggles."

After instructing the guides, Zein observed the squad members. They were all as surprised as Zein, looking at their surrounding with bewildered gazes. But soon, Ashur regained his senses and gave out instructions.

"School circle on the guides!"

Immediately, the espers moved towards the three guides and gathered in a circle, making a protective shield around the guides while looking at their surrounding. They realized then that the guides had equipped themselves with dark-vision goggles before they could advise them to do so.

"Is this a double dungeon?" one of the magicians asked while clutching his staff tight. The heaviness of the miasma was unsettling even for espers, and they couldn’t blame the guides if they got scared this time.

Surprisingly though, the guides seemed calmer than they thought. Or rather, Zein was staying calm, and it lessened the anxiety of the other two guides, who were clinging to him.

"Maybe. It’s totally different than the dungeon we entered," one of the scouts responded. "But...in double dungeons, we usually need to encounter a connecting tunnel or another portal. Earlier..."

"It felt like we were falling, but..." they looked up to the dark sky canopied by grotesque, giant trees. "Yeah...that’s not a ceiling..."

The vice-Captain, which was also a magician, said in a pondering voice. "The sensation I felt earlier...rather than falling down, it felt more like teleportation..."

The other espers fell into contemplative silence and Zein closed his eyes, holding back a sound of gritted teeth. Hearing the conjecture about teleportation made him even more certain about their location; they were either transported to a dungeon in the Deathzone, or...just anywhere in the Deathzone.

He couldn’t say it though. He had no idea what kind of implication would come up from saying it. Better for them to think it was just another dungeon.

"So we were teleported into another dungeon?" Ashur made a conclusion based on their discussion, and the other couldn’t come up with a better alternative. He looked around and frowned. "It seems to be another type of extreme environment dungeon. But it’s the first time I encounter a place like this..."

Zein quietly raised his brow. So there had been no dungeon with similar miasma density as the Deathzone before? Even the high-rank espers like this squad members seemed to be unfamiliar with the environment.

Yeah...Zein decided to keep mum about the Deathzone. He was only half certain anyway. There was still a possibility that they ended up in a higher-level dungeon with a similar environment to the Deathzone.

"Are you guides okay?" Ashur asked Zein, and the other espera followed, looking visibly worried. They were in a new type of dungeon after all, and they had no idea what danger would roam this place. _{freewebnσvel.cøm}

"We’re okay," Zein nodded. "Please just concentrate on getting through this place."

Ashur stared at him wordlessly for a few seconds, before finally nodding with a little smile. "Thank you," he shifted his gaze to the other espers and started making new plans then.

Zein, meanwhile, dragged the guides closer to him and gave a stern warning. "Do not take off your mask, whatever the case. Wrapped your clothes tighter, wear gloves too."

The was no room for the guides to even questioned it. Hearing the serious tone of their Captain’s voice made them move swiftly to follow his orders. Meanwhile, the espers were huddling together with solemn air around them.

"I can’t detect anything further than fifty meters. There’s a barrier closing the space. The only opening available was that way, like a tunnel," a scout pointed toward their twelve o’clock. If they went by the previous dungeon’s plan, it would be located behind the dungeon core.

That, in itself, was ominous enough.

The size and shape of the deformed trees were similar to that they encountered near the ruined underground city. He wondered if this place was in a similar line with that location--if they were really in the Deathzone.

That being said, Zein couldn’t help but be vigilant. It was cruel, but these people weren’t Bassena. Zein could take it easy later on in the expedition because he knew how formidable Bassena’s protection was. Even then, there was a time when Bassena was getting cut off from them. The anxiety he felt back then was almost the same as his feeling now. The only difference was that he didn’t need to worry about Bassena’s whereabouts.

He remembered the Black Pearl inside his rings then, and wondered whether it was possible to summon Bassena from the tower. Was the spell embedded inside the dagger strong enough to penetrate the dungeon and tower system?

Oh, right. Weapons. Feeling stupid, Zein summoned his two daggers, one in each hand. Feeling his fingers wrapped around the cold handle suddenly made him even calmer.

Yes. Whatever happened, it wasn’t like Zein couldn’t defend himself. He just needed to watch over the two kids too while at it. Certainly, a whole squad should be able to face this place, even if it was a real Deathzone.

After all, [Hagalaz] would be the first squad Radia sent to spearhead the reclamation campaign. If they couldn’t handle this, then the reclamation project might as well get scrapped.

With that rather positive notes, Zein followed the vigilant squad moving forward, watching the surrounding keenly. But even after they walked for a while, there was no beast attacking them. Not even surrounding them and keeping watch. The place almost felt deserted, safe from the eerie rustling sound and the swaying of the grotesque trees. They walked and walked for hours, even managing to stop for a break and re-strategizing--although they could think of nothing still.

"I almost think we ended up in another undead land, but there’s no rotten stench here, just...stale," someone commented after a prolonged silence, getting bored after five hours in this strange, unsettling place.

"Yeah, it’s stuffy. The air filled with so much miasma here, almost like the story I heard about the Deathzone," another esper chimed in, and the group fell into silence. Some almost stopped in their track, even. "Huh? Huh?? I’m...I’m just joking guys..."

The esper’s nervous laugh did not lessen the sudden anxiety. The two guides and Ashur looked back suddenly, staring at Zein. The tall guide, however, just shook his head.

"It’s similar, but I’m not sure," Zein answered their gaze. "It could be just a dungeon modeled after the place too."

The other espers stiffened and looked at Zein too, eyes wide and lips parted. The 5-stars and the new division knew about Zein’s history--at least his career for the past four years--but not, apparently, the other espers.

While they were busy being flabbergasted, however, the ever-serious vice-Captain suddenly spoke. "Halt!"

The focus shifted back to the dungeon then--or rather, to the path. The espers took a stance in reflex to the vice-Captain’s stern voice.

"There’s something there--"

Just after the vice-Captain said it, a harsh wind blew from the path in front of them, bringing a thick surge of miasma and a dreadful feeling.