There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 146

Chapter 146: Chapter 141. The Path of Renegade

The Paladin.

Zein clenched his right fist, almost letting out a choked scoff. Of all words...of all titles in this world...the wrist holding his new bracelet felt heavy all of a sudden.

"Such a lofty title...sounds too good for someone like him," Zein spat venomously, even though his tone was still flat. It was as if he struggled to balance between spite and refusing to give a fuck.

Radia let out a small smile, however, and replied solemnly. "Maybe...not so much so," he looked at Zein, who stared back at him with a slight frown. "It’s ironically fitting, actually."

Zein parted his lips, seemingly wanting to say something in aggression. But as usual, he stopped himself before doing so, retreated to look inside and calmed down on his own. "Go on," he said finally, in a calmer voice, and Radia smiled a bit wider.

"Before that, I have to tell you more about this Templar of Arms Master," Radia started, waving his hand toward his secretaries to ask for a drink. He tapped on his commlink and sent another file to the center of the table. "This is what we can find about them, but I can say this only scratched the surface. What we do know, however, is enough to put your parents’ situation in perspective."

The blue eyes narrowed slightly Zein he started to read the file that Radia sent him. The more he read, the widened those blue eyes became. "This...you..." Zein stared at Radia after he finished reading half the file. "You’re certain about this?"

"Yes," Radia nodded in affirmation. "While we mostly received this information from his enemies, I was quite certain about the credibility."

Zein took another deep breath before shifting his gaze back toward the file, reading it again.

The Templar or Arms Master, rather than an organization, was acting more like a clan. Their hierarchical system mirrored that of martial arts families from the ancient time. For this, there was speculation that the first generation of the Templars came from the remnant of such family.

The clan was supposedly led by one main family whose patriarch acted as the head of the clan. Supposedly. Like any other clan or organization, the Templars apparently also experienced an internal conflict that split the clan into two factions.

One of them was those who uphold the true objective of the clan, which was to safeguard the vessel of Setnath. And the other one consisted of those who wanted to have the vessel for themselves--in other words, those who wanted to rule over Setnath and gained his power.

"Long story short, the clan was breaking up, and the main family’s successor lost the battle. He was kicked out of their land with some of his people, but still maintained the identity as the Templar of Arms Master," Radia explained. "This original successor became a renegade instead, and they helped the ’carrier’--your ancestor--to run away from the clutch of the other faction. That was how your mother’s ancestor ended up in the north, and then your mother ran to Eiyuta."

Bassena blinked in the midst of these pieces of information. It was heavy. It was heavier than he thought it would be. More complicated too. He was focusing on watching Zein while Radia gave his deliberation, and he could see how those blue eyes were shaking from time to time.

"And my...t-that man was..."

They had never seen Zein stutter before now, and it somehow felt heart-wrenching seeing it. "Both factions were constantly trying to search for the ’seed carrier’. But you should know which faction he came from just from his title, right?" Radia replied with a smile.

Zein gripped the armrest of his chair tightly, just staring at the file with unblinking eyes, as if he didn’t know what to do.

"The Paladin was the leading figure in the ’renegade’ faction. I had no idea how he ended up imprinting your mother after a painstaking journey of finding the carrier, but I can be sure that he tried to protect your mother from the other faction."

"What..." Zein paused a single word, biting his lips to stop himself from feeling anxious. "What exactly the other faction wanted to do with her?"

Radia shook his head. "I can’t be sure. The log only said that they were tasked to kill him and capture her alive. But the Paladin managed to eliminate most of the pursuers and wounded the leader before he died," Radia paused for a a bit before adding. "At that time, your mother already vanished. My conjecture was that she made a deal with Todres to be hidden in the red-zone until she gave birth to you."

"A deal..." the one who responded, strangely, was Bassena.

"Yes, a deal," Radia looked at the esper solemnly. "Like how your mother made a deal with the Vaskis to run from the Southern Kingdom."

"Mm..."

"Wait, so let me get this straight," Bassena, who had vowed to not butt in earlier, couldn’t help himself this time with the complication of the situation. "So the new faction of the Templar found out that the orthodox faction had the seed, which was Zein’s mother, yes?" he turned toward Zein, who nodded in response, before continuing. "And so the new faction contracted a killer group to kill the orthodox faction and kidnap Zein’s mother. But after half-failing in the attempt, they turn on the new faction who hired them and proceed to eliminate the new faction."

"Yes," Zein gave an affirmative nod again, before tapping the table in contemplation. "Could it be they were pissed because a lot of their people ended up dead? Or was there another group that wanted to eliminate them?"

"It’s getting...complicated," Bassena groaned, and then turned to look at Radia, whose eyes had been staring hard at the table in silence for a while. "But it seems to me that you’re still hiding something..."

Just then, they could see the crimson orbs shake slightly. When Radia still didn’t say anything, Zein brought himself to ask. "So...how do you end up with the contracted killer’s logs?"

This was what Zein actually wanted to know since earlier. Radia did say his main source was actually coming from the killer. But how did he stumble upon the logs in the first place? The plausible explanation was that Radia met the killer group himself, but would that kind of group let someone read their logs when they contained so many undermining secrets?

There was a long minute of stretched silence that made the room felt heavy. After waiting patiently, Radia finally shifted his gaze away from the table to look at Zein and Bassena.

"I owned the logs," Radia said, to Zein’s and Bassena’s shock. "Or rather, the logs came into my possession about four years ago."

The other two paused then. But while Zein looked calmer and breathed in relief, Bassena sprung up from his seat with eyes widened in agitation.

"No--" he opened his mouth and almost slammed his hands, but ended up just clenching the edge of the table hard, eyes shaking and arms trembling.

Zein looked at Bassena with a surprised and worried frown. "What..." but seeing that the esper didn’t seem to be able to respond to him, he turned toward Radia for an answer.

With a sigh, Radia told him morosely. "The original owner of the logs was a member of the Golden Viper," the man said, watching the blue eyes widen slowly, before adding. "It was Arja Vaski--the third son of the Guildmaster."

In other words; it was Bassena’s uncle.