There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 298

Chapter 298: Chapter 290. Severed Bond

Lucia knew Roan had lost his life. She knew the moment her esper stopped breathing; she could feel it in her soul, piercing her heart with unspeakable pain ripping through her heart. A bond, a chain binding her very being was ripped apart mercilessly, so abruptly that it felt like death itself cutting it with its scythe.

And it was painful. So, so, painful that she screamed and cried herself to sleep every night.

She didn’t want to live anymore. She wanted to be with her esper, her husband, her paladin. Her Roan.

But she looked down, at her painful chest, and slightly swollen belly. And she sobbed. Because it was so painful, and she wanted to just be with her husband, but she couldn’t. Because inside her womb was the proof of her union with Roan, and she could never let that union left unborn.

So she cried herself to sleep, clutching her weakened body, thinking about her family--Roan’s family--waiting for her, waiting for their son.

And yet, when she woke up, she was nowhere near her family. That man said everyone had died, and there were no more tears for her to cry. It was only her and her unborn child. Lucia, the princess of Ishtera, had no choice but to depend on that man to survive.

But she survived. They survived. She and her little boy, the small Roan. Her Luzein.

Oh, such a beautiful child, just like Roan. As if he knew that his mother would get in trouble if he cried, the baby boy kept quiet, only whining softly when he got hungry. Such a sweet, sweet child.

But Lucia knew, he wouldn’t be able to see this sweet child grow.

She was far too weak. Months of heartbreaking pain and moving around without decent nutrition or ample rest had gnawed into her lifeforce. What little of it she had preserved to deliver her bond with Roan to the world.

She knew. She knew she would die, and once she did...Luzein might be too, for the red-zone they ended up in was a treacherous, treacherous place. And if she would die anyway, she might as well look for some help.

But where? Her family...the family she finally had, already perished. She didn’t know anyone else, because she had to shelter herself in House Ishtera, from those people who had been after her and her son, ever since she left Eiyuta...

Right. Eiyuta. She still had a family in Eiyuta.

But a journey...Lucia had no idea if she could even survive a journey to Eiyuta. What if she died on the way? What would happen to Luzein? What if no one found them and her baby boy ended up abandoned beside his mother’s corpse in the middle of nowhere? What if someone took her son and put him in those shady establishments?

Fear and worry filled her mind, and in the end, she decided to leave her son behind. She gave all her money and valuables she managed to hide from that man to the grandma who had been taking care of her these past few weeks. She took only some for her journey, and asked the grandma to take care of her son until she came with help--help that could bring them all out of Araka.

But, oh...to leave her heart and soul behind...

"Luzein, my sweet baby boy," despite telling herself to be strong, despite thinking her tears had run dry, Lucia shed her tears in the face of imminent goodbye. "I know this is selfish of me, but even if I couldn’t come back...even if I..." she paused, just embracing her baby boy as she cried silently. "Please, please try to live. My baby, you have to live and be happy. My Luzein...oh, Goddess, my Luzein..."

It was another night of crying herself to sleep. But the next dawn, Lucia could not afford to do that. She gritted her teeth and, with tears in her eyes, hid her petite frame inside the logistic truck heading out of Araka. With some miracle, she managed to get out of the truck, and continued her journey in any way she could. Her luck did not last, however, for her weakened body could not hold up anymore, and she collapsed at the side of the road as she tried to look for a bus.

Perhaps it was fate telling her that she had suffered enough. Perhaps because the world wanted her to experience something nice one last time before she died; the people who found her brought her to a clinic, and they were all nice people who even helped her reach for her friends in Eiyuta.

The last tears she shed, would be in the sight of her friends, her sisters she hadn’t seen for two years. Oh, how she wanted to fall into their embrace, become a younger sister again, be caressed and taken care of.

But she couldn’t. She was a mother now. A mother with an infant waiting for her rescue in the red-zone. A mother who knew her life was slipping away.

"Please, please," she begged; to her sisters, to the world, to anyone. "My son...please save my son! My son Luzein! Please...please..."

Her last word before she succumbed to the harshness of this world, was the pleading for her son.

* * *

Oh, how much they desperately wanted to fulfill Lucia’s dying wish. But they couldn’t. They did not have enough power. They did not have money, people, or influence. Constantly, even now, Lucia’s tear-stricken face was on their mind, and it gnawed at them, filling them with guilt and regret.

"A baby in the red-zone...we comfort ourselves by thinking there was no way he was still alive," Sherri choked on her breath and buried her face in her palm. "But...but..."

"But you find out Zein was alive," Bassena concluded.

Ria closed her eyes tightly, lips quivering for a bit before she managed to speak again. "One day, some people came to ask about Lucia, saying that they were doing an inquiry about missing guides," she said. "When Lucia died, we never told anyone, not even the Guide Centre, because we knew there were unsavory people looking for her. We only told those people about what happened to Lucia before...before that tragedy happened, in case..."

"We only realized later that it might cause trouble for us, that those people might be the ones who were after Lucia and her husband," Sherri continued. "So I left the house and lived with Ria and Hana here."

Bassena nodded, finally got the answer to why they abandoned the house. It was good that they weren’t doing it to avoid Zein specifically. Honestly, he could not blame them for their reaction, nor why they couldn’t get baby Zein out of the red-zone.

"But," he frowned, glancing at the man beside him, who was still wordlessly looking out of the window. "Why didn’t you respond to Zein’s letters?"

Eyes shaking, they lowered their head and held their arms close to their chest. "We’re...we’re ashamed," Sherri answered with a cracking voice. "We’re ashamed and scared. We failed to do the one thing...the one thing Lucia asked of us. We’ve given up, we’ve given up, and...and..." she closed her eyes, her voice muffled behind her hand. "She used her last strength to look for help, alone...walking alone seeking help for her son and yet...everything was...futile..."

The voice, which had gone fainter and fainter, became almost inaudible at one point. Ria and Sherri ended up choking on their own tears and could no longer continue speaking. It was the daughter, Hana, that took their place to explain what happened.

"They...they were scared, that...that her son might resent them if he knew," she bit her lips while rubbing her mother’s back. "Please don’t be too angry at them. People like us...we can’t help but be afraid of powerful people. The only way for us to survive is...is by running away..."

Bassena sighed. It wasn’t like he did not understand. Well, he did not understand their fear, but he understood their reasoning. Whether or not it was a valid reasoning was not in his judgment.

But the man beside him.