There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)

There were roughly 192 registered guilds in Eastern Federation, and even more mercenary groups--some registered, but more were unknown.

Not every guild and group was invited to the annual gathering. But what that meant was that not everyone could come inside the conference room. The association building itself was free to be visited by anyone, so even those who weren’t invited could come.

For these people, and those who come with the invited groups but had no quota to sit inside, a screen was available outside the conference hall for them to spectate.

Those who got invited were given two seats each inside the conference room. Unless you were a sponsor, then the quota was doubled. Trinity, or rather, Mortix, was one of those, so Zein could come inside. Rina was already there, waving cutely at them to come and be quick about it.

"There’s a lot of people asking for you," Rina whispered once Zein sat down. "I guess it’s a wake-up call to our Commander that he can’t keep getting jealous--unless, you know, he obliterated the entire population."

"What people?" Zein asked, stealthily stroking Bassena’s hand below the table.

"There’s a son of House Arok, the daughter of House Lima, and I can’t remember it, but someone who comes as a proxy for...was it the minister, or...ugh whatever, anyway they’re lots," Rina shrugged in the end. Since it happened during the short time she was free from an interview until the conference hall was opened, she only remembered it in passing. "Oh, the journalist asked me about you too, and--" she shifted her head slightly, looking somewhere not far from them--to the right and behind a little bit. "People from Azure."

Zein raised his brow. "Not Celestia?"

"No, no--they’re not trying to recruit you," Rina chuckled. "This sounds weird, but I quote them; they wanted to look for a ’playmate’ to their guide."

"Weird indeed," Zein shook his head in confusion. Why would a grown-ass person need a playmate? Or was it a new trick to bait him?

"Well, they don’t mean anything bad, I’m sure," Rina smiled as she saw Zein’s dubious expression. "I knew them from the academy days, and the twins were not bad people, I believe. They’re just...eccentric."