There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)

Personally, Zein was more surprised that his background had stayed hidden for this long, considering how much attention and interest the public had toward him.

But it was natural for people to not know. Zein’s license had no record prior to his measurement in Althrea, so they couldn’t use it to trace his past employment. If they dug a bit deeper, they would find out, through the recommendation letter he used, that he was once part of a Borderland Unit 04-2. But other than that, none.

The Borderland Unit was a place where they accepted just about everyone, which meant, they did not bother to have any record about someone’s past. Someone could be a criminal or a maniacal psychopath, they didn’t care so long as they got manpower. Crimes were the least of their worry after all.

It would be a different case if Zein lived somewhere else other than a red-zone, but there, people had no identity card, much less a record. Because who would bother making such a thing? Some people would carry birth certificates, but it was for their personal records, and no one bothered with it. The only written record of Zein’s existence there would be the ledger in Umbra’s base, which Zein had burned before he moved out to the Borderland. And even then, what was written there was ’ZEN’, not Zein’s real name.

So people wouldn’t know the guide Luzein used to live in the red-zone unless someone from the red-zone spelled it out. And someone from the red-zone wouldn’t be that in tune with the higher-zone business unless they were the Landlord, who would have some access to the outer world.

And Zein was pretty sure no one in Scarlet Moon would deliberately leak his information to others. Well, at least, he believed they wouldn’t want to incur Zach’s or--more importantly--his scary sister’s wrath.

[For now, the public is still debating the accuracy of these articles] Alice told him. From the look of it, she was in the PR department rather than the seventh floor. [But the fact that it came from big news channels makes people inclined to accept it]

"Hmm..."

Well, it was to be expected. The articles had been posted in the morning by three separate channels in one-hour intervals. All were credible, bonafide media--not merely gossip columns that liked to make up stories. And while they did not include all of the stories, they indeed did not make up lies, merely twisted some truths to look awful for Zein’s reputation.

"What about the guild?" Zein asked while looking out the window, into the column of dark leafless trees.

He did not care much about the public, but the guild...he had started to see it as his home, probably. It would be too bad if he had to distance himself again--