Berserk of Gluttony (Light Novel) Vol. 1 Page 17

  A holy skill was a hallmark of holy knights, the reason Hado could call himself one. Using Holy Sword Technique required a special weapon, a holy sword, all of which were forged in Seifort’s Military District. Holy swords were guarded with the utmost care and kept in secrecy, with each blade made entirely to order. They were forged from a metallic alloy that included rare orichalcum ore. At least, that’s what I had heard at the local bar. Just how true it was, I didn’t know.

  What I did know was that holy swords were invaluable, and it was nearly impossible for a commoner like myself to lay hands on one. At the sight of Hado’s legendary blade, I felt a flicker of concern; how would the black sword Greed, which I had bought for two silver coins, fare against such a vaunted weapon?

  “Greed,” I said. “I heard holy swords are pretty dangerous.”

  “I will not fall to any man-made blade,” he spat in return. “Don’t think twice, just fight to your heart’s content!”

  I’d hurt Greed’s pride. He wanted me to know he was better than Hado’s holy sword in every way. If he felt so strongly, I would gladly put him to the test.

  Hado and I faced off at the ready until I broke the tension. I shifted into a middle guard and launched at him.

  He had been waiting for that and grinned. “You’re a fool to charge in a straight line. Have you no sense of tactics? This is why you peasants make me sick. You’re all so stupid.”

  Hado waited like an idiot as I lost my patience and rushed him. His sword began to emit a pale light, and along with it, the ground beneath my feet glowed, too.

  “Behold, the hidden holy-sword tech-art, Grand Cross. In its purifying light, not even dust will remain. Ha ha ha!”

  The power of the tech-art rose around me. If it hit me straight on, the damage would be considerable. But the attack was far too slow. In my present state, I could have yawned in boredom in the time it took Hado to actually unleash the technique.

  But there was no need to take Hado’s attack head-on, so I kicked the ground at full strength. The kick sent me hurtling out of the target zone for the Grand Cross attack, and I landed directly in front of Hado. “A bit laggardly with your precious holy technique, aren’t you? You should really work on that.”

  “What?!”

  Hado spent all his time safe and snug behind the kingdom’s walls; he barely had a shred of combat experience to his name. In fact, his experience was perhaps not too different from my own. Then again, this was a guy who decided to kickstart our fight by whipping out his strongest attack. He might know even less than I did.

  Hado’s plan had fallen to pieces. He canceled his Grand Cross attack as he scrambled to recover and brought his sword down at me in an attempt to create distance between us. The time was now—the time to see if Greed really was the stronger blade. I swung the black sword in a horizontal cut to knock Hado’s holy sword off its intended course.

  The high-pitched ring of colliding metal echoed through the forest.

  “Impossible… My holy sword… It’s…”

  Part of Hado’s neatly-halved holy sword flew through the air. The sword he took so much pride in was lost, and so too was Hado. I caught the broken blade in my free hand.

  “Here’s your precious sword back,” I said, plunging the blade into his right shoulder, through the gap between his heavy armor plates.

  The scream that met my ears could have woken every sleeping hobgoblin in the forest. Hado fell to his knees from the pain, trying frantically to wrest the broken blade from his shoulder.

  Oh, but we’re just beginning, Hado. It’s much too early to be on your knees.

  “You are a disgrace to the name of the holy knights,” I said. “Stand up!”

  But Hado had lost the will to fight. I moved Greed to my left hand and gripped Hado’s throat with my right, lifting him up. He struggled, trying to break free, but it was all for nothing.

  “Now it’s time for you to taste some of that ‘education’ you and your siblings love to dish out,” I said. “They say bad dogs just need to be broken, you know.”

  Hado only squealed.

  For five long years, I had endured the Vlerick school of discipline. I had marinated in it. I had learned how to make someone surrender, to submit, and to yield. Now I would return the favor.

  “Are you ready, Hado?”

  “No, you can’t be… Stop, please! Stop!”

  Gripping Hado by the throat, I held his body in front of me as I charged into the forest at full power, straight into the great trees and anything else that stood in my way. I didn’t care. I had a great holy knight as a shield. Hado’s body rammed through a river of trees, and he sent them crashing to the ground. With each tree broken, Hado broke, too. His once lustrous hair tore, and his face became a tapestry of open wounds.

  When we finally arrived back at the flower field, Hado’s face was hideously swollen. Hobgoblins were more handsome.

  “Please…I beg of you…stop…”

  Ha. To hear those words from the likes of you. All this time, when the people you treated as insects begged you to stop…you never did. Not you, nor your brother or sister. You, Hado, who bought children from kidnappers and toyed with them until they died… You pushed me to the brink of death. And now that our positions are reversed, you beg for me to stop?!

  I gave in to anger and threw Hado high into the night sky. I waited for his moaning voice to grow distant, then turned Greed into the black bow.

  “Greed, I want three shots of the Bloody Ptarmigan, and I’ll give you thirty percent of my stats.”

  Greed laughed. “A feast. How generous of you. But you don’t want to kill him just yet, do you?”

  “I want the shots to graze him. Not kill. Can you do it?”

  “With ease. Now, let me eat. Give me that thirty percent!”

  As Greed slurped away my stats, the bow grew, assuming that sinister arch before my eyes. This hulking weapon would be the judge of Hado’s sins. I launched three arrows into the air as Hado began his freefall descent. Three bolts of black lightning ripped through the sky with a deafening shriek. They pierced the night as they shot past Hado’s form, grazing him.

  Moments later, a body collided into the center of the flower field with a heavy, wet thud. Hado’s right leg and both his arms had been torn off, but he yet lived. Thanks to his high vitality levels, his wounds had even stopped bleeding.

  Enough. Any more, and the holy knight would die before he gave me what I needed. I changed strategies.

  “Tell me where your siblings are.”

  Filled with fear, clinging to the hope that I might let him live, Hado gave me my first answer.

  Rafale and Memil were in a mountain kingdom to the far east, and they wouldn’t be back for another three months. I was disappointed, but there were other, more important matters. I needed to know about Lady Roxy. Something had been wrong when she returned to the manor from the castle. Hado, her fellow holy knight, was going to tell me why.

  I was dumbstruck by his response—so much so that I wanted to crush Hado’s jaw with my fist. But I asked him again, to be sure.

  “It’s true…” he said. “She leaves for Galia tomorrow.”

  “Why was she sent so suddenly?”

  “The Divine Dragon is…looking to expand its territory. It’s closing in on Galia’s borders. This hasn’t happened in…a thousand years. None of the holy knights want to go. Nobody wants to die holding back waves of monsters in Galia, not when there’s an unstoppable dragon there. But…somebody has to slow them…stop those beasts from reaching the kingdom.”

  So the task fell to Lady Roxy. That was why the holy knights had gathered on the night I saw them in the Merchant District. All the holy knights except for the Hart family had met, and all of them were in

  agreement.

  Rafale had initially targeted Lady Roxy because she defended me. However, the death of her father, Lord Mason, also played a role in their decision. Lord Mason had held great power among the holy knights, a
nd his orders to the others were always for the good of the people. However, that led the other knights to nurse a slowly building grudge against him and his way of life. Now that he was dead, it sought a new target.

  The Divine Dragon was too good an opportunity to pass up. By sending Lady Roxy into Galia’s extreme dangers, the holy knights could eliminate the Hart family. This was the plan Rafale and the kingdom’s other holy knights had devised.

  “And Lady Roxy agreed to it?” I asked.

  “She couldn’t refuse… It was a unanimous decision by the kingdom’s holy knights…all of them.”

  It had already been decided by the time Lady Roxy was called to the castle on the day we returned. The kingdom’s holy knights, all her enemies, had ordered her to Galia to die. My heart ached to think of the look on Lady Roxy’s face when she returned to the manor and stood before her father’s grave. Then Hado told me what Lady Roxy said when she had received her orders.

  “She said…if giving her life meant saving that of even a single citizen, then she gave it gladly.”

  It was just like Lady Roxy to say that, even with her back against the wall. That was who she was; I knew it even from the short time I had spent as her servant. But if the holy knights had made this decision, it wasn’t something I could change.

  “I’ve told you everything you asked,” Hado gasped, staring at the sky. “Please… I’ll do anything, just…spare me my life…”

  He was hollow. So very hollow and insincere. There was no remorse in his heart, only the words with which he begged for his life. A life I ended with the swing of the black sword Greed.

  Gluttony skill activated. Stats increased: Vitality +165,600, Strength +197,600, Magic +124,400, Spirit +130,900, Agility +123,800. Skills added: Holy Sword Technique, Strength Boost (High)

  His soul was unexpectedly delicious, similar to the crowned kobold’s. Though I thought I had overcome it, Gluttony once again sent me into delirium with ecstasy. I wiped the drool from my mouth with my sleeve and gazed at the body of Hado as it grew cold. It made me feel as though a part of me had grown colder, too.

  Greed called out to me through Telepathy, cutting through the chill. “You can unlock the Second Level now. So how about it? Want to do it?”

  “Do it.”

  “Why so kind and generous all of a sudden?”

  “It gives me chills to think I have Hado’s stats coursing through my veins.”

  Greed’s laughter echoed through me. There was nothing I could do about the skills I had taken from this vile man, but his stats, at least, I could flush from myself.

  “Well, here we go!”

  As the black sword began to glow, power drained from me, until…

  “Huh… A scythe.”

  I held in my hands a black scythe, the blade of which was at least as long as I was tall.

  “This is my Second Level form: the black scythe. Its cursed blade will cut through anything and everything, right through to its very essence.”

  I studied the sharp black blade as I used Identify to check my current stats.

  Fate Graphite, Lv 1

  Vitality: 121

  Strength: 151

  Magic: 101

  Spirit: 101

  Agility: 131

  Skills: Gluttony, Identify, Telepathy, Conceal, Night Vision, One-Handed Sword Technique, Two-Handed Sword Technique, Brawl, Holy Sword Technique, Strength Boost (Low), Strength Boost (Medium), Strength Boost (High), Vitality Boost (Low), Vitality Boost (Medium), Agility Boost (Medium), Health Regen

  My stats were right back to where they started when Greed and I first met.

  Holy Sword Technique… I guess, depending on how you looked at it, I had joined the ranks of the holy knights. But, of course, the kingdom would never acknowledge it.

  Chapter 25:

  Departures

  B Y CONSUMING HADO’S SOUL, I had eased the pressure of Gluttony’s starvation. My red eye returned to black like a receding tide. Knowing I didn’t need to hide it with bandages was a relief. I wouldn’t have to worry about explaining it away every time I met someone, either.

  With Hado Vlerick dead, I had checked one task off the list. Two still remained, but there was nothing I could do while they were away from the kingdom.

  The problem now was not the Vlericks, but Lady Roxy. She departed for Galia tomorrow. It was likely only a very small number of servants at the manor had been informed. I expected the head servant probably knew. But Lady Roxy had not told me, and resentment built somewhere deep within me.

  Then again, as far as Lady Roxy knew, I was powerless, and there would have been no reason to tell me about this. It was more like her to keep her troubles to herself so as not to worry others.

  I spent some time rebuilding my lost stats by hunting hobgoblins. Then, as I walked the night paths back to the kingdom, Greed spoke.

  “Here’s a story: Guy spends his time hiding who he is, but in the end, still wants the girl to rely on him… Bit self-absorbed, if you ask me.”

  “Shut up.”

  “It’s time to give that up. This is your fate.”

  “I said, shut up!”

  My shout drew confused looks from passing drunkards, who turned toward me. I ignored their bleary stares and hurried on my way.

  No lights were on in the manor. It was silent as the grave as I slipped in through the window of my room on the first floor. I placed Greed by the bed, slipped under the covers, and closed my eyes. But it was strange. Even after the battle with Hado, I wasn’t the least bit tired. My swirling thoughts refused to grant me slumber, and I spent the entire night lost in worries about Lady Roxy. I greeted the morning having not slept a wink.

  “Let me tell you something worthwhile, Fate,” said Greed. “First-rate adventurers take rest wherever they can get it. You getting your heart all in a bother like this? That makes you less than third rate.”

  I remained silent.

  “And now you’re sulking? How pitiful to think that you wield the great sword, Greed.”

  “Shut up.”

  Greed laughed. “Still have some life in you yet, huh? In that case, let me tell you something else. There’s a real commotion outside your room. Might want to check it out.”

  I was so lost in thought that I hadn’t noticed what was going on outside of my own room. Now I picked up on several pairs of feet rushing in the corridor. Servants were taught not to run through the halls. There was only one reason I could think of that would have this many people so restless.

  The other servants had at last been informed. I hurried out of bed and left my room. Desolate faces passed me by, and I joined them as we headed to the manor’s entrance. We found Lady Roxy there, surrounded by other servants. As I neared, she noticed me.

  “Good morning, Fate,” she said.

  “What is this? What’s going on…?”

  She was leaving for Galia. I knew it, but I had to ask.

  “A summons arrived this morning from the castle. I’m being sent to the Galian post. It’s a great honor.”

  It was a lie. It had been decided long ago. But she’d kept it hidden until this morning, until the very last moment, all to make sure nobody had a chance to rebel. Not the servants, and not the townspeople who loved the Hart family. That was the extent to which the people of the kingdom adored the Harts. The one who knew this best was the head of that family: Lady Roxy herself.

  I pushed down my desire to say what I truly felt and spoke. “Galia’s too dangerous right now. And your father, he…”

  “I understand the situation, Fate. The task my father was unable to accomplish—his duty—it falls to me now.”

  “But how long will you be there?”

  “Until we have the monsters under control. Judging from past expeditions, I’d expect around three years.”

  Lady Roxy would never last that long. Not when the Divine Dragon had broken its thousand-year silence and ventured as far as the country’s borders. Since Lord Mason’s death, if Hado’s wo
rds were to be believed, the dragon had been spotted multiple times crossing the border. The situation there was more dangerous than could be imagined. Lady Roxy’s target was heavenly calamity itself. Such a monster wouldn’t let you run if it found you. You would die like nothing more than an insect, holy knight or otherwise.

  “Please, Fate, don’t look like that. I’ll be fine. While I’m gone, you have permission to work at the family estate. As long as you’re there, the Vlericks won’t be able to reach you.”

  “I…”

  “What is it, Fate? What’s wrong?”

  Take me with you.

  I couldn’t say it. I was a monster of Gluttony. I devoured the souls of those I killed and took their power as my own… I existed outside the rules the gods had created. In this world, I was an ungodly outsider. One of the forsaken.

  If my powers were known, I would be rejected. Exiled. When I thought of that, I couldn’t find the words to speak. Lady Roxy left me and headed for the manor’s entrance.

  I had no power to stop her. As a servant of the manor, I could only do as the others did and see my master off on her journey.

  It was then that I saw the pendant, a blue stone at Lady Roxy’s chest—the present I had given her when we visited the Merchant District together. She had turned it into a necklace, which she now wore.

  Lady Roxy noticed me staring at the blue stone, and her face grew shy. “This memory is very precious to me, so I’ll take the stone with me always. What do you think?”

  “It…looks wonderful on you.”

  She appeared satisfied with my words, and she replied with her own, though they couldn’t possibly come true. “We’ll meet again, Fate.”

  “Good…good luck, Lady Roxy.”

  Standing before her servants, Lady Roxy gave a final farewell and left the manor. We stood there together, seeing her off as she grew smaller down the road and drew further away. From here, she would head to the Military District, where she would lead the army waiting for her toward Galia.

  ***

  I cut through the crowd of crying servants and headed back to my room, where Greed rested on the bed. I started preparing at once, though admittedly, there wasn’t much to do. I owned only a few sets of clothes, the black sword Greed, and my skull mask. I was ready to go in mere moments, and I took Greed in hand.