Berserk of Gluttony (LN) - Volume 1 - Chapter 20

Chapter 20:

An Oath, a Promise 

SOMEHOW, I MADE IT BACK to the Hart mansion before dawn. I was utterly exhausted, both by the battle with the crowned kobold and by the ecstasy of madness Gluttony brought on afterward. I leaned Greed against the table in my room and collapsed into bed. Sleep arrived instantly. 

I woke to sunlight pouring in through the windows. 

Hm? Wait. If the sun’s up that high, that means…it must be noon already! Did I sleep all morning? 

I scrambled out of bed, got dressed, and burst out of my room. Maya happened to be passing by at the time, and she laughed at the sight of me. 

“Hello there, sleepyhead. Finally decided to wake up? Keep this up, and you won’t be working for Lady Roxy long.” 

“No! Anything but that… Where is Lady Roxy, anyway? I have to find her and apologize.” 

Maya seemed to enjoy watching me get all anxious. 

What the hell? I could lose my job, and you think it’s funny?! 

“Sorry for laughing. It’s just that you look so much like an abandoned puppy. It’s adorably funny,” Maya giggled. “Forgive me. Where are my manners? Please, rest easy. I was only joking.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Lady Roxy ordered us to let you sleep.” 

Maya explained that Lady Roxy had been worried when I didn’t wake naturally in the morning, and even came to check on me herself. She knocked on the door but received no reply. Afraid something might have happened, Lady Roxy opened the door to find me splayed out on my bed, mouth wide open as I slept. Assuming I was exhausted from the previous day’s grape picking, she ordered the maids to let me sleep until I woke up on my own. 

Although I had actually spent the night locked in battle with the crowned kobold, that wasn’t something I could go explaining to anyone, so I held my tongue. 

“Ah, I see,” I muttered. 

“Now that you have Lady Roxy’s express permission, you can go right back to bed, if you feel like it.” 

“No, no, I’m fine. I’ve had my fill of it.” 

Lady Roxy had already allowed me to sleep in; going back to bed was pushing it. First things first, I had to find her and apologize. 

“Where is my lady?” I asked. 

“Surely you heard yesterday. Lady Roxy took a group of battle-ready men to hunt kobolds.” 

So she had already left…for the decimated remains of the ravine. She might be staring at it in shock as Maya and I spoke. And what conclusion would Lady Roxy come to about how the ravine got that way? I was worried, but I knew there was no proof I had been there, so for now I had to act normal. 

“And when is Lady Roxy expected to return?” 

“If it’s anything like previous years, tomorrow morning. Kobolds are nocturnal monsters, so she’ll spend the day setting traps, then hunt until dawn.” 

“Tomorrow, you say…” 

I was sure Lady Roxy would return later this very day. She would see the ruins of the ravine and know something had battled the kobolds. If any kobolds had somehow escaped, they wouldn’t attack the Hart estate after that disaster. Lady Roxy drove them off every year, so she knew them well enough to easily assess that sort of thing. 

There would be a commotion upon her return, so I needed to prepare. 

“You really like her, don’t you?” Maya said, interrupting my thoughts. “Lady Roxy, I mean.” 

“Eh?! What are you talking about?!” 

The comment took me by such surprise that my voice came out as a squeal. I was a servant being considerate of his master! 

“You’re so eager—and nervous,” she laughed. “But it’s fine.” 

Maya found my reaction hilarious. Hiding her laughter with a hand, she returned to work. 

“Wait a moment!” I said. “Is there anything I can do to help?” 

I wanted a chance to make up for sleeping so long. They kept treating me like a guest, but I was still one of Lady Roxy’s servants. I couldn’t sit around earning money for doing nothing. 

Seeing how keen I was, Maya tilted her head in thought. “Why don’t you go keep Lady Aisha company? She doesn’t have anything to do.” 

“Understood! I’ll do my best!” 

After Maya told me where to find Lady Aisha, I gave her polite thanks and took off. 

“Hey!” Maya called. “No running in the corridors! What if you bump into somebody?!” 

“Sorry!” 

Having just broken one of the most basic rules of servant work, I bowed in apology to Maya and walked briskly down the hall. 

*** 

Lady Aisha was in her room. It was immediately apparent that this was not a guest room like my own; the high quality of the door I knocked on spoke for itself. After a pause, a voice invited me in. 

“Excuse me,” I said as I entered. 

Lady Aisha greeted me with the smile of a cheeky young girl. “Ah, Fate. Wonderful timing. Sitting around gazing at the scenery gets frightfully boring after a while.” 

She was resting in bed, her body propped up on the pillows behind her. She seemed tired. 

“Come, take a seat,” she added. 

I sat in the chair Lady Aisha motioned toward, by the bedside. She smiled as I did, then turned her gaze back out the window. For a while, the two of us sat, simply admiring the garden grounds. Having spent time with Hart Manor’s gardeners, I could tell the estate’s lawns were immaculately kept. The gardeners seemed to hold the Hart family in high regard. 

“It’s a beautiful garden,” I said. 

“It is, particularly everything visible from this window. I always tell the old gardener not to bother going to all the trouble, and yet he always does.” 

Now it made sense. The gardener knew Lady Aisha was ill, and that she couldn’t go outside often. The garden was his way of making her life indoors a little brighter. 

“He’s so troublesome…” she said, but her smile was grateful. 

For a time, Lady Aisha and I chatted, and the time passed with our constant laughter. When my stomach rumbled from missing breakfast, Lady Aisha called a maid to bring us snacks. Something like a mother’s warmth emanated from her. Although my own mother had passed away soon after I was born, so I couldn’t say I knew exactly what such kindness was, I felt something from Lady Aisha. It was selflessness. 

Lady Aisha placed her teacup on its saucer and faced me with a serious look on her face. “Fate, it’s likely that I…don’t have long left.” 

“Of course you do. Why, right now you’re…” But I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say she was fine. Even now, she was still stuck in bed. 

Lady Aisha picked up where I left off. “Yes, right now I’m well enough. But it won’t be long. After all, nobody knows us better than we know ourselves.” 

“But…why are you telling me this?” 

“Because I think you can be the support that Roxy needs. Can I ask that of you?” 

I was flustered and more than a little lost. Lady Aisha went on to tell me that when her husband had died in battle, it was a moment of great distress for her daughter. However, when I became a member of the greater Hart family, I had become a source of comfort and strength for Lady Roxy. Lady Roxy had told her mother so when they were alone. She’d said, “I have to keep going. I don’t want Fate to think of me as an unworthy family head.” 

“If you could have just seen her eyes when she said that,” Lady Aisha told me. “She looked just like her father did in his youth.” 

“But a person like me…” 

Our positions in this world were too far apart. Even though I now possessed true strength, I could never show it. Of course, I could support Lady Roxy from the shadows, but that didn’t feel like what Lady Aisha was asking of me. 

Seeing my confusion, Lady Aisha placed her hand upon my own. With Telepathy, I heard her voice flow through me. 

“You’ll be fine… It’s not so hard.” 

Her voice faded as she lifted her hand, and she spoke to me once more. 

“You don’t need position or status, Fate. And you don’t need to be as strong as a holy knight, either. What’s important is what’s here,” she said, pointing at my chest. “What’s important is that your heart wants to support her.” 

“My heart… My feelings, you mean?” 

“Yes. Look at me, Fate. I came from a family of commoners, without a useful skill to my name. But I was there for my husband, a great and powerful holy knight. And if I could support him, then you can support her. That’s what I believe.” 

There was no doubt in my mind that Lady Aisha’s heart, even struck by illness, was stronger than my own. Her words weighed on me. Since unleashing Gluttony, I had sought power and strength. I hoped I could someday be as strong as her.