Berserk of Gluttony (LN) - Volume 6 - Chapter 16

Chapter 16:

Dean and Fate

“THAT’S MY BOY.” My father seemed heartened by my response and put his hand out to ruffle my hair. 

“I’m not a kid anymore,” I said, dodging out of the way. I need him to know that I didn’t like his attitude.

My father only laughed. “If you want to show me that you’re all grown up, I’d like to see you take down that holy beast by yourself.”

“Grr…Dad!” I said, unable to hide my anger at his condescension.

In the five years since his death, I’d struggled and crawled and fought desperately. He might have come back to life, but he knew nothing of what I’d suffered in that time. Yet he could still read the feelings in my heart as though they were on my sleeve.

“Hey, don’t pull that face at me,” he said. “We’ve got one hell of a fight ahead of us, and we’ll have to work together to beat that monster.”

“I’m stronger than you think,” I replied.

“Well, you’ve got high stats, that’s for sure. You got them all from your Gluttony? That skill, it’s not what you think it is.”

“Then…”

“It seems like an extremely potent skill because you can take stats and skills of every foe you kill. But those don’t come without a price. Do you know the ultimate purpose of the Skills of Mortal Sin? Do you know who they’re for?”

I had no answer for his questions. Nothing. 

“I see,” muttered my father, his voice quiet.

But we didn’t have a chance to continue our leisurely chat. The holy beast turned its attention on us and charged. 

I felt suddenly nervous to be fighting alongside my father for the first time, and I slipped up as the holy beast attacked. I was too slow to evade another slash from its pincers, and my freshly healed torso was about to get gouged again. 

“Fate!”

My father drove his spear into the ground and a huge blast of razor-sharp ice engulfed the holy beast. The monster’s claw was only inches from me when it froze.

“Are you all right?” my father asked. “Do you want to rest with the others?”

Frustrated, I grunted and leaped at the ice-covered holy beast with the black sword gripped tight in hand. As I neared, I unleashed Undivided Mind again and poured magical fire into Greed.

“Fire again?” the black sword asked. “How unimaginative.”

“No,” I said. “Not just fire.”

“Don’t go overboard with your Gluttony, Fate.”

I was infusing the fireball spell with more power, strengthening it. The black sword began to glow brighter as the flames around its blade turned yellow. At the same time, a rivulet of blood flowed from my right eye. Ever since the battle with Rafale, unleashing my Gluttony had inevitably caused my eye to bleed and a malaise to spread throughout my body. This time I only wept blood, but there were no guarantees. I’d learned all this because of Laine, but now that she was traveling with my father, further analysis had not been forthcoming. 

The flaming sword, imbued with ever greater power, swung down on the holy beast’s pincer. I couldn’t cut through it, but I was intent on at least leaving a mark. The fire spread from the blade and engulfed the beast. My blade alone wasn’t enough, but with Undivided Mind and Gluttony empowering it, the magical power clearly had some effect, as the monster threw itself erratically from side to side in an attempt to extinguish those flames. When it realized that the flames still weren’t going out, it tried to burrow into the sand.

“Not on my watch,” said my father, spinning his black spear.

While I executed my attack, my father had been charging his own power. He pointed his spear at the monster and let loose a beam of icy light. “Freeze.”

Transparent ice instantly manifested, trapping the holy beast in place. The sheer amount was staggering—there was no way it could have been created through cooling the air alone. No, this ice had been summoned, and I had seen this before. 

I knew it. It was ice that even the black sword Greed couldn’t scratch.

The monster was immolated then frozen in an instant. The sudden change in temperature sent cracks running through its carapace.

“Wow, Fate! Amazing! Was that your plan all along?”

“Uh…yeah.”

The sudden praise from the black sword caught me off guard, and I was unsure how to respond, so I simply took the compliment. More importantly, I felt like I had learned something valuable about combining elemental spells.

My father and I charged toward the holy beast for our next attack.

“Watch out for the tail, Fate,” he warned.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Don’t aim for the extremities,” he added. “It grows them back like a lizard with its tail.”

It was the exact opposite of the strategy Eris, Roxy, and I had devised. Our plan had been to get rid of the tail and pincers before attacking the body, but in the end the holy beast had simply healed itself by absorbing the darkness. I realized then that my father knew a great deal indeed about the monster… 

“And be very careful of the poison in the scorpion’s stinger. Even the smallest amount will kill you.” There was an edge of bitterness to his voice, as if he’d felt it firsthand.

“Got it. I’ll keep my eyes open.”

I thrust my flaming blade into the fractured outer shell of the holy beast and felt it give. The monster writhed from the attack but was held fast by the ice and couldn’t get away. 

“It’s useless, Snow,” said my father. “Now I can finally pay you back.”

He sent magic flowing into his spear before driving it into the scorpion’s body. The sheer power of it obviously dwarfed my own, for the holy beast’s body warped and deformed, and the ice surrounding it shattered from the force. The monster’s tail and pincers tore into pieces, pulled apart by the exploding ice and the impact of the spear attack.

He’s so strong…

Even so, my father looked like he was holding back.

The holy beast, barely moving, bled indigo from a deep wound in its carapace. My father didn’t stop; he drew back his spear and plunged it into the scorpion’s side. 

“Is that the best you’ve got, Snow?” he said.

The scorpion let out something like a roar as it writhed in the sand. For all intents and purposes, the beast had lost the will to fight. As I moved in to deliver another blow, something strange happened: the holy beast suddenly vanished.

“What the hell?”

I froze, stunned, but my father walked on calmly. He stopped before a young girl with red hair who had collapsed in the desert sand. She was covered in scars, and bleeding from several fresh wounds. I never could have imagined that the holy beast would be human—or at least, able to take a human form. My father took a few steps closer to the girl, then raised his spear up high.

“A body so young…You really have lost a lot of power,” he said under his breath. “Now to send you back to hell.”

He pointed his spear at the girl’s heart. He had every intention of killing her. His face remained stoic as he brought his spear down. But before he delivered the killing blow, I blocked the spear with my black sword.

“Fate, what are you doing?”

“Dad…”

The two weapons sparked as they ground against each other. I shook my head. The second I saw the girl’s face, there was just no way I could allow him to strike her down.

“I can’t kill her while she’s crying, and I can’t stand idly by while someone else does.”

Tears fell from the girl’s closed eyes. They weren’t the tears of someone begging to be spared. She had woken confused and disoriented, then gone on a rampage as a result. Through the madness of battle, she had lost sight of her own senses and self. Those were the kind of tears she wept.

My father glowered at me for a time before shaking his head and pulling back his spear.

“Do what you will,” he spat, exasperated. But he turned back to me once more as he walked away. “That part of you, it comes from your mother too. The girl you saved is called Snow. Just like me, she returned because of the Door to Distant Lands. After fighting with her, I’d say she’s lost more than half her strength. That could be why she went on a rampage. But know this, Fate: holy beasts are your enemy. Do not forget.”

He didn’t wait for my reply. Instead, he went to where Roxy tended Eris, said a few words to her, and vanished into the desert. I kneeled down next to the girl he called Snow. It was like the chill winds had cooled her body after the exhausting battle. And now that the battle with the holy beast was over, the darkness had gone also. There was nothing left but the sound of sifting sand carried on the wind.

As my breathing calmed, Roxy came over to me, carrying Eris. “Fay, are you okay?” 

“Still kicking. How’s Eris?”

“She’s stable, but…she needs time.”

“I see.”

Roxy looked from me to the red-haired girl. I knew she was full of questions, so I jumped to explain. “That holy beast we were fighting just now, it’s this girl. She’s called Snow. I don’t know how, but my father recognizes her.”

“I saw it happen from afar. I can’t believe it has a human form. And the body of a young girl, no less…”

“She looks young, but we can’t know how old she really is. Myne looks young too, and she’s been around for thousands of years.”

I asked Roxy to head back to LeChoix with Eris. I knew we couldn’t take Snow back just yet, even if she was unconscious. There was every chance she’d transform back into a holy beast and destroy the whole estate when she awoke.

“I’ll wait here until daybreak—until Snow wakes up,” I said. “If she listens to reason, and if she’s on our side, then I’ll bring her back with me.”

“And…if she’s not on our side?”

“Well…I have a feeling I can make things work.”

I hadn’t felt any ill will from Snow in our battle. If anything, the holy beast operated on survival instinct alone. Having seen the tears she wept earlier, I just couldn’t imagine her being as dangerous as Roxy suspected. Regardless, the moment I’d chosen to protect this girl from my father, it was settled: she was now my responsibility.

“Your curiosity is only going to get you killed!” shouted Greed. “She’s a holy beast! A holy beast!”

“And whatever happens now is my responsibility,” I replied.

“You know what that means, right?”

“I do…and only too well.”

My father knew that I was serious; that was why he hadn’t pushed back. If worse came to worst, I would do what needed to be done. There was simply no room for excuses when dealing with something with the power of a holy beast.

As I stood there, alone with the girl named Snow, I realized that I had forgotten to ask Roxy what my father had to say to her. I hadn’t thought to ask because I’d assumed she’d tell me of her own volition, but…she hadn’t said a thing.