Berserk of Gluttony (LN) - Volume 7 - Chapter 20

Chapter 20:

In Memories

MYNE STARED AT ME for a time. She wasn’t dressed in the white garb I was used to. Instead, her clothes were pure black. As our eyes met, she gave off the impression that she wished to be left alone. After glaring for a moment, she simply turned away. I couldn’t give up yet, so I approached her.

“Hey, Myne,” I said.

 Myne sat still on a pile of building materials and held her knees. “Who are you?”

As expected, I thought. It was no different from my encounter with Greed earlier. In this realm, we had never met before. But if this was the world of Myne’s soul, I had to get on good terms with her for a start. I’d never be able to talk with her if I didn’t.

“I’m Fate,” I said.

“Fate…”

“I got caught up in the fighting earlier, but Kairos saved me. Then he brought me here. Why are you here?”

“I fought Kairos and lost. They took Sloth away from me.”

“So you’re here because they won’t return your weapon?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re certainly in a bind.”

I plunked myself down next to Myne, and we both looked up and watched the people building the outer wall.

“Where did you come from?” Myne asked.

She probably asked because of my appearance. Kairos had been just as surprised to see my black hair and black eyes. It was obvious that I wasn’t Galian, lacking their distinctive tanned complexions.

“I came from a place far, far from here.”

“From the borderlands?”

I couldn’t tell her I’d come from the real world, not yet. Myne’s soul was still entangled in these moments from the past—these memories. All I could do for now was blend in with my surroundings.

“Yeah, something like that,” I said. “Perhaps I moved too soon. This place seems awfully inhospitable.”

“It wasn’t always like this. The metropolises have spread all over. Kairos and the others are building that wall from their rubble.”

“Who is Kairos fighting?”

“He’s not fighting an individual. He’s fighting the Galian Empire. I’m a prisoner of war.”

He was fighting an empire? Given the size of the battle I saw, it made sense. There was no other word for it but war. I was still intrigued by Myne’s choice of words. “You don’t seem especially imprisoned for a prisoner of war,” I said.

“I failed in my mission. I have no home to return to. He knows that as well as I do.”

From context, I realized that she was an assassin sent by the empire.

“But I don’t understand what reason you’d have for being here,” Myne spat.

“You mean why I would come to such a dangerous place?”

“Yes. And I can feel a similar power in you. It’s not unlike ours, but it is more akin to the power of Kairos.”

“So that’s one of the reasons you’ve decided to talk to me, right?”

Myne nodded wordlessly. Bearers of Skills of Mortal Sin could recognize one another. I could feel it too, like she had a magnetic pull. And once we came together, it became difficult for us to move apart.

“That’s part of it,” Myne said. “And I don’t know why, but…I feel soothed when I talk to you. Have we… Have we met somewhere?” Her crimson eyes carefully studied my face. Though she seemed to be trapped in the past, perhaps some small part of the real her was here as well.

What should I do? How should I answer?

“I…”

Just as I was about speak, Kairos called out to us. “Hey, you two. Food’s ready. Can’t fight on an empty stomach.”

“I don’t have the will to fight,” said Myne.

“Don’t be like that. We need you. Fate, you too. Come on.” Kairos pulled us both to our feet and pushed Myne along. “You always talk like that, but you always eat the most.”

I was certainly familiar with that phenomenon. Myne’s appetite was something else. Kairos watched as Myne walked ahead of us and said, “I’m supposed to be the Glutton, but she eats even more than I do.”

“Where do you get your food supplies from?” I asked.

“From the empire. We had another platoon take advantage of that last battle to acquire a new stockpile.”

“Wait, so that means…”

“Exactly. We’re doing it Gluttony-style. Always stealing, always taking. Not that I want that for you…”

“Kairos… What do you mean?”

“So! Let’s eat, and then we’ll dive back into battle.”

The food at the camp was underwhelming. Even so, Kairos was content just to have some filling grub and wolfed down the food. Myne, sitting by his side, ate quietly. She’d lost her sense of taste in the past, so everything tasted the same to her. I had a feeling her opinion would be the same as Kairos’s, but I figured I would make small talk and ask.

“What do you think of the food, Myne?”

“It’s disgusting. The stuff at the facility was better,” she said.

“Huh?!”

“What?”

“You can taste it?” I asked.

“Of course I can. I may be taciturn, but you’ll know when I don’t like something.”

“Really?!”

“Enough already.”

Myne was getting angry. But now I knew that in this time, Myne still had her sense of taste. She hadn’t yet lost it. Her personality hadn’t changed a bit, though.

“If you’re still hungry, you can have mine,” I said.

“Ooh.”

Myne’s eyes lit up as she dug into my leftovers. Naturally, she’d cleared her own plate a while ago. 

Kairos looked at her and laughed. “Guess I won’t need to give you my share this time. For a prisoner of war, she’s a real handful, I’ll tell you that. You sure you’ll be okay, Fate? It’s tough dealing with hunger out here.”

“I’m used to it,” I said with a sigh.

Kairos laughed again. “It’s not a good idea to get too used to that feeling.”

We watched as Myne shoveled the food into her maw.

“She’s definitely going to be asking for thirds, isn’t she, Fate?”

“Definitely.”

“Some things will never change, I guess.”

When Myne was finished, she went back to her corner. Kairos watched her go.

“Looks like she’s had her fill,” he said. Then he noticed me watching him. “Hm? What’s up?”

“Kairos, why do you fight?” I asked.

“Why? Well… In the beginning, it was simply to live. That’s still why. No great noble reasons or anything like that.” He looked out at the people putting together what would one day become Babylon. “But suddenly, I found myself with a family.”

“You fight to live?”

“I do. I fight so we can live as human beings. Everyone you see here—we were the empire’s playthings. We are the ones who escaped. Eventually, we drifted together and chose to rebel. D’you remember that chimera we fought earlier? If I hadn’t escaped, I might have ended up as one of them.”

Kairos told me that the Galian Empire used people for its experiments. Every person was assigned a position in the hierarchy, and those citizens with the lowest rank were afforded no human rights. For the sake of researching skills—the gifts given to people by God—anything and everything was permitted. The true goal of the empire’s research was to understand and develop even more powerful skills. It was only through the help of brave researchers who objected to these experiments that Kairos and the others had been able to escape to the world beyond.

“The person who freed me…died,” said Kairos. “Their last words were ‘You must live.’ I have survived for so long because of those words. I’ve almost succumbed to Gluttony more than a few times, but those words always brought me back.”

Kairos looked like he had better mastery over Gluttony than I did, but perhaps our situations were more alike than I’d first thought.

“So even you…struggle with your Gluttony?” I asked.

“You probably know better than anyone else. I’ve never once thought of this skill as a special power. To me, it’s a curse. How about you, Fate?”

“I… I’d be lying if I said I didn’t sometimes feel that way. But if I didn’t have this power, I couldn’t protect the people I care about. I wouldn’t be the person I am now.”

“Yeah, I know that feeling.”

I knew that the Galian Empire would eventually fall. Kairos and his supporters would win the war, and Kairos himself would die. That’s what Greed had told me—it was an established, historical fact without doubt.

I felt a piercing gaze and turned to find Myne staring at me.