Berserk of Gluttony (LN) - Volume 2 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

Old Friends 

SET FLINCHED AWKWARDLY at my casual greeting. Then he made up his mind and dropped to his knees, bowing before me. I didn’t have a chance to stop him. 

“Fate! Please! We need your help! I won’t ask you to forget the past, and I know it’s not something we can just wash away. But please, just this once…” 

Set was four years older than me, and the son of the village elder. Back in our youth, he had been the ringleader of the village children. The other kids followed his lead, doing whatever he said. He pelted me with rocks, and on the day I left five years ago, rocks had fallen like rain as he howled at me to leave. Then the village elder and the other adults had burned my house, keeping the fire going until it was nothing but ashes. I remembered that day. A downpour of rocks, an inescapable rain of despair. The destruction of my home. Complete and utter banishment. 

And now the same Set, the man who had done all of that, knelt before me, begging. Pleading for me to help him because I finally seemed useful. 

I had been driven out of my village. They had deemed me worthless because of my Gluttony, nothing but a freeloader. But over the next five years Gluttony’s true powers had taken root, and now they needed me. But Set wasn’t looking at me . He wasn’t looking at Fate, the man. I could have been anyone, so long as I had power. 

The Set who knelt before me with his head pressed into the floor…this was a far cry from the Set I’d known five years ago. Gone was his lively youth. In its place was a pitiful portrait of desperation. And his position let me see clearly that his search for an adventurer had taken its toll; even at his young age, he was balding. 

“Fate…please. Please, help us. I’ll do anything you ask. Anything!” 

The truth of the matter was that I never would have interfered with the pathetic scene in the first place if I had only intended to reject his pleas. I had wanted to return to the village to visit the graves of my parents, and if I happened to feed a few souls to Gluttony while I was there, it would only be because I needed the power. That was it, my own selfish reason. I was not in any way going back to aid Set or the people who had turned me out into the cold. 

“Fine. I’ll accompany you to the village.” 

“Really?! Thank you, thank you! We’ll head back at first light tomorrow!” 

Wait until morning? Just how worried are you about your village, anyway? I shook my head at Set. This was how he acted when people were in danger? “No. We leave now.” 

“But…the sun’s already setting. It’s too dangerous to travel at night! The cloud cover makes it pitch-black out there. Walking the mountain paths with torches in hand would be like painting glowing targets on our backs for roaming monsters!” 

“Sounds perfect,” I said. “I much prefer them coming to me over having to go looking for them.” 

Set’s face went pale, and he shivered. Had I said something strange? Wasn’t that the most efficient way to hunt? I rested my hand on my sword hilt, and Greed spoke through my Telepathy. 

“You might have killed your fair share of goblins,” he said, “but don’t let that experience get your thoughts twisted. Remember your fight with the kobolds?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I get it.” 

It was true that my battle experience outside of goblins was…limited. The kobold fight, not long before I’d left Seifort, had been a true test of my abilities. My current approach to battle was likely skewed by the hundreds of goblins I’d slain. I’d killed so many since unlocking Greed’s Second Level—the skill-negating black scythe—that the goblin population around Seifort had plummeted to an all-time low. 

In other words, at this point I could practically hunt goblins in my sleep. Being called “Fate the Goblin Slayer” would have been right on point. Still, Greed was right. Using the weakest known species of monster as my standard for planning hunts would only get me into trouble. 

Set eyed me nervously while I muttered to Greed. I was getting used to the odd looks I received when I talked to my sword. 

“Uh…are we really leaving now?” Set asked. 

“Yeah, but we won’t need torches. I can see fine in the dark. Just stay close behind me.” 

“Okay. I’ll follow your lead, Fate. There’s no other adventurer I can rely on.” 

An adventurer… 

I guessed that, to Set, that was exactly what I looked like. Maybe I’d finally graduated from “servant.” After the way I’d handled those foulmouthed adventurers earlier, perhaps it was only natural for Set to think of me that way. 

*** 

Set and I left Tetra as the sun set. We headed deep into the western mountains, toward the village I’d once called home. It was a quiet night, if cloudy. Not bad for a walk. 

Before I was driven out, the village had been called home by around sixty people, not including me. Every family’s source of income was the medicinal herb miel, a plant which could only be cultivated in the clearest of streams. Since miel was so fragile and prone to disease, our harvests were inconsistent from year to year. During the bad seasons, my father had to bow before the village elder and ask him to share some of the village’s food with us. 

The main reason the village elder agreed to share with us was my father’s Spear Technique skill. The village rarely encountered monsters, but on the rare occasion that one wandered nearby, it was my father’s job to drive it away. He was so valuable that the other villagers were willing to overlook his worthless son with the endless appetite. 

But that uneasy compromise never could have lasted. After my father died, all that remained was me: useless trash. I tried my best to harvest miel and contribute to the village, but my attempts never went well. I had no real talent for harvesting, and my father’s protection was gone. In our village, those who couldn’t help themselves could only hope for banishment. 

I’d also been despised because of my skill. Nobody had ever seen or heard of a skill called Gluttony. Nobody knew what it did, other than make me a burden. Rumors spread like poison. Soon after my father’s passing, villagers claimed that I’d bring misfortune to the entire village if I were allowed to stay. Ours was a relationship beyond repair. No, worse. I may as well have been a human piece of shit. 

These memories filled my mind as I trudged up the overgrown mountain paths. 

“Hey, Fate,” Set called out from behind me. “At the tavern before, when you stepped in… You’re really strong now. But you were such a weakling before.” 

“Oh yeah? I don’t feel very strong. I think I’m probably about average.” 

“That…that didn’t look average…” Set stammered. 

There was an echo of suspicion in his voice, but I wasn’t about to tell him that the source of my strength was my reviled Gluttony. 

“What does it matter, anyway?” I asked. “Hurry up.” 

“Right. But can I ask one thing? I know it’s a weird question to ask now, but…I feel like I have to.” 

“What is it?” 

“Fate, do you… Do you still hate us? Do you resent the village?” 

Set was probably worried that I was only accompanying him to the village to enact some kind of unhinged revenge. 

What a time to ask, I thought. Then again, perhaps he’d been so desperate to find someone that he hadn’t had time to think about anything else. He must have really struggled in his search. 

We marched onward in silence for a while, and then I let out a sigh. “If I said I didn’t resent you, I’d be lying. But my parents are still there. Your village is their resting place, so…in that way, it’s important to me.” 

I hate you. I hate all of you, I thought . But I will save you, for my parents. That’s what I’m saying. 

Perhaps if I were some virtuous, saintly man, I’d sing odes to the importance of forgiveness. But it didn’t matter how much forgiving I did. Forgiveness didn’t mean a thing if the people I forgave never changed—if they still considered me a maggot to be ground under their heel for all eternity. The Vlerick family had already forced me to swallow that bitter pill. 

I had to admit, that was the one thing I wanted to know: had the villagers of my hometown changed in the last five years? Seeing Set beg so desperately for the village, without a thought for his own dignity, left me with a glimmer of hope. Perhaps the villagers had changed for the better. Even though they’d treated me like something far less than human, some small part of me couldn’t just give up on the place. 

I’d lived there with my father. The time we’d shared was precious. I wanted to change some of those old memories. I wanted to make them better. 

Set and I walked through the pitch-dark night, crossing four more mountain ridges before, finally, a small village nestled among the peaks came into view. Slivers of lamplight flickered from the crouched houses, all the brighter under a sky where the moon was blotted out by clouds. Peaceful. It seemed the monsters had not yet attacked. 

“We’re finally here,” I said. “Take me to your father. The village elder.” 

“Of course, Fate. I brought you all the way here, didn’t I? I won’t let anyone bad-mouth you. You just watch. It’ll go great! So, please… Please save us from the monsters.” Set bowed profusely. It was a reminder that this wasn’t the man I’d once known. 

I prayed this wasn’t the village I’d once known either.