Berserk of Gluttony (LN) - Volume 4 - Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

The Imprisoned Holy Knight

“FATE! Come back to me! Fate!”

Greed’s voice brought me back to my senses just as I heard footsteps approaching the storage room. I quickly turned and took cover in the shadows, and just in time. A group of men entered the room—the same five guards I’d seen minutes ago.

I’d been lost in my thoughts longer than I could afford. The contents of that box were burned into my mind’s eye. They sickened me. How could anyone do something so inhumane? And how could these men so casually transport these boxes? Each one was crammed full of charnel—brutally cleaved body parts, flesh, blood, and broken corpses.

What were the Vlericks doing in this hellhole?!

“Fate, calm yourself. Your heartbeat is erratic. That’s why I told you not to look!”

“I’m sorry. But I—I don’t regret it. I had to see it for myself. Now I know they’re up to something truly awful down here.”

“Yeah, but you probably won’t feel like eating meat for a while after that sight, huh?”

“Why…why would you even say that?!”

“Come on. Let’s move, Fate.”

I steadied my breath and looked around the room, more in control. The guards had transported all the boxes out of it by now, which left me with two choices: Follow them and see where they went, or hope that a different route would yield better results.

“Based on what we saw, I’d say those boxes were stuffed full so they could be disposed of. If you follow those men, you’re likely going to see even worse than that.”

“Even worse?!”

“Fate, stop! Fate!”

I ran through the door and down the passageway that the guardsmen had disappeared into. I found them in the next room. There, the men emptied the contents of a box into a pit set into the metal floor. Unnerving sounds rose from within the pit. Inhuman, monstrous growls. Were the Vlericks keeping monsters here, inside the city of Seifort? It seemed these guards didn’t care either way. I listened as they talked among themselves.

“Eat up! Get your fill!” one guard called into the pit.

Another grimaced. “Ugh. You know…I’m never going to get used to seeing this.”

“You two!” a third barked. He seemed like their supervisor. “Don’t get too close or you’ll fall in! If that happens, you’re dessert!”

The first chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that before. You know, it makes a kind of sense. At least this way all those good-for-nothing forsaken finally become good for something. I mean, it’s kind of disgusting, but still…”

“You can’t argue with the pay, am I right? Once you get used to it, the work’s not a big deal. Anyway, it’s their own damn fault they ended up monster chow. Pathetic, being so broke, you sign up for any weird task.”

I couldn’t believe how callously these guardsmen spoke. I leaped out of hiding. In two steps, I’d reached the workers, and I shoved the first one into the pit. He fell, screaming.

“I guess that isn’t a big deal either, then?” I spat.

The remaining four guards jumped back, scrambling for their batons.

“Who the hell are you?” the supervisor cried. “Do you even know whose facility this is?”

“Oh, I know, all right.”

Before any of the guards had a chance to strike me with their batons, I spun and knocked the three closest ones into the pit below to join their friend. With them taken care of, I strode over to the last remaining man. I grabbed him by the throat, lifting him off the ground as I stared down at the four men below us.

The pit was quite deep, but the four guards still lived. They huddled in a group at the bottom and shivered with fear. The source of their terror surrounded them—strange, humanoid monsters each sporting a metal collar. The monsters were too busy feasting on the corpse scraps they’d been fed to notice the new arrivals. But they’d finish that food eventually, and then they’d look up to find the next course waiting for them.

“Look, we’re sorry, okay?” one of the guards called up, panic clear in his voice. “Just please, push the emergency button over there, would you?”

“Please! We’re begging you! They’ll eat us!” the others cried.

I looked over to where they pointed. A red button was set into the wall. The red paint had largely rubbed off, revealing the silver metal behind it. For a so-called “emergency” button, it looked like it had been used a lot. Did people fall into the pit regularly?

“I think that button is connected to the collars attached to the monsters’ necks,” said Greed. “Push that button, and you’ll send a searing electric shock down their spines.”

“So the reason this button is so well-used is…”

“Because the guards abuse the monsters. They enjoy it, I’d wager.”

“This whole place disgusts me.”

I left the button untouched and merely watched events unfold. With the corpses of the forsaken chewed down to the bone, the strange monsters turned toward the guards. Their long tongues dangled from their fanged mouths as, slowly, they moved in closer.

“Please! Have a heart! Push the goddamn button!”

“I can’t do this! I can’t do this!” one man shouted, then screamed. “Stop it! Get away from me!”

“No! Not like this! Not like this!”

The monsters didn’t kill the men with any particular speed. They bashed the workers around, crushing their bones into the floor, relishing the pain. It was almost as though they were channeling their own abuse, giving back the agonies inflicted upon them. These monsters were much, much smarter than they appeared.

While the echoes of the guards’ dying screams rang in our ears, I began my interrogation of their supervisor. “What goes on in this place? Answer me!”

“I can’t…I can’t! If I say anything, I’ll be…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but I knew how it ended. Anyone who revealed the Vlerick family’s secrets would not be allowed to live. But I would make him talk. He was the only source of information I had.

I now knew for certain that the Vlericks were raising monsters here, and I’d learned that those monsters fed on human flesh. But why? What were those strange beasts? I’d never seen anything like them, not in Seifort, and not even in Galia. I held the last guard over the pit so he could see down to the bottom. As soon as I released my grip, he’d join his friends as part of the feast.

“Okay!” the man cried. “I’ll talk. I’ll talk, I swear. Just please, don’t drop me.”

“Then you can start by telling me who gives the orders in this place.”

“Lord Rafale Vlerick. I don’t know any more than that, I swear. My job is just taking the boxes when they’re full and feeding the corpses to the monsters. That’s it.”

“What do you know about the monsters down there?”

“Almost nothing! But, they’re…they were goblins, once. When we fed them all those humans, they…they changed. I don’t know why. I don’t know anything else.”

I loosened my grip on the guard’s neck ever so slightly. My message was clear: If we’re done here, then I’m done with you.

The guard scrabbled at my arm, desperate to avoid the fall. “Wait! Listen! There’s more! Lady Memil Vlerick’s in here, but she’s locked up. Confined. If you talk to her, she’s sure to know more!”

“What? Why would Memil be locked up?”

Memil was Rafale’s sister. What reason could he have to keep her confined? And if she was imprisoned, why was she kept in a place as disgusting as this? The guard didn’t know. All he could say was what he’d heard from a woman who also worked in this place.

“Your story stinks of falsehoods,” I said. “If you know that much, you’ll know where she’s being held. Where is Memil?”

“North of here, in one of the containment cells. I’ve never seen them myself. I’ve never even been over there, so I can’t give you more details. Please! You have to believe me!”

I released my grip. The guard’s face paled with fright as he plummeted into the monster pit full of those deformed, ravenous goblins. His body slammed into the floor. Twisted and broken on the ground, he called up to me through gasping breaths.

“Why?! Why would you…I told you everything I know! Everything!”

“I’m leaving now—to verify what you told me. If it checks out, I’ll come back and help you.”

“But you’ll never make it back in time!”

“That’s your problem. I’m sure you’ll last longer than those money-hungry, good-for-nothing forsaken you throw down here.”

I turned my back to him, heading north in search of the containment cells. As I left, I heard the despairing screams of the guard and the visceral roars of the monsters as they devoured him.

There was no delicate way to put it. Unspeakable sins were committed in this place. Truly immoral acts. I’d known Rafale was vile, but I still found it hard to imagine any person willing to go so far. And why was his own sister imprisoned here? As far as I knew, if Rafale showed kindness to anyone at all, it was to his own family. I didn’t know what to believe anymore.

“Have you noticed?” asked Greed, cutting into my thoughts. “Those men made one hell of a racket, but not a single person came to check on them.”

“Yeah, I noticed. I kept expecting guards to appear while I interrogated that last one. But there’s nobody here. It’s too quiet. If Memil really is down this way, we might learn why.”

“This feeling reminds me of…past experiences. Be careful, Fate.”

The black sword’s words fell on my mind with unusual weight. I needed to be on my highest guard.

The basement of the facility was a cold, unfeeling place. The empty halls contained no traces of human life. No comfort, no warmth. Instead, the passageways echoed with the howls of bloodthirsty monsters that hungered, hungered, hungered.