Berserk of Gluttony (LN) - Volume 4 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

The Black Knight

AARON AND I walked through the halls of Seifort’s castle.

“Is something wrong, Fate?” Aaron asked.

The capital of Seifort. After so long, I was finally back in the city where my journey had begun, but rather than joy, I felt unease. Since I’d inherited the Barbatos name as Aaron’s heir, we were required to report the news in an audience with the king of Seifort himself.

My feelings on this matter were difficult to put into words. When Aaron and I passed through the castle gates earlier, the gatekeepers were, as I’d expected, not holy knights. They were mere second-class citizens, just as I’d been: day laborers the holy knights hired to do their dirty work for them. At a glance, it was clear that the vaunted holy knights had not changed their ways in the months since I’d left.

These gatekeepers might as well have been empty shells. Their faces bruised and battered, their gazes as hollow as the sightless eyes of dead fish. They cowered in fear at the sight of me and Aaron. In their eyes, I was just another holy knight. I had become a symbol of fear and oppression. My heart cried to see them shrink back from me. I knew that fear firsthand. I knew it so well that it hurt.

But there was nothing I could do for the forsaken. At least, not yet.

“It’s nothing,” I replied, brushing these thoughts from my mind.

“I see,” said Aaron, pointedly staring at my skull mask.

Aaron didn’t like that I wore this mask to hide my face—and my identity—from those around me. However, in this case, I conceded that he had a point. We were meeting the king, after all.

All the way to Seifort, Aaron and I had argued in circles over whether it was right and proper for me to wear my black skull mask in the presence of the king. It was no ordinary mask. Not only did it hide my face, it was imbued with magic which concealed my identity. Regardless of what Aaron said, I stood firm. Back in Galia, I’d decided I wouldn’t remove the mask until I had the strength to meet Lady Roxy face to face.

“I know what you’re thinking,” I said. “But the mask stays on.”

“You said as much earlier. But Fate…”

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a king to meet.”

Aaron grabbed me by my collar and pulled me back. “What do you intend to do in there all by yourself?!” he chided me. “Fine, have it your way. The mask stays on, but you follow my lead.”

Aaron let go and walked on ahead of me. His body language said it all: playtime was over.

We arrived at a towering set of heavy doors adorned in regal gold and silver. Their extravagance only emphasized the power of the royalty who waited beyond this threshold. Aaron gave me another sidelong glance as we stood before them. “Are you ready?” he asked.

“Whenever you are.”

Aaron chuckled. “I don’t know what happened in Galia, Fate, but it certainly gave you some courage, didn’t it? Well, let’s go.”

The doors swung open. A carpet of deep red ran from the wide doorway all the way down to the king’s throne. Holy knights lined either side of the carpet, assembled in stern rows facing one another. Pressure emanated from them. All these knights had gathered because they’d heard the news: the Barbatos family line, long thought dead, had returned with a new heir. Perhaps the king himself had informed them. Not that the rumors bothered me in the slightest.

These families had obviously gathered specifically to find out who Aaron had taken on as his scion. They wanted to know who I was. Their stares pierced my black armor like knives in search of weakness. But with my skull mask on, none of them could discern a single thing.

We quickly strode past the holy knights as they muttered among themselves, and we knelt before the throne. A veil too heavy to see past hung between us and the figure who sat upon it. Whatever the king looked like, whoever he was, he hid from us as well as I hid my face from the holy knights.

Two spear-wielding knights stood on either side of the veil, silent bodyguards. The pair were fully decked out in pristine white armor. A strange, intimidating air rolled forth from them.

Aaron bowed before the throne and apologized for everything that had happened in his absence. He then moved on to the topic of his family’s future, where he introduced me. “This man will take up my name and lead my family: Fate Barbatos. He is young, only sixteen years of age, but he is growing to become—no, he has become a most capable man in his own right. His actions speak for him. Fate is the one who felled the Divine Dragon in Galia.”

I bowed deeply to the king as my name was spoken, but at Aaron’s mention of the Divine Dragon, derisive, contemptuous laughter burst up around us. To the knights, Aaron’s claims were ludicrous. The idea that someone had defeated a beast widely known to be invincible was absurd. All they could do was laugh. Even in the presence of the king, they heckled Aaron from both sides of the carpet, many accusing him of senility in his old age.

Then, a single holy knight in golden armor and a gaudy crimson cape broke rank and stepped onto the red carpet leading to the king’s throne. This gave me pause. Wait a second. I know that guy.

Rudolph Lanchester—the arrogant holy knight who governed the city named for his family. Myne and I had passed through it on our trek to Galia. He’d insulted Myne, and Myne had launched him far off into the distance with a single swing of her black axe. I was amazed to see that he’d survived the flight unscathed.

“My king,” Rudolph said, “you cannot expect your holy knights to welcome an individual who dares to utter such blatant lies before your noble throne. Allow me to peel this liar’s skin from his bones, that we might see his true self!”

I couldn’t believe he could still make such bold proclamations after Myne had handled him like a child. Perhaps his ego hadn’t gone so unscathed after all.

The king said nothing in reply. The white knights on either side of the veil remained silent. Apparently, Rudolph took this as tacit approval. An unsettling smile crossed his smug face as he did the unthinkable: he drew his sword.

Hold on a second, I thought, aren’t we at an audience before the king?!

Rudolph unsheathed his blade and leveled it at us. Aaron opened his mouth to speak, but I held out a hand to stop him.

“This might be for the best,” I said. “At least, it’s probably the easiest way to make them understand.”

Rudolph’s face screwed up in an indignant snarl, incensed. “It seems you don’t know who you’re talking to,” he spat. “I am the great Rudolph Lanchester, a member of one of the five esteemed families of holy knights! How about that?!”

“Can we get this over with?” I asked. “Or is your sword purely decorative?”

“You son of a—”

With gritted teeth, Rudolph swung his sword directly for my neck. His strike moved slowly—excruciatingly so. The holy blade cut a crooked, amateurish line through the air. Additionally, his footwork was horrendous.

I didn’t need to move an inch. I raised neither hand nor blade to guard myself against his clumsy attack. I let his swing find its mark. The instant Rudolph’s sword bounced off my neck, his expression changed. All that bombastic confidence vanished like smoke.

“Impossible! This…this is impossible!” He pulled his sword back and swung again, but the results were no different.

He couldn’t touch me while I stood in the Domain of E. My power had grown from the seed of a monster, the one they called the Heavenly Calamity: the Divine Dragon. The difference between my stats and Rudolph’s was so absolute that we essentially existed in different dimensions. To damage anyone in the Domain of E, you had to be in the Domain of E yourself. Rudolph wasn’t, so no matter how much time he wasted trying to behead me, all he would hurt was his own arm.

“At the very least, I will unveil the buffoon hiding behind that carnival mask!” Rudolph shrieked in desperation.

Now that he’d thoroughly embarrassed himself before the king, Rudolph scrambled to recover by announcing that he would use the Identify skill to reveal my identity. I preferred not to reveal the truth of my stats just yet, so I watched the narrowing of his eyes for the particular movement that signaled the use of Identify. This was a trick I’d learned from Aaron—a technique that specifically stopped Identify from working.

As soon as I spotted the twitch of his Identify, I let out a silent surge of magical energy around me. The technique was only meant to momentarily blind one’s opponent, but Rudolph clapped his hand over his eyes and fell to his knees, screaming in shock and pain.

It seemed the effect of a magical burst in the Domain of E was far stronger than I’d expected. Rudolph’s eyes had ruptured. Blood dripped down his cheeks from under his palm. But I wasn’t done yet. I unsheathed the black sword, Greed.

Just as Rudolph had deemed it necessary to test my abilities, now it was my turn to test his.