Berserk of Gluttony (LN) - Volume 6 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

Zodiac Knights

THERE WERE THE THINGS you didn’t know and the things you didn’t want to know. When faced with both at once, you could only feel bewildered. Even after I returned to Tetra, I felt adrift on just such a sea of uncertainty. 

Roxy and I parted ways at our respective lodgings. She looked worried, a small frown on her face. Still, she entered her room without a word, perhaps understanding that I needed some time alone. I walked the main street of Tetra as I gazed up at the night sky.

“What’s got you so bummed?” asked Greed. “You’ve made up your mind. You’re going to fight your father. Why the long face?”

“The fight won’t be an issue. I won’t back down.”

“Then what’s eating you?”

“I’ve realized I don’t know anything about my father… I know that he was kind, and that he protected me. Beyond that, he’s a total mystery to me.”

“You were only a mewling child when you knew him. Children that young can never truly know the burdens their parents shoulder.”

“Even so…that night he came home injured, I should have asked him what happened. According to Roxy, the Zodiac Knights were incredibly powerful. If that’s true, then what did my father fight that night? I was the person closest to him, and I still didn’t know a thing. I always figured that he’d be there to protect me. I was so sure that I never imagined the alternative.”

“You think it might have a connection to your skill?”

“I think there’s a possibility.”

It was said that the history of the founders of the Church of Laplace stretched to a time long before the kingdom. Roxy had told me that old documents dated the religion to an era before the destruction of Galia. A faith with thousands of years of history had now all but vanished. Even the church leadership had vanished for reasons unknown. Without them, each church had become an independent entity. Perhaps this was how the Laplace faith had fallen into obscurity and ruin.

I thought of the church in the kingdom, the one in the slums. The nuns there worked tirelessly to provide succor for the forsaken of Seifort. They were good people who worked themselves to the bone just to raise the kingdom’s orphans and give food to the poor. It wasn’t a job for the faint of heart, and they deserved great respect. 

Now I’d learned that my father, who it seemed shared their faith, was a high-ranking Zodiac Knight. As a child, I recalled him being just as kind as those nuns.

These memories didn’t align with the man I had faced in the Military District. Holding a black spear, the tattoo on his face glowing a violent red, his face had contorted strangely as he struggled to smile. That had not been the face of the man I knew as my father. It was a face I had not seen before. I realized in that moment that I didn’t want to know Dean Graphite, the Zodiac Knight. His existence threatened to tarnish my childhood memories of my father—my hero.

“You can feel as disappointed as you want,” said Greed, “but you’re still leaving here tomorrow. Let’s try and turn that frown upside down. Want to grab a drink somewhere?”

I came back to my senses and spotted a tavern sign hanging from a wall. “All right. You know, you really do have some good ideas every now and again.”

“Every now and again? Get out of here—all my ideas are good!”

I laughed. “Yeah, yeah. Well, this one is especially good.”

I could hear lively voices from outside the tavern. Pushing open the door, I found the interior as raucous as could be. It reminded me of something Roxy had once told me: in times of darkness, find someplace bright. I felt that perhaps this was a place where I could seek a little light.

I looked for an empty seat with no luck. Just as I was thinking of leaving after all, I noticed a young man sitting alone at a large, round table. He caught my eye and smiled. It was such a friendly and familiar gesture that I was convinced he’d mistaken me for somebody else, but he was clearly waving me over. The young man wore a bespoke set of clothes that reminded me of religious vestments. 

“Feel free to take a seat here,” he said. “I was waiting for some folks, but it seems none of them could make it. Please, don’t be shy.”

I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about looking for another tavern, and I was curious about this young man with his gleaming silver hair. I had noticed that he wore a newly familiar pendant around his neck.

“No need to be so shy—not after I’ve invited you to take a seat, Fate Graphite… Or wait. It’s Fate Barbatos now, isn’t it?”

“How do you know my name?”

“Come now, take a seat.” The young man took a flagon of wine from a passing waitress, then picked two glasses from the thirteen lined along the table before him and filled them up. One for me and one for him.

“Help yourself,” he said. “It’s an excellent vintage. They get some wonderful wine here, which I suppose is to be expected, given that it’s such a bountiful trade town. I’d hoped to share some of this with the others, but they’ve left me here waiting.”

I took a seat and eyed him warily. “Before I drink anything, who are you?”

“Right to the point, aren’t you? Like father, like son, I suppose. Very well. As you’ve probably surmised, I’m a Zodiac Knight. The name’s Libra.” 

“How do you know my father?”

“War buddies, you could call us. I felt his return and made my way here. Looks like I missed him, though. I hoped that the others might come and share in the fine wine this world has to offer, but alas. That didn’t go to plan either.”

This young man, Libra, knew my father. I opened my mouth to speak again but he raised a hand to silence me.

“That’s enough for now,” he said. “Let’s not spoil this vintage with words. A boy who asks too many questions will only reveal his ignorance to his enemies.” 

“You’re the one who invited me.”

“That I did. I wanted to see with my own eyes the face of the son who Dean sacrificed his life to protect. Here, let me tell you one thing.” 

Libra pointed to his face, and a red tattoo appeared upon it. It resembled the one my father had, though the pattern was distinctly different.

“This sacred mark is a divine revelation from God. It grants us unbelievable power—power that rivals even the Skills of Mortal Sin. That’s the purpose of this gift, after all.”

I read between the lines: he was implying that in the past, he’d been the enemy of those who’d born skills like mine. Instinctively, I placed a hand on the handle of my black sword.

“I have no intention of fighting you just yet,” Libra chided me. “Though it’s entirely possible things may yet come to that. Funny, isn’t it? To think that the child of a Zodiac Knight would end up bearing a Skill of Mortal Sin. I suppose I see why he deserted the church.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I said. When Dean’s wife became pregnant, they ran off, and they ended up in a place you know all too well. She gave birth, then died. They had run for so long, her body must have reached its limits.”

I had been about to unsheathe the black sword, but Libra’s words stopped me in my tracks. My hand fell to my side. 

This was a truth I hadn’t wanted to know. I had always assumed that my Gluttony skill had been identified after the skill appraiser visited our village. But that seemed not to be the case. If I took Libra at his word, then his tale implied that my parents had known of my skill even before I was born. Was such a thing even possible?

I’d never heard of anyone divining a person’s skill before birth. A skill appraiser couldn’t detect the skills of a child still nestled within their mother’s body. Attempting to do so would only reveal the skills of the mother.

My father had told me that bearing the burden of Gluttony had been mere coincidence—bad luck. But if he had known that I would have it before I was even born…then the skill couldn’t have been the product of happenstance. If it was inevitable that I would be born with Gluttony…then had I somehow been given the skill in order to be born with it? By what means? Skills were supposedly a divine gift. Did this mean that something in existence rivaled the power of the gods?

“What do you know about my skill?” I asked.

“At the very least, I know more than you do.”

I narrowed my eyes at Libra, unable to contain the anger simmering within me. He simply grinned and drank from his glass of wine.

“Yours is a life your parents tried very hard to treasure and protect,” he said. “I would advise you to end your journey here. I’m sure that’s what your father would want too.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s advice. You’re the son of a brother-in-arms. I would hate for your Gluttony to consume you while you’re still so young. I’d rather not see you turn into a monster and fight Dean either. From what I can see, you’re already nearing the end of your rope.”

I glared at him, gritting my teeth.

“In any case, I’m sure we’ll run into each other again somewhere soon.”

With that, Libra stood and exited the tavern. He left behind the glass of wine he had poured for me and the twelve empty glasses that had been lined up alongside it.

“What’s wrong?” Greed said. “Not thirsty anymore?”

“I’m not going to touch that. But you know, don’t you? You know about the Zodiac Knights.”

“Look at the glasses on the table. How many do you see?”

“Thirteen.”

“There are thirteen Zodiac Knights, each of them bearing a unique sacred mark. They made a contract with God that they are beholden to fulfill. These contracts are called Divine Revelations.”

“So that’s the contract my dad mentioned?”

“Most likely.”

“But why would Libra want to make contact with me?”

“I didn’t sense any enmity in him, so I suspect he just wanted to see you for himself. They’re no doubt mobilizing because the Door to Distant Lands is opening.”

“Does he intend to stop it from opening? Or the opposite?”

“He will act according to his Revelation. Their motivations are often difficult to interpret; the true intentions of the divine are impossible to read.”

So my father was prioritizing his own obligations. Nonetheless, he had made sure to spare the lives of the soldiers who got in his way. If what Greed said was true, then this Revelation hadn’t demanded their deaths. But that wasn’t to say it wouldn’t at some point require something worse… 

“Will we have to fight?”

“You will. But there are thirteen of them. It would be suicide to take them all alone.”

“I already have Shin to worry about. Now you’re telling me I have to watch out for Zodiac Knights too?”

“Remember back when all we had to worry about was a measly Divine Dragon? Those were the days, huh?”

“I almost died back then. Take off the rose-tinted glasses, would you?”

I presumed that the Zodiac Knights were all in the Domain of E, like Eris and me. If that was the case, we were wildly outmatched. With how things were going, it seemed almost inevitable that we would meet Libra again before we reached Hausen. I stared at the swirling lees in the glass of wine on the table, my thoughts just as agitated.

“Should we order a fresh bottle?” suggested Greed.

“Yeah, good idea.”

It felt like a palate cleanser was in order. The wine on the table would only taste like a bad reminder. I stopped a passing waitress and ordered a fresh bottle. 

“You haven’t touched the wine on the table,” she said. “Would you like me to clear it away?”

“Yeah, it was left behind by the guy who sat here before me.”

“Very well, I’ll bring a fresh bottle right away.”

I had learned that my dad was a Zodiac Knight, bound to a contract known as a Divine Revelation. I was at least glad to have come away from this meeting with some useful information. I wondered if he, too, had come back to life as a result of the Door to Distant Lands. If so, how many of the other Zodiac Knights had come back with him? I wanted to avoid as much trouble as possible. The Door to Distant Lands needed to be shut—that much was clear, no matter what else happened.

I reached to take the glass of wine the waitress proffered, but before I could, it was stolen by none other than Eris.

“I’ll take that,” she declared. “Looks delicious!” The wine disappeared before I could even voice an objection. Eris put the empty glass back on the table, a warm smile spreading across her face, her teeth stained by wine. “I sensed something strange, so I came straight away, but it looks like they’ve already left.”

“Yeah…”

“It’s too crowded here. Let’s head outside. I want to go someplace where we can feel the night breeze.”

“Yeah, okay.”

We left the tavern behind, even though I never got to taste a single drop of wine. We followed a road sloping up a hill that overlooked the town. Eris was light on her feet, as though the wine she had drunk at lunch was weaker than water.

“Nothing quite like the hair of the dog,” she said. “I feel so refreshed!”

“Spoken like a true alcoholic.”

“Liquor is like magic. It takes all your horrible memories and makes them disappear.”

“What’s up with you? You’re not acting like yourself.”

Eris was more reserved than usual. She wasn’t as handsy either. Instead, she seemed almost shy—apprehensive. Suddenly, she walked up and hugged me.

“Hey!” I said as she giggled.

“Oh, come on. What’s a hug between friends? I was on my best behavior all day.”

I replied with an exasperated sigh.

“No sighing!” Eris protested. “I’m the queen of the kingdom, and you will show me proper respect!”

“Seriously, what’s wrong?”

We arrived at a stunning view that let us see the whole of Tetra. The sky above was a dark quilt of stars. It almost seemed like a mirror, the lights of the town glowing like the stars overhead.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” said Eris.

“It’s breathtaking. I had no idea such a place existed.”

“Incorrect! The real answer to my question was, ‘Not as beautiful as you, Eris.’”

“Sorry, sorry.”

“You don’t mean that! You just don’t understand the hearts of women at all, do you, Fate?”

We took in the view for a time. It was a pleasant way to spend the night. It certainly did more for my mood than any wine could have. 

“You met a Zodiac Knight, didn’t you?” Eris said finally. “You met Libra.”

“He said that he’d come to meet my father and the other knights. I don’t know how much of that was true, though.”

“I see. When I heard you talk about your father and the red tattoo you described… I couldn’t help but wonder.” Eris shivered. She bit her lip like she was trying to stop the words from flooding out before she continued. “This time…I will make sure to send him to hell myself. Fate, will you help me?”

She whispered the words almost like she was making a promise to herself. 

“Eris…”

It seemed Eris and Libra had crossed paths in the past. I realized then that a longer life didn’t always lead to greater happiness. Sometimes, it just meant more burdens and regrets.