Berserk of Gluttony (LN) - Volume 7 - Chapter 14

Chapter 14:

Battle Underground

I LED THE WAY, cutting through the Shins in my way until they were a fine red mist while Eris followed close behind. 

“Are we heading in the right direction?”

“Yes! Keep going north!”

“How’re your eyes?”

“Look at you, all worried about a girl like me. Guess the hard work was worth it.”

“Eris…”

She pretended to be cavalier, but her eyes were growing more and more bloodshot. She’d assured me that she wasn’t straining herself, but she could’ve lied. Did she know how I felt? I didn’t know, but either way, she grinned.

“These eyes? They’re called Unseen Sight. The scope is limited, but with them, I can trace souls. They’re our ticket to locating Shin.”

“So even if he masks his magical energy, he can’t hide everything.”

“You got it!”

The ability to trace souls… Even though I devoured them on a regular basis, I had only ever seen souls once: when Aaron and I had released the souls trapped in Hausen by the crowned beast known as the Genesis of Death. Aaron’s family and friends were finally released from the monster’s control and allowed to pass on to the afterlife. Something about the souls in that moment had been both beautiful and lonely. 

There was one more thing I wanted to know about Eris’s Unseen Sight. “Can you sense Myne with those eyes too?”

“I knew you would ask that,” said Eris as she deftly dodged out of the way of an attacking Shin.

“What’s wrong with that?” I said. “We’ve been chasing her this whole time.”

Eris laughed. “Don’t give me that look. These eyes struggle at that range, and using them for an extended period isn’t easy. Look.”

Rivulets of blood fell from Eris’s eyes.

“Eris?!”

She’d told me they were on the low end of the spectrum, but the strain was obvious. Nonetheless, Eris continued to smile. “But at least now I can tell you for certain: Myne is here.” She pointed in the direction we were headed. “She’s with Shin. So, what do you want to do?”

“What I came here to.”

“I had a feeling you’d say that. Better hurry.”

We picked up our pace and continued north. As we did, Shin’s clones became less frequent, but the city itself grew livelier in its way, as though the ghosts of the Galian people were growing in number.

“Looks like this place really feels the effects of the Door,” said Greed.

“In other words…”

“We’re close.”

At long last, we arrived. The real battle would determine whether I could stop Myne. I still didn’t know how strong she was in a serious fight. 

“So I have to fight Shin and Myne,” I said.

“It would be nice to have another person on the front line with you,” said Eris, “but I’m better as support.”

“No use wishing for what doesn’t exist.”

We would no longer be in a position where we could deal with the enemies separately. We wouldn’t be fighting red monsters, and we wouldn’t be fighting mere clones of Shin either. We had to face off against the real deal, and it would be an entirely different level of battle.

“Then it’s just you and me. Are you ready?” I asked.

“I’ll be okay, but…the real pressure is on you, Fate. You have to hold both of them off on your own.”

In truth, we didn’t have an alternative. We knew that going in. But that was why I’d come prepared.

“This takes me back to the time we defeated the darkness in the Desert of Extinction,” said Eris. “You’ve mastered the technique since then, I assume? As a bearer of a skill of Mortal Sin, it’s expected of you.”

“I can handle it.”

“Good, that’s a relief. To fight Myne, you’ll need to be at least that good. How long can you last?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“Hm…” Eris looked unimpressed. 

What?! Fifteen minutes isn’t long enough?! If fifteen minutes wouldn’t cut it, I was curious to know how long Eris could last. 

“Still, it’s remarkable that you can maintain it as long as you can, given how little time you’ve had to train. You owe a debt of gratitude to Greed and Luna and her spiritual plane.”

“They never miss a chance to remind me,” I said. “You know how they are.”

Eris laughed. “Indeed I do.”

“But there are still times when I feel divided…like I’m dissociating.”

“I know the feeling! It was like that for me at first too. You just have to get used to it!”

But I wasn’t sure if this power was something I could ever get used to, and a part of me felt that it was something I shouldn’t.

“It’s a matter of soul!” Greed interjected. “You gotta put your soul into it!”

“That’s what you think is crucial?! Soul? Really?!”

“If the mighty Greed deems it so, it must be true.”

He would tell me that on the spiritual plane, too, ad nauseum. Put your soul into it! More spirit! My ears ached from hearing that, but perhaps he was right. Even Eris said I needed to get used to it.

“Don’t forget we can’t use it repeatedly,” warned Greed. “Even using it once will weaken your mental fortitude.”

“Got it. But you know…it always feels like I’m…being taken over.”

“Mind your phrasing, boy!”

I felt that Greed had a tendency toward wanting to take over.

Eris laughed as she watched me stand there muttering to the black sword.

“What?” I asked.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you two are so cute together.”

Greed and I responded in unison, “What part of us is cute?!”

“The part you’re showing me right now. Envy and I, we’re nowhere near as close as we used to be.”

“I thought you guys made up after the battle at Galia.”

“In a manner of speaking. But we couldn’t go back to the way things were. It’s like if a married couple lived apart for centuries, then moved in together merely because they shared the same goal.”

“It’s a…bit hard for me to wrap my head around that particular metaphor…”

Eris giggled. “I thought as much. In short, Envy and I know each other extremely well, but we’ve been apart for a very long time. That’s what we wanted. But because of the Door to Distant Lands, we’ve been thrown together again. No time to mentally prepare, no time to get used to things—we’re simply forced to fight together like we used to. It’s not easy.”

I tried picturing what that would be like. I imagined being thrown into battle after an argument with Greed, but before we’d had a chance to hash things out. I could see how it would be awkward. For Eris, the interim was hundreds of years. Even speculating about it filled the air with a certain tense awkwardness.

“What sort of person is Envy, anyway? When we fought in Galia, the gunblade was hellbent on getting me to join it.”

“Envy likes to keep its favorite things close by. It might have even wanted you to replace me.”

“Ugh, I’ll pass.”

“Don’t be like that. Not when I’m thinking about entrusting the gunblade to you if the worst should happen.”

“Damn, Eris, that’s a horribly ominous thing to say at a time like this.”

Jokes aside, Eris had one more thing to say about her gunblade. “Envy is a good person. Has been for a long time.”

“If you say so…”

A good person… That gunblade had controlled the Divine Dragon and annihilated countless human lives, including Roxy’s father, Mason. It had tried to kill Roxy too. I couldn’t bring myself to forgive the weapon for that.

“For better or worse, Envy has a pure heart. I mean, Greed’s better than he seems, right?”

“That’s still to be seen,” I replied.

“What?!” the sword said. “No matter how you look at me, I’m full of virtue and heroism!”

Greed argued with fiery intensity, but if he really wanted people to think he was a good guy, he needed to improve his everyday behavior. 

“Yeah, yeah,” I said.

“Don’t brush me off!”

I was used to handling the sword; this behavior was what I expected. 

“Even now, you two are just like always,” Eris said, sulking. “I’m more than a little envious.”

“Just like always… I hope we can bring our usual energy to the battle.”

“We’re almost there.”

Massive edifices stood before us. They were so much larger than anything in Seifort’s Military District that there was no point in comparison. In the large plaza before the structures, there were no ghosts. Though ghosts seemed to be practically everywhere else, none would trespass in that space. It was almost as if something terrifying kept them at bay.

In the middle of the plaza stood a girl with white hair, impassive, and holding a giant black axe. She exuded an unstoppable, overwhelming aura.

“Myne…”

I gripped the black sword tight in my fist.