Not a single good idea came to mind.
Chapter 20:
An Oath, a Promise
S OMEHOW, I MADE IT BACK to the Hart mansion before dawn. I was utterly exhausted, both by the battle with the crowned kobold and by the ecstasy of madness Gluttony brought on afterward. I leaned Greed against the table in my room and collapsed into bed. Sleep arrived instantly.
I woke to sunlight pouring in through the windows.
Hm? Wait. If the sun’s up that high, that means…it must be noon already! Did I sleep all morning?
I scrambled out of bed, got dressed, and burst out of my room. Maya happened to be passing by at the time, and she laughed at the sight of me.
“Hello there, sleepyhead. Finally decided to wake up? Keep this up, and you won’t be working for Lady Roxy long.”
“No! Anything but that… Where is Lady Roxy, anyway? I have to find her and apologize.”
Maya seemed to enjoy watching me get all anxious.
What the hell? I could lose my job, and you think it’s funny?!
“Sorry for laughing. It’s just that you look so much like an abandoned puppy. It’s adorably funny,” Maya giggled. “Forgive me. Where are my manners? Please, rest easy. I was only joking.”
“What do you mean?”
“Lady Roxy ordered us to let you sleep.”
Maya explained that Lady Roxy had been worried when I didn’t wake naturally in the morning, and even came to check on me herself. She knocked on the door but received no reply. Afraid something might have happened, Lady Roxy opened the door to find me splayed out on my bed, mouth wide open as I slept. Assuming I was exhausted from the previous day’s grape picking, she ordered the maids to let me sleep until I woke up on my own.
Although I had actually spent the night locked in battle with the crowned kobold, that wasn’t something I could go explaining to anyone, so I held my tongue.
“Ah, I see,” I muttered.
“Now that you have Lady Roxy’s express permission, you can go right back to bed, if you feel like it.”
“No, no, I’m fine. I’ve had my fill of it.”
Lady Roxy had already allowed me to sleep in; going back to bed was pushing it. First things first, I had to find her and apologize.
“Where is my lady?” I asked.
“Surely you heard yesterday. Lady Roxy took a group of battle-ready men to hunt kobolds.”
So she had already left…for the decimated remains of the ravine. She might be staring at it in shock as Maya and I spoke. And what conclusion would Lady Roxy come to about how the ravine got that way? I was worried, but I knew there was no proof I had been there, so for now I had to act normal.
“And when is Lady Roxy expected to return?”
“If it’s anything like previous years, tomorrow morning. Kobolds are nocturnal monsters, so she’ll spend the day setting traps, then hunt until dawn.”
“Tomorrow, you say…”
I was sure Lady Roxy would return later this very day. She would see the ruins of the ravine and know something had battled the kobolds. If any kobolds had somehow escaped, they wouldn’t attack the Hart estate after that disaster. Lady Roxy drove them off every year, so she knew them well enough to easily assess that sort of thing.
There would be a commotion upon her return, so I needed to prepare.
“You really like her, don’t you?” Maya said, interrupting my thoughts. “Lady Roxy, I mean.”
“Eh?! What are you talking about?!”
The comment took me by such surprise that my voice came out as a squeal. I was a servant being considerate of his master!
“You’re so eager—and nervous,” she laughed. “But it’s fine.”
Maya found my reaction hilarious. Hiding her laughter with a hand, she returned to work.
“Wait a moment!” I said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
I wanted a chance to make up for sleeping so long. They kept treating me like a guest, but I was still one of Lady Roxy’s servants. I couldn’t sit around earning money for doing nothing.
Seeing how keen I was, Maya tilted her head in thought. “Why don’t you go keep Lady Aisha company? She doesn’t have anything to do.”
“Understood! I’ll do my best!”
After Maya told me where to find Lady Aisha, I gave her polite thanks and took off.
“Hey!” Maya called. “No running in the corridors! What if you bump into somebody?!”
“Sorry!”
Having just broken one of the most basic rules of servant work, I bowed in apology to Maya and walked briskly down the hall.
***
Lady Aisha was in her room. It was immediately apparent that this was not a guest room like my own; the high quality of the door I knocked on spoke for itself. After a pause, a voice invited me in.
“Excuse me,” I said as I entered.
Lady Aisha greeted me with the smile of a cheeky young girl. “Ah, Fate. Wonderful timing. Sitting around gazing at the scenery gets frightfully boring after a while.”
She was resting in bed, her body propped up on the pillows behind her. She seemed tired.
“Come, take a seat,” she added.
I sat in the chair Lady Aisha motioned toward, by the bedside. She smiled as I did, then turned her gaze back out the window. For a while, the two of us sat, simply admiring the garden grounds. Having spent time with Hart Manor’s gardeners, I could tell the estate’s lawns were immaculately kept. The gardeners seemed to hold the Hart family in high regard.
“It’s a beautiful garden,” I said.
“It is, particularly everything visible from this window. I always tell the old gardener not to bother going to all the trouble, and yet he always does.”
Now it made sense. The gardener knew Lady Aisha was ill, and that she couldn’t go outside often. The garden was his way of making her life indoors a little brighter.
“He’s so troublesome…” she said, but her smile was grateful.
For a time, Lady Aisha and I chatted, and the time passed with our constant laughter. When my stomach rumbled from missing breakfast, Lady Aisha called a maid to bring us snacks. Something like a mother’s warmth emanated from her. Although my own mother had passed away soon after I was born, so I couldn’t say I knew exactly what such kindness was, I felt something from Lady Aisha. It was selflessness.
Lady Aisha placed her teacup on its saucer and faced me with a serious look on her face. “Fate, it’s likely that I…don’t have long left.”
“Of course you do. Why, right now you’re…” But I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say she was fine. Even now, she was still stuck in bed.
Lady Aisha picked up where I left off. “Yes, right now I’m well enough. But it won’t be long. After all, nobody knows us better than we know ourselves.”
“But…why are you telling me this?”
“Because I think you can be the support that Roxy needs. Can I ask that of you?”
I was flustered and more than a little lost. Lady Aisha went on to tell me that when her husband had died in battle, it was a moment of great distress for her daughter. However, when I became a member of the greater Hart family, I had become a source of comfort and strength for Lady Roxy. Lady Roxy had told her mother so when they were alone. She’d said, “I have to keep going. I don’t want Fate to think of me as an unworthy family head.”
“If you could have just seen her eyes when she said that,” Lady Aisha told me. “She looked just like her father did in his youth.”
“But a person like me…”
Our positions in this world were too far apart. Even though I now possessed true strength, I could never show it. Of course, I could support Lady Roxy from the shadows, but that didn’t feel like what Lady Aisha was asking of me.
Seeing my confusion, Lady Aisha placed her hand upon my own. With Telepathy, I heard her voice flow through me.
“You’ll be fine… It’s not so hard.”
Her voice faded as she lifte
d her hand, and she spoke to me once more.
“You don’t need position or status, Fate. And you don’t need to be as strong as a holy knight, either. What’s important is what’s here,” she said, pointing at my chest. “What’s important is that your heart wants to support her.”
“My heart… My feelings, you mean?”
“Yes. Look at me, Fate. I came from a family of commoners, without a useful skill to my name. But I was there for my husband, a great and powerful holy knight. And if I could support him, then you can support her. That’s what I believe.”
There was no doubt in my mind that Lady Aisha’s heart, even struck by illness, was stronger than my own. Her words weighed on me. Since unleashing Gluttony, I had sought power and strength. I hoped I could someday be as strong as her.
Chapter 21:
At the Crossroads
I THOUGHT A GREAT DEAL about Lady Aisha’s words, and time seemed to pass in an instant. Before I knew it, it was evening. Lady Aisha needed rest and fell asleep, so I was once again left with nothing to do.
I returned to my room, head still churning, when the mansion filled with a sudden commotion. I went to investigate and found Lady Roxy had arrived home earlier than anticipated.
Having expected their master back the following morning, the maids were in a panic, rushing around preparing Lady Roxy’s dinner and evening bath. I hurried toward Roxy among a throng of bustling maids. I needed to know as soon as possible what she thought of the ravine when she saw it on her kobold hunt.
I found Lady Roxy at the mansion’s entrance, taking off her white light armor.
“Lady Roxy! Welcome home.”
“Ah, Fate. It’s good to see you.”
However, something was evidently on her mind. I had a feeling I knew what. In any case, it was clear from her return that she had decided the kobolds were no longer a threat.
Still, I had to ask, my heart racing: “What happened, Lady Roxy? You’re back earlier than planned.”
“Well, about that…”
After removing the last of her armor, Lady Roxy told me of the confusing sight that had greeted her earlier. In the morning, she had taken a group of experienced hands to the ravine, but had found it razed to the ground by some kind of powerful attack. The natural landscape was devastated, the trees uprooted and the ground hollowed out.
It was like nothing she had ever seen on any previous hunt. Even I thought I’d gone too far, so it must have been quite the surprise for Lady Roxy. She sent her men to do an immediate investigation of the area, but nothing remained to help her understand what had occurred. It was as if everything in the ravine had been blown away.
However, at a large rock some distance from the valley, her men discovered the dead bodies of ten kobold juniors and two kobold warriors. Upon inspecting the location herself, Lady Roxy found they were left on the ground, dead from sword and arrow wounds. There were no signs of losses on the side of the kobolds’ opponents; the battle had been one-sided.
The sight was particularly surprising because of the kobold warriors’ presence. These beasts were strong and not easily felled by anyone less than a holy knight. But one of the kobold warriors has been cut in half. The other had clearly attempted to run away in fear only to be shot through the back of the head. Even more curious, the arrow itself was nowhere to be found. Only the wound remained, but there was no sign any arrow had been removed. The only arrow that could leave such wounds was magical in nature, and weapons that turned magical energy into projectiles were powerful. They were not wielded by ordinary adventurers.
I had no idea magic bows were so strong.
“Eventually, I came to a conclusion,” Lady Roxy said.
“Huh? And…what was that…?” I asked.
From these scraps of evidence, what conclusion could she have reached? She couldn’t possibly know it was me…right?
“I think it might have been the Galian girl we saw yesterday.”
Lady Roxy had identified a most unexpected culprit. However, it felt a little…forced. I must have looked dissatisfied, because Lady Roxy’s cheeks puffed up as she looked at me.
“I know I don’t have any way to confirm it, but what else am I supposed to tell the villagers?! I have to give them an explanation they can understand.”
Lady Roxy needed to bring the locals calm and confidence. Something had destroyed the ravine and laid waste to the kobolds. Yet there was nothing left at the scene of the battle to identify what that something was.
So the Galian girl was a last-resort scapegoat. The Galian people had once ruled Galia with great martial prowess. According to old scriptures, a Galian warrior’s strength exceeded that of a holy knight. If this girl had such power, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine her being responsible for what had occurred at the ravine. It still took some leaps of logic, but Lady Roxy just needed to put the villagers’ hearts at ease. All the same, I could tell the person most dissatisfied with this answer was Lady Roxy herself.
“Ah, I see,” I said. “I’m so sorry, Lady Roxy.”
“Why would you have any need to apologize, Fate?”
“Huh? Oh, uh, I just feel like I should,” I replied, laughing nervously.
That was a close one. Seeing Lady Roxy’s frustrated face almost made me confess to the whole thing.
I also hadn’t known the Galians were once so strong. Then again, the girl had said I could have the kobolds, as if she was reluctantly giving me a gift. It made me wonder. If she hadn’t met me, perhaps she would indeed have taken the kobolds down herself. In that case, it was best to leave Lady Roxy’s story as it was: the girl had defeated the kobolds and wrecked the ravine. The girl had said I owed her for it, so I would have to make sure I paid her back whenever I saw her next.
I said a silent thank-you to that nameless Galian girl.
It wasn’t the cleanest way to wrap things up, but if it meant the people of the Hart estate could go back to their ordinary lives, it was good enough. However, Lady Roxy still looked troubled.
“Several villagers saw the girl leave the estate borders early this morning,” she said, “which means there’s no chance to ask her why she came or what she did. I feel awful for using her like this…”
“Lady Roxy…”
Really, I was the one who felt awful. I couldn’t tell Lady Roxy the truth about my Gluttony. I didn’t want her to know I’d killed all the kobolds and stolen their power. Especially not the latter.
“Fate, what’s wrong? You look upset.”
“Oh? Really?”
“You make that face sometimes. Please, don’t hesitate to let me know if anything worries you.”
“Thank you, Lady Roxy.”
Those were the only words I could give her in response.
***
Lady Roxy returned to the ravine over the next couple days to ensure the kobolds wouldn’t return. Afterward, she said: whatever attacked the kobolds that day, it might have wiped them out completely. If there were any survivors, it was likely they wouldn’t revisit the Hart family estate ever again.
With her work at the estate complete, Lady Roxy and I were set to return to the kingdom. Lady Aisha came to the entrance with the help of her maids to see us off as we boarded the carriage.
“Farewell, mother.”
“Be safe. If there’s ever any free time in your schedule, you’re always welcome home.”
“Thank you. Look after yourself, please.”
“I will. I have a little energy in me yet.” Lady Aisha glanced at me, a sly light in her eyes. “And I hope you will be with her when she returns, Fate. And I hope you will have an answer for me when we next speak.”
“I will…”
It was the answer I had not been able to admit, a promise on pause. Two forces pulled me in opposite directions: the feelings in my heart, and the reality of my situation. I left my feelings behind, there at the mansion, and I boarded the carriage headed for the kingdom.
Chapter 22:
Bri
ght Blue Skies
W E WERE ON THE ROAD back to Seifort. I sat facing Lady Roxy, fighting desperately to suppress the throbbing pain of Gluttony’s thirst for souls. A cold sweat bathed my skin. One small slip, and Gluttony might devour my mind. It was exactly as Greed had predicted.
Lady Roxy and I arrived at the kingdom at sunset. One of the castle’s servants was waiting for her when we reached the manor, so she left immediately. There was never any rest for a holy knight from one of the five esteemed families.
For myself, I was swept up by the gardeners of Hart Manor. They wanted to know everything about the Hart estate’s grounds, right down to the roots of its plants. It struck me then that the gardeners at the manor and the estate saw each other as rivals. I told them the estate’s gardens were immaculate, particularly the view from Lady Aisha’s room.
“Those guys are always so meticulous,” the gardeners said, earnestly praising their competitors.
As it was already past sundown, my gardening duties wouldn’t resume until the following day. Once we debriefed, the gardeners and I ate dinner together and crowded into the bath.
As we soaked, one of them turned to me. “You know, I think it’s about time we taught you how to prune the trees. What do you think? Want to give it a shot?”
“Really?!”
“Fate, my boy, you’re a hard worker. We’re all in agreement that it’s worth teaching you.”
“Thank you!”
The gardeners had been thinking of me while I was away at the estate. They’d said before they were getting older and wanted to train a successor. Now, that successor was me. It was such an honor. I was so joyful that when I scrubbed one old gardener’s back, I put a little too much strength into it, and he snapped at me.
“Ouch! Hey, easy there, Fate! I’m not getting any younger!”
“Sorry!”
Because my stats were so high compared to these common folk, I tried to be careful, but the gardeners’ compliment made me accidentally let out too much power. I had to be more vigilant. You could moderate stat effects on the body through willpower. Without rigid mental control, holy knights would kill people regularly on account of their high stats.
Berserk of Gluttony (Light Novel) Vol. 1 Page 15
