Jade hadn’t seen fit to warn me about the price of my armor. Just how much labor and material did he plan to put into this scabbard?
My mouth went dry, but I had to ask. “Uh…so, how expensive are we talking here?”
“Well, I’ll make it cheap for you. We’re looking at about five hundred gold.”
Five hundred gold?! I coughed in shock. How was Greed’s scabbard so much more expensive than my equipment?! I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
“That’s fair,” said Greed. “Actually, five hundred gold is a bargain. That Jade, he really knows me. He gets me. I’m sure he’ll do an amazing job. I concede my artistic vision and accept these conditions.”
Greed was all in on Jade’s scabbard now. If I backed out here, he would be on my case until the day I died. Still, all I had left was twenty-three gold. Considering things like paying rent for the evening, I had to keep at least three gold.
I sighed and turned back to Jade. “Would it be okay if I paid in installments? I can only give you twenty gold right now.”
“Of course. I’ll put the remaining four hundred and eighty on your tab. I’ll need about a week to prepare the scabbard.”
Once we settled our negotiations, Jade got to work measuring Greed. He let out a few sighs of admiration as he did so, but other than that, he was very, very quick.
“I’ve got everything I need,” Jade said, winding up his measuring tape. “Come back in a week! I’ll be waiting with the finest scabbard I can craft!”
“I look forward to it. Until then, I’ll get to work paying it off.”
I left the shop, straightened my skull mask, and looked toward the sky. The sun was setting. The day was already almost over.
I wondered what I should do next. One day, and my wallet was yet again almost empty. Perhaps it was best to head back to the inn. Their nightly fee was only fifty silver, so that wouldn’t be any trouble. As long as I was careful about extra bills for food and drink, everything would be fine. My only problem was the landlady’s incredible persuasiveness. I had a slight fear I’d end up drinking another night away.
If I was really worried about that, I could always go night hunting. Back in Seifort, that had been my norm, so I was actually more comfortable hunting after dark. With my Night Vision skill, I could see clearly even if the moon was hidden behind the clouds.
Yes, night hunting sounded good. I headed back to the inn, crossing the main street from the Merchant Sector into the Residential Sector. On the way, I walked by drunken adventurers holding each other up as they wandered along sloshed and happy. It seemed their hunts had gone well. Now that I had most of my gear sorted out, I hoped I might be just like them at the end of my hunting expedition tomorrow.
I arrived at the battered inn with its cracked, fading facade, and I headed inside.
“Ah! Welcome back!” cried the landlady. “Wow, what happened? I almost didn’t recognize you!”
She laughed her gruff laugh and looked me up and down like she was drinking in my appearance. Then she slapped my shoulder. “Looks like you found some nice equipment! Must have cost you quite the pretty penny, huh?”
“Yeah, it did,” I said. “The prices here in Babylon just keep on surprising me.”
“You’ll get used to them. Well, if you’re a serious adventurer, anyway.”
“Hey, I only just got here! I don’t need any extra pressure.”
The landlady burst into laughter. “You must be hungry! How about we start getting dinner ready? My daughters have been looking forward to dinner with you all day!”
“Just to be clear, I’m not going to drink like I did last night,” I said.
“Hey, now, there’s no need to be so uptight! Let’s not speak so hastily, yeah?”
The landlady dragged me into the dining room. Her daughters were already seated at the table, waiting for me. Meanwhile, the table itself was covered with bottles of alcohol, a few of which were expensive-looking vintages I’d never seen before. I suddenly envisioned my remaining three gold as a candle in the wind.
“No need to be frugal,” the landlady said, beaming. “Let’s celebrate your first day here! Am I right, or am I right?”
“Please,” I said weakly, “go easy on me.” My gold was as good as gone. Guess I should eat to get ready for a big day of hunting tomorrow!
I returned to my room that night, collapsed into my bed, and closed my eyes. As the ceiling above swirled to the rhythm of everything I’d drunk, my consciousness faded into darkness.
***
When I came to, I found myself standing in a world I did not know, entirely alone. I looked up at a sky of pure white. Even the ground I stood on was that same unvaried hue. Wherever I walked, the featureless landscape stretched out before me. As far as the horizon, and likely beyond it: all that same stark white. I didn’t even cast a shadow.
What is this place? Why am I here?
I stared at the expanse while I paced, and then a girl appeared before me—a girl also of pure white. She smiled and gazed at me with a stare I couldn’t hold because of the crimson that stained her eyes.
“We’re…finally…connected…” she said.
I’d seen her before. I recognized her. She was the girl fused to the core of Haniel. The girl I had fought with Myne.
“You,” I said. “You’re…”
“The…before…you…”
The girl tried to say something to me, but I couldn’t understand her message. Staccato noises and crackling broke up her voice. She was trying to tell me something important. I tried to understand. Strained to listen. Ultimately, my efforts came to nothing.
I tried to get closer to the girl, but the landscape slipped into a shadow devoid of light. My feet gave way underneath me, and I plummeted into an abyss.
I screamed.
The girl stood unmoving in her place, watching me sorrowfully as I fell. I tore my gaze from her toward the darkness below. Stretched out beneath me were piles of all the people and monsters I had devoured, heaped atop one another in gruesome mounds. They writhed in agony in this world of flickering red. Only one word would ever accurately describe a place such as this…
Hell.
I awoke abruptly, covered in sweat and gasping for air. I felt awful.
What was that?!
For a dream, it had been unusually vivid. Unusually real. Even awake, the details burned in my mind. The dream’s meaning was vague, and I couldn’t recall the whole thing clearly, but the sensation of falling into that dark-crimson abyss gave me terrible chills.
I…I felt guilty for devouring that poor girl’s soul to defeat Haniel. That must have been where the dream came from. Even then, what had she tried to tell me?
All through the night, I couldn’t shake the broken echo of her message, or the sorrow painted across her features as she gazed upon me.
Chapter 11:
Components for the Black Scabbard
FOR THE NEXT FOUR DAYS, I was devoted to the hunt. I barely had a coin to my name, and I needed to earn money to pay for both my lodging and the scabbard I’d ordered. Here in Galia, it didn’t matter how many orcs you took down. There were always more. So far, I’d faced nothing on the level of a large-scale stampede, but it seemed Galia suffered no shortage of monsters.
This day was no different. I’d secured a nice, big haul, three whole burlap sacks full of orc ears taken from the heads of three squadrons. Those sacks, dripping with blood, were the gory proof of my work. As I carried them through the gates of Babylon, other adventurers looked on with envy in their eyes.
At first, everyone had assumed I was some kind of errand boy. However, as the days went by and I kept hauling in enormous numbers of orcs, their estimation changed. They admired me. Because I never joined a party or teamed up with anyone, though, I also drew much ire and jealousy.
In Greed’s opinion, any adventurer who got angry at a rookie over a minor territory dispute had no business in Babylon. Nevertheless, a group of these like-minded
, petty sorts formed a gang, and on my fourth day of hunting, they blocked my path to the Babylon trading post.
“Oi! You, there! The runt!”
Twenty adventurers this time. They’d gone recruiting. On the third day, there had been only eight. Still, I could tell at a glance that none of them was anything special. No wonder they relied on numbers.
Do these guys really think they can beat me because there are a few more of them, or are they just stupid?
Whatever their strategy, they trotted out the same old line I’d heard every day since they started. Today, it was the burliest, bearded adventurer who spoke. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to leave those sacks right there, and as penance for stealing our hunting grounds, you’re going to let us beat you to a pulp.”
The street exploded into a sea of combat before I had a chance to reply. To be honest, I was getting tired of this routine. None of them ever listened to reason.
“You lot really don’t learn from your mistakes, do you?” I said. “Don’t you understand you don’t have a chance?”
“Shut up, skull-face! Ever since you started hunting around here, we can’t get any work,” the bearded man growled.
“Say what you want about my methods, we share a goal. I need money.”
That blustery adventurer, who really did have quite the impressive beard, brought his long sword down in a slash toward my neck. I caught it between my thumb and index finger, stopping it in place.
“What the hell? What kind of monster are you?! Release my sword, you scrawny, skeletal idiot!”
“If I let go, you’ll just attack me,” I said, which I thought entirely reasonable.
“Of course I’ll attack you! I’ll chop off that arm so you can’t ever hunt again!”
Didn’t I just say they never listened? So much bluster. The adventurers surrounding the bearded one shouted angrily and rained blows down on me, forcing me to twist to avoid their strikes. In a way, these ambushes made for good training. But come on, I was on my way home from hunting three orc squadrons. I just wanted to relax and have some time to myself.
I flipped the long sword out of the bearded adventurer’s hand and into my own. Then I drove it into the cobblestones. The shriek of steel echoed through the streets as the blade snapped in half.
“What have you done?! That sword cost me ten gold…” The bearded adventurer crumpled before his broken sword, weeping.
Ten gold? That’s a whole high orc bounty, I thought. Guess his sword was more expensive than it looked. Well, at least that’s one of them out of my hair.
Seeing that bearded adventurer wilt into his soul-crushing defeat gave me an idea.
Greed caught on to my plan just as I thought of it. “Time for an encore, Fate.”
“Yeah, it seems like the most efficient way to take care of this.”
I set my three bloody sacks on the ground and unsheathed Greed. The instant I did so, the arrogant adventurers lost their bluster, the whole group taking a few steps back. If this was how they acted the moment a weapon was drawn, they wouldn’t survive long outside these walls. In that sense, I was doing them a favor.
“Damn that bony bastard! He thinks we’re scared because he drew his damn sword?! Get him!”
The bandanna-wearing leader of the gang gave his signal, and the rest rushed in with a collective roar. They bristled with equipment—swords, spears, bows, and even a spellcaster’s staff. If I let this brawl go on too long, we’d cause serious trouble for anyone walking by. We’d also draw the attention of any nearby soldiers, who would come running toward our commotion. It was past time for me to relieve myself of this nuisance.
“Let’s do it, Greed!”
The black sword laughed. “Let nothing stand before my blade! Slice those sorry jokes they call weapons into pieces!”
As Greed cackled, I dashed straight through the crowd of adventurers, in and out before they had a chance to react. My swift strike was followed by shouts of surprise and the clatter of breaking metal. I turned to watch the shards of their shattered weapons fall to the street. The sorrowful cries of the adventurers wafted to my ears.
“My spear…! I spent fifteen gold on it!”
“No! Not the bow! I saved eight whole gold for that!”
“This staff was a family heirloom… What do I do now?! What will I tell my parents?!”
It seemed all these bullies had spent quite a sum on their arsenal. However, had they been worthy of quality weapons? I hoped this setback encouraged them to stop bothering people and take their frustrations out on worthwhile targets—you know, like orcs.
“Looks like you’ve lost your weapons,” I said. “You wanna keep going, or…?”
One of the adventurers spat on the road. “We won’t forget this!” he snarled.
The rest stamped their feet, faces red with rage, but one after another, they turned and ran off down the street. I had a feeling they’d be back soon enough. I’d just have to break their weapons all over again. Eventually they’d run out of money, right? Hopefully, they’d soon be too busy to bother me.
Greed chuckled. “What remarkable patience, to endure such trivial annoyances for so long. How very like you, Fate.”
“Yeah, well… Let’s get out of here.”
Our little ruckus had drawn a crowd, and it wouldn’t be long before soldiers showed up. I hefted the three sacks I’d left on the ground over my shoulder and continued to the trading post. On the way, a few soldiers ran past me toward the intersection where the fight had broken out. The clank of their armored footsteps soon faded into the distance. Luckily, I seemed to have escaped a second confrontation.
The kingdom managed Babylon’s trading post, and no one else posted bounties for hunts. No matter how many monsters I slew, I’d have no way to earn compensation if they banned me from the trading post for misbehavior. As long as the soldiers never caught me beating up those blockheads, I was fine.
I strolled down the main street until the gates to the Military Sector came into view. Somewhere beyond those gates, Lady Roxy worked. Four days had passed since our surprise reunion at the trading post. It wasn’t far from the main gates, so her presence there wasn’t uncommon. I figured she had to be too busy to keep a close eye on the post…but, just in case, I peered inside the building before I entered.
“Looks like we’re in the clear.” I sighed with relief.
“You are absolutely pathetic, Fate. I keep telling you: Be bold. Be ambitious. Be confident! Don’t just scurry around, live it up!”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I have to work my way up to your kind of confidence!”
No matter what Greed said, I couldn’t quite rid myself of the guilt I felt whenever I met Lady Roxy while wearing my mask. I worried she’d discover my true identity.
“You call yourself the wielder of the black sword Greed?! The man who holds this mighty blade should live with such confidence that petty concerns wither before him!”
“Easy for you to say, you’re a sword. But for me, well…”
The boy Fate was supposed to be living safely back at the Hart estate. I didn’t want to be found out by Lady Roxy. I tried explaining myself to Greed again, but he insisted I had the wrong of it. I could sort of see his point.
“I know, I know,” I said. “I get it. I’ll try to at least be the same fellow I was last time I came through here.”
“That’s what I’m talking about. Then you’ll truly have the right to call yourself the man who wields me!” Greed cackled as I stepped into the trading post.
As always, the wondrous light from the stained-glass window set high above filled the hall.
“It doesn’t matter how many times I see this place, it still looks absolutely astounding,” I said.
A voice I knew all too well responded from behind me. “It really does, doesn’t it? It was originally built as a shrine to the god Laplace. Hello again, Mr. Corpse.”
I turned to find Lady Roxy standing right there. But I was so
careful!
Oblivious to my surprise, Lady Roxy continued. “It looks like you’ve hunted even more than the last time we met. Nearly everyone in Babylon has heard your name by now.”
“I still have a long way to go,” I said. “The famed adventurers of Galia hunt more monsters than me, and with ease.”
“You think so? I haven’t been here for very long, admittedly, but I’ve yet to meet another who hunts the way you do.”
I shrugged that off with a laugh, then ducked aside to make my escape.
Lady Roxy called after me. “Wait! I want to ask you something! Why are you always running away?!”
She began to sprint after me, but her attempt was interrupted. A few soldiers had arrived with an urgent message. Whatever the matter, it looked serious, because she left swiftly through a door marked for authorized personnel. The resolute look on her face didn’t at all resemble that of the cheerful young woman I’d grown used to.
“I wonder what that’s all about?” I said.
“Who knows? A stampede, maybe?”
“Must be small, in that case. If it were a large-scale stampede, the sirens would ring.”
“Even in small stampedes, there can be groups of monsters too feisty for regular adventurers to handle. But enough yammering, go get your money.”
Ever since my fight in the trading post, strong soldiers had been put on guard duty to watch over the place. Thanks to them, nobody started anything in here, so I could cash in my bounty without worry. Unfortunately, the presence of guards didn’t stop people from whispering about me.
“Look, it’s that Corpse. He’s here again.”
“Three sacks?! He’s going to make a killing today. If he keeps this up, there’s going to be nothing left for the rest of us!”
“You said it. That rookie’s too big for his britches. To think we invited him to our party, and he turned us down…”
The whispering group nodded and mumbled in agreement. They were a real pain in the neck. They couldn’t say anything to my face, so they muttered their grievances behind my back.
Berserk of Gluttony Vol. 3 Page 7