Sin-Eater - Chapter 27: Proclivity (Patreon)

~*+- PROFILE -+*~   HP: ----- "Canta" SOUL: 24/24↑   LEVEL: 4 ↑

EXP: 0/50

CLASS: [Sin-Eater]

STATUS

HUNGER: You are pretty full

THIRST: You are a little thirsty

SUB-CLASS: None

RACE: Human

OBOLS: 0

STR: 08 WIS: 13↑ LUK: 07   DEX: 13↑↑ INT: 13↑ LOV: 05

Canta wants to sigh, but his mouth is too dried out and full of wafer crumbs to allow that to happen. He grabs the bottle of mud-free water standing next to him and takes a long drink from it. He’s pretty sure that he’s going to vomit, if he has to eat another wafer today.

Well Water
  ~300mL
  Pure   - Make Up -   Trace Minerals: 1.00%   Water: 99.00%   Other 0.00%

“Thank you, sin-eater!” says a relieved voice from the other side of the wooden mesh that separates them.

Canta groans, rolling his eyes at the absurdity of what he assumes is his hundredth confession today. “Yeah, yeah, just don’t do that again,” he says, thinking about the poor chicken that he was just told about. He shakes his head, taking another drink and he waits for the next person to come into the confessional.

He had been sitting here for hours now on this side of the booth, while people from the city entered into the other side and laid their confessions bare before him onto a thin, edible wafer, made out of flour, water and salt. Each time they’d confess, he would eat the wafer and clear their sins and, more importantly, get a little bit of experience for each sin that he removed.

With Yashira and Nina, he had gotten a full level-up from each of their sins. Perhaps because they were more ‘significant’. These minor, venial sins that the city-people had to confess however, are boring and mundane. Except for the chicken-guy, but, still. Even he was only worth two experience points. Which Canta just doesn’t think is worth the effort for him, especially now that he has to live with that mental image in his head of -

“Sin-eater?” asks a voice from the side. Having been lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice that the woman had opened the curtain. “We’re done for the day, thank you for your hard work!” says the bookish priestess.

Canta crosses his arms, having a perfect argument to his defense now to her prior statements about him. Even if it is several hours late.

“How am I a degenerate?” he asks, pointing at the empty booth across from him. “Did you hear some of those stories?! The people in this city are fucked!”

“Ah-ah!” she lifts a finger, shushing him, which he thinks is a bold move on her part. His fingers can regrow, hers can’t. “The sanctity of the confession is absolute,” she says. “You must swear to never say a word about any of this to anyone, ever.”

Canta gets up, pushing her hand and then her out of the way “Uh… no?” he replies. “That guy -“

“AH-AH!”

“Oh, come on!” argues Canta, really wanting to talk about this with somebody. Though he isn’t even sure why. Maybe it’s just so that he can process his latest trauma, before it has a chance to fester inside of him with all the rest of them.

She shakes her head, grabbing the sack of wafers and closing it back up. “If we betray the people’s trust, they won’t come to us to alleviate themselves of their mistakes.” Hoisting the sack over her shoulder, she grabs her book with the other hand. “We must keep their hearts clean, so that evil can’t take root in them.”

“But, come on!” argues Canta, walking after her, as it’s apparently time to leave.

“I do this every day too, when we aren’t chasing a distorted,” she says, opening the door. “Today was my first day off in a long time.”

“So you know -“

“I know -“ she says, lifting a hand to stop him from saying anything again. “Congratulations on your level-up, sin-eater,” she says, nodding to him. They step outside into the nigh-orange haze of the dawning evening.

Canta, having completed his tasks for the day, heads back and finds Alleluia still being attended to by the priestesses who buzz around her like busy little bees, as if she were some sort of noble-woman. Seeing him, she seems to light up a little and jumps excitedly to her feet, which does make him feel good, in all honesty. He asks about her day as the two of them leave together and then she asks about his.

At first everything is fine, until he gets to the part about the confessional. He decides not to tell her about any of the confessions, not sure why he cares about anything like the privacy of such weirdos. But as he explains the process, Canta quickly realizes his mistake, after he tells her about the priestess, who he had spent hours together with, alone in the chapel.

Canta stops in his tracks and turns around, looking up fearfully at the metal silhouette hovering over him with crossed arms and angry, unblinking eyes. He doesn’t have a chance to explain before she reaches for him. Canta, sensing the danger to come, quickly turns and jumps away. “Hey!” he barks at her. “Cut the shit!”

“You jerk!” she cries, missing him as he ducks out of the way. “I was worried about you all day and you were spending time with another woman!”

“Go fuck yourself, you rust-bucket!” snaps Canta up at her, seeing that she’s about to get into one of her weird, delirious bouts of cruelty. She gasps. “I was sitting in a booth by myself for hours,” he explains, straightening back upright. “I’m not doing this anymore!” states Canta, stepping a step closer back towards her. The whirring of her metal body becomes audible as he approaches.

“You’re not doing what anymore? Being a jack-ass?” she asks, crossing her arms and lifting her nose.

“No, being a doormat. What the fuck is your problem?!”

“What’s my problem?!”

“Yeah! What’s your problem?!” repeats Canta, standing before her. “Ever since we’ve gotten out of the dungeon, you’ve done nothing but hurt me. So why the fuck should I stay around you, you kook?!” he asks. “Huh?! We’ve already talked about this before!” She doesn’t reply, Canta lifts his hand, pointing to the gate leading out of the cathedral and into the city. “I’m. Sick. Of. It!” he states plain as day, his finger poking into her chest with every word. “Straighten up or fuck off!”

“You’re hurting me!” she says, pushing his hand away.

The absurdity of this statement coming from her is enough to make him want to explode, but he presses it down a bit more for now. High road. Take the high road. Canta glares at her, poking her harder once again for emphasis. Okay, well, maybe the middle road is good too. His stomach growls. “We’re supposed to be living a new life, one that’s supposed to be better. That’s what we said. I don’t need you around me, if you aren’t going to contribute to that,” he tells her. “Is it the air? Is it being outside of the dungeon? What the fuck is it? You didn’t use to be like this when we met.”

She doesn’t reply, looking away with her arms still crossed.

“You can’t just live like you used to live and expect things to be better just because you’re somewhere else!” he says. “You’re just going to end up where you ended up before,” explains Canta, turning to leave. “By yourself at the bottom of a hole.”

“But -”

“WE’RE NOT IN THE DUNGEON ANYMORE!” shouts Canta at the top of his lungs, knowing what she was about to say. The courtyard, already quiet before, now falls silent as even the birdsong stops. Only the whirring of her mechanical body can be heard, together with the blood rushing through his ears. He turns around and starts to leave, seeing head-priest Valenti standing in the distance, who happens to be walking by with some other members of the clergy. The man waves with a chipper smile, the bright sun silhouetting his form as if he were the god’s chosen.

To Canta’s surprise, before he manages to leave, the tension is broken by her voice. “I’m sorry,” says Alleluia. He considers just walking away and letting her be exactly that. But as the consideration is weighed in his mind, he finds that his feet have already stopped moving. “I got scared and jealous,” she explains. “Everyone worships the ground you walk on here and I can’t just have you for myself anymore.”

“That’s no excuse,” says Canta, not turning around. “We could have just talked about that like adults!” he explains to her, realizing that she somehow had never even considered that a possibility, in all likelihood.

She lowers her eyes. “I thought if I made you hate being around them, you’d want to leave with me.”

This is the sentence that gets him. He spins around, pointing at her. “All you’re doing is making me hate you!”

Neither of them say anything for a while, just standing there, waiting for the other to say something else.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. Canta sighs, he doesn't feel like that word makes any of it better. He stands there, not sure what else to do now. He hadn’t planned for this series of events. He had just assumed that she was some psychopathic, mechanical hellfire-spawn. “I won’t do it again,” she concedes. His shoulders droop, the fight leaving him together with a long sigh. What needed to be said has been said. He turns around to go back to their room without another word. She walks after him. The two of them finish talking it out there in private, before they then start 'talking it out.'

The next day proceeds much the same. Breakfast. Combat-training. Book learning. Confessions to get experience points. The latter, Alleluia is bothered about and she admits it, but she lets it drop. Canta, trying to be a stoic, mature adult, realizes that this is probably stemming from the same anxiety of being abandoned as when they split up for his lessons. He makes a mental note to figure out something to alleviate her worries, though he supposes that its natural to be clingy if you were trapped underground for as long as she likely was. Then again, he finds himself being oddly clingy too at times when he gets back from his day, especially now that they have cleared the air.

He realizes that he is trapped like a fly, drunk off of fermented fruit-nectar, which willingly flew into a spider’s web. This whole thing is clearly unhealthy, yet he enjoys it at the same time.

Then the next day, the pattern repeats.

Then the next day too.

Then the day after that.

Soon a week goes by. Day in, day out it’s the same thing over and over. He’s making very little progress in his combat-training, still never quite managing to reach the palatinos. If it could be called ‘combat-training’. It’s really just always three hours of him getting knocked around. She isn’t even teaching him to use any weapons or any spells or anything, saying that there’s no point, unless he learns the core fundamentals of fighting first. Annoyed, he yells at her, telling her that it’s unfair because she has armor on.

She takes her armor off and breaks his jaw two more times that morning without it. Fair enough, thinks Canta. She sure showed him. He makes a mental note that when he finally gets a good hit on her, to aim at her jaw. Just to really bring the karmic situation around full-circle. That’s a very motivating thought for him. He dusts himself off, getting right back up for round three without a moment of hesitation. Having a clear goal can be very helpful in life.

Later that night, the two of them get into a light argument with each other again, because in Alleluia’s eyes, he was trying to coerce the woman to get undressed. Which in a sense, he was, but not in the way she was thinking with her paranoid, insecure mind. The two of them talk it out and an hour later, everything is settled again except for the bed-frame.

Valenti’s lessons are the worst part of the day however, even worse than the combat-training. At least combat-training goes by quickly. As for Valenti, the man might have an interesting personality, but his methods of tutoring truly make Canta wish that he was back in the dungeon, walking down monotone hallway after monotone hallway. “Those were the days,” he mutters to himself, listening to Valenti give a lecture about the phases of the moon and witches.

He has no idea why he even has to know any of this stuff. Can’t he just go to the demon-king and eat him? What’s the problem? Why does he need to know about the moon? Who gives a shit about the moon?

Confessions are at least a productive use of his time, even if he’s getting very sick of the wafers. Experience points are coming in at a steady trickle as people come to him; many of them, he would swear he had just talked to the day before. As for the bookish priestess, the two of them always make a little smalltalk before the session starts. Apparently her name is Carmela. He wouldn’t say that they’re becoming friends, but rather work-place acquaintances. Still, he appreciates having someone normal to talk to. Most of the other priests seemed to be oddly avoidant of him, when he walks through the gardens. She explains that it’s because they’re afraid of him.

Apparently, being a sin-eater really is a big deal to them. It’s as if they would see the bishop just strolling around. He’s not someone who you usually just walk up and start talking to. There’s just too large of a social power-dynamic to be comfortably bridged. Canta doesn’t really feel all that powerful, in all honesty. But he does appreciate the reverence, even if it is a little lonely at the top.

Another week passes.

He manages to ‘punch’ the palatinos during combat-training, though it’s just his fist thudding against the metal plate, just below her neck, before he got sent flying again, his victorious grin knocked loose. He’s getting close. He'll get her next time. As for Valenti’s lessons, even if he isn’t really paying attention, he’s still picking up a few things here and there and finally, another week and countless confessions later, he levels up again to level ten, which is apparently a huge deal.

Much to his distaste however, his final confession before leveling up is from the ‘chicken-guy’, who has come back for more, by the looks of it.

On a happier note, there's going to be a small party for his efforts, which he does appreciate. Though he isn’t sure if he’s going to have the appetite to eat anything after hearing this latest story.

“That poor chicken,” mutters Canta, shaking his head after the man has left. Another point for the demon-king and his desire to destroy the world. So far, Canta can't help but notice that the mental scoreboard he's been keeping is starting to look pretty definitive.

~*+- PROFILE -+*~   HP: ----- "Canta" SOUL: 48/48↑

LEVEL:

* 10 *

EXP: 0/125

CLASS: [Sin-Eater]

STATUS

HUNGER: You are about to burst

THIRST: You are not thirsty

SUB-CLASS: None

RACE: Human

OBOLS: 0

STR: 14 ↑ WIS: 15 LUK: 09↑↑   DEX: 22↑ INT: 15 LOV: 05