Sin-Eater - Chapter 31: Motive (Patreon)

[CANTA]

Class: Sin-Eater

Sub-class: None

Level: 11

HEALTH: ——

SOUL: 54/54 ⮅ 

EXP: 0/125

OBOLS: 0

HUNGER: You are stuffed full

THIRST: You are not thirsty

STR: 14 

DEX: 22 

INT: 16 ↑

WIS: 16 ↑

LUK: 9 

LOV: 5

{You are what you eat}

[New professional ability] {Novice Clockmaking}

The days after are different than the days which had come before.

Some people had awoken from the stupor that was caused by the presence of the distorted creature; Oriol, the man with the hat.

Others did no such thing and now, never would as they were lost to the deep-sleep.

It is hard to say exactly how the magic of a distorted works. They are all uniquely broken in their own ways, the essences of their souls corrupted and twisted and magnified by their deepest despairs until reaching the refinement of a needle-point. Yashira, the starving woman, had sought only food. Nina, the besmirched, had sought only to be clean again. Oriol, the clockmaker, had sought the only thing he had in the world, the blood of his blood.

The first two deepest desires of those dead souls had been twisted and used against them by a passive force, even long after their physical deaths, by a dark current present in the world that had swept them away. Like bones laying on the bottom of an ocean, during the arrival of a great tsunami, their long rest was disturbed.

The dead may only know peace for so long.

“Loose!” shouts a voice from the side, that Canta recognizes, but doesn’t look towards as he stares downward at the hole before him. Palatinos Salvador speaks.

The platform begins to lower into the hole ground, as the first man lets go of his rope.

Of the distorted, the first two were simply passive victims. Dead in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

However, the man with the hat, Oriol; he was different.

Alleluia squeezes his hand. She hasn’t been sure what to do these last few days and he isn’t sure what he should do in turn. Let alone what he should tell her to do. Neither of them are strangers to death. She’s clearly evil in some sense of the word. He hasn’t forgotten the skulls, for obvious reasons and he himself has been dead already, so…

“Loose!” Another man lets go of his rope and the platform sinks further.

The man with the hat was chosen. No -

Canta narrows his eyes, staring at the pale expression of head-priest Valenti, who vanishes into the darkness of the grave.

- He was taken. Set up. That memory that he saw was rigged from the start. Oriol had been tricked from the very beginning. He was a piece on a game-board that Canta didn’t even know was being played on to begin with.

This interaction. This moment. His arrival here. His rebirth.

To some extent, this had all been foreseen by the demon-king and Oriol, the man with the hat, was the first piece on the game-board to move his way in a preemptive strike.

“Loose!” another man lets go of his rope.

The platform lurches. The body of the bookish priestess who had accompanied him all of this way, Carmela, shifts an inch from the slight drop. From across the grave, he can hear the crying of the priestess who had intimate relations with her on the night of the party, despite this likely being forbidden in the church. He assumes that the two of them have been a long-term thing.

Canta promises the woman in the grave to keep that secret to himself, as thanks for the mud.

“Loose!” shouts Salvador. Another man lets go of his rope.

If Alleluia is the daughter of the man with the hat, then what does that mean about her? The man with the hat served the demon-king. The man with the hat made her. The demon-king, in essence, made Alleluia. Another piece on the game-board.

She didn’t seem to recognize the carcass laying in their bedroom and showed no particular reaction to the hat. He didn’t tell her about his vision. Maybe she doesn’t know? Or maybe she’s pretending not to.

Her fingers squeeze his, trying to get a reaction.

“Loose!”

Or maybe she isn’t the daughter of the man at all, rather, some descendant of sorts, created by the same techniques and technologies. He doesn’t know. But he is certain of one thing.

This is his own fault.

“Loose!” The last rope falls, the platform, covered in dozens of bodies, hits the ground and stays there.

He had lost control. He had blacked out. If he had been training properly, if he had been living properly, if he hadn’t let down his guard, then these people would still be here, wouldn’t they? He would have felt the man with the hat sooner, smelt him sooner, ate him sooner, if he didn’t get drunk and fall asleep.

“I’m going to take a walk,” says Canta, pulling his hand free and walking through the crowd as he thinks. Alleluia reaches after him, but then stops and lets him go, turning back to look into the grave. Things had been a little awkward since that night.

She had convinced him to drink.

But he was the one who took the cups. He was the one who drank them. He isn’t mad at her for that, realizing that it wouldn’t be fair of him. But he is unsure if he can trust her. Perhaps he has been lulled into a sense of false security? Perhaps his hot-bloodedness was being used against him? Are her stark emotional shifts a real symptom of a sick mind, or are they slips of the mask covering the demon-facade below? Did she get him drunk on purpose? Or was it really just an unfortunate coincidence?

Canta doesn’t know.

His stomach turns in knots. Since that night, the entire courtyard, the entire cathedral has reeked. Not of the bodies, but of it, of him. It is as if a strong wind had blown over the city, carrying with the spores of a fungus to coat any and everything, unseen to the naked eye for all, save for himself.

He smells the demon-king everywhere. Every minute. Every day.

His hand holds his stomach, feeling it tighten as it rumbles in a painful hunger. Is this another temptation? Is that what this is? Is he being tempted? Seduced by the devil?

Canta walks down through the grassy way, heading around the corner to the small training area in the back where he always gets his instructions in physical combat.

The night is still young.

He looks at the striking doll that he sometimes practices on. Little more than a sack on a stick, but still. Narrowing his eyes, he walks over to the weapons rack, his hand hovering over the first thing that he can grab.

But he doesn’t take it.

Canta closes his eyes and lets out a deep breath, exhaling very slowly to calm himself. He needs to learn the fundamentals of fighting first, so that he doesn’t bite off more than he can chew.

As his breath leaves his lungs, as his shoulders fall slack, as he thinks that he is about to find a place of serenity in his mind, his stomach rumbles.

Canta bites into his own tongue to quiet his frustrated scream, as he spins around and charges at the dummy, lunging at it and tearing into it with his teeth like a rabid animal. He isn’t sure how long it takes, or how often his fingernails rip out, or how often his canine teeth shatter as he tears at the material too hard and too fast, but eventually, he gnaws his way through and the dummy breaks, falling down to the ground with him on top of it.

“What are you doing?” says a voice, standing next to him. With wide, hungry eyes, his mouth full of straw and fabric, he glares up at the palatinos, who he hadn’t noticed approaching in the dark. His instructor.

His stomach growls. She smells like the demon-king. He lunges.

His jaw cracks as he is sent flying by another kick into the weapons rack, his back hitting against the blade of an improperly stowed axe. He hangs there for a second in the air, until his body slips free and he falls to the ground. Blood streams everywhere from him. Canta pushes down his scream, his world spinning as he pushes himself off of the stones.

Canta doesn’t have an answer for her either, in all honesty. He supposes that he’s venting his frustrations.

“What do you want to do?”

“Huh?” asks Canta, holding his head, wondering how long it will take until he can hear in his right ear again.

“What do you want to do?” she repeats.

“I want to eat the demon-king,” replies Canta, getting annoyed.

“And what are you doing?” she asks, turning around to leave again. Canta stands there, waiting for his ear to pop as he thinks about that question. Looking around at the destruction around him, he quickly realizes that he is doing anything but that.

He wasn’t even sure if he cared about the demon-king when this all started. So what if there’s a demon-king? Who gives a shit?

But now, he has been forced to become involved. His day to day life has become involved. His senses have become involved. His relationship has become involved. His thoughts and body have become involved. The nigh-friends that he made, had become involved and now are so no longer. There is no being uninvolved anymore. There isn’t going to be some quiet life of luxurious nobility and pampering.

He’s too hungry for that.

“What am I doing wrong?” asks Canta for the first time since their training began. His ear pops and the whining noise in it stops.

“Your sin is greed. You want, but you don’t stop to consider if you deserve.” She looks back at him. “Consider what you want. Then consider what you’re doing.” The palatinos leaves and Canta stands there, just as frustrated as before, if not a little more. Now his shirt is ruined. 

What does he want?

He wants to eat the demon-king.

What is he doing?

Being a jackass alone in the dark.

What does he want?

He wants to be on good terms with Alleluia.

What is he doing?

Being a jackass alone in the dark.

It doesn’t matter which question Canta asks himself, it all boils down to the same thing. He wants something, but he isn’t doing what he needs to be doing to get it. He wants to strike the palatinos in training, but he isn’t learning how to approach her, because he wants to hit her and only focuses on the end result he wants, rather than the process of getting there. He wants to become strong enough to eat the demon-king, out of principle at this point, but he’s been half-assing his education and now Valenti, an unquenchable well of knowledge, is dead. A door closed forever. He wants to trust Alleluia because of the strong feelings that he has for her, but he doesn’t want to put in the effort of approaching her with honesty. He…

Canta’s body stiffens up and his head shoots straight, together with his eyes as he comes to a sudden revelation.

This. This was the demon-king’s trap.

Not the man with the hat, not an army of monstrosities, not some cosmic-soul-crushing magic, not some ancient, powerful artifact from a forgotten era. No. This…

This midnight whisper that has taken root in his core, in his soul, this stain of his own character that he has not only allowed to foster, but that he himself had seeded. These many tiny, little, intricate emotions and feelings that have guided him this way and that. The very things that have separated him from the burial of his companions, from the hand of his closest, are the things that have put him out here alone in the dark, like a jackass, where he is weakest, where he can grow the least, where he can alienate everyone who matters.

It was a set-up all along. A scheme to seduce him to melancholy, to listlessness, to distrust, to anxiety, to despair.

Canta lifts his arm, smelling himself, as he realizes that the smell of demon-king’s befoulment isn’t spread all around the cathedral. It’s coming from him himself. He is the thing that has been touched by darkness. He is the thing that reeks.

And just like in his training, he walked right into it without thinking.

Canta runs, hurrying back to apologize to Alleluia, promising to himself that if the church will still him have him, come the morning, that he will do better.