Sin-Eater - Chapter 61: Esurience (Patreon)

Canta looks around the room, his boot standing on top of a human skull. But that person was a demon so, morally, it’s fine. Probably. “I’ll say this went well,” says Canta.

A man next to him, laying on the ground, splutters, coughing out a mouthful of blood.

Alleluia nods. “Yeah, we really turned the tide there at the end!” she exclaims, trying and failing to shadow-box. “Good thing we fought so many goblins together!”

“I can’t feel my legs!” screams a guard from across the room.

Canta nods, turning around to her. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, my gooey goblin,” she says, clasping her hands together.

He raises an eyebrow. “You’re just making up phrases at this point.”

“Richter…” says a man’s voice to their right. He coughs. “Tell my wife… that I…” his body lurches in the hands of the crying man holding him. His head rolls limply to the side as his dying breath leaves him.

Canta lets out a satisfied exhalation, patting his very full stomach, turning around to look at the bishop.

“So,” says Canta, looking up towards the bishop. A hand grab’s his leg. A guard. Canta looks down at the man holding him, taking a moment and then recognizing him as one of the drunken revelers he had partied together with during his large celebration here, after reaching level ten.

“Sin-eater…” hacks the man out of his throat. “I need to know,” he states, clearly struggling for air as the insides of his lungs have been befouled by a demonic taint. His eyes wander up towards him. “Are you really… a guy?”

Canta blinks. “Uh… yeah?”

“Ah,” his head flops down, his hand falling limp. His voice sounds as if he has come to some great, final realization in this last moment of his life. Not only as if he has learned something about the universe, but also about himself. “You have a great ass, in a dress…”

He dies.

“IT’S A HABIT!” yells Canta, spinning around to the bishop. “What the fuck is wrong with this place?!” he asks, gesturing to the guardsman. Blocking Alleluia’s hand from groping him in the same motion. “Isn’t this a cathedral?”

The bishop looks over his shoulder, staring at the dead man. “He’s a guard. They don’t have to take the vows,” says bishop Zacaries Montero. “Sin-eater, would you absolve these poor souls of their sins?”

Canta groans, rolling his head back as he looks at the mass of dying and already dead people. “There are a lot of them… and I really want to go eat the demon-king,” he says, sounding unsure.

“Thought you didn’t wanna be a dick anymore?” asks the bishop, his piston pushing him next to Canta. “Sounds like a dicky dick thing to say. Dick. Right, Salvador?”

Salvador nods. “Real dick move.”

“Hell of a mouth for someone who doesn’t even have one,” says Canta. “Aren’t you supposed to be a bishop?”

“I am. Aren’t you supposed to be a SIN-EATER?” asks the bishop, gesturing to the body.

Canta rolls his eyes. “FINE! Fuck’s sake, I fucking hate this place. You people owe me for all of this bullshit!”

The bishop nods, giving him a thumbs-up. “I’ll let you keep the habits,” he says. His piston tilts him sideways towards Alleluia and he covers his mouth with a metal hand. “And a whip.”

“What? Fuck th -”

“DEAL!” says Alleluia.

“Huh?!”

Canta spends the next hour helping to proverbially clean up the mess. Though, he can’t help but wonder if many of the priestesses still running around the cathedral aren’t demons too, or if they were just possessing the guards?

Either way, nobody else seems to get involved and the survivors collect themselves together, tending to the wounded and fortifying the entrances as they try to recollect themselves by pulling in other guards from the walls, all of whom Canta has to verify as undemony. One or two surprised demons enter the cathedral, not aware that the jig is up. But they get taken out quickly as the guards basically cut them to pieces the second that Canta points one out.

Once everything is done, he sighs, finally ready to settle this.

“Salvador.”

“Sin-eater.”

“Could have fucking told me there were fucking demons everywhere,” says Canta, accusingly.

“Yeah, Salvador,” agrees bishop Zacaries Montero. “Not cool.”

Palatinos Salvador shakes his head. “They’re dug in deep. They’re everywhere,” explains Salvador. “We had to keep things quiet for them, or they would have killed the entire city.”

“Have you been outside lately?!” asks Canta. “We were running around this fucked up place for months! Everything is fucked!” he says. “There are more demons than people!”

“Salvador,” asks the bishop, turning his head. “How long has this been going on for?”

“Generations,” says Salvador.

The bishop’s head droops. “Shit. Wait, what about the distorted hunts?”

Salvador shakes his head. “Those were just feral demons,” he says. “They got too wild, too out of control,” explains Salvador. “We just cleaned them up, so that they didn’t ruin the plan.”

“Yeah?” says Canta, looking at the bishop. “Shit, huh? I fucking hate this world. You people really fucked it up while I was dead.”

“This is a cathedral, sin-eater. There’s no need to swear,” says the bishop.

“…There’s no need to swear?” asks Canta incredulously.

“There’s no need to swear,” reaffirms the bishop.

“Are you fucking with me right now?” asks Canta.

“Yes,” replies bishop Zacaries Montero. “You really do have a great ass in a dress though.”

Canta stares at him, taking in a deep breath as he calms himself down. Clean heart. New Canta. This is a new life, a new him. Take the high road.

“I’m going to go eat the demon-king now,” he says, dryly. “I don’t really care if you survive or not until I get back.”

The bishop nods. “Make sure to eat all of him, sin-eater,” says bishop Zacaries Montero. “Wouldn’t want him to regenerate or anything like that.” Canta stops in his tracks, turning his head.

“…What?”

“You know?” asks the bishop. “ALL of him.”

Canta lifts an eyebrow. “Are you saying that I should eat his dick?”

The bishop nods. “I’m saying that you should eat his dick.”

Alleluia giggles, squeezing his hand. “I’ll allow it.”

“I’m going to bring it back and shove it up your ass,” says Canta, jabbing his finger into Salvador’s chestplate. “And then you’re up next!” he barks at the bishop, grabbing Alleluia’s hand and walking out towards the back of the cathedral.

“Okay!” calls the bishop after him. “But if we’re having a party again, try not to vomit everywhere this time! Wouldn’t want to ruin your dress!”

“FUCK OFF!” yells Canta in frustration back into the cathedral as he leaves, grumbling. He and Alleluia head through the guard’s quarters, towards the large, now unguarded, door to the side of the castle, in which the demon-king must be residing inside of.