Chapter 10: Gluttony The Cannibal
"So you are leaving…" Catherine asked her sister with a tear-stained face.
Seeing her sister's face, Mira felt sad. She got down on her knees and placed her hand over Catherine's face, caressing it gently. "I will visit during holidays and I will make sure to call daily, so don't feel sad Cathy."
Catherine tightened her grip on the hem of her dress, trying her best not to cry again. "Promise?" She asked and Mira nodded.
"Promise."
"Your sister never breaks her promises, Catherine." Philip said. "So believe in her words."
Catherine nodded. "I know… Sister is the greatest, but— but what if she forgets to call?" She asked in a trembling voice.
Mira kissed Catherine's forehead. "I promise that I will never forget. I will call every night."
"Pinky promise?" Catherine asked, extending her little finger.
Mira chuckled at her sister's innocence. She remembered Alex and her other sisters being the same but Catherine was far more understanding and mature than any of them were at her age. If it was Alex, he would have been bawling his eyes out and would have never left her alone. But Catherine knew that her sister's work was important and it made Mira proud.
"Pinky promise." She said as both of them locked their little fingers together.
"So, have you prepared everything?" Her father Philip asked.
"I have." She answered with a nod. "And father please take care of mother and Cathy." She said with a smile which made Philip laugh.
"I have been the one that took care of the family, little girl. Have faith in your father." He said trying to sound a little intimidating but Mira knew that he was proud of her.
Their family has been rich from the time of her great grandfather but her father was the one who made the Armstrong name famous nationwide.
"I know… but you are not young anymore, father." She said, sighing. "Promise me that you will take better care of your health."
Philip nodded. "I will and I hope that you do the same. Nothing is more important than your happiness to me and your mother." He placed a hand over her shoulder. "Now go… King Bradley must be at the Briggs headquarters, you shouldn't keep the Führer waiting."
Mira nodded and smiled. "Then I will be taking my leave… father." She turned around. "And Cathy, don't trouble mother or father."
Philip pulled her in a hug. "Stay safe, Mira."
Returning the hug, Mira said. "I will… I just wished that mother was in town before I left. But it looks like I won't see her for a while."
Philip sighed as he let her off the hug. "Indeed. But she said that she is happy and that she will visit you in Briggs next month."
Mira smiled. "Well then… I will be leaving." She said and walked towards the carriage. "Take care… both of you."
Cathy and Philip nodded. "You two." Both said simultaneously.
Mira turned to look at the driver and put on her iconic ice-cold look. "Let's go."
"Yes, ma'am." The driver said as he whipped the horses and the carriage moved.
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Burne left the inn in the morning. Lena and Adolf were a bit sad to let their only customer leave but there was nothing he could do about it. He paid them a bit more than the original amount, which they rejected initially but upon his request— accepted.
Ammon seemed determined to become a warrior monk which made him chuckle but he knew that the boy was talented and with training, he could easily surpass the abilities of those state alchemists.
Unfortunately, there were no trains that left from Ishval today so Burne had to walk to the next station which was more than ten miles away from Ishval.
'I should have taken a carriage to the station.' He sighed. 'But it's too late to regret now.'
He kept walking with his bag on his shoulder. He was able to find a lot of information from the library and the stores sold a lot of good books. That was also the reason for Burne's massive bag.
He covered five miles in under an hour and that was when felt a bit tired but decided to keep on walking. After travelling for around ten more minutes, he noticed something weird.
He smelled blood.
His immediate thought was that there was a wild animal. But dismissed the thought when he realised that the place was too open for a wild animal to be roaming around.
He decided to check the cause of the smell. 'This is a bad idea…' He thought.
Walking towards the west, he found the stench of blood getting stronger. That was when he heard a munching noise.
'What the-' Burne walked towards the massive rock that was to the west of where he stood, as he walked towards it— the smell grew stronger.
As he took a peek from the side of the rock, he felt his blood running cold. He saw a man munching on the leg of a woman. Her body from the left was missing, with bite marks all over her body. The ground was covered in blood and guts which nearly made Burne puke. Trying to get away from the bald cannibal, he stumbled on the ground— alerting the cannibal.
"More food?" He turned his head in confusion as he looked at Burne. "Gluttony is hungry, he needs more meat." He grinned as he looked at Burne.
'This guy is bat shit insane!' Burne cursed at himself for coming to check the stench.
The chubby bald man walked towards Burne with a massive grin. His mouth stretched beyond human capability which made Burne surprised.
"Gluttony is hungry!" He said as his mouth opened, making his razor-sharp teeth visible to Burne.
"Those are not human teeth." Burne immediately concluded.
He clapped his hands, transmuting the earth below the cannibalistic man into mud, which sank the man's feet.
"Oh, an Alchemist." He mumbled. "Alchemist tasty."
'He knows about alchemists…' Burne frowned. 'Does it mean he has fought them before?'
Burne thought, trying to decipher the man's words. He wasn't sure but from Gluttony's words, he guessed that the cannibal had fought or at least ate an alchemist before.
And his suspicion was confirmed when the man pulled himself out of the mud.
'No human can do that.' Burne frowned. 'He is clearly not a human, he called himself Gluttony… but what exactly is he?'
"Alchemist bad. Alchemist needs to be eaten." Gluttony mumbled.
The moment he got off the mud, Burne transmuted the earth creating a pillar that shot towards Gluttony.
To his horror, Gluttony opened his mouth and took the impact of the pillar with his mouth. But it didn't harm him in any way, instead, he bit off the pillar in half before devouring it.
"Tastes like mud." Gluttony frowned. "I need meat."
Burne realised that this man was dangerous and he needed to fight seriously if he wanted to survive.
Without wasting any time he transmuted the land into quicksand— but that didn't work either.
Gluttony swam through the quicksand like it was water, surprising Burne. He hardened the quicksand but with Gluttony broke free of the hold with ease.
"What the hell are you?" Burne yelled as he had never seen anything like Gluttony in his life. No book, no scriptures had any information about beings that could do such things.
"What do you mean?" Gluttony asked in confusion. "Gluttony is Gluttony. Father told me to eat and get stronger, so I am eating."
Burne frowned as he realised that the man's intelligence was equal to that of a child.
"Who is 'Father'?" He asked as he dodged a rock thrown by Gluttony. 'One hit from that and I would be dead.'
"Father is… Father!" Gluttony said, frowning as he didn't understand much of Burne's words.
Burne— realising that there was no point in talking with the man, attacked him.
He made the ground slippery using his alchemy, which slowed down Gluttony.
"Leave or you will die." Burne warned.
Gluttony shook his head. "Gluttony hungry, he eat, he leave." Saying that, he started moving towards Burne through the slippery surface.
Burne had fought mad alchemists before and had to kill in order to survive. So killing was something he was familiar with— but he didn't prefer it.
But the man in front of him was different. He was a superpowered cannibal and leaving him alive would result in the deaths of many others.
He sighed. "Then this is the end of the road for you." Burne said and clapped his hands.
A silvery-white substance engulfed Gluttony's body and hardened— trapping him in his place. But Gluttony seemed confused.
"This is soft." He said.
"Indeed it is soft." Burne said. "It is soft because it's pure sodium." He paused and looked at Gluttony. "Do you know what happens when sodium is mixed with water?"
He asked, confusing Gluttony.
"It explodes." Burne said as he flicked his fingers forming droplets of water on the sodium surface. And within a second— it reacted.
*KABOOM!*
The sodium exploded, taking half of Gluttony's body with it. The air was filled with the smell of burning sodium as Burne sighed.
"I have never met anyone like him before. And I hope that I don't meet another one either." He mumbled.
'Could he be an experiment by some alchemist?' Burne thought. 'That sounds like the most plausible case.'
He thought as he looked at the man whose limbs were blown away and the skin was sizzling.
"Best to leave." Burne said as he started to walk away from the scene.
But then something that he didn't expect in his wildest dreams happened.
He heard bubbling noises coming from the corpse of the man. He turned around to look at it and what he found— spooked him.
The destroyed limbs started to reconstruct themselves and the skin started to regrow. The corpse was reanimating itself, seeing which— Burne was frozen solid.
"What… the fuck?!?"
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[A/N: Well Gluttony is kinda dumb and when he is eating he turns into a kid… which is this Gluttony. And by kid I mean personality… some of you WN readers take everything literally 🙃🙂🙃🙂.
Hope you liked the chapter, comment and let me know.
Leave paragraph comments next to mistakes and errors for me to correct as I don't have anyone other than myself to proofread.
And we are at 87 power stones and might reach 100 with this chapter… POG!!!]
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