Gluttony

Constitution: 1.219—First Exchange Stage (2/5)

First came an itch in his palms. Heka pulled open his taut cloak, only to see the flesh beneath twitching rapidly, like leeches pinched at one end.

A wave of stabbing pain followed, surging through his entire body.

Heka staggered and nearly lost his footing. Only after bracing himself against the wall beside him did he barely manage to stand upright.

The bleeding had stopped. It looked like he had survived.

Just as Heka let out a long breath, his stomach gave a loud rumble.

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Grrr~~

Heka could clearly feel every ounce of excess on his body being siphoned away by some force, used to carve and reshape his flesh.

It reminded Heka of something he had once heard: once the body had burned through all its fat, if it wanted to live, it could only start eating its muscles.

Fear surged up alongside hunger. Heka pulled all the cheese from his backpack and stuffed it into his mouth in one go.

Yet those little things were merely a drop in the bucket. Heka even felt that they had not reached his stomach before his ravenous body tore them apart and absorbed them within his mouth.

At that moment, the little things that had followed the scent of blood through the darkness slowly revealed themselves in the distance. It was a swarm of rats led by three or four giant rats as long as an adult human arm.

Green eyes met red eyes. After seeing the most sincere, most intense craving for food in their prey's gaze, the rat swarm stopped in its tracks.

Though he knew this was neither the place nor the time, Heka truly could no longer endure that hunger, nor the terror of being drained dry that followed it.

He directly took out the food crate. After using what remained of his rationality to stow the junk box inside into his backpack, Heka pulled out the bread.

Two pounds of dark bread—normally, even if it were sliced thin and ground into small pieces—

would still need to be soaked with saliva before it could be swallowed. But now, the moment it entered his mouth, it vanished.

Heka felt his cheeks ache from being stuffed full, while his jaw muscles felt as though a fresh, juicy lime had been buried inside them.

With his mouth crammed with bread, Heka slowly turned his head and stared at the rats. The fur along the backs of several large rats instantly stood on end.

Then, amid a burst of frantic squeaking, the rat swarm vanished into the darkness. For a while, they would most likely not come looking for trouble with Heka, this creature of pure hunger.

Having eased the burning in his stomach, Heka briefly clawed back a shred of rationality from his hunger.

He reached into the crate and stored all the bread and dried fish inside in his backpack, followed by the wooden crate with a hole smashed through it.

Though the gray-clad man had broken a hole in it, it could still serve as precious fuel.

Heka forced himself to resist the body that longed to stop, then quietly devour everything edible within reach, and headed toward the shelter in the distance.

That person would not be alone.

If he was the one hunting Heka, then after confirming that his wounded target had entered the sewers, what he would do next could not have been clearer.

Of course, he would send his underlings to dig inch by inch for the target that might be hiding here.

Before long, this place would be filled with the thugs from aboveground. Heka needed to return to the shelter as quickly as possible before that happened, otherwise, in his current state, he would not even be able to beat a little brat.

Clearly, hunger could not count as combat power. On the contrary, it was more like a negative status effect.

Fortunately, Heka was currently eating bread almost one piece at a time, so there was little chance of leaving crumbs behind for someone to track.

Bread that normally choked him, dried fish salty enough to kill a man—at this moment, they all tasted like nectar and ambrosia.

Along the way, Heka even gulped down a quarter barrel of water.

At last, he arrived beneath the shelter.

Heka wanted to take more food from his backpack, only to discover that there was not a single piece of bread or strip of dried fish left inside.

Following their agreed signal, Heka knocked on the metal beside him, then looked toward the edge of the rope ladder above as he began counting silently.

One... two... three...

To prevent outsiders from getting in, the rope ladder was always pulled completely up above. If no one pushed it down from above, then in Heka's current condition, there was absolutely no way for him to enter the shelter.

...Thirteen... fourteen...

The passage outside was cold and dark. Heka raised his head and slightly closed his eyes. It was only a few breaths, yet it felt as long as a century.

His stomach had already absorbed every last bit of nourishment. There was not even anything left to excrete.

It was nearly time for his appointment with Tuft of Hair. The other man might have already left. After all, Heka had said that if he did not return by then, Tuft of Hair should leave.

If Heka were in his place, he would have done the same.

After all, one's life was one's own. Running away was only natural.

...Twenty-three... twenty-four... twenty-five...

Damn it, he should have told that idiot to leave a corner of the rope ladder hanging down before he left. Then Heka could at least use something long to hook it.

But then again, how had that kid pulled the ladder back up after Heka came down?

With a knot?

...Thirty-three... thirty-four...

Heka leaned against the wall to one side and wiped his cheeks with his cloak, which was still stained with blood.

After counting silently to thirty-five, Heka simply gave up waiting for Tuft of Hair, who might or might not come, and instead tried to wedge his fingers into the bricks on either side and climb up.

That was how he had done it the first time he came here. Yet the moment his feet left the ground, Heka fell back down.

Every muscle in his body was twitching. No matter how he roared in his heart for those dead muscles to move already, they gave no response.

All his strength had been thoroughly drained away. Right now, he was a lamb awaiting slaughter.

And this vertical shaft was the shelter Heka had found only after expending great effort. There had originally been scattered iron nails and rotten wooden planks above to serve as footholds.

But when Heka had modified the place, he had deliberately removed those things in order to make it impregnable.

At this moment, he was just like Louis XVI when he had once been brought beneath the guillotine he himself had improved.

Even more tragic was that Louis XVI had at least improved his own experience of death, while Heka had prepared the most painful method of dying for himself—waiting for death.