(Prologue) Chivalry? Aura? Bloodlines? Bullshit.
Imperial Academy Grand Tournament Grounds, where the empire's top geniuses supposedly gathered.
In the center, with hundreds of noble heirs and ladies watching, I muttered as I tapped the dirt-caked toes of my shoes against the ground.
Standing before me was the red-haired ducal heir, hailed as the future of imperial swordsmanship. A threatening blue Aura Blade flickered from his famed sword.
“Surrender, commoner. What the hell do you plan to do with that bizarre hunk of metal that doesn't have a speck of mana? My sword aura slices steel like butter.”
His voice dripped with arrogance. This goddamn romance fantasy world was always like this.
A vile place where your birth bloodline set your class, and mana-handling talent meant power.
A shitty worldview where a commoner fated to till fields till death never got so much as a weapon to pierce those smug nobles' magic barriers.
But this world's god made one massive fuckup.
Reincarnating me here—a military otaku from my past life, a genuine engineer who'd munched on iron filings.
I drew the hefty Silver Revolver from its leather holster at my waist.
Its 6-shot cylinder, machined from dwarf-forged special alloy, was loaded with vicious paper cartridges—gunpowder mixed in a mad ratio with mana stone powder.
“The knight's drawn his sword—how long you gonna just stand there gawking?!”
The furious ducal heir kicked off the ground and charged.
Dozens of meters vanished in a blink, his sapphire Aura Blade slicing for my throat.
The ladies in the VIP seats screamed and covered their eyes.
But I didn't dodge.
Instead, I casually thumbed back the revolver's hammer with one hand.
Click-
A crisp metallic snick, and the cylinder spun smoothly.
Then I squeezed the trigger.
Crack-!
Snap!!
The premium mana stone embedded in the hammer spat a fierce spark on impact.
In that instant, the red flame devoured the propellant inside the cylinder.
BOOM-!!!!!
A thunderclap that shook the entire Grand Tournament Grounds shredded my eardrums.
Crimson muzzle flare and brutal gas pressure hurled the iron ball at supersonic speed.
“...Huh?”
Kwaaaang-!!
The moment the sword house heir blurted that dumbfounded noise—
His supposedly unbreakable Aura Shield shattered like glass under a hammer, fragments spraying into the air.
The ball that pulverized the shield cleaved his famed sword in two, grazed his earlobe, and gouged a fist-sized crater in the arena wall behind him.
“A-ahh...”
His legs gave out, and the sword house heir crumpled pathetically to the dirt.
A wet stain spread between his trembling thighs.
Dead silence blanketed the arena packed with thousands.
Sword prodigies, magic geniuses—all stared in horror at the silver monstrosity in my grip.
I blew away the acrid white smoke curling from the barrel, then flashed a grin at the collapsed noble.
“Magic needs long chants, swords have to connect to cut.”
Click-.
I cocked the hammer again and jammed the muzzle against his forehead.
“But my bullets? Supersonic.”
Earth has a great saying: God created men, but Samuel Colt made them equal.
In this world, I'd inherited his will.