Firing the Shotgun at the Cardinal (3)
“To obtain this great blessing in your hands… what must I offer in return?”
“...”
I didn’t answer. I simply tilted the barrel, still trailing thin wisps of smoke, and fixed Lucius with an indifferent gaze.
Silence.
The most powerful card I had wasn’t words—it was the void. The longer I kept my mouth shut, the more the value of this thing must be skyrocketing in Lucius’s mind.
As expected, the longer my silence stretched, the more his composure crumbled like a sandcastle. He hastily pulled his torn priestly robes together and swept back his disheveled hair. He tried to feign nonchalance, even mustering a faint smile, but he couldn’t hide the feral glint in his eyes.
“……Brother. Isn’t it time we ended this little game of push and pull? Surely there’s something you desire from me.”
Lucius spoke in a measured tone, but his gaze was glued to the shotgun barrel in my hand like it was coated in adhesive.
I kept my lips sealed, staring him down. With every second of my silence, the worth of this hunk of metal must be multiplying exponentially in his head.
Silence can sometimes humiliate more effectively than any flowery rhetoric.
Lucius’s eyelids twitched faintly. Cracks began to spiderweb across his elegant mask.
“Well, speak. What do you want? Shall I open the vaults of the Holy See for you? Or perhaps create a lofty position you wouldn’t dare even glance at?”
His words were proposals, but his tone bordered on command. Beneath it all, though, lurked a sticky, servile hunger.
Just as Lucius opened his mouth again to spit out some even more outrageous—or threatening—offer,
I finally spoke, my voice low and steady.
“I’m not the type to ask for anything grand.”
A flicker of doubt crossed his eyes. I continued slowly, as if to reassure him.
“If you meet a few modest conditions…… I could supply the Holy See with these shotguns.”
The word “supply” hit the air, and Lucius’s pupils shook violently. This wasn’t just one gun—it was the promise of turning this overwhelming physical miracle into the Holy See’s arsenal.
To a zealot like him, it was nothing short of salvation.
“Supply? You mean equipping the Holy See with several of these?”
“Of course. One or two wouldn’t be nearly enough.”
At my casual reply, Lucius traced the sign of the cross over his chest with trembling hands, like a man beholding the Holy Spirit.
“Oh, Lord. What mysterious guidance is this? Amen.”
Caked in blood and dirt as he was, his cry of “Amen” looked more barbarian than cleric to anyone watching.
Before his reason could kick back in, I thrust forward my first prepared demand.
“Glad you like it. Now, onto the contract terms. First, you guarantee my perfect grades and attendance exemption at the Academy. Mass-producing and improving these shotguns will take considerable time and effort.”
“So be it.”
To Lucius, it wasn’t even a condition—just an instant yes.
“Second, distribution. I plan to spread firearms across the continent eventually, so make sure there’s no Holy See-level regulation or interference.”
“Ah, that too, with pleasure.”
A strange light—greed and faith twisted together—gleamed in Lucius’s eyes.
Now for the main event.
“Finally, be the guarantor for the guild I’ll establish.”
His brow furrowed for a split second.
“A guild, you say.”
Guilds weren’t something anyone could just hang a sign for. They required astronomical funds and solid backing from behemoths like the Holy See or great nobles to even get approval. A bastion of entrenched privilege.
“What kind of guild? Mercenary? Merchant?”
Something far more valuable, dominating overwhelming interests.
“The Firearms Guild. Essential for mass-producing ammo and developing new weapons.”
Chemistry and engineering. A monopoly on gunpowder, guns, and novel armaments—the continent’s one and only munitions guild.
At this unprecedented concept, feigned bewilderment crossed Lucius’s face.
“Guaranteeing an obscure outfit in the Holy See’s name would be diffi—”
“Even if I provide the double barrel?”
He froze at my words.
“Double… barrel?”
“Yes. Simply put, a shotgun with two barrels. Two shots in rapid succession per reload.”
“……!”
Lucius’s breathing turned ragged in an instant. His gaze nailed itself to the shotgun’s muzzle in my hand.
A single shot had already shown such miraculous power—doubled?
“That holy maw…… two of them?”
“Exactly. And to stamp out dozens, hundreds of those double-mawed beasts? That’s where the Firearms Guild comes in.”
Lucius shuddered with excitement. Any unfamiliar notions like “firearms” had long since evaporated from his mind.
“Now that I think of it, it’s no obscure group. A sacred forge hammering out the Lord’s wrath, isn’t it?”
He licked his lips greedily.
“I’ll convince the bishops if need be. Full support for your guild’s founding.”
Done. No more infinite rejections for a commoner like me.
“We’ll draw up the formal contract later with Countess Laurie.”
“Heh heh heh… Excellent. I’m quite looking forward to it.”
Satisfaction curved my lips as I turned toward the dormitory. The biggest hurdle cleared—now just a hot bath and deep sleep.
“Brother Flint.”
A sticky voice slithered from behind.
“To celebrate our new partnership, allow me to perform the foot-washing rite.”
“……Pardon?”
“From time immemorial, washing the feet of the brother who brings new gospel is a holy courtesy and duty. Come, to the chapel at once. I shall do it with the utmost devotion……”
Chills raced up my spine; I stepped back.
Foot-washing? That horrific word alone sent the original novel’s ending flashing through my mind like a montage.
Ninety percent of humanity lay torn apart by the demon race’s hands, the earth pregnant not with life’s pulse but death’s hush. The Demon King fell, but nothing remained to call victory—a terminus of annihilation.
Saintess Elisicia shouldered every curse humanity deserved, alone. Her divine power became the blaze that extinguished the Demon King, but the price was her flesh devoured by virulent curses, shattered and scattered across the empire.
How many days did he wander the crimson wastelands war had ravaged? At last, Lucius unearthed her fragment from a blood-caked mound of dirt.
Elisicia’s severed feet, jammed into the soil.
“Uwaaaah, ahhhh……”
Sobbing like an orphaned child, Lucius dug them out with trembling hands. The demon wounds were cruelly vicious—blackened skin, curse-marks riddling her feet.
Yet to him, they shone holier than anything.
No clean water in this ruined world, so Lucius extended his tongue and began lapping at the rotting gashes.
Lick—.
Blood, curse, and grit slid down his throat, his mouth seared by scorching agony.
“...”
Even as the hardened crimson clay gnawed his teeth, his ravenous tongue didn’t stop. The curse leaped to him, tongue blistering in torment—but to him now, even that was sublime blessing.
Finishing the gruesome purification, Lucius wiped foam-flecked lips with his sleeve. Drenched in foul sludge and blood, the zealot whispered to his prize like a lover.
“Elisicia, poor Elisicia. Come with me. You’re not alone anymore.”
From that day, in the rubble of an empty chapel.
Lucius daily poured precious oils over the cold, stiffened feet. A rite of foot-washing, the world’s most devout and sacred, offered solely to her.
“Beautiful as ever today, Elisicia.”
He wiped the lifeless, chill flesh with silken cloth, meticulous. Only corpse-cold met his fingertips, yet he felt warmth within—he had to. It was his sole anchor to sanity in a shattered world.
Reverently, he kissed the pale instep. Fetid blood and decay mingled with oils, stabbing his nose—but he closed his eyes in ecstasy, as if inhaling floral nectar.
“Your scent so beloved, yet the world so cruel.”
Skin he’d never touched in her life. Only in death’s fragmentation did it become wholly his.
Through bloodshot, fatigue-crushed eyes, Lucius washed and rewashed her feet till dawn.
“Elisicia. My Elisicia.”
His voice cracked, but the longing burned hotter than ever. Endless cycles of cleansing—not futile labor, but his sole prayer in a broken world.
He set the cloth aside, pressing his forehead to the pallid instep.
“Elisicia.”
My lord. The sole authority I’ll serve all my life. My salvation. The only light letting me breathe in this dying world. My original sin—self-reproach for failing to protect you, twisted greed binding your death-shattered pieces to me.
Elisicia.