Excellent Means of Negotiation (2)
When Kyle came to during the incident of the saintess's chapel destruction, the first thing that pierced his nostrils was the faint scent of incense.
"Ugh..."
Kyle von Leonhardt pressed his throbbing temples and lifted his heavy eyelids. Shards of stained glass lay scattered across the floor, and sunlight pouring through the broken panes stabbed at his eyes. The hard, cold marble floor. And... a grotesque statue of the goddess with its head shattered to pieces.
At the bizarre sight, Kyle muttered to himself.
"What... is this?"
Then, a voice like melting honey into his ears came from beside him.
"You've finally awakened."
Kyle whipped his head around to see the saintess, Elisicia, standing there. In that instant, he forgot even the horrific devastation of the ruined chapel and gasped.
The brilliant sunlight filtering through the shattered glass seemed a shabby backdrop in her presence. Her silver hair cascaded like a waterfall under the pouring rays, as if threads of moonlight had been painstakingly woven one by one—dazzlingly bright, almost blinding. As she approached with a light step and smiled, her mysterious silver-gray eyes, misty like dawn fog, sparkled like a lake. Her flawless, milky skin and delicate jawline transcended mere human flesh. It was an unreal masterpiece, crafted by a god selecting only the most precious gems to prove his power.
She was beautiful. A sublime, ethereal beauty that choked him.
Even amid the gruesome scene of shattered glass and the goddess's severed head rolling about, she alone was a perfect sanctuary, washing away all the world's impurities.
"..."
Lost in her otherworldly beauty, Kyle forgot to breathe. But her next words shattered his dazed admiration mercilessly.
"Is your injured part alright?"
"...?"
The words "injured part" pulled the trigger. Memories from moments before surged like a tidal wave into his mind.
The humiliation at the grand martial exhibition, struck down by that damned commoner's mysterious metal lump. Repairing his broken Durandal and encountering his master by fateful chance, inheriting the romantic sword. The humiliation of being dragged away by inquisitors without knowing why. And when he finally faced that arrogant commoner again after felling the Holy See's watcher, the flash from the silver barrel aimed at him, striking his most private and precious place...
Color drained from Kyle's face in an instant. The saintess's unreal beauty no longer registered.
A chilling sensation suddenly overwhelmed him.
"Gaaahhhh!!!"
Kyle rolled on the floor, letting out a heartbroken scream. Forgetting his status as the empire's next duke and the heavenly beauty before him, he frantically shoved both hands between his legs.
"Please... please!! No!!"
It was the desperate, tearful struggle of a noble knight—or rather, a male—confirming if his greatest appendage still existed intact.
Saintess Elisicia simply beamed innocently at the empire's genius swordsman groping and sobbing at his crotch like a madman.
Finally, Kyle's fingertips, clutching his pants in despair, felt a familiar, sturdy texture.
"Haa... haa..."
"Hehe. Good thing. All that hard healing paid off."
"...What?"
Kyle's pupils, relaxed in relief, shook wildly as if hit by an earthquake. As he creakily turned his head to the saintess, Elisicia continued with hands clasped, as if reciting an epic heroic tale.
"Brother Flint came rushing in, begging so earnestly. So I poured in my strongest divine power. It was almost completely gone, but reconstructing it from scratch took more power than usual, and it resonated with your body, Brother Kyle, awakening you as a 'saint'! I didn't expect that. The chapel got wrecked from the mana-divine power repulsion, though."
The saintess spun a plausible tale without batting an eye. Mixing truth and lies worked best, after all. She'd only meant to dodge responsibility for damages, but coincidentally realized divine power had manifested in Kyle.
'Surely this is the Lord's grace as well.'
She resolved to milk this source well. Of course, Kyle would never catch on to the fabrication.
"Saint?"
Kyle fixated more on being called a saint than Flint's name.
'A saint is a superhuman who wields divine power, right?'
He suspected he'd misheard.
"Saintess? Even so, I'm the eldest son of Leonhardt. A noble with mana in my blood—how could I be a saint? I have no divine power."
At Kyle's perfectly reasonable rebuttal, the saintess just giggled and pointed a slender finger at his lower body—precisely his groin—with a bright smile.
Kyle lost himself in that innocent, radiant smile.
'If I could see that beautiful smile for life, I'd gladly live as her mad knight.'
A poignant romance bloomed in the man's heart. But the whisper from her cherry lips crushed his flimsy sentiment mercilessly.
"Feel it closely. Isn't a great miracle surely circulating there in your special place, brother?"
Kyle swallowed a trembling breath and focused sensation on his lower body. And recoiled in shock.
His heart pumped the cold, sharp aura unique to Leonhardt as usual... but between his legs, in the place healed by the saintess, an undeniable divine power coiled faintly, circulating.
Very subtly.
"Anyway, congratulations on becoming a saint, Brother Kyle!"
"A saint... me, a saint."
After days enduring the academy's resident priests, Lucius arrived.
Covered in blood and dirt as if from a brawl, in tattered cardinal robes, a three-way meeting began with Kyle and the saintess.
"Sister Elisicia. Is it true you've appointed a saint?"
The ever-innocent saintess and the fidgeting young master.
"Yes, it's true. Brother Kyle manifested divine power despite having mana."
"Is it true, Kyle von Leonhardt?"
At the unprecedented phenomenon, Lucius scowled and asked.
Kyle, recalling past torture, affirmed without meeting the cardinal's eyes.
"Yes. For now. Or whatever."
At Kyle's mumbling reply, Lucius's brow furrowed menacingly. Bloodshot eyes flashed with clear murderous intent and disgust.
"For now? What blasphemy from a mouth discussing the Lord's holy miracle. Where in your mana-bearing flesh has the Lord's sublime power deigned to dwell?"
Lucius growled low, fingering the torture tools at his waist. At the heretic-slaying intensity, Kyle paled and went mute.
He couldn't very well say "my crotch" himself.
Kyle clung to his last shred of shallow male pride. But as he clamped his mouth in shame, the room's sole mood-blind soul, Saintess Elisicia, approached lightly.
"Right here, Your Eminence!"
She pointed proudly at Kyle's center, proclaiming brightly as if unveiling a miracle.
"Brother Kyle's crotch is pulsing vigorously with divine power!"
"......"
"......"
The room's air froze icy in an instant. Lucius's lethal glare, ready to behead Kyle, lost direction and slowly dropped vertically to his lower body.
"Well now..."
Lucius's voice cracked in disbelief. Even he, the Holy See's mad dog who'd interrogated hundreds, thousands of heretics, had never imagined such a grotesque manifestation site for divine power.
"...Ha."
A hollow laugh escaped Lucius's lips. His fanatic, murderous gaze shifted to profound contempt and revulsion.
"I rushed here without even changing, at the saintess's appointment. And the miracle is... a man glowing from the groin."
"Urgh...! Just kill me...!"
Kyle buried his face in his hands and sobbed on the floor. Lucius's scornful stare tore at his soul worse than any physical torture in the inquisition chamber.
Lucius sneered coldly down at Kyle like trash.
"Simultaneous mana and divine power manifestation, nothing else unusual. Sister, why appoint him saint?"
"But... the chapel's wrecked... hehe."
At the saintess's sheepish head-scratch and laugh, Lucius grasped the full story instantly.
'Indeed. Some accident demolished the chapel, and to cover the disaster, using Leonhardt's heir as a flashy 'saint' shield.'
Then his sharp gaze halted at the saintess's waist.
'That...'
Over her pure white saintess robes hung an incongruous black metal lump.
A gun. Similar to Flint's revolver, but matte black, not silver.
Lucius's brow twitched faintly.
'He preached the new gospel to the saintess before me?'
His bloodshot eyes bored into her waist. Fate decreed his blood-soaked life drawn to her purity in romance. But now, jealousy near madness gripped him—not from love, but petty envy of her claiming the black gun first.
'Just watch. I'll soon wield an overwhelming, supreme weapon that puny thing can't touch.'
Lucius itched to sign with Flint ASAP and flaunt the shotgun before her.
* * *
The contract with Lucius progressed at a dizzyingly swift pace. The zealot's drive far exceeded my expectations, and I gladly pocketed the thick advance he thrust at me like hot potato.
Even when I slipped in an unrelated odd request, he nodded without a second's hesitation. He must crave my weapons badly.
That night, backed by the solid patron of the Holy See, I sat at my desk, pincers in hand, experimenting late into the night on mana stone powder and gunpowder ratios for shotgun shells.
Tsssk—! Pfft!
Acrid smoke rose from the desk with sparks. Inducing mana stone ignition in a 1:100 powder mix, the wax-coated paper casing's side burst under pressure.
A revolver's single bullet could brute-force gunpowder; pushing one lead ball out sufficed. My dwarven-alloy revolver took no damage.
But the shotgun differed. Dozens of balls inside. Mana stone-mixed powder's abnormal expansion crushed and ricocheted them inside the barrel before exit, scratching it wildly. The gun became scrap.
"Haa... failure again."
I grimaced bitterly, prodding the charred shell remnants with pincers.
'Without a sturdier shell than paper, special ammo's a pipe dream.'
Then.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
A steady, light, ominously rhythmic knock.
"Friend, it's me. Sion."
A light, sly voice from beyond the door. The ever-smirking information guild heir. One reason only for visiting a commoner dorm late night.
Click—!
I grabbed the shotgun without answering.
"Friend, you're in there, right?"
Click—. ...Clack. Click. Clack. Cha-click.
Precise metal clicks chilled the quiet room.
"Flint. I know you're in there."
The smile vanished from his voice.
The shotgun and revolver were loaded. I slung the shotgun, gripped the revolver, held my breath, and focused on the presence beyond the door.
Soon, a short, dry sigh, then an icy voice pierced the door.
"Guess my constant grinning made me seem like a pushover."
Clunk. Clunkclunkclunkclunk—!!!!
The doorknob rattled madly as suffocating killing intent choked my throat.
"Why the hell did you lie?"