A Pistol Barges into Medieval Fantasy
In the modern world, a pistol was supposed to be the weak one—less punch than the other firearms. Even so, a single shot was more than enough to take a life.
Movies let a person eat a few rounds, dig the bullet out, stop the bleeding, and live. Reality, from what I had heard, killed you with shock or blood loss. The body had no shortage of vital points, either. It did not have to be the head or the heart. Hit the wrong place and you were more likely to die than not.
The talk was turning serious, so I pushed myself upright—and froze at once at the weight on my chest, heavier than it had any right to be. I looked down to see what it was. A mass of flesh large enough to make it undeniable that I had become a woman slid downward under gravity, and the spring in it had not gone anywhere. The blanket only just managed to stay draped over it.
Naked, in other words. I flinched for a second, but I had been shot. To get the bullets out and treat me, they would have had to strip the blood-soaked clothes, and if this place held nothing but nuns, they would not have done anything they should not.
So the questions about my body could wait. The problem now was a gun showing its face in a fantasy world, and it was a relief, at least, that Sister Victoria did not know what the thing was. If she had, it would have meant guns were already loose out there—and then this was not a splendid fantasy world where swords, magic, and adventure still drew breath.
Not that I intended to go adventuring. Dreaming of being reborn into fantasy and becoming some glorious hero was a delusion I had entertained as a child. Once I was an adult, a stable life turned out to be the best there was. Even that had been beyond my reach.
I was not thinking that firearms had no business appearing in a world like this, or that I had to save it. Still, if this gun were abused, plenty of people would die or be maimed without ever understanding why, and I was willing to offer a very small amount of help. Whether strangers I did not know lived or got hurt was not really my concern. I just did not want to watch a nun who had been kind to me land in trouble.
When I reached for the pistol, Sister Victoria handed it over without a moment's hesitation.
In case it was only a finely made replica, I racked the slide, ejected the round from the chamber, and pressed the catch to drop the magazine. I had not tried the trigger, so I could not be sure of the action, but the ammunition, at least, was all there. And if this was what had made me spout blood like a fountain, then it was no model. It was a real pistol.
"You're telling me I was hit with this and lived? How?"
They had said there was bleeding all over my body. It had not been a single shot. The owner of this body probably had not known what a gun could do, either, and had caught every round as the man trying to kidnap the child pulled the trigger. People called pistols weak only by comparison with a rifle—poorer accuracy, less power. Take one at point-blank range and accuracy hardly mattered. Aim in the general direction and missing was the harder part.
"That is correct. The Holy Knight brothers and sisters who responded said you suffered penetrating wounds in five places. They told me they began the healing the moment they saw the injuries, and only barely saved your life. ...I am terribly sorry to show you the weapon that wounded you, Sister Selenia. The sight of it alone must be dreadful."
"No, I'm all right. It doesn't bother me."
Sister Victoria seemed to feel guilty merely for showing me the pistol. She was too good a person. She had not done it, and I was not even the one who had been shot, and still she was like that. I was the one turning awkward.
Of course, Sister Victoria had no way of knowing I did not remember being shot, or that I was not this body's owner. For all I knew, the owner had died the instant the bullets hit, and I—dead from washing painkillers down with liquor—had happened to fall into the body afterward.
"For now, pull this trigger and an arrow comes out. Like a crossbow. Oh, a crossbow is—"
"Sister Selenia. I may have grown up in the cathedral of Nals from childhood, but I am not ignorant of a hunter's weapons. In any case, you mean it works on the same principle as a crossbow. And yet it is smaller, and more powerful. It has received no god's blessing, and it uses neither mana nor a demon's sorcery."
"Yes. Well. Something like that."
So this world had crossbows after all. That figured—otherwise the word would not have left my mouth. The word for a gun, by contrast, would not come. If I had to say it, I would have to use Korean.
This much seemed safe to give her. I could claim I had watched carefully in the middle of the fight. The trouble was everything past that. Was it all right to tell her ammunition existed, or to go into the pistol's finer points? I could not have explained it properly anyway. I did not even know this pistol's name. I knew the type and nothing else, and I did not know how to take it apart. A little knowledge had stuck from the occasional tactical bit in a YouTube video or a movie. I had not exactly been a military enthusiast.
"It came apart a moment ago. If there's something shaped just like that piece, then if my guess is right, that's what does the arrow's job. You'd probably better collect every one of them and either destroy them or lock them away."
That ought to be enough. Even someone who did not know what a pistol was could have guessed that far. Just in case, I handed the pistol back to Sister Victoria with the safety locked. If someone figured out how to take it off and fired anyway, there was nothing to be done. I had done my part.
Once I left this sickroom, all that would remain was finding decent work and making a living. I had no wish to spend my life as a cleric. Until then, I would probably learn what I needed at the cathedral and get out. Becoming a woman before I had managed to date a single girlfriend was a shock. There was nothing for it but to adapt.
"Now that you mention it... I believe I saw something of the sort on the kidnapper's corpse. I will confirm it and report to the lord and the Holy See."
The lord. The Holy See. Words that already sounded thoroughly medieval fantasy, and hope and worry started crossing each other again. The religions and ruling classes of medieval fantasy never seemed to land anywhere but the extremes, did they? Corrupt, or upright. No middle. None.
"The healing should have restored your wounds entirely, but I believe it best that you rest well in the sickroom today. That weapon struck you down with a sound like thunder and no warning whatsoever. There may be side effects we cannot detect. I will take my leave. Rest well."
"Yes. Thank you for your consideration."
Rest well in the sickroom today. That meant there was work I was expected to do as a nun. I had seen it coming, but the news that freeloading was off the table still left disappointment in the lead.
So I meant to use the gap while Sister Victoria was gone. Alone for a while, I was about to slip a hand under the blanket and take stock of the body I had entered—when someone knocked on the open door, thump, thump, and a hulking man came straight in.
A carving shaped like the numeral seven hung at his neck like a rosary, and the same mark was worked into his clothes here and there, ornamental and hard to miss. He was a man, though, so the clothes were not as indecent as what the nuns wore. An ordinary monk's habit. The grim face and the bald head only made him look more like a monk.
Did this world use Arabic numerals too? And had they given the number seven some favorable meaning? Curious. Maybe the custom had been spread by people crossing back and forth between here and reality.
"Are you Sister Selenia?"
The monk asked it bluntly. Everyone said this body's name was Selenia, so it had to be. I nodded.
"Yes, I am."
"My regrets that you were hurt in yesterday's incident. And my respect for the nobility of saving a child. I am Hamil. I serve as an Inquisitor of Nals."
"Hello, Brother Hamil."
They called a woman sister, so brother was the word for him. More than that, the title Inquisitor snapped me awake. They were inquisitors, after all. I did not know the details, but I could not imagine an Inquisitor pleased to learn another soul had moved into this body. Any of them, once they knew, would probably begin an exorcism on the spot. If that failed, they might simply burn me. I had only just been given a second life. Getting found out would be a problem. Tense with that thought, I swallowed.
"I am told you know a great deal about guns. How much do you know?"
And then the Inquisitor began to suspect me. A deadpan face and a courteous tone might have made it sound like nothing but a question. From where I sat—already being needled, and now outright jabbed—it was an interrogation. I had my wits about me, and that was the only reason I did not slip.
"A gun? I'm not sure what you mean.... Do you mean the weapon Sister Victoria brought earlier?"
If I had simply denied it, the next demand would have been how I knew what a gun was. Then it would have been straight to a torture chamber, so the water could supply the answer. They would burn me as an evil spirit that had entered this body. Medieval fantasy. In a world like this, the stake is standard.
"That is correct. You knew so much that I brought this as well, on the chance you might know it too."
I had no intention of falling for a leading interrogation. With that fixed in mind, I watched whatever was coming out of Hamil's sleeve. It was coming off his arm, so however large it was, a fist at most. Another pistol, surely. Whatever it turned out to be, the moment it appeared I would take it under the excuse of looking it over and snap the safety on. Then I would say I did not really know and hand it back.
I had been thinking that loosely. What emerged from Hamil's sleeve made me swallow again.
A gun crossing over would have been enough. Why did a hand grenade have to come with it?