Chapter 148: The Weapon That Changed The World

Luca’s mind raced through possibilities at lightning speed.

Was it loaded? How had it gotten here? How in the world did she open the box when it was supposed to be locked?

Was the safety on? Could he get to her before—

“Fefe…”

He said, his voice suddenly calm—too calm, the kind of calm that came from sheer survival instinct.

“Fefe, sweetheart. I need you to do exactly what I say, okay?”

Fefe blinked up at him, confused by all the adults on the ground.

“Okay, Hero. But my bow is broken. Can you fix it?”

“I can fix it.” Luca said, taking a slow, careful step toward her. “I can definitely fix it. But first, I need you to very, very gently put it down on the ground.”

“Can you do that for me?”

Fefe looked down at the heavy thing in her arms.

“But it’s really heavy…”

“I know it is. You’re so strong for carrying it all this way. But now you can put it down, okay? Right there on the ground. Very slowly.”

Fefe nodded and Luca let out a long, shaky breath as she began to loosen their grip on the gun.

The barrel dipped toward the ground, and he felt the tension in his shoulders finally begin to ease.

’Thank the gods.’ He thought. ’Just a few more inches and—’

“BUT HERO!”

Fefe’s arms tightened again, and she lifted the gun back up.

Luca’s heart stopped.

“If I put it on the ground, it’ll get dirty!” Fefe’s lower lip protruded in a pout. “This is such a new bow! My mother told me to never make new things dirty!”

The barrel swung wildly as she gestured, and Luca watched in frozen horror as it swept across the crowd—passing over a group of elves who were still lying on the ground, completely unaware of what was swinging their way.

“IT’S OKAY!”

Luca’s voice came out louder than intended, high and strained in a way he’d never heard from himself before.

“It’s okay, sweetheart! It’s totally fine if it gets dirty! We can clean it! We can definitely clean it!”

Fefe blinked at him.

“Just—just don’t point it at anyone, okay?” He forced his voice to calm, to soften. “That’s the most important thing. Don’t point it at anyone else and put it down.”

“Can you do that for me?”

Fefe looked down at the gun in her arms, then back at Luca. She nodded solemnly.

“Okay, Hero.”

Slowly, carefully, she bent her knees and lowered the gun to the ground.

The moment she did, Luca did not hesitate.

He quickly went forward and grabbed onto the gun, immediately pulling the barrel up to inspect it.

He checked inside—

And was immediately relieved to see that there were no bullets inside.

The safety was also on.

“Thank God.” He whispered, his forehead dropping toward the ground. “Thank God she didn’t shoot anybody…”

“…I swear everyone in this village is trying to kill each other with a arrow or bullet.”

The words tumbled out in a shaky stream, half prayer, half desperate relief.

Every elf in the village was alive. No one had been hurt. No one had even known how close they’d come to—

He stopped that thought before it could finish and instead he turned his attention back to the immediate problem.

He needed to understand how this had happened.

“Hey, Fefe?” He kept his voice gentle. “Can you tell me how you found this? This…bow?”

Fefe nodded enthusiastically.

“It was just there, Hero!”

She pointed toward the stack of cases, specifically at one that had been knocked slightly askew.

“I was looking for a bow for myself, and all the small ones were gone, and I was so sad, but then I saw this little box behind the others!”

“It was even smaller than the rest, so I thought it must be a bow for someone really little like me!”

She beamed at her own cleverness.

“So I opened it, and this was inside! But it didn’t have a string, so I thought it was broken, and I wanted you to fix it!”

Hearing this, Luca’s blood ran cold again, but for a different reason.

“Wait.” He held up a hand. “You’re saying it wasn’t locked? The box, I mean. It should have been locked. Were you able to just open it?”

Fefe tilted her head, confused by the question.

“Locked? No, Hero, it wasn’t locked. I just opened it like all the others. The latches popped right open!”

For a moment, Luca didn’t move.

Then something shifted in his expression.

His face tightened. His jaw clenched. His eyes, usually so warm and kind, hardened into something that made the nearby elves instinctively lean away.

“Those idiots.” He muttered, low and vicious. “Those fucking idiots.”

Lulu, still lying on the ground nearby, blinked up at him.

“Uh…Luca?”

“I TOLD them.” Luca continued, seemingly unaware he was speaking aloud. “I told them so many times. Lock the cases. Lock the damn gun cases.”

“And those stupid, incompetent, brainless fucking—”

He cut himself off, taking a deep breath, running a hand through his hair.

“This…” He said through gritted teeth. “..is exactly why you don’t trust anyone else with important tasks. This is exactly why you don’t let a mongrel soldier trying to sell guns off his base.”

Just then, Nyx raised her hand from where she was still lying on the ground.

“Hero.” She called out, her tone mildly annoyed. “Can we get up already? This is a new dress I got, and I don’t want it to get dirty from lying down like this.”

“Yeah, Luca!” Lulu also chimed in. I feel something wriggling up my butt right now, and I think it’s a spider or something! Can we get up already before these creepy crawlers get all over me?!”

Luca blinked, coming back to himself. He looked around at the sea of elves still pressed against the ground, confused and waiting.

“Right. Yes. Get up, everyone. Problem’s sorted. No more danger.”

A collective sigh of relief swept through the clearing as elves slowly picked themselves up, brushing dirt and grass from their clothes, smoothing wrinkled fabrics, checking for injuries that didn’t exist.

Those who had been watching from the trees climbed back onto their platforms.

But confusion still hung heavy in the air.

Something had clearly happened.

Something that had made their unshakeable hero scream like the world was ending and throw himself to the ground in terror.

But now, looking around, nothing seemed different.

No enemies. No monsters. No obvious threat.

Just Luca, holding some small black thing, and a little girl wandering back toward her friends.

“Luca?”

Luna, stepped forward. Her brow was furrowed with genuine concern.

“What…What just happened?”

“One moment you were happy, celebrating with everyone, and the next you were screaming at us to get down like we were under attack. I thought—”

She swallowed.

“I thought something was coming for us. An enemy or something.”

Lulu, having confirmed that no spider had actually invaded her clothing, crossed her arms and nodded vigorously.

“Yeah! And you looked at Fefe like she was the most terrifying thing in the world! She’s literally a baby, Luca. A tiny, harmless baby. And you looked scared of her.”

She turned to the little girl, hands on her hips.

“Hey, Fefe! Did you do something to Luca? Did you bully him or something?”

Fefe’s eyes went wide with horror.

“No! No no no, I didn’t! I would never bully anyone! I’m a good girl! Mama, tell her I’m a good girl!”

Her mother hugged her tighter and shot Lulu a look that could curdle milk.

Luca held up his free hand, finally regaining his composure.

“Alright, alright, everyone calm down. Don’t blame Fefe.”

He walked toward the center of the clearing, the gun held carefully at his side, barrel pointed safely at the ground.

“Fefe didn’t do anything wrong. She was being a curious little girl, which is exactly what she should be.”

“If anyone did something wrong, it’s the absolute morons back in my world who can’t follow simple instructions.”

He stopped in the middle of the open space, where everyone could see him.

“And as for why I was scared…It wasn’t because of Fefe. After all, who in any world could be scared of that adorable face?”

Fefe, still in her mother’s arms, blushed furiously and hid her face.

“Instead…it was because of this.”

He held the gun higher, turning it so the afternoon sun glinted off its black surfaces.

The elves squinted, trying to make sense of what they were seeing.

“What is that thing?” Someone asked.

“It’s so small…”

“And weird-looking…”

“Is it some kind of bow?” Another elf ventured. “It has to be a bow, right? Why else would the Hero have it?”

“Well if it is a bow, it’s the ugliest one yet.

Lulu, wrinkled her nose.

“Even uglier than the compound bow was. I mean look at it! It’s all stubby and awkward-looking!”

Several elves nodded in agreement.

But Leona, standing apart from the crowd with her arms crossed, was studying the object with sharp, observant eyes.

“No.” She said quietly. “I don’t think it’s a bow.”

Everyone turned to look at her.

“There’s no way you could shoot an arrow through that. It’s completely the wrong shape. But…”

She frowned.

“The way Luca reacted…the way he was so scared, so urgent…that wasn’t about something harmless.”

She met Luca’s eyes.

“That was the reaction of someone who thought something terrible was about to happen. Which means that thing in your hand…”

“…it’s dangerous. More dangerous than a bow.”

Hearing this keen observation, Luca’s face broke into a genuine smile.

“Exactly right, Leona.” He nodded at her with respect. “This is exactly why you’re the matriarch of this village. You pick up things that others don’t”

Leona blinked, caught off guard by the praise.

A faint flush crept up her cheeks, and she looked away quickly, pretending to examine the gun with intense interest.

Luca then turned back to the crowd, holding the gun high as he announced,

“Leona’s right. This isn’t a bow at all. In fact, you could call this the next evolution of the bow—what came after it, what replaced it entirely in my world.”

He paused, letting the anticipation build.

“This is a gun.”

The word hung in the air, unfamiliar and strange.

“A…gun?” Luna repeated.

“Yes.” Luca’s voice grew serious. “And it’s much more dangerous than any bow could ever be.”

He looked around at the gathered elves, at their curious but uncomprehending faces, and a dark smile played at the corner of his lips.

“In fact…” He said, his voice dropping to something almost intimate. “…this little thing right here?”

“In less than ten seconds, it could have killed every single person in this clearing.”

The effect was immediate.

Every elf took a collective step backward, their eyes widening with sudden fear.

Mothers grabbed their children.

Warriors tensed, reaching for weapons that weren’t there.

Even Nyx straightened up, her playful expression fading into something more alert.

“Ten seconds?” Someone breathed.

“Kill all of us?”

“But it’s so small!”

“Is it a bomb?” An elf near the front asked, her voice high with fear. “Is it something that explodes?”

Luca shook his head. “Not a bomb.”

“Poison?” Another ventured. “Some kind of mass poison that could kill everyone?”

“No, not poison either.”

An older elf, one who remembered the days of mana, spoke up hesitantly.

“Is it…Is it an artifact? Something with mana inside that could annihilate us in an instant?”

Luca shook his head again.

“No. Nothing like that.”

The elves exchanged confused glances.

Luna frowned, trying to piece it together.

“So…what you’re saying is, it doesn’t explode, it doesn’t poison people, and it doesn’t use mana to destroy things?”

“Correct.” Luca said.

A pause.

Then—

“OH, thank the gods!”

“I was so scared for a second!”

“Me too! I thought it was something really terrible!”

“With how much you were reacting, I thought we were all going to die!”

The tension shattered as elves began to laugh and relax, patting their chests in relief.

“Honestly, Hero, you had us going there!”

“I was actually sweating!”

“But now that you say that, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.”

Luca stared at them, utterly dumbfounded.

“Wait, wait, wait.” He held up his free hand. “Hold on. Did you all just…decide it’s not dangerous? Based on nothing?”

“Come on, Hero.” One elf shrugged. “Usually when we’re scared of something, it’s bombs or poison or artifacts. You said it’s none of those things. So how bad could it really be?”

“Yeah! It’s so tiny!”

“And kind of stubby-looking. Something that small couldn’t possibly do much damage.”

“You’re probably just exaggerating, Hero. It can’t be that bad.”

Luca’s eye twitched.

For a moment, he simply stared at them—at their casual dismissal, their easy laughter, their complete and total failure to understand what he was holding.

Then he started to chuckle.

It was a low sound at first, almost incredulous. But it grew, building into something almost manic.

“You know…” He said, wiping at his eye. “…a part of me really wants to stand here and lecture you.”

“To explain the history of firearms. To tell you about how guns changed my world, how they became the most widespread, most lethal weapons in human history.”

“To give you a whole speech about ballistics and stopping power and rate of fire.”

He paused, looking around at their still-uncomprehending faces.

“But you know what? I’m not going to do that.”

He took a step forward, and something in his demeanor shifted. The laughter faded from his eyes, replaced by something playful and devilish.

“Instead, I’m going to show you.”

He held the gun up where everyone could see.

“I’m going to show you exactly how dangerous this little thing can be.”

“I’m going to show you how a single gun, this gun right here, wielded by a single person, could change this entire village’s fate in a matter of seconds.”

He turned and walked toward the far end of the clearing, toward the targets they’d been using earlier.

The elves watched him go, a mixture of curiosity and unease rippling through the crowd.

What was he about to do?

What were they about to witness?

Was he really going to prove to them how that weird-looking thing in his hand was as dangerous as he made it seem?

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