第28章 开枪

Yes, a gun.

The design of the weapon looked different from the ones in typical police dramas; instead, it resembled the sidearms carried by cowboys in old Westerns. The iron-colored frame was crudely and simply crafted, yet it still exuded that unique, oppressive aura of death inherent to firearms.

Benjamin had never even seen a real gun, let alone had one pointed at him.

Before this, his only connection to guns was a plastic toy pistol his parents had bought him after he pestered them in elementary school. It went "piu-piu-piu" whenever he pulled the trigger, completely useless. During his university military training, he was told they would get to shoot, but for some reason, that activity was canceled.

After transmigrating to this world, he had assumed he would have no further connection to guns in this life. The system hadn't mentioned the word "gun" when introducing the background, and he had assumed that under the influence of divine arts and magic, the technology tree of this world hadn't unlocked that particular skill.

Yet, at this very moment, an emotionally unstable minor was holding a gun pointed directly at his forehead.

Was this another time the system had screwed him over?

Benjamin never imagined that a so-called war game would devolve into such a situation. He also couldn't have predicted that less than ten days after escaping Michelle, he would once again be plunged into a dire, life-threatening situation.

And for such an absurd reason, no less.

"Don't get excited. We won't come any closer. Put the gun away; we have no intention of doing anything to you." Benjamin stopped in his tracks and spread his hands to show he meant no harm.

What else could he do? If he had Grant's physical prowess, he would have rushed forward like an expert in a crime thriller and disarmed Dick before he could react. Unfortunately, he didn't, and as for Grant?

Grant wore a look of shock and helplessness, his movements frozen.

Still too green...

Therefore, to prevent the situation from deteriorating further and out of a bit of fear from facing a firearm for the first time, Benjamin chose to show weakness. He performed the series of actions above toward Dick, attempting to soothe him to prevent him from doing something irreversible in a moment of impulse.

"You liar! I—I won't believe you!" Dick, however, had no intention of moving the muzzle away.

"You don't have to believe me, but you need to think about yourself." Benjamin didn't lose heart; he felt as if he had transformed into a professional negotiator, stabilizing the perpetrator's emotions at the scene. "Do you really want to pull that trigger? Think clearly about the consequences if you do. Will the people from The Church just turn a blind eye? What about your future in aristocratic circles? And your family—what will happen to them? You will destroy the entire Fool Family."

While he tried to reason with Dick, he couldn't help but get distracted, thinking that watching so many TV dramas actually had its benefits. When faced with an emergency, mimicking the people on screen seemed to be working out quite well.

However, the half-baked negotiation skills he had learned from TVB didn't seem to be very effective.

"No, that won't happen! As long as you obediently let me smash you once, nothing will happen! You aren't allowed to dodge! If you dare to dodge, I will... I will pull the trigger!" As he spoke, the hand Dick used to hold the chamber pot began to twitch restlessly again.

Damn it...

Just how deep was this obsession?

At this moment, Benjamin felt no sympathy for Dick at all. He felt that Dick was a lunatic who had nothing on his mind but smashing people with a chamber pot.

How could one deal with a lunatic?

Just as they were deadlocked and the atmosphere grew increasingly tense, Benjamin suddenly felt a surge of intense magical fluctuation. The fluctuation was right beside them, and it was so strong that even Dick, a mere ordinary person, noticed it.

Thus, even in such a situation, they couldn't help but look toward the source of the fluctuation.

They saw a ball of Holy Light slowly gathering in Grant's hand.

"Grant! Do you dare to break the rules of The Church?" Seeing this, Dick immediately shouted, "If you dare to use divine arts, the Inquisition will lock you away for life!"

Grant froze upon hearing this. He seemed to think of something, and a look of hesitation appeared on his face.

Dick was overjoyed. As if he had suddenly had a breakthrough, he continued, "Why are you helping him? He's just a piece of trash! You don't need to ruin your own future to help him. Besides, besides, I'm not really trying to kill him; I just want to return the humiliation he caused me, exactly as it was! This matter has nothing to do with you at all!"

The power of hatred was far stronger than imagined; it was enough to drive an emotionally unstable teenager to speak with such clear logic.

Grant was clearly persuaded. After all, blood ties could not withstand the harshness of reality. It seemed he, too, began to think that letting Benjamin get hit once wasn't such a big deal. In the end, he was just a teenager, and his will was not firm.

After repeated hesitation, he finally lowered his head, and the dazzling Holy Light in his hand began to dissipate.

He backed down.

Yes, in the face of death, getting hit by a chamber pot didn't seem like such a big deal after all.

However...

Just then!

Benjamin, who had been showing weakness and staying silent, suddenly ran toward Dick. Catching him off guard, he flew into a kick, striking the hand Dick was using to hold the chamber pot. The pot wasn't light, and Dick wasn't holding it very steadily. As a result, the pot was kicked away, crashing into the wall behind them and spilling its contents everywhere.

After the flying kick, Benjamin lost his balance and was about to fall. However, using the momentum of his body, he decisively lunged at Dick, grabbing at the hand holding the gun with both of his own.

"Hand over the gun!" he shouted viciously.

Benjamin didn't want to become a "shit-covered man," nor did he want to get his head blown off by a bullet.

So, he chose to gamble!

Only then did Dick react, trying to dodge. In the panic, the two of them fell to the ground together, wrestling in a heap. Benjamin desperately tried to snatch the gun from Dick, while Dick fought back, half out of anger and half out of instinct. Unfortunately, Benjamin's physical fitness wasn't great; although he had seized the initiative, he didn't succeed in grabbing the weapon immediately.

The two remained deadlocked, and the scene was chaotic.

"You guys don't... I..." Grant had already dissipated the divine arts in his hands. Watching the two of them fighting, he wanted to intervene but didn't know how to start. Even approaching them made him hesitate, so he could only let them continue to struggle.

Suddenly, a gunshot rang out.

Bang!

The two of them stopped their wrestling simultaneously.

A look of pain suddenly appeared on Benjamin's face. He pushed Dick away, stood up unsteadily, and then collapsed again, clutching his stomach.

Dick also stood up, his face full of terror, watching Benjamin rolling on the ground in agony. He froze for a moment, then suddenly threw the gun in his hand far away as if it were a red-hot iron, looking at Grant beside him in a panic.

"I—I didn't mean to pull the trigger... No, he was the one who lunged at me, I, I..."

Grant was also stunned by the sudden turn of events. He looked at Benjamin, who was writhing in pain on the ground, and didn't know what to do.

Before long, the other "corpses" in the castle were attracted by the gunshot. Seeing this absurd and horrifying scene, they couldn't help but be frightened out of their wits.

Only a few of the more level-headed young nobles shouted, "Go find the patrol!" and ran out of the castle to seek help. Dick saw these people and showed an intention to stop them, but after hesitating, he ultimately did nothing.

He looked at Benjamin on the ground, then at the gun he had thrown far away, wearing an expression of despair and regret.

The Church's patrol arrived at the scene quickly. They took off their helmets, looked at everything before them, and frowned.

"What happened?" the lead knight asked.

"I—I really didn't mean it. It was all him... he lunged at me himself, and I couldn't help it..." Dick rushed to the feet of the patrol, explaining in a panic.

The lead knight frowned and said, "Stop talking for a moment. Young Master Grant, can you explain what exactly happened?"

Dick froze, then turned to look at Grant behind him, a deeper sense of despair suddenly welling up in his eyes. He stood up, took a few steps back, and slumped to the ground again, as if his soul had been drained, his entire life turning gray.

Grant also began to explain haltingly, and everything he described was naturally on Benjamin's side, shifting all the blame onto Dick. Dick, overwhelmed by despair, forgot to use the fact that Grant had intended to use divine arts as leverage to stop him.

"Young Master Grant, please rest assured, we will handle this matter," the lead knight said after hearing Grant's account.

"Benjamin... will he die?" Grant hesitated again and asked this question.

His expression was filled with guilt. To the knights, he appeared to be feeling powerless for not being able to prevent all this. Only the three people who were actually present knew that he felt guilty because he had chosen to stand by and watch due to his momentary cowardice.

Perhaps in the adult world, this was nothing; it could even be called rational and correct. But for a pure, hot-blooded youth, this was a betrayal.

Grant had betrayed his own beliefs.

"Don't worry, we will heal him," the lead knight replied with a slight smile toward Grant.

"May the gods protect you," Grant said after a moment of silence.

He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

Just like that, the whole matter was quickly settled. After hearing Grant's account, the patrol took away Benjamin, Dick, and the gun from the distance.

No one knew what Dick would face.

However, at this moment, Benjamin, the protagonist of the entire event, was in so much pain he was about to lose consciousness. He had long since cast everything before him to the back of his mind. Dick, the gunshot, the patrol...

Only one name remained in his mind:

Michelle.

Fuck Michelle!

If Dick and Grant had been careful enough, they would have discovered that Benjamin hadn't actually been shot. Although he was clutching his stomach, there was no blood seeping out. Benjamin didn't look like someone who had been shot; he looked more like someone suffering from a sudden illness or someone who had been cursed.

In a sense, Benjamin was indeed cursed.

The curse Michelle had planted on him had finally experienced its first activation.