Gunmage-Chapter 203: Instruments of equality

"Listen up."

Lugh’s tone suddenly turned deep, cutting through the ambient noise with unexpected gravity. The casual air in the room shifted. Heads turned.

"This!"

He raised the revolver into the air. The metallic glint caught the dim lighting, its form gleaming with silent menace. He held it with reverence, like a priest presenting a relic.

"This is not just a gun. It is an item of great significance. An absolute revolutionary in its field. It does not discriminate between short and tall, big and small, young or old."

He paused, letting the weight of his words settle in the silence.

"It also does not discriminate between the magical and the mundane... bringing death equally to all."

A few murmurs passed among the gathered adolescents. Some shifted in place. Others listened, captivated. The silence afterward felt expectant, as though the very air was leaning forward.

"And that,"

He said, lowering the revolver slightly but keeping it visible,

"That is the most terrifying fact. Why, you ask?"

Lugh continued, voice steady but passionate—a rant born not from rehearsed thought, but spontaneous conviction.

Which is to say, even Lugh had no idea what points he would bring, he was simply making stuff up from the top of his head.

It was a talent he didn’t know he had, and once the specifics of his magic was considered, one that most likely did not even belong to him.

Still, he pressed on, unwavering.

"Let me explain why. It’s because you don’t have to be particularly skilled to wield it. Anyone who picks it up automatically becomes a harbinger of death, no matter how skilled the opponent might be."

Then came the kicker, sharp and cutting like a blade drawn across a stretched canvas.

"This means..."

His eyes scanned the faces before him,

"...the inexhaustible skill gap between humans and the longer-lived races has finally been bridged."

He glanced briefly at Jahira. Though her face was concealed beneath a shimmering purple Veil similar to Selaphiel’s, he could tell she was deeply contemplative.

Of course, they had no choice but to wear such concealing veils. Their elongated ears, marks of elven heritage, would immediately betray their identity in public otherwise.

Lugh let that moment hang, then drove his point home.

"As long as this weapon is readily available..."

He didn’t stop to catch his breath, letting the momentum of his own passion carry him forward.

"...tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions—of people automatically become killing machines.

They don’t need to be selectively bred over centuries to increase their mana proficiency.

They don’t need to cram advanced theories, master complex sigils, or awaken to some hidden bloodline. They only need to know one thing: aim forward—and shoot."

That seemed to have an effect, a big one. Both elves stirred at once, a flicker of alarm visible in their postures even if their faces remained hidden.

Lugh almost smirked. That wasn’t even his intended target audience. He had aimed to indoctrinate the younger generation—the future of Ophris.

But if the elves, whom he had mostly written off as unreachable, were shaken by his words, then today was a very lucky day. And it wasn’t even 7:00 a.m. yet.

His mission had been accomplished. All that remained now was the conclusion.

"It is a weapon that makes numbers meaningful,"

He paused thoughtfully, then added, more softly but with equal intensity:

"Simultaneously, it makes numbers meaningless."

Some eyebrows raised at that contradiction. A few whispered among themselves, clearly confused. Lugh noticed but didn’t clarify. Not yet.

He was talking, of course, about machine guns and artillery fire—the true horrors of modern warfare. But they weren’t ready for that discussion. Not yet.

You couldn’t explain trench warfare to people who had never even seen a repeating rifle.

First, you had to teach them to crawl. Then, and only then, could they walk.

The rifles were the crawl. Machine guns would be the sprint.

He looked at them—all of them. Some faces were curious, others dismissive. A few looked uneasy. He could practically see the ideological bedrock cracking beneath their feet. Good.

Then, a voice broke the silence.

"You’re bullshitting."

The words were sharp, insolent, and utterly dismissive. Lugh’s gaze snapped toward the speaker. A tall, lean young man—someone he hadn’t paid much attention to before.

The youth didn’t flinch. If anything, he seemed emboldened by the silence.

"There’s no way those weapons are as strong as you say they are. And to say they make our years of studies meaningless? That’s going too far."

A few others nodded in agreement. Muted voices murmured support. Lugh sighed.

Reaching the point where they wouldn’t question his words at all... that would be the hard part.

And perhaps there was some truth in their skepticism.

Magic was incredibly versatile. It could also be terrifyingly powerful—more than he liked to admit.

He had downplayed it intentionally. After all, to rebuild something new, you had to tear down the old. You couldn’t shake people from complacency with reason alone.

Sometimes, you had to use a sledgehammer.

But he knew—he knew—that while a single high-ranking mage could summon devastation akin to an artillery barrage...

There simply weren’t enough of them.

If he counted the total number of magicians in the entire Ophris Kingdom, being extremely generous, he might reach 3,000.

And even then, 80% of them weren’t strong enough to make any real difference in the heat of battle.

He glanced at his cousins. They were supposed to be the pinnacle of human magic potential—selectively bred with elven bloodlines, educated from childhood, and exposed to the best resources.

Yet he had no doubt. If a well-trained squad ftom the ashborn corps infiltrated—outnumbered even—they would slaughter every one of his cousins under direct fire.

Forget 3,000. Make it 10,000. An entire division. They still wouldn’t matter.

But!

That was only if they didn’t make use of firearms.

He turned back to the boy who had challenged him, slowly raising the revolver again.

"Not as strong as I say they are? Oh really?"

His tone was deathly calm.

Then, with deliberate precision, he pointed the weapon squarely at the youth’s chest.

"Would you like to test that theory?"

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