"Its current whereabouts are unknown. It's supposed to be a pistol, and its strongest characteristic is that it's 'unrecordable'."
Hearing Papa Oliver's description, the middle-aged man looked up with suspicion. He had been slowly stirring the liquid in his cup with a spoon, but now he stopped. He pushed the cup aside and clasped his hands on the table.
"Are you in some kind of trouble?"
He clicked his tongue before asking.
"Just answer my question."
Papa Oliver didn't want any complications.
The man replied slowly, his tone tinged with reluctance:
"I've seen some records. You're lucky. If Konio was on duty here today instead of me, it would probably take a while to figure this all out. There does seem to be a black pistol... Gods, I don't even know what the thing looks like. People simply can't remember it. The serial number... hmm, let me think..."
In the end, the middle-aged man could only shrug.
Ordinarily, the man before them shouldn't have been able to remember any information about the gun either. But he was a believer in the God of Firearms, and the power derived from his deity and his own abilities allowed him to be exempt from some of its effects.
Even so, his description of the strange pistol was vague and fragmented:
"It's not an inanimate object. It's... alive. I hope you understand what I mean by that."
The middle-aged man said the words himself, yet a look of confusion lingered on his face.
"I can't recall the pistol's number, its name, or anything like that. It's possible no one can. But I can still remember a few things about its origin."
He raised a hand to rub his temples, looking like he was developing a headache:
"It was around the 13th Epoch? Or was it the 14th? Apologies, I'm not certain on that point. In any case, a massive ancient ruin on the Karaska Plains in the heart of the continent was exposed by an earthquake. A group of daring ancient Enchanters went in to search for treasure, but only four made it out. One of them was a follower of the great being I believe in, the God of Firearms. Two of the others were believers in the God of Corpses and Sacrifices and the God of Minerals and Cave Dwellers..."
"Wait, what about the fourth person?"
"Sorry, I don't remember."
The middle-aged man shook his head, and Jenkins noticed his face had grown a little pale.
"We have no way of knowing what happened underground, but what we do know is that the only thing they took from the ruins was that unrecordable pistol. After leaving the site, my fellow believer was tormented by headaches and nightmares for years. He suffered for the rest of his life before finally taking his own at the age of thirty-two. His last words warned us that the gun and the bullets inside it are alive. If possible, we must destroy them by any means necessary, even at the cost of our entire church."
The first part of the story had been normal enough, but the final sentence was far beyond what the listeners had expected. Jenkins and Papa Oliver exchanged a glance, and the older man gave Jenkins a slight nod, signaling him to ask the next question.
"So in all these years, you've never taken any action?"
The middle-aged man slowly shook his head. "But you see, people always forget about it. I imagine there are fewer than twenty people, including myself, who still remember this. But even for me, I only remember that such a thing exists every few years."
"Do you have any theories about what it is?"
"We do. After all, it's the 18th Epoch now. We were bound to learn something."
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"One bold theory is that the ruin was actually the part of some massive seal that manifested in the material world. And what those daring ancient ones brought out was the terrifying creature that had been sealed within. I know you may not believe it, but it's highly likely that... the seal on the pistol must not have been completely broken, which is why it hasn't caused a major disaster yet. But as time goes on, that thing's power is growing stronger."
He paused and looked at Papa Oliver.
"Papa Oliver, I can't be sure that the trouble you've run into is this thing, but if you've truly had the misfortune of encountering it, please, do not try to handle it alone. In my opinion, only the power of a god might be able to..."
His voice grew quieter and quieter, his eyelids slowly drooping. Before he could finish his sentence, he slumped forward onto the table.
Jenkins immediately stood up to check on him, discovering that the gentleman was simply asleep.
Jenkins asked for Papa Oliver's opinion.
Papa Oliver shook his head, his voice surprisingly hoarse.
"It's amazing he could provide that much information at all. Let's go. There might still be some clues at the antique shop. I should have kept that gun in a box. Maybe..."
They closed the door on their way out. Inside, the middle-aged man didn't wake up for another half an hour. He let out a pained groan, his head throbbing, then noticed the teacups left by Jenkins and Papa Oliver.
"Damn it, I fell asleep. That was... Papa Oliver. Papa Oliver and his apprentice were just here."
He stood up to clear away the cups, planning to go back to rest for a while before dawn, but he immediately noticed another problem:
"Huh? Why did Papa Oliver come to see me?"
For the moment, the trail had gone cold. Inspired by their earlier conversation, Papa Oliver decided to write a report for the church using a different approach—not mentioning the gun, but mentioning only that an unrecordable item had gone missing.
After leaving the Oil Ink Mister Club, the sky was already beginning to lighten. Jenkins didn't go home, instead sleeping for a while at Pops Antique Shop. He woke up at ten in the morning to find Chocolate lounging boredly on a nearby table, batting at the Life Pearl Jenkins had left for it before he went to sleep.
Papa Oliver didn't seem to have slept at all. When Jenkins came down from the second floor, he was reading the newspaper. He had already written the report and told Jenkins to deliver it to the church during his lunch break.
Papa Oliver handed the brown file bag to Jenkins.
It was exactly as he'd expected, completely unsurprising. Papa Oliver's report made no mention of anything they had heard at the Oil Ink Mister Club that night. As Jenkins stared, Papa Oliver, thinking something was wrong, took it back to check it over, completely oblivious to the discrepancy.