The Academy’s Weapon Replicator - Chapter 103

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Academy Weapon Replicator Episode 103
Chapter 31: Rumor (Part 1)
I found myself in a desperate crisis.
Whether Pascal had picked up some absurd rumor from somewhere, or had conjured up some strange idea on his own, I couldn’t say.
“Sir, please. I can’t use Aura. Look at the expressions on these students’ faces.”
At my earnest words, every student watching nodded in unison. For now, they were my most reliable allies.
“Aha-ha.”
Pascal laughed. It was a remarkably hollow sound.
Then he fixed me with a steady gaze and drew his mouth into a thin smile.
“You’re lying.”
There was something discordant about that statement—no, familiar. Pascal’s manner and tone just now reminded me of something I’d seen before.
Who was it again?
“Then here I go!”
Pascal announced it as cheerfully as if declaring the start of a game.
And then an eerie Aura-blade grazed across my face.
‘This mad teacher!’
I drew out Nil Jack’s Short Sword. A real one, of course.
Clang! Crash!
My blade and Pascal’s Aura collided repeatedly. The metallic ring echoed sharply.
“Wow! You’ve got a fine blade there, Frontdier!”
Pascal spoke as casually as ever. Meanwhile, my spine prickled from just one exchange.
This short sword, forged from Biphastrong, was superior in durability and hardness to ordinary weapons. Moreover, thanks to the Eternal Precognition property, the blade itself never deteriorated.
However, if it took damage beyond its limits, it could shatter completely.
Until that breaking point, the blade always performed at full capacity—but once that threshold was crossed, it would be utterly destroyed.
To use a game analogy: a blade with 100 durability maintains identical performance all the way down to 1 durability, but once broken, it’s done.
‘What is this teacher even overestimating about me?!’
Pascal’s attacks held no killing intent. Only playfulness.
Each strike was designed to pressure me into drawing out my Aura and responding, keeping me in constant difficulty.
Like a frog that happens to be hit by a stone someone threw for fun and dies anyway.
I was, quite terrifyingly, that frog.
‘Urgh!’
Craaash!
The short sword trembled as it met the Aura. It was fortunate that I’d grown fairly accustomed to combat through training with Artzie.
But this teacher seemed to lack any sense of restraint, and if I didn’t respond properly, it really did look like I’d end up dead.
“Come now! Why don’t you draw it out! Drop the act, Frontdier!”
Twang!
“……!”
Pascal forcibly wedged his Aura inward, knocking my blade aside.
My arm swung outward, and my chest opened up. Seizing that opening, Pascal’s Aura shot forward in a merciless, straight line.
—Damn it all.
Weaving
Grade – Unique
Nil Jack’s Short Sword
Twaaang-!
I pulled another short sword from Weaving with my other hand and parried Pascal’s Aura with a deflection technique.
At that sight, the watching students let out a gasp.
“Fr-Frontdier really does have Aura……!”
“I thought he was lying, but it’s true!”
He’s not! You idiots!
Actually, I’m grateful they think that!
“……Uh, hm?”
Pascal tilted his head, facing a sight different from what he’d expected.
Something invisible had parried the Aura.
To an ordinary person’s eyes, both would look the same anyway since neither is visible, but Pascal wouldn’t see it that way. Pascal can see Aura. Meanwhile, my Weaving blade is ‘truly invisible’.
The students are at a distance, and since my Aura appeared only for an instant, they think it wasn’t visible—but Pascal would feel a profound sense of wrongness.
“Well, I understand now. Frontdier, you may return to your seat.”
“……Yes.”
I turned away, affecting composure as best I could.
‘What kind of person is he, really.’
No matter how much of a rascal Pascal is called, he isn’t stupid or reckless. He simply possesses excessive momentum and curiosity.
In other words, something exists that makes Pascal act that way.
‘I don’t know who spread the rumor, but Pascal believes it because there’s some basis for it. For him to trust that I use Aura….’
That’s when I realized something.
I remembered what Grobel told me back in Taeibun.
—That Gregory bastard is the problem.
—You didn’t know? Gregory didn’t know Seraph was dead, so he went to his dwelling and got caught. Well, it was his controlled crow that got caught. So we’re looking for him, but we haven’t caught him yet.
—Don’t forget! My brother! My brother Rockbell! Please don’t forget! I did my best!
Grobel had been worried about his brother Rockbell. He was concerned Gregory might approach him.
From my conversation with Grobel, I learned that during the Cabin Incident, Seraph had mistaken me for using Aura. Gregory, who had given Seraph the information in the first place, had been mistaken from the start.
In other words, it was highly probable that Gregory was the one who gave Pascal the information.
Though it was only a hypothesis for now.
To verify it—
“Selena.”
I whispered to Selena beside me. She was taking the same combat class as I was.
“Yes.”
“Investigate Rockbell. During the Cabin Incident, there was a small child. That child’s name was Rockbell. Find out where he lives now and whether he’s safe. If possible, also check whether someone named Gregory has made contact with him.”
Selena likely received most of the information about me from Mangot. She probably knew what the ‘Cabin Incident’ was.
“Understood.”
As expected, Selena didn’t ask further and simply replied.
It seems I’ll be keeping my promise to Grobel sooner than I thought.

* * *
After class.
Quinie, the head of the Viet Family, had much on her mind lately, even during her commute home.
Now that she was a third-year and the Second Semester had begun, she had to think about what came after graduation.
“You’re that worried about it? You could just be the family head and live well.”
Anne, her friend walking beside her, remarked teasingly. Anne, who already had her position as a family head determined, didn’t quite understand Quinie’s concerns.
“If I was just going to be a merchant, I wouldn’t have come to Constellation Academy in the first place.”
“Hmm…?”
Quinie had a dream.
Her family, the Viets, had nearly fallen into ruin. It was because she restored them with her own strength that she became the family head.
Then, why had the Viets nearly fallen into ruin in the first place?
‘A family that merely chases gold has no real strength.’
Quinie believed the Viets had declined because they lacked the power to protect themselves.
Before Quinie became head, the Viet Family had tried to handle their protection and defense through diplomacy with other families—essentially trading financial gain for military security.
They bought other families’ knight orders, independent knights, or mercenary companies if needed to strengthen their defenses.
At first, there were no special problems. So long as fair dealings continued, the family’s security remained intact.
The trouble came when the knight companies or families the Viets had purchased joined forces with hostile families intent on destroying them.
Lacking the strength to defend themselves, the Viets could not escape coercion by force.
It was like negotiating with someone who held a blade to your throat. Naturally, nothing went right.
‘Right now, other families are just waiting and watching, but I don’t know when something like that might happen again.’
Because of this, she had to prove it. If she, as family head, gained sufficient strength, no one would dare touch her family lightly again.
After graduating from Constellation Academy and handling monsters, once she accumulated enough accomplishments, knights would gather to her family. Then she would be able to form a knight order under the family banner.
“The question is whether to become a Professional or pursue Knighthood……”
Becoming a Professional meant receiving commissions, with some ability to pick and choose. That meant she could balance her duties as family head.
But becoming a Professional itself carried little prestige, so it would take time to build up the necessary achievements.
In contrast, simply achieving Knighthood would earn her the recognition of surrounding families and make it easier to attract other knights. It wasn’t uncommon for family heads themselves to serve as commanders of their knight orders.
The problem was whether Quinie and the Viet Family had the resources to do so right now.
—Did you hear that rumor?
Then she overheard something that caught her attention. Two female students were walking and talking. Listening for a moment, it was something trivial—apparently someone had confessed to someone else, that sort of thing.
“There seem to be a lot of rumors going around lately.”
Quinie was aware of the glittering rumors circulating recently. As a merchant, she naturally valued information, and most of it—even the trivial—flowed to her.
“It’s a new semester. Besides, this year’s first-years included an enormous number of exceptionally talented individuals.”
“Young people are enviable.”
“Yeah, kids two years younger than us.”
Anne chuckled back at her.
Quinie enjoyed the proliferation of rumors. Sometimes she gleaned important information from within them. And discerning fact from fiction was her role anyway.
……Yet.
‘Lately, I do feel there are too many.’
Even if it was a new semester, even with the exceptional first-years making their mark.
The spread of rumors utterly unrelated to the facts—the sheer scope of it all struck him as decidedly unnatural.
These recent rumors lacked any coherent thread; they were scattered, disconnected fragments.
It had the unmistakable fingerprint of deliberate manipulation.
“……!”
Quinie’s footsteps faltered.
On the wall of the corridor where Quinie and Anne were passing, a massive Mana Bulletin Board had been posted.
The Mana Bulletin Board required neither paper nor pen—it was a technique for inscribing text onto a wall using luminescent mana.
The letters were scrawled with obvious malice, crude and sprawling; the bulletin board itself was grotesquely oversized, consuming every inch of blank wall space.
Reading its contents, Quinie stood frozen, unable to tear her eyes away.
[Quinie de Viet suffers from an extreme phobia of corpses.]
[Quinie de Viet did not enroll at the Constellation Academy to strengthen herself. She is hiding.]
“──Hah.”
Anne, standing beside her, let out a bitter laugh tinged with a sigh. She offered a comment, hoping to spare Quinie unnecessary worry.
“When there’s plenty of gossip about someone, baseless rumors like that tend to circulate.”
“…….”
“Quinie?”
Anne had dismissed it as idle rumor.
But Quinie’s expression suggested otherwise.
Quinie clenched her fist, released it, then clenched it again.
It was a habit—an attempt to hide the trembling.

* * *
Two days later.
I received Selena’s report at the Residence.
It had scarcely been days since I’d asked her to investigate Rockbell, yet Selena had already completed her inquiry.
“Before I report, there is something I wish to ask you.”
“What is it?”
“Can you trust my report?”
Selena was a member of Mangot. For her and me to harbor suspicion of one another was inevitable.
I had told Selena to betray Mangot, but that was merely a one-sided declaration on my part. She could refuse if she wished, and I had no way of knowing which side she truly served.
Yet I possessed a kind of certainty: that Selena would become my ally. And even if she did not, it hardly mattered.
So long as Selena knew who she was—so long as the desire to return to her family burned within her—she could not refuse my demands.
My order to report to Mangot about me only ‘selectively.’ In truth, Selena was already obeying it. She had revealed nothing concerning the Ancient Language.
“I trust you.”
“…….”
“There is no reason not to. At least in this matter, you have no cause to lie to me.”
“……I understand.”
Selena nodded deeply.
“First, Rockbell is unharmed.”
With that opening line, Selena’s report began.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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