The Academy’s Weapon Replicator - Chapter 109

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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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The Academy’s Weapon Duplicator, Chapter 109
Episode 32: Kraken (1)
Aten and I arrived at the Broadcast Room.
“……Do you think Serph is still here?”
“I don’t know if he’s in this building, but he’s definitely watching us.”
He’d tried to kill me using every student who’d received a Business Card.
He wanted me dead badly enough that he wouldn’t have simply run off.
“Then the Broadcast Room itself might be a trap.”
“Exactly. He’d know I have no choice but to come here.”
Aten raised her hand and closed her eyes.
“……I don’t sense any Mana. It doesn’t look like a magical trap has been set.”
“Good.”
I nodded and opened the door slowly. Nothing happened.
After surveying the area carefully and stepping inside, I found several students lying on the floor.
“Aten.”
“Yes.”
Aten approached and checked the students’ condition. Meanwhile, I examined the Broadcast Room equipment.
And I found it soon enough—what Serph intended.
[Come to the Grand Hall.]
A single short line. He’d designated where we would meet.
In the meantime, Aten, who’d assessed the fallen students’ condition, spoke.
“……The bleeding is severe. They might be fine for now, but leaving them like this would be dangerous.”
“In other words, he’s trying to pin you down here.”
Aten nodded.
“Are you sure about this? The Grand Hall really does seem like a trap.”
“I can’t just leave the students like this.”
I pulled out my phone.
“Are you going to call someone?”
“Yeah. Philly.”
Philly’s driver had suddenly driven the car into a guardrail—an inexplicable act.
It was almost certainly because of the Business Card.
He’d answered the call and committed that bizarre act, which meant he’d heard Serph Daniel’s voice on the phone. Now that the madness from that Business Card has spread across all of Constellation Academy, Artzie needs to know.
I’d rather tell Philly, but with Artzie right beside me, there’s no telling what he’d say to me.
There was a brief dial tone.
-……Frontdier.
Artzie answered the call.
“Ah, sir. It’s me. Right now Constellation Academy is in chaos. Most of the students are copying the erratic behavior of the Empress’s driver from last time.”
I explained earnestly, but for some reason, there was no real response from the other end of the line.
Then Artzie opened his mouth.
-Frontdier, I have something to tell you as well.
“What is it?”
-Well, yes. Borrowing your phrasing…….
Artzie spoke in a strangely awkward tone.
-Things are chaotic here too.
“……What?”
-No, let me correct myself. It’s not that the situation is turbulent. However, something strange is certainly happening.
“What’s going on?”
-Most of the knights in the Imperial Palace have stopped moving.
“Stopped moving?”
-Yes. Their gaze is distant, their expressions like corpses. Similar to what you described about the Empress’s driver. They’re all standing there quietly, every last one of them wearing that same expression.
Then it was definitely Serph’s doing. He’d distributed Business Cards to the knights as well.
But something was strange about it.
Artzie seemed to have the same thought, and he said so.
-However, I cannot fathom the culprit’s purpose. If he can issue orders that would make a driver crash into a guardrail, then with this many knights gathered, there should be nothing he couldn’t accomplish. I cannot understand why he has simply lined them up like this.
My eyes narrowed as well—I’d been thinking the same thing.
If it were Serph, he could have issued far more varied commands.
“……!”
I lifted my head.
I’d realized it. When I thought about it, it was simple.
“……I see.”
—Frontdier?
“That’s right. There’s no way he’s still alive.”
I’d been operating under a delusion. That this incident was a joint operation between Gregory and Serph.
But that was impossible. My initial instinct, what I’d believed all along—that was correct.
“Ah, thank you. I’ll hang up for now.”
—If you can resolve it there, move quickly. We’re in emergency mode due to operational shutdown on this end.
“Understood.”
I ended the call.
I’d been operating under a delusion.
Yes, to borrow Artzie’s phrasing—
the enemy was now in a state of maximum alert.

* * *
The empty Grand Hall echoed loudly with footsteps.
Step by step, I moved slowly forward, yet the sound reverberated through the entire space.
“……Here.”
And in the center of the Grand Hall, a man sat in a chair.
He wore no weapons whatsoever. He was completely defenseless.
I approached him slowly. He raised one hand in greeting.
“Hello, Frontdier.”
He acted as though he knew me, but his face was one I’d never seen before.
Yes, of course it was.
I was meeting Gregory’s face for the very first time.
“……You’re injured.”
“Mmm.”
Up close, Gregory’s condition was severe.
His entire body was covered in wounds, and his ribs in particular were in bad shape. Blood wasn’t actively flowing, but that—
“—is necrosis. I picked up injuries fleeing from place to place, but I couldn’t go to a hospital. At this point, surgery is the only option.”
“……Why didn’t you find a pharmacy, or even a black-market doctor?”
“Ha. You really don’t know Indus.”
That single sentence explained everything.
Nearly everything outside the law had eyes and ears for Indus. A fugitive couldn’t have managed it.
“So it wasn’t Serph after all.”
“Right. You knew it already, didn’t you? That bastard died in the Cabin. An arrow. Right through the center of his forehead, placed as precisely as if drawn there. If he’d survived that, I wouldn’t have been traveling with him.”
It was Gregory who distributed the Business Card, and Gregory who ordered my death from the Broadcast Room.
“You managed to capture Serph’s voice, then.”
“Just one sentence. ‘Kill Frontdier.’ That idiot was screaming it over and over from the spot where he died. I used a recorder to analyze his residual Mana and recorded it.”
Serph was dead, but the Business Card remained.
The Business Card still possessed Serph’s ability. Without him, it was useless, but that single recorded voice was all that survived.
Gregory lifted his head and looked at me. His eyes were utterly transparent—resignation and surrender written plainly across them.
“Frontdier. Arrest me.”
“…….”
“I can’t escape Indus. I’ve tried borrowing the eyes and ears of every creature—nothing worked. The dragnet keeps tightening. Under these circumstances, it’s better to be caught by the authorities.”
“You stirred up all this trouble just to be arrested?”
“Exactly. Based on the intelligence I’ve gathered so far, you were perfect for causing a major disturbance.”
I’m connected to many named figures within Constellation Academy. Of course, I’ve worked hard to become that way.
But was that, in Gregory’s eyes, something worth exploiting?
“What did you do to the Imperial Palace?”
“Not much. Initially, I dug up information on knights with questionable backgrounds and blackmailed them. Got them to commit minor crimes. Of course, I used Indus’s name.”
“……You turned Indus’s attention toward the Imperial Palace.”
Gregory nodded.
The chaos unfolding at Constellation Academy right now—from my perspective, it seems like a massive incident, but outsiders probably don’t even know what’s happening yet.
Meanwhile, the Imperial Palace incident must be making headlines by now. There were already scattered incidents involving rookies and low-ranking knights, but today the entire knight order has gone completely still.
“The order was identical. Obviously ‘kill Frontdier.’ But the knights don’t even know who Frontdier refers to. So they have no choice but to stand there.”
I’d been certain Serph was dead for this very reason. Not because he couldn’t give other orders, but because I’d realized he could give no order except to kill me.
“For someone just wanting to be arrested, you’ve made quite a spectacle of this. You could’ve turned yourself in.”
“If I’d turned myself in without this incident, I’d spend maybe a year in prison before getting out. Back then, during the Cabin incident, I was just an informant. Before that too, mostly the same kind of work. I’m a spy, after all. Once I’m released, Indus will just target me again.”
“……So you staged this to lengthen your sentence? You’re willing to do harder time as long as you stay alive?”
“Obviously. I’m desperate to live. And I can’t trust the others. Even in custody, Indus might spring me. I needed someone famous, someone backed by an extraordinarily prestigious family.”
And that someone was perfectly me.
Gregory’s expression brightened as though he’d said all he needed to say. He extended both hands toward me.
“Go ahead. Arrest me.”
“…For the record, I don’t have handcuffs or rope.”
“Then pin me down with your bare hands. Performance is what matters in situations like this.”
Gregory spoke with utter confidence.
I exhaled and reached out toward him.
In that instant.
“──Found you.”
The voice belonged to something neither male nor female.
It was a sound that reeked of nothing but revulsion, clinging and viscous.
Shwick!
Something black erupted from behind Gregory and wrapped around his throat.
“Gack!”
Gregory was dragged away, limp, around the neck. The chair clattered over, and Gregory thrashed his legs frantically, but he slid helplessly across the floor.
‘A whip?’
No—it was far simpler than that. Streaked with the faintest violet light, that thick, gelatinous thing seized Gregory in a way that conjured images of a cephalopod’s tentacles.
The tentacle extended from someone. Whether they’d come in from somewhere, or had always been here, I couldn’t tell—but standing before me, they felt utterly unreal. They were that alien.
The rest of the body looked like an ordinary human, but the right arm had transformed into a tentacle that now held Gregory fast.
…There was no guarantee that only that right arm would change. The entire body, masquerading as human, might be something else entirely—a cephalopod or whatever lurked beneath.
“Guh… gahhh…”
Gregory clawed at the tentacle coiled around his neck. But his hands passed through it as though grasping water.
──The tentacle ignored the other’s physical resistance, yet exerted physical force entirely one-sidedly.
“Hello, Frontdier de Roach.”
Matching that voice, the creature’s face and body defied any assessment of gender.
“I’m a person unrelated to Indus.”
The strange manner of speech, the grotesque appearance—all of it grated against my nerves.
Unrelated to Indus, I see.
“Let Gregory go, Indus.”
“What? Why should I? You were enemies just moments ago. I can’t have you suddenly acting chummy. Besides—”
It extended its left arm. The moment I thought its index finger was raised,
Fwish—
The creature’s tentacle grazed my temple. So it wasn’t only the right arm that could transform into tentacles.
“It’s not Indus. I just told you that.”
“Fine then. What is it? Which number is the ‘person unrelated to Indus’ you are?”
At my question, it grinned. Its eyes and mouth curved into crescents—a movement of those features that was no human smile.
“You don’t need to know the number, but well.”
It rolled its eyes as though the thought had just occurred to it,
“Yes. Call me ‘Kraken.'”
With a name befitting it perfectly, it introduced itself.

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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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