The Academy’s Weapon Replicator - Chapter 125

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

Academy Weapon Duplicator, Chapter 125
Episode 38: Kora (2)
After overhearing the conversation between Armel and Quinie, I investigated the incident from thirteen years ago.
Thirteen years prior, Kora had gone berserk and attacked the Viet Family. Among those who survived, only Quinie remained alive besides Armel, who had caused the incident.
Save for those who had left the residence for their own reasons—missions, assignments, or leave—every member of the family was dead.
Since no one who witnessed the event had survived, it was ironically this very fact that had allowed Kora to remain by Quinie’s side all these years.
But then, conversely—
How had Quinie survived? When everyone else perished, how had she alone escaped unharmed?
Who had stopped Kora’s rampage?
‘Angen had been there.’
While investigating the incident from thirteen years ago, I grasped something peculiar.
The Roach Family had been in contact with the Viet Family from the start—back when Quinie’s father, Armel, was still the family head, before she took over.
At that time, Angen was returning from the Imperial Palace, summoned on some errand. For Quinie, one might call it fortune of heaven.
……And there, alongside him, had been a young Frontdier.
Angen, who sensed something amiss at the Viet residence, had rushed to the scene and halted Kora’s rampage.
Now, in the process of acquiring the knowledge of the Ancient Language that Frontdier had mastered, certain memories of his have also entered my mind. However, the events of that time remained unclear in my recollection.
Perhaps because it was so long ago and he’d been so young, Frontdier himself had likely grown hazy on those details. He had been barely four years old at the time.
Angen had not wounded Kora. He certainly hadn’t carried any antidote with him.
Yet how he had subdued Kora, I could now understand.
‘This is how you did it, Angen.’
I donned a mask and altered my face to Angen’s younger self, then took up Excalibur and approached Kora.
Having consumed the Dragon Heart, I poured nearly all of the spent Penelope’s Cloth into Excalibur.
Roooaaaar!
Excalibur churned with a torrent of Mana, already whipping up wind close to a typhoon. The hand gripping it trembled violently. My clothes and hair whipped about so fiercely I feared the mask might tear free.
The ground around me crackled and split with a sharp sound. Each time I took a step, dust particles rose and fell as though about to scatter into the air.
Recalling how Excalibur, when it held even a handkerchief-sized piece of Penelope’s Cloth, had swept clean the space before the Barrier—
The Excalibur in my hands now, if wielded carelessly, was no different from dropping a nuclear bomb.
Grrrrr—
I faced Kora, fur standing on end, growling menacingly. In his current state, not a shred of reason remained. There was no opening for an injection. I knew no method of restoring Kora’s sanity.
And Angen likely knew none either.
“Kora.”
I aimed the sword’s tip at him. Every ounce of magical force in the blade was directed toward him.
I did not appeal to Kora’s reason.
I spoke to his instinct, to the ferocity of him as a White Tiger. Angen had accomplished this with his Gram and his own standing.
But since I fell far short, I borrowed the power of Excalibur.
“Shut that mouth.”
If Kora in his current state truly had nothing left but savage instinct,
then before the logic of raw power, he would know well enough what to do.

* * *
By the time Frontdier aimed the sword’s tip at Kora,
every instructor at Constellation Academy had already arrived at the scene.
On the rooftop, behind buildings, along the school path, in the trees—each stood at a distance from one another, watching Frontdier and Kora.
Of course, Principal Osprit was among them.
‘Angen?’
Even he had been startled at first sight of Frontdier’s face. Among Constellation’s instructors, only Malia and Osprit knew what Angen looked like in his youth.
‘No, that can’t be.’
It was obvious that this young-faced man couldn’t actually be Angen, so Osprit fixed his gaze on Frontdier.
Who dared wear Angen’s face and impersonate him? In ordinary circumstances, one would call such a man a madman with no regard for his own life.
But. Emanating from him now was an aura equal to, or even surpassing, that of Angen in his youth.
More precisely, it came from the sword he held.
‘……Excalibur.’
A young Angen wielding Excalibur—a scene he’d never even imagined, now manifested as reality before his eyes.
Osprit imbued his eyes with Mana. The man wore a rather expensive mask. Piercing through it easily was impossible, but at Osprit’s level, one could make out rough outlines.
‘……Wait, that man is—’
Osprit’s expression changed.
“……Principal, what should we do?”
An instructor beside him spoke. Osprit shook his head.
“There’s nothing to do.”
“……What do you mean by that.”
“It’ll be over soon.”
At that moment, someone’s shout echoed from nearby.
Osprit glanced down and saw a man lying collapsed. Teachers Malia and Jane already had him restrained. Quinie stood nearby, fan in hand.
“Impossible! Trying to control Kora without reason? He carries White Tiger blood! Did you really think such force would work?”
The man screamed as though possessed by fury.
Osprit let out a derisive snort.
“That’s exactly why the method works. That White Tiger—he’s incomplete. He hasn’t reached his full form yet. And he appears to be a Hybrid, mixed with other blood.”
Right now, Kora’s instincts were screaming endlessly.
The enormous Mana presence he felt before him. One wrong move and he would die without mercy. For a Therianthrope with keen Aura Sense, he would know it all too well.
Most of all,
if a concentration of Mana this immense was bearing down on him as though about to detonate, even a true White Tiger would be terrified.
Thud-thud.
The man wearing Angen’s face walked slowly forward. All the while, the White Tiger remained motionless. The angry roars had ceased, and the bristling fur gradually settled.
Osprit scrutinized the man’s appearance. He wore a Constellation Academy uniform, bore Angen’s face, and gripped Excalibur in his hands. Beyond that, the immense Mana he radiated, and in his left hand—a glowing cloth. Not a single detail was easy to overlook.
‘…Especially that luminous cloth. Its size keeps diminishing.’
The cloth he held in his left hand shrank steadily until Osprit could no longer see it clearly. Yet from the way his left hand continued to emit light, it seemed the cloth still remained.
Then, as that light faded and the cloth seemed to vanish entirely,
“Urgh!”
The man staggered. The tremendous Mana of the Excalibur he gripped wavered. At that, the White Tiger’s eyes gleamed again and his fur bristled once more.
Yet.
Thunk—
The man jabbed something into the White Tiger’s neck. A Syringe. The liquid within surged forward, and the White Tiger’s focus grew hazy.
Thud—
The White Tiger collapsed with all the weight and heaviness of his massive frame. His fur gradually receded and his body steadily shrank. He was returning to human form.
Osprit opened his mouth.
“Protect the man. We need to hear his account.”
The teachers moved as one.
The man who had subdued the White Tiger wore a Constellation Academy uniform. Though Osprit didn’t understand why he’d bothered changing his face to Angen’s, they would need to know what had happened before and after.
The teachers approached the man slowly.
The man was breathing heavily. When the White Tiger stood before him, he’d seemed fearless, invincible—but perhaps that too had been bluster to subdue the beast.
The lead teacher spoke.
“Thank you. Thanks to you, we’ve prevented a grave incident. Please, let us lend you our hands,”
From the circumstances, the man had exhausted himself using his power to calm the White Tiger. That the teachers would show him kindness was natural.
Yet the man raised his hand as if to ward them away. That exhaustion etched into Angen’s face made the teachers instinctively tense.
They knew only that this was Angen’s face, but even so—it resembled someone far too closely.
“I’ll handle it.”
Then someone stepped forward, positioning herself before Frontdier. It was Quinie.
“I’ve received the greatest help from this person. Allow me to support him. Teachers, please step back.”
“…Hmm. But student Quinie, shouldn’t we understand the situation as well?”
“I’ll explain everything later. His condition isn’t good. We should go now.”
“Wait, just a moment, student.”
The teacher blocked Quinie’s path as she turned to leave.
Quinie exhaled slowly. She looked at the teacher with eyes gone cold and deep.
“…It’s After School now.”
“What?”
“After School. Teachers of Constellation Academy.”
“…!”
The teachers’ expressions hardened as they understood her meaning.
Quinie was acting now as the head of the Viet Family, not as a student. Calling them “teachers” was merely a courtesy.
“Head of the Viet Family.”
Then Osprit, who stood on the rooftop, opened his mouth.
“Chancellor?”
Quinie’s gaze turned sharp and piercing, and Osprit laughed good-naturedly in response.
“Do take good care of him.”
“….”
Quinie didn’t answer him. Instead, she supported Frontdier.
As she flicked open her fan and swept it through the air with a whoosh, she leaped skyward.
With the teachers watching, the two of them disappeared into the distance.

* * *
Frontdier lost consciousness shortly after Quinie had helped him to his feet. She brought him back to the Residence and laid him on the bed.
Kora came to mind, but the teachers would look after him—safer that way, in fact. Though he had entered a Rampage, he hadn’t caused serious harm to those around him, so it should be all right.
Still, she couldn’t predict what decision the teachers would make regarding Kora, a White Tiger Therianthrope whose Rampage could strike without warning. For now, though, the fact that he was alive felt like a mercy.
“……Frontdier.”
Quinie sat in the chair beside the bed and spoke his name.
Frontdier slept soundly. According to the physician’s examination, there were no serious complications—only Mana exhaustion and severe anemia. He likely wouldn’t wake for a good while.
Quinie knew this, yet she called out to him anyway.
She wanted to tell him these things, and yet she hoped he wouldn’t hear them—caught between those contradictory desires.
“I remember now.”
Quinie opened her lips.
“Everything from thirteen years ago. The wolf was actually Kora, and Angen stopped him. I still can’t remember Armel, who I thought was my father, but at least I know what I changed in my memories.”
The recollection had begun the moment she saw Frontdier wearing Angen’s face, Excalibur gripped in his hand. That silhouette was so achingly familiar that it had pulled forth the memories she’d buried in the past.
“……You were there too, back then.”
After Angen had restrained Kora, a small boy had toddled along in his wake.
The Quinie of that time had only wept. But that boy remembered.
The moment Angen confirmed that Kora was fully asleep, he scooped the boy into his arms and covered his eyes with his hand. He wanted to spare the child the sight of a corpse.
Yet through the gaps between Angen’s fingers, Frontdier had been looking at Quinie. From that moment until Angen left the Residence and disappeared completely from view, Frontdier and Quinie had held each other’s gaze for a long time.
What had passed through that small child’s mind, she couldn’t say. Whether he’d felt any empathy for the girl who was weeping.
“You remember it too.”
Quinie gazed at Frontdier. Four years old and six years old then. Those small children had somehow grown and found each other again.
Frontdier remembered that time, and so he had subdued the Rampaging Kora using the same method his father had used.
Quinie pressed her finger gently against Frontdier’s cheek.
“How did you remember that? When you were only four?”
And beyond that—he had acquired the power to make it real. Could it be that he’d done it for her? To contain Kora when he inevitably Rampaged someday?
“Hah. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it.”
Yes, ridiculous. So this assumption was nothing but Quinie’s own fancy, a wish born from her heart that it could be so.
“Frontdier. Thank you. For remembering.”
The sleeping Frontdier gave no answer.
Because she knew there would be no answer, Quinie could speak these words.

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