The Academy’s Weapon Replicator - Chapter 138

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

The Academy’s Weapon Duplicator — Chapter 138
Episode 42: Deception Operation (4)
Heldrey’s approach was already felt by everyone.
Soon his figure came into view.
Heldrey flew toward them with a stern, aged face, propelling himself through the air with Flight.
“Hmm.”
Ospriet reacted first. He was closest to Heldrey.
But Heldrey’s flight traced an upward arc. He had no business with Ospriet. Not yet.
First, he had to tear out the throat of that wretched thing threatening his granddaughter’s life up in the sky—
“……!”
Boom!
Yet Heldrey twisted his body mid-flight. An explosion erupted in the empty space directly ahead of him.
Spell Manifestation in empty air. The identity of the caster was obvious. Heldrey turned to look at Ospriet.
As expected, Ospriet had his thumb pressed to his chest—a combat stance Heldrey had seen from him many times before.
Ospriet spoke.
“Leaving without so much as a greeting, Heldrey.”
“……Ospriet.”
Heldrey’s bloodshot eyes flashed.
“I don’t have time to talk with you now. Later.”
With that, he wheeled around and flew toward Frontdier again.
‘Interesting.’
Ospriet pursued him, literally making the empty air itself explode. Yet Heldrey weaved through the blasts, sometimes taking hits but pressing relentlessly toward Frontdier.
‘Even Heldrey took the first attack and ignored it entirely.’
So Frontdier’s thinking had been correct.
Frontdier’s actions just moments before had seemed sudden and reckless, but judging by Heldrey’s hasty, desperate charge, it appeared to have worked.
And Heldrey reached him—arrived before Frontdier. Since Ospriet had flown up directly behind Heldrey, the old man now found himself sandwiched between Frontdier and his pursuer.
“……!”
Heldrey’s eyes went wide.
Seeing it with his own eyes made it harder to believe. The moment Heldrey came face-to-face with the madman holding his granddaughter by the collar, he laughed. That laughter carried killing intent.
“Frontdier de Roach.”
Heldrey spoke the name, his presence radiating a bone-deep murderous chill.
Frontdier smiled as well. His expression mirrored Heldrey’s.
“I’m honored you remember my name, sir.”
“Did I not tell you? I would not forget your name.”
Though that wasn’t what he’d meant at the time.
Heldrey paused, assessing the situation.
He wanted nothing more than to tear Frontdier to shreds on the spot, but the circumstances were drastically against him.
His granddaughter, Kian, was in Frontdier’s grip, and in his other hand lay a blade of unmistakable presence.
That sword—its aura and appearance made its identity perfectly clear.
“……Excalibur. So the reports were true.”
“Nobody believed it anyway, which made things convenient,” Frontdier replied smoothly.
Shameless, that answer.
Heldrey spoke.
“The whelp has grown after all. Using Aura, mastering Flight too. But his head didn’t grow as fast as his power. Even with Excalibur in hand, he dared bare his fangs at me—”
As Heldrey was speaking,
“Ahhh!”
Frontdier made a shallow cut across Kian’s arm. Blood welled and began to flow from the wound.
Heldrey’s bloodshot eyes swelled to the point of bursting, now a furious crimson.
“What did you just say? Heldrey?”
“You… you… I’ll tear you apart……”
Heldrey’s entire body trembled. An enormous Aura billowed up from his frame.
Even with Kian held hostage, if Heldrey pushed himself somewhat, he could kill Frontdier. Kian would likely survive it.
But the real problem lay behind him.
Ospriet alone was a formidable opponent for Heldrey; combined with Frontdier’s unprecedented power and a hostage in hand, the situation was untenable.
“……I understand.”
Heldrey closed his eyes. The trembling ceased. The killing intent could not be fully suppressed, but it was brought under control.
“What do you want? That’s why you called me here, isn’t it.”
Upon hearing Heldrey’s response, Ospriet’s eyes behind him lit up.
‘So he saw through it all.’
Ospriet felt genuine admiration for Frontdier.
Taking Kian hostage to summon Heldrey was one thing, but even before that, he’d incapacitated Thompson and Skyler beforehand. Which meant Heldrey couldn’t count on any real combat support.
In the end, he had no choice but to move willingly into the negotiation phase.
‘If I can wring out a firm commitment from him to abandon both his protection of Constellation and his revolution─’
That was what Ospriet had been thinking.
But Frontdier opened the hand holding his sword slightly. Something seemed to form between his fingers, and he swallowed it.
In that instant.
“!”
Fierce, overwhelming Mana erupted from Frontdier. In sheer quantity alone, it surpassed both Ospriet and Heldrey.
Radiating a terrifying presence, Frontdier spoke.
“What I want is simple.”
His voice had changed. The air churning around them seemed to become his voice itself—there was something seismic in Frontdier’s tone, as if the very ground trembled beneath his words.
“Your life, Heldrey.”
“……Huh.”
Heldrey let out a scoff of disbelief.
No matter how much Mana he was now pouring out, no matter that he held his granddaughter hostage.
Targeting Heldrey’s own life crossed a line too far.
“You’ll kill me?”
“Yes.”
Immediately after speaking, Frontdier extended Excalibur.
Heldrey gave a derisive snort.
‘Hmph, the weapon he has is impressive enough, but merely that─’
Even that thought shattered without exception.
Frontdier’s overflowing Mana began to pour into Excalibur.
Excalibur absorbed the Mana and amplified it further, shining with a power multiplied many times over.
“……You.”
This was no bluff.
Frontdier truly, absolutely possessed a weapon capable of killing Heldrey.
Yet Heldrey himself was already a member of Zodiac who had survived countless battlefields.
Heldrey studied Excalibur carefully.
‘If he wants to land that blade on me, throwing it is the only way.’
He didn’t know the extent of Frontdier’s throwing technique, but with Heldrey’s eyes, he could see it and dodge in time—there was no question of that.
Heldrey spoke.
“No matter how powerful, its true nature is still that of a ‘blade.'”
It wasn’t a bow. Neither was it a wand. There were clear limitations to how Frontdier could land that blade on him.
“Do you understand what will happen if you fail to hit me?”
Because it was a blade, if he threw it, Frontdier would inevitably be left empty-handed. If Heldrey simply evaded the thrown sword.
“You will die.”
Heldrey spoke. There was no bluster in it—only sincerity.
“Blood will fountain from your eyes, nose, mouth, ears—every opening in your skull. Your eyes will roll from their sockets and you’ll lose all sense of direction. I will make it so.”
A voice dripping with killing intent, a clear warning. Frontdier listened to it calmly, then opened his mouth.
“Headmaster.”
Frontdier called to Ospriet.
“Yes?”
“Step back. That position is dangerous.”
“……Are you certain about this?”
“Yes. And if you stay clear, you can help me better, can’t you?”
After a moment’s silence, Ospriet withdrew to the side as Frontdier suggested. Frontdier was right.
To aid Frontdier, staying close to him was better than encircling Heldrey.
“Ah!”
Frontdier wrapped his sword-holding hand around Kian’s neck. That alone caused Heldrey’s killing intent to flare, though there was nothing he could do about it now.
With his hand wrapped around Kian’s throat, Frontdier reversed his grip on the blade, turning the point toward Heldrey.
─Even then, anger had clouded Heldrey’s mind so thoroughly that he failed to grasp Frontdier’s true intent.
Why had Frontdier wrapped his hand around Kian’s neck? Why reverse his grip on the blade? A throw from such a stance would be impossible.
Frontdier smiled slightly.
“You said you’d dodge.”
Frontdier, his sword-holding hand wrapped around Kian’s neck. Which meant, naturally, his other hand was free.
Free it should have been.
Yet that slowly raised empty hand somehow held what looked like a hammer─
“Try it, Zodiac.”
Frontdier struck the pommel of Excalibur with that hammer.
Clang─────!!!
A tremendous metallic shriek tore through the air.
In that instant, the Mana that Excalibur had devoured was unleashed. It emerged as a towering flash of condensed power, shaped like a blade.
“What─!!”
Excalibur’s Blade Wave—born from devouring that enormous surge of Mana and amplifying it before release.
Of course, the sword itself was not contained within it, and the condensed Mana dispersed on impact, so its force was somewhat diminished.
But did that “somewhat” truly matter?
“Ugh!”
Heldrey concentrated every ounce of his Aura into a single point. Flight was no longer an option. This was no longer merely a sword.
A massive shape, fashioned only in the likeness of a blade, shot forward with the inexplicable force of a hammer. Both its velocity and its sheer surface area made evasion impossible.
Heldrey pressed the fingers of both hands together and thrust them forward. His Aura sharpened into an arrow’s point.
That Aura collided with Excalibur’s flash.
Crash─────!!
“Agh─nngh─gaaaaa─!!”
Heldrey screamed. The instant of impact shattered every bone in his fingers. He had known it would. From the start, he had abandoned his fingers—no, his hands themselves.
Yet despite such sacrifice,
Crack, crunch.
“Nngh─nngh─uggggh……!”
His bones shrieked. The fingertips had already split open completely, bone laid bare.
His fingers barely clung to his hands. Instead, his wrists, elbows, and shoulders began to emit sounds of fracturing, spreading slowly upward.
The power channeled through Mjolnir does not dissipate easily. It had been the same when Lenzo first received its blow.
But Lenzo had at least sacrificed his beloved weapon in his stead, whereas Heldrey stood bare-handed. Moreover, the power embedded in Excalibur had already surpassed what Mjolnir could deliver.
Had he possessed sufficient preparation to withstand Excalibur, it might have been different. But this Aura, scraped together in desperation as a last-moment defense—
The result.
“Nngh─nngh……, gasp, gasping……!”
Having absorbed all of that impact, Heldrey was rendered a pitiful sight. His fingers splayed in every direction, and his entire body was covered in innumerable burns and lacerations, blood streaming down in rivulets.
He dropped both arms. He likely would not be able to lift them for some time.
“……This─this absurd, unreasonable power……!”
No matter how much of a surprise attack it had been, no matter his carelessness—to have both arms so completely destroyed.
Heldrey, trembling, looked at Frontdier.
……Excalibur was still in his hand.
Which meant,
“You managed to block it.”
Frontdier regarded Heldrey with an expression that was not quite emotionless—rather, almost bored.
“Then comes the next.”
At Frontdier’s words, Excalibur blazed with light. The meaning was unmistakable.
That meaning was ‘terror.’
“Gasp, gasp……!!”
Heldrey’s breath came ragged, his fear made manifest. Frontdier watched his face and spoke.
“Do stop that expression. It does not suit you.”
“W─wait. Wait just a moment.”
“You are of the Zodiac, are you not?”
Frontdier did not listen and raised the hammer.
The next blow comes.
That truth alone made Heldrey’s heart feel as though it would burst.
Heldrey does not know the maximum total of Mana that Frontdier possesses.
If the next blow comes, suppose he miraculously blocked it.
Then what follows? And after that?
Heldrey was consumed with desperate regret. Had he come fully prepared, he could have withstood even that attack. But he had come too hastily. And he had been far too careless.
‘I’m going to die…….’
Die? Me? Me, a member of the Zodiac?
Yet that certain pronouncement of death already rang through his mind like a funeral bell.
Frontdier drew the hammer back slowly.
His eyes held not even a hint of killing intent.
“P─please! Spare me! I beg you! I will do anything!”
Heldrey begged for his life.
It was something he had never done, not once in his entire life.

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