The Academy’s Weapon Replicator - Chapter 181

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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 Duplicator Chapter 181
Episode 58: Toward the Fragment
Immediately after Angen’s command.
The Roach Knights, including Captain Silbain, all blew their whistles in unison. High, prolonged notes harmonized across the air, stretching outward in waves.
Herds of horses thundered toward each knight. They mounted their steeds and galloped straight for the Barrier.
There was no time to open the Barrier’s gates. The Lord’s order permitted no delay whatsoever.
“I’ll take the vanguard! Knights, form a wedge—protect Frontdier and break through the front!”
The knights followed in Silbain’s wake as he surged ahead, and together they leaped over the Barrier, trampling the corpses of Monsters as Cassian had done, pressing onward at full gallop.
Thud-thud-thud—like a typhoon toppling trees—they raced forward, keeping pace with Frontdier ahead of them.
Frontdier sensed the knights closing in behind him. Without needing an order, Cassian instinctively eased his speed.
“Frontdier!”
Silbain, drawing alongside, bellowed out. He surged past Frontdier, shielding his front, and soon the entire order moved to encircle him on all sides, crushing any Monster that dared approach.
“Captain!”
“This formation won’t hold long! The moment we slow, death is all that remains!”
Silbain shouted this toward Frontdier as they rode.
Though it appeared they were cutting through Monsters smoothly, this ease was temporary—a result of the sparse Monster density in the immediate vicinity of Cyclops. The giant creature’s position thinned their ranks.
Since Cyclops didn’t deliberately avoid Monsters when throwing rocks or advancing, the area around the beast and along the direct line between it and the Barrier contained far fewer of them.
Frontdier and the knights had seized this opening to surge forward now, but soon the Monsters would fill the gap, and even the knights would be pushed back.
“If you’re going to do this, end it in one strike! Failure will not be forgiven!”
“Yes!”
An instant reply, as if there were no question at all. His voice brimmed with confidence. Seeing Frontdier’s answer, Silbain broke into a sharp grin.
He faced forward, sword held before him. His rough voice carried across the entire order.
“Increase speed! Open Frontdier’s path! Let nothing obstruct him!”
“Yes!!”
The knights charged forward. Monsters exploded into chunks of gore, scattering in their wake. Shielded completely by his order, Frontdier steadied his breathing.
Frontdier’s target wasn’t Cyclops alone. Mana distribution was crucial, and from that perspective, the knights’ support was a gift beyond measure.
“Captain!”
Frontdier called out to Silbain, who was clearing a path ahead.
“What is it, Frontdier!”
“Once we reach it, I’ll cut off its breath—I guarantee it!”
“If I didn’t trust that, I wouldn’t be doing this insane thing!”
Silbain lopped off the head of another Monster blocking his path as he spoke. Seeing this, Frontdier called out again.
“But there’s one thing I must ask of you when we reach it!”
“Ask?”
“When we reach that beast, sever its left leg!”
“Its left leg?”
Silbain lifted his gaze to Cyclops. He meant the left leg, true enough, but if Silbain swung his blade horizontally to the right from in front of Cyclops, that would be the creature’s left leg. The beast was that enormous.
“Yes! Its head is too high, and if I charge in alone, it might dodge or block me!”
“…Understood!”
Silbain answered, gripping his sword tightly.
He’d answered, yet doubt gnawed at him. This wasn’t his first time facing Cyclops. He knew all too well how tough its hide was, how unbreakably hard its bones were.
Normally, when dealing with Cyclops, the entire order surrounded the creature, accumulating wounds through a war of attrition—that was the primary strategy.
Not a single fatal blow, but rather slow exhaustion through blood loss and muscle fatigue, wearing the beast down until it fell.
‘Can I… cut through it?’
He wasn’t standing on solid ground now—he was mounted on horseback. All his blade’s force came from his upper body alone.
Could he sever the creature’s leg from this unstable position, even with his Aura?
‘No. I have to. If not now, when?’
Silbain hardened his gaze and steeled his resolve. Strength flowed naturally into his sword hand.
Whether it was possible or impossible—such questions had become irrelevant long ago. Preparation was never complete.
He had to do it now. In the next swing—one final, decisive strike.
Soon the order reached Cyclops’s threshold. Silbain signaled the knights with a gesture.
“Now!”
The instant they reached the beast, all knights save Frontdier and Silbain spread their wings and peeled away left and right. Cyclops’s single eye darted back and forth, tracking the scattered knights. For just a fraction of a moment—confusion over which target to strike.
In that gap, Silbain’s blade lanced forward in a straight line.
Crack!
‘Ugh…!’
Channeling his galloping horse’s full momentum, wreathed in his Aura, he executed a horizontal slash. Yet his sword barely bit into Cyclops’s leg before jamming against bone.
The horse beneath him surged onward, leaving Silbain hanging suspended in the air, dangling from the blade that had lodged in the creature’s flesh.
‘No!’
In the instant his sword stuck, in a fraction of a heartbeat, Silbain drove all his strength downward, pushing the blade deeper. But it wouldn’t budge. Even with the horse’s momentum behind him, he hadn’t cut through—and now, hanging in midair, there was no hope of doing so.
Thwick!
Silbain felt the shadow rising behind him. Frontdier leapt into the air. The skill of launching himself from a horse’s back and maintaining balance was impressive, yet it fell far short of reaching the creature’s head.
‘Frontdier! Watch out!’
Silbain burned with fury at his own helplessness. Frontdier had launched himself trusting that Silbain would cut the monster down. But he had failed to answer that faith.
Frontdier suspended in empty air, Silbain clinging below—both had lost the mobility that the horse provided, and in this moment they were closer to death than ever before.
Whoosh!
Cyclops’s enormous hand swept through the air. Toward Frontdier, who hung suspended above. A merciless hand flew at him as if swatting a fly.
Clang!
Frontdier formed a shield in empty air, pushed off it, and launched himself higher. He evaded Cyclops’s hand by the width of a blade’s edge, but the Shield crumpled like paper and crashed to the ground. It promptly flowed away as black liquid.
Silbain raised his head to watch. Frontdier rose into the air once more. But Cyclops’s next attack was coming.
This time, the massive hand stretched toward the sky. A blow descending from above. If he dodged, he would be forever beyond Cyclops’s reach—if he didn’t, he would die.
‘Frontdier……!’
Silbain’s trembling hand, having barely grazed Cyclops’s hide with his blade.
When had Silbain ever felt such powerlessness?
When he’d felt Angen’s strength? During his first battle at the Barrier? When he’d become a knight and learned there was always someone above?
Or was it before all that—the very moment he first gripped a sword?
Commander.
In that instant, Frontdier looked at Silbain. With Cyclops’s attack bearing down upon him, he met Silbain’s eyes.
There was no time to speak. Not a single finger could move.
Frontdier communicated with nothing but his gaze.
Left hand, Commander.
“……!”
Silbain’s wrist rotated outward. The blade that had barely grazed the creature’s hide came free. As he fell through the air, Silbain’s sword traced a circle along the diagonal, curving to the left.
Left hand high, right hand low.
Roach swordsmanship fundamentals.
Third form.
Diagonal Slash.
As if standing upon solid ground.
Even as he fell through the air, Silbain executed a perfect stance.
A technique as clean as if drawn from a scroll descended toward the lower right.
Rip—
The trajectory not only severed Cyclops’s calf but shattered tendons and bone completely.
Arrrrrrrgh!!
A cry wrought from pain. Cyclops’s eye bulged wide as he wailed. Unable to stand on one leg, he lost his balance and collapsed.
Thud.
Frontdier’s foot landed upon that eye.
“My thanks to you.”
Cyclops gazed up at Frontdier standing upon his eye. It was a peculiar thing. Though he could not speak, Cyclops was an intelligent creature born of the outer Monsters. Even if he’d lost his balance and fallen, even if the height from which Frontdier had leapt had become comparable to his own lowered form, the horizontal distance between them remained a gap that neither raising nor lowering his body could bridge.
Frontdier had closed that distance. In midair. Without resort to petty tricks like shields.
Had Cyclops been able to speak, he would have screamed.
Could you fly from the start, you son of a—
Mjolnir and Excalibur combination.
Frontdier’s original technique.
Pile Driving.
Crack!
Frontdier brought Mjolnir down upon the pommel of Excalibur. It resembled his original blade technique, the “Stake,” yet this time he drove Excalibur directly into Cyclops’s eye.
It would never miss, and there was no need to retrieve it. It required no more Mana than the Stake.
Cyclops fell in a single blow. To one who would hear nothing more, Frontdier whispered quietly.
“Because of you, Silbain will grow stronger still.”
He will be necessary for what comes.
Hearing nothing, naturally, Cyclops slowly toppled. Frontdier descended to the ground astride the corpse.
With a heavy sound befitting its enormous mass, Cyclops crashed to the earth.
Frontdier looked beyond from atop the creature’s body. The Monsters that had hung back, distant from Cyclops’s crude assault. A fixed path—the continual reinforcements of Monsters did not advance into this vicinity.
“……It’s open.”
The thick wall of Monsters had parted. A passage lay ahead at last.
“Master Frontdier!”
Frontdier had meant to call for Cassian, but Selena was faster. She drove Cassian forward and arrived before Frontdier.
“The way ahead is clear!”
“Yes!”

Frontdier mounted Cassian, and Selena naturally shifted to the rear seat. The entire sequence unfolded without a single awkward moment.
“Frontdier!”
Silbain called out to him as he sat mounted once more.
“You’re not thinking of breaking through ahead, are you?”
“I am.”
“Then wait for the Knights to regroup! Spread out to the sides as they are, they’ll converge again soon enough! Breaching the Monster wall will be easier with their strength!”
Silbain’s reasoning was sound, but Frontdier shook his head.
“From here on, I’ll go alone.”
“……Frontdier.”
“Rather, my bodyguard, myself, and Cassian. The three of us.”
A faint, playful smile crossed Frontdier’s face.
His eyes looked past the Monsters, tracing a single path that led toward their Lair.
“Captain, do you remember the message I sent you before?”
“The one about watching for ambush?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Back then, Frontdier had anticipated an ambush along the path the Knights were taking. It wasn’t merely a prediction—there truly had been one waiting.
A route designed to lure humans into a trap, an invitation deeper into their own Lair.
But now the situation had reversed: Monsters were surging toward the Barrier.
A situation where they would never imagine a single human charging in alone.
“At this very moment, that path becomes the Monsters’ weakness.”
There would be no ambushes, no traps prepared.
The path still existed.
In this moment, the route laid out for ambush had become, for Frontdier, nothing short of an open invitation.
After all, it was a path meant to welcome visitors into their Lair.
“An invitation still stands, after all. I must accept it.”

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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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