The Academy’s Weapon Replicator - Chapter 184

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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 Weapon Replicator of the Academy Chapter 184
Episode 58: Toward the Fragment (4)
Once everyone had moved the wounded inside, the Workshop door closed.
The situation had been so hectic and chaotic that it was impossible to know whether it truly shut in three minutes.
But as they all made their way in, Frontdier had flawlessly held back the monsters.
“On behalf of everyone, I offer you my deepest gratitude.”
As Frontdier stepped into the Workshop, the Leader bowed to him. The interior was already bright with spheres of light conjured by the mages.
“Without you, we would all be dead.”
Frontdier neither affirmed nor denied this outright.
He simply scanned the people who had entered slowly and deliberately.
“If you truly feel grateful, then I need you to make a promise with me.”
“What would that be?”
“It’s not just your promise I need. All of you here—listen carefully to what I’m about to say.”
At Frontdier’s words, everyone turned their gaze toward him.
Frontdier spoke.
“I know you are part of the Dark Corps.”
“……!”
At those words, most faces remained unchanged—though that couldn’t be all of it. Brutal combat, wounded comrades, sudden rescue, and a man of unknown identity. With so many crises converging at once, it was nearly impossible for any of them to maintain their composure.
“That—what do you mean……?”
Someone even attempted such a needless protest, which made their desperate straits all too clear.
Frontdier ignored the protest and continued.
“I have now seen all of your faces. Since you weren’t wearing masks while fighting monsters, you are all bare-faced. We now know each other’s faces well.”
Frontdier pulled his cheek to show he wore no mask. The one he’d worn at the Barrier had been discarded long ago.
“So we will pretend today that we never saw each other. You must keep this promise first.”
“Never saw each other……?”
“Yes. You were never rescued by anyone. You have never seen this building. You simply completed your mission successfully and returned. Nothing happened here, and everything unfolded exactly as you intended.”
At Frontdier’s words, the people exchanged glances.
In other words, he was asking them to treat what they’d seen as if it had never happened.
“If you keep this promise, then I, too, will never speak of your existence or the Dark Corps to anyone.”
In short, they would hide each other.
From the Dark Corps’ perspective, this proposal was flawless. They knew nothing of Frontdier, and there was no reason to refuse the idea of keeping the organization’s secrets hidden.
Above all, without Frontdier’s intervention, they would never have survived their mission. A price this small was an incredible bargain.
“……Understood.”
“And one more thing. This isn’t something you must promise—it’s more of a warning.”
“What is it?”
When the Leader asked for clarification, Frontdier raised his right hand gently.
At first they didn’t understand the gesture, but soon they felt a light weight pressing down from above.
This sensation—they’d felt it before. In elevators and the like.
In other words.
‘Could this building possibly be floating in the air?’
Their suspicion was correct.
Frontdier lifted the Workshop into the sky.
The Dark Corps members were stunned as they watched Frontdier lift such a massive structure full of people with a mere gesture.
“From now on, I will go destroy the Fragment.”
Leaving their astonished expressions behind, Frontdier spoke.
“So please, do not leave this building.”

* * *
Frontdier opened the Workshop door and climbed to the Rooftop.
A Glacier suspended in the air. The Fragment within it continued to spawn Black Monsters one after another on the ground below.
“……For it to spawn so many monsters without depleting itself—that’s quite impressive.”
Selena narrowed her eyes beside Frontdier.
Thinking back to the Barrier battle, the number of Black Monsters had been staggering. And the Black Monsters Frontdier had killed had mostly become Heukcheon, now resting inside his Necklace.
In other words, despite having created so many Black Monsters, the Fragment still remained that large. An inexhaustible quantity.
But Frontdier shook his head.
“It won’t be depleted.”
“Pardon?”
“The Fragment inside that Glacier will likely never be exhausted.”
“Why—why is that?”
At Selena’s question, Frontdier opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again as if remembering something. He let out a soft laugh and placed his hand on her head.
“You’ll understand soon enough.”
Selena didn’t press him further. Frontdier generally explained himself well enough, but pushing for answers rarely yielded a complete story. Besides, Selena had no desire to press the matter.
“Selena, can you still manage Teleportation?”
Teleportation consumed Mana, so it wasn’t something she could perform indefinitely.
Especially since she’d exerted herself coming here quickly, transporting not just herself but another person and a horse as well—the strain was considerable.
“Of course. I have enough to remain at your side.”
Yet Selena answered boldly.
That answer should have satisfied Frontdier greatly, yet for some reason his expression darkened.
Selena noticed this and turned to question him, but Frontdier had already looked away.
“Good. Let’s go destroy the Fragment.”
At Frontdier’s words, Selena nodded. Her eyes sank deep with focus. Once he confirmed this, Frontdier spread both hands wide.
Weaving—Black Stream
Rank – Legendary
Excalibur
The luminous blade gripped in his hand. Frontdier checked on Penelope’s Thread. The cloth, which he’d hastily wrapped around his arm for lack of time to tie it as a necklace, had more than half already disappeared.
“…It seems there’s more of the thread remaining than last time.”
“My total Mana reserves have grown, and I’ve been continuously drawing from the Fragment’s Mana.”
Frontdier had continued using the Black Monster’s Mana even after obtaining Penelope’s Thread.
As a result, even though Penelope’s Thread should have been nearly gone by now, it still maintained about half its length.
“But when I destroy that Fragment, there’s nothing to hold back. I’ll use every scrap of Mana here. I’m not even certain if it’ll be enough to shatter it.”
“Understood.”
“I’ll reach it first using Flight. Follow me with Teleportation.”
Selena nodded. Frontdier tightened his grip on the blade. He took one deep breath, and in that moment his Mana began flowing into Excalibur.
Hiss. Whoosh.
Once he’d completed his usual breathing.
Frontdier pushed off the ground and charged toward the Glacier.
“Haah!”
His body cut a straight line through the air toward the Glacier. Monsters surged forward to intercept his charge.
A blade sheathed in Mana, high-speed Flight fueled by the Menosorfo technique and Aura—to concentrate all this energy upon a single point of Glacier, Frontdier shut out everything else and dove forward.
The winged creatures rushing at him, the packs of lesser beasts, the enormous house-sized monsters—he saw none of it. Their howls, like screams, never reached his ears.
Everything that sought to end his life instead found.
Bang-bang-bang!
Selena’s needles erupting upward from his shadow, intercepting in his stead.
‘This is harder than I thought…!’
Selena repeatedly Teleported to Frontdier’s side, striking down the monsters that approached.
Not on solid ground, but in midair—and that too while Frontdier charged forward at breakneck speed toward a single point. Maintaining repeated Teleportations beside him while cutting down the surrounding monsters was no simple task. Selena’s vision began to blur.
Yet Selena persevered. Within the constantly shifting scene before her and the dizzying spin of directions, she managed to fire her needles true, toppling the monsters that drew near.
Of course, she couldn’t sustain this pace indefinitely.
“Haaaah—!!”
Frontdier’s strike reached the Glacier faster still.
Crack-crash-boom!!
In the instant blade met ice, a tremendous sound rent the air and a shockwave burst outward. Selena felt her body nearly lifted off her feet.
“Ugh…!”
But gritting her teeth, Selena anchored herself, plunging her needle into the ground and bracing with her Aura.
If her weapon had been thicker and longer, it would have been easier. But there was no use regretting what couldn’t be changed.
“Ghh, urk…!”
Sound escaped between Frontdier’s clenched teeth. The Glacier was harder than he’d anticipated.
He’d thought Excalibur, saturated with all his Mana, would pierce it in one blow—yet shockingly, the Glacier didn’t shatter from this strike. It was clearly under divine protection. Frontdier was certain of it.
Still, cracks were forming. No matter how hard it was, this was Excalibur charged with that much Mana.
“Frontdier!”
Selena called his name. Though Frontdier focused entirely on the Glacier, monsters continued to close in on him by the second.
Only the violent winds from the clash between blade and ice kept them from approaching easily.
“Frontdier! Hurry!”
At Selena’s cry, Frontdier heard her voice and raised his left hand—the one gripping the blade—toward Heukryeon.
Crunch. The necklace shattered, and all the Black Stream he’d accumulated came pouring out. He shaped it into razor-sharp barbs and fired them at the cracks spreading across the Glacier.
Crunch, crunch-crack!
It took effect. The cracks in the Glacier lengthened, and the lines soon became fissures.
But there was a problem. Unable to contain all the Black Stream pouring out, the excess spread widely through the surrounding area.
Monsters touched by it opened red eyes and snarled. Fortunately Selena was unaffected, but she cried out in alarm at the sight of the monsters around her.
“Frontdier! There’s no need to break the necklace now! You said you’d modified it so you could draw out only what you needed!”
“I don’t know how to pull out just a little!!”
Ah.
Right—in her haste, she’d forgotten to ask Selena how to use it properly.
Crack, crack-crack-crack!
Yet Frontdier’s crude method proved devastatingly effective against the Glacier.
The fissures spreading through the ice began to encompass the whole, until at last—
Shatter!
Boom!!
The Glacier shattered completely.
“You did it, Frontdier!”
Seeing this, Selena cried out with joy.
But the instant after the Glacier broke—
Frontdier looked at Selena once. There was no joy in those eyes. He took in her position and resolved himself to something.
‘Huh…?’
Selena didn’t know. She didn’t know the difference between the Fragment of Helheim contained within the Glacier and the Heukcheon that Frontdier carried.
Selena had worried about the waves that would result from the Glacier bursting—such an enormous volume of liquid could sweep them away if they weren’t careful.
But Frontdier had never regarded such a thing as a calamity to begin with.
It was something he’d grasped instinctively when he absorbed the Black Monster.
That knowledge was—
[Helheim’s power doesn’t only work on Monsters, dear child.]
A voice reaching him—not through his ears, but transmitted directly to his mind, carrying an alienness that threatened to overwhelm him with the sheer scale of its power in that instant.
Selena lifted her head. The world’s time froze for everyone except her and Frontdier.
The Fragment of Helheim was originally a place where the goddess used Monsters for her Divine Descent.
The Monsters’ worship over those few days, though incomplete, had fulfilled the conditions.
Divine Descent.
[A mere handful of my power is enough to drive humans to madness, you see?]
“…Hela.”
Frontdier spoke that name.
Hela. In Norse mythology, the goddess who presides over Helheim—the underworld itself.
Just as Helheim was originally called Hel, she too carried the original name Hel. In the mythology, the same name ‘Hel’ referred to both the world and its presiding goddess, but to distinguish between them, each was given a separate name.
[The other gods made such a din about it all, I thought to see what manner of whelp was causing the fuss.]
Hela’s beauty of face was exquisite, yet utterly drained of color, her body gaunt and skeletal. Her skin, rather than merely pale, held a faint bluish cast—to Selena’s eyes, as though she wore winter itself like a second skin.
[Is this truly the limit of human strength and intellect?]
Her tone bored and disappointed, her gaze on Frontdier contemptuous, as though regarding something of no consequence.
[My descent is not yet complete, so I cannot kill you directly, but if I reach out this close to death itself—]
At Hela’s pitying gaze, it was Selena, not Frontdier, who first flared with anger.
[there is nothing you can do to stop me.]
The moment Hela’s words concluded, time resumed its flow.
Then Frontdier reached out his hand. To the shattered Glacier, to the endless Fragment of Helheim pouring forth from within it. He touched that vicious liquid.
‘Frontdier…?’
Selena could not comprehend that action. She didn’t understand what it meant to touch that Fragment.
Yet the moment the Glacier burst, the thick, viscous liquid that emerged filled her with a sense of dread the instant she laid eyes on it.
No human should touch this liquid. Frontdier already knew that.
Selena had exhausted all her strength protecting him. She had deployed every Teleportation meant to shield him—now even one more was impossible.
And so—
“Selena.”
Frontdier looked at her.
The moment the Fragment touched him, his face had already changed color.
“F-Fron-tdier—”
Selena’s lips trembled as she spoke his name.
Even as the pain of the Fragment engulfed his entire body, Frontdier smiled at her like a boy.
Instead of the authoritative tone he’d used with her until now—
“Thank you.”
Boom—!!
With those final words—
he accepted every last Fragment of Helheim that had been sealed within the Glacier into his own body.

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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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