The Academy’s Weapon Replicator - Chapter 23

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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 Replicator — Episode 23
Chapter 6: The Golem (4)
The throwing distance of the dagger I’d made with Weaving had increased.
The situation had grown so urgent that I threw it first and asked questions later—fortunately, my “reality” reached him too.
If I’d left the Training Room earlier, I could’ve attempted it more safely.
‘What in the world is that thing?’
That massive frame draped in metal armor could only be one thing: a Metal Golem.
I looked at Edwin.
From a distance, it had seemed like Edwin owned the golem.
“…Edwin.”
“Frondier.”
The voice that spoke my name was strangely hollow.
As though it held all the resentment in the world, he called my name.
“You again.”
“…This is only the second time we’ve met.”
I approached Ellin cautiously, keeping my guard up against Edwin.
I knelt down and checked her condition. There was a cut along her ribs.
“Did you do this, Edwin?”
At my words, Ellin blinked her weary eyes several times.
I couldn’t tell if she was sleepy or simply exhausted.
“…The golem did.”
“But you’re the one controlling the golem, aren’t you?”
“…Yeah. I’m sorry.”
What was he sorry about?
I got to my feet.
Edwin’s anger still blazed only toward me—as though I were the final puzzle piece he’d been forcing into place all along.
‘…Don’t tell me.’
The air around Edwin tinted purple. It rose from his body like heat shimmer.
I knew what this was.
In Etius, where Players had few privileges, this was one of the few distinctions that set them apart.
The purple shimmer that only Players could see.
Evidence that a character had undergone Corruption.
‘This is damned.’
Why had Edwin Corrupted?
It had never happened before—not once in all my playthroughs.
While I replayed the game countless times, he always rose. He always reclaimed his house’s honor and glory.
A mere golem—in two more years, he could’ve created one through sheer skill alone.
This version of Edwin was utterly foreign to me.
If I had to guess at the reason, there was only one.
‘…Was it me?’
A character that doesn’t exist no matter how many times I play.
Frondier.
Did the existence of Frondier de Roache corrupt Edwin von Behertio?
“Frondier. That golem isn’t Edwin’s. Edwin is being controlled by the golem.”
“I understand. Just rest for now.”
It was painful to listen to her voice wavering under strain.
‘Being controlled by the golem’—so the golem’s movements weren’t Edwin’s true will?
“Edwin.”
“…What?”
“Can you control that golem?”
“Of course.”
The Metal Golem moved as if to prove his answer.
Certainly, the golem seemed obedient to Edwin’s commands. Or rather, to his will.
Having just arrived on the scene, I didn’t know why they’d been fighting in the first place.
But I didn’t know.
“…Senior, did you kill someone with it?”
At my question, Edwin’s pupils darkened.
Of course they would. Even I didn’t like asking it. But there was no way around it—I had to ask.
“…Both this bastard and that bastard, damn it, what are you talking about killing people for—!”
As expected. Ellin had asked him the same thing.
“What exactly will you do if I’ve killed someone?”
“…….”
“What will you do about it, you bastard!!”
The golem launched itself into the air with a low hum.
Charging at me with its spear raised, it resembled a spinning top fitted with a rotating scythe.
Though far more savage.
Weaving
Workshop Model 13
Grade — Rare
Bastard Sword, the Lion’s Great Blade
I manifested Weaving and gripped the Bastard Sword in both hands.
An attack as crude as that couldn’t be parried with a small weapon.
Weaving vanishes the moment it makes contact — if I fail to knock it aside completely, I’m dead.
“Ungh!”
Clang!
I deflected the golem’s spear, and my weapon disappeared that instant.
The golem, unable to comprehend its sudden resistance, pressed forward.
It had taken hits to the face countless times from my Weaving dagger before, but Golems have no capacity to learn.
So then—
Crack!
Clang!
I manifested a dagger and hurled it at its face.
If it can’t learn, then keep taking hits. I’ll pummel you until you’re nothing but a wreck.
Yet it advanced steadily.
Since I could only manifest one weapon at a time, it closed the distance during those gaps between manifests.
‘Should’ve practiced manifesting two weapons.’
Regret always comes too late.
* * *
Ellin checked her wounded abdomen. The bleeding had stopped, and the pain had dulled somewhat.
Her trained body and accumulated reserves of mana were steadily mending her wounds.
With a moment’s respite, she turned her attention to watching Frondier’s battle.
‘I should make him run away…….’
Why is Frondier helping her? He doesn’t even know her.
Even if he did, there would be no reason to stake his life on it.
She’d heard fragments about Frondier from her younger brother Aster.
That he was far more dependable and decent than the reputation of ‘human sloth’ suggested.
Yet Ellin found that claim hardly credible.
Aster felt indebted to Frondier because of the Mistilteyn Incident.
But she knew nothing of his combat ability.
If the rumors were true—that he slept through class and went to great lengths to avoid practical training and field exercises—he didn’t seem the type to excel in battle.
Even now, Frondier’s movements against the golem lacked any systematic structure.
And yet—
‘How is he defending?’
Frondier’s hands were empty. Yet each time he swung them, the golem’s spear was deflected and its head jerked back.
At first, she’d thought ‘invisibility’—hiding his weapon through magic. Difficult technique though it was, it would be worthwhile.
‘……But if so, how did he save me?’
He’d knocked away the spear aimed at her by throwing ‘something.’
Whatever it was—a throwing dagger, presumably?
Yet he’d thrown them ceaselessly, as though there were no limit to their number.
But then again, sometimes he seemed to be wielding something in both hands, deflecting the golem’s spear with it.
And at other moments, he was inflicting wounds on the golem’s waist and legs from extremely close range.
A dagger? A spear? A greatsword?
Invisible to begin with, and now its very length defied understanding.
‘……Unfortunate.’
Even so, Ellin predicted Frondier’s defeat.
On the surface, Frondier seemed to be attacking unilaterally, but none of those attacks dealt meaningful damage to the golem.
Repeat such strikes tens of thousands of times, and the golem might fall. But Frondier’s stamina would give out first.
If only she’d learned Aura—she might have stood a chance of felling the golem.
‘……Sigh.’
Ellin took a deep breath. Frondier was buying time for her, and for that she was grateful.
I need to recover quickly and buy Frondier time to escape. Ideally, I’ll get out of here too.
The way things are going, Frondier doesn’t seem about to fall suddenly.
“……That spear technique.”
Frondier’s murmur reached her then.
Hearing the unease in his voice, Ellin lifted her head to look at the Golem.
The Golem ceased its relentless assault and settled into a stance.
From that posture, it began to thrust the spear in slow, deliberate arcs.
To the eye, they seemed sluggish, yet each movement carried tremendous force, tracing a subtle trajectory that offered no easy opening for counterattack.
‘……Ashje’s Spear Technique.’
Ellin bit her lip.
Of course—the Golem was imitating Ashje’s Spear Technique.
Frondier’s hand moved again. An invisible thrown weapon.
Clang—but this time, the Golem’s spear intercepted it.
The Golem hadn’t seen Frondier’s weapon and blocked it; the moving spear’s trajectory simply didn’t permit the Dagger to pass through.
He could aim for gaps in that trajectory to land attacks, but stopping the Golem altogether was now impossible.
“Frondier! Stay silent and die!”
Edwin’s cry pierced the air.
Ellin drew in a slow breath, then released it just as slowly.
With each breath, she marshaled her fractured strength.
* * *
Edwin’s murderous intent toward me is unmistakably genuine.
It’s strange. Everything else seems like a mistake, yet toward me there is only killing intent.
Has my action provoked that level of fury?
‘Besides.’
Edwin’s Corruption—its shimmer has looked odd since a moment ago.
Something I couldn’t see in the game, or couldn’t see because it was a game.
That violet shimmer seemed to possess some kind of form.
As if it were human. Like something wearing the shape of a human.
I had the strange sensation that someone was standing behind Edwin.
Whoosh!
I barely dodged the spearpoint and retreated.
If this were the real Ashje, I’d be dead right now.
This Golem mimics Ashje’s Spear Technique, but it’s still incomplete. If I think of it like a game, it’s under-coded. It uses techniques according to conditions, but those conditions are still crude.
“Frondier!!”
Edwin’s voice rang out.
Still thick with passion.
“I’ve already killed someone! Now that I’ve taken one life, what’s one more? It changes nothing!”
His voice was like a desperate confession.
Even as he spoke, the Golem continued hurling its spear at me.
If he was trying to distract me with his words, it was indeed a brilliant combination.
“If you came here with some naive hope that you wouldn’t actually die, then you——!”
Ugh, shut up already. I’m too busy for this.
“Quiet! Nobody’s dead!!”
Clang!
I shouted and swung my Woven Bastard Sword.
Even deflecting the Golem’s spear is becoming strenuous. And I’m burning mana constantly—that’s risky too.
“Wha—what?”
Edwin stammered over my cry, clearly flustered.
“You’ve confirmed it?”
“I don’t need to confirm something like that!”
What happened. Specifically what it was that set Ellin and Edwin fighting. Why Edwin thinks he killed someone.
I know none of it.
But.
“You couldn’t have killed anyone!”
I know Edwin von Behertio.
The violet shimmer is evidence of Corruption.
Once Corrupted, there’s no helping it.
But that shimmer only emerged a moment ago. Which means until just before now, Edwin hadn’t yet fallen to Corruption.
Edwin, uncorrupted, could not have killed anyone.
“You, what could you possibly know——!”
What do you know?
How could I ever explain it?
All those days as Aster, challenging Etius countless times alongside you.
Countless lives spent watching over you.
If I were to explain all of that, would you understand?
No matter what we did with the Metal Golem,
whether it moved at will with nothing but intent, whether we were swept along by it—
my conviction remains unchanged.
Edwin could never harbor the will to kill, not even for a moment.
That tenderness of heart, so unbearably gentle that it has tormented him all this time, is both the weakness that has plagued Edwin,
and the very grace that will one day cause House Behertio to soar luminously.
“No… no, that’s not it! I… I fled without even confirming whether those people were dead. I’m a coward…!”
Edwin’s mind reels in confusion, while the Metal Golem’s assault grows fiercer still.
That contradiction will likely soon stir a sense of discord in Ellin as well, not just in me.
I can see it clearly. The violet haze clinging to Edwin is slowly transferring into the Metal Golem.
Now I understand the true nature of that Corruption.
I have witnessed a god before.
A small boy with black wings spread wide, who tried to kill me disguised as suicide.
Thanatos.
The same atmosphere I felt from him emanates now from that Corruption.
I don’t know who it is.
Behind Edwin’s back, a god exists.

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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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