The Academy’s Weapon Replicator - Chapter 25

—————
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 Episode 25
Chapter 7: The Disciplinary Committee
Edwin sat in a chair.
His mouth had gone dry, and cold sweat pooled down his spine.
Before him sat the renowned instructors of Constel, their eyes fixed upon him.
Surrounded by them, Edwin looked every bit the criminal.
And he was one—truly.
Right now, he was attending the Disciplinary Committee.
“……Edwin.”
“Y-yes, sir!”
Across from Edwin sat a white-haired man whose sharp, keen gaze gleamed within the creases of his eyes, draped in a long robe of indeterminate fit.
He was Constel’s final authority, its highest ranking official.
The Rector—Osprit, called “Zodiac”.
“There’s no need to revisit the circumstances. You turned yourself in, after all.”
“……Yes, sir.”
Edwin nodded silently.
A young man to the right spoke in a thick, gruff voice. It was Ales, the instructor of Basic Combat Arts.
“You assaulted students unprovoked. Some of them suffered serious injuries! Gary, in particular, had his jaw shattered and remains hospitalized! That crime is far from trivial, regardless of your self-report!”
“I’d argue that turning myself in seems rather important, wouldn’t you?”
The one who answered was Jane, the instructor of Mana Fundamentals and Practical Application.
She was the teacher who had escorted Frontier and his group through the lower dungeon.
Her characteristic cheerfulness was still striking even within the confines of this committee room.
“Before Edwin used the golem, he himself was the one being assaulted unprovoked. All the injured students belonged to the commoner collective known as Octoberr, and we’ve already confirmed evidence of their systematic harassment of Edwin.”
“Even so! They didn’t inflict wounds to that degree!”
“That may be precisely because Edwin exercised restraint in his defensive actions. It’s inaccurate to call this ‘Excessive Self-Defense’ rather than acknowledge it as a measured response.”
Both Jane and Ales were full-time instructors at Constel who taught the first-year common curriculum. They had taught both Edwin and Gary when they were first-years.
It was around that time that the conflict between commoners and nobles had begun to intensify.
Jane had tried to distinguish individuals within that conflict, while Ales had sided with the commoners from the start.
He himself was a commoner who had risen through steady, earnest effort from the lower classes.
The prejudice toward Fallen Nobles ran deeper than prejudice toward nobles themselves.
Everyone at Constel knew that Edwin belonged wholly to neither faction, drifting between them both.
Yet Edwin had pressed forward stubbornly, and until now, he had remained untouched by incident.
This was why Jane believed in him even now, while Ales saw this incident as finally proving his guilt.
“Both of you, please compose yourselves.”
A refined voice. It was Malia, the school nurse.
It was unusual for a mere school nurse to attend the Disciplinary Committee, yet no one voiced objection.
“We did not bring Edwin here today because of an assault incident. Isn’t that correct?”
“Right. The golem is the issue.”
Ales answered with evident satisfaction.
Jane pursed her lips.
From the instructors’ perspective, the golem was indeed a far graver concern than the assault.
Jane, who would have liked to defend Edwin, had little she could say on this matter.
“Edwin, you stole the golem from Binkis and used it in your assault. You acknowledge this?”
Ales’s question was malicious in its framing.
And yes, Edwin had confessed to exactly that before.
Edwin answered with his eyes closed.
“Yes, sir.”
“The timing between the theft and the assault is suspiciously close. It appears you stole the golem with the express intent of attacking those students from the beginning. Do you deny this?”
“Ales!”
Jane cried out. Ales’s words were now nothing but conjecture and forced logic.
Yet from the moment Edwin had entered this room, his posture and expression had been withering under the weight of guilt.
Even such thin reasoning could gain traction.
“Why do you say nothing? Do you deny it or not?”
“Ales! You’re overstepping your bounds!”
“I wasn’t asking you, Jane!”
Ales rose from his chair.
His footsteps, steady and unflinching, carried with them an oppressive weight.
Drawing near to Edwin, Ales loomed over him.
“Answer me, Edwin! If your theft of Binkis’s golem wasn’t meant to attack those students, then why did you steal it? You used that golem for the first time immediately after stealing it—for assault! How is this chain of actions anything but deliberate?”
Edwin kept his eyes closed still.
It was not Ales’s pressing that shook Edwin’s resolve. Rather, Edwin was shaking himself, wavering within his own mind.
—He had done worse than that.
Striking the students was something he might have excused, however thinly.
But he had tried to silence Ellin, his close friend, and he had sought to kill Frontier with genuine intent.
That inexplicable rage had no clear origin, yet it was undeniably his own will.
—Have you truly fallen, Edwin?
Your words are right, Ellin.
There’s no point denying it.
“Answer me! Edwin!!!”
Ales’s voice cut through the room.
Edwin opened his eyes slowly.
Yes, it seemed everything had been intentional. It was right to admit it. Edwin von Behertio had fallen.
His lips parted slowly, and
—Crack!!!!
A sharp sound swept across the entire meeting room, striking every wall and ceiling.
Everyone turned toward the source of the noise.
“……Binkis?”
Ales tilted his head, confusion evident in his expression.
Binkis’s hands were pressed together.
She had clapped.
“Ah, now I understand.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, I couldn’t figure out why Edwin was here doing all this. I watched the situation unfold for quite some time, and now it makes sense. So Edwin is being scolded right now, is he?”
Binkis spoke with the satisfied expression of someone who had finally solved a puzzle.
Sensing something amiss, Ales narrowed his eyes.
“Don’t you know better than anyone what wrongs Edwin has committed?”
“And that’s precisely why no one said anything to me. There was this misunderstanding, you see.”
Misunderstanding?
Ales’s expression darkened further. Something about the way Binkis spoke made him sense an unpleasant revelation was coming.
Binkis placed her hands on her hips and spoke with unmistakable pride.
“That Golem was a gift from me to Edwin. He didn’t steal it.”
Remarkably, it was exactly as unpleasant as he had feared.
“What, what did you say?”
“As you all know, Edwin has served as my assistant for a long time. He is such a talented student that I’m embarrassed to say how much his help has meant to my Golem research. The Golem is a gift for that assistance.”
Ales stood speechless, his mouth falling open.
A teacher had given a Metal Golem as a gift to a mere student? Was such a thing worth mere pennies? Could a book or two of knowledge suffice? Could it be made through a few days of practice?
Certainly not.
Ales looked at Edwin.
Edwin appeared far more shocked than Ales, staring at Binkis with wide eyes. His lips trembled, and his eyes glistened as though ready to spill tears at any moment.
“But Edwin’s expression suggests otherwise?”
“His expression?”
Binkis let out a cold laugh at Ales’s words.
“What happened to all that proud ‘logic’ and ‘deduction’ you were directing at Edwin just moments ago? Now you suddenly speak of reading faces? Have you acquired the ability to read minds from expressions, Ales?”
“Binkis! Even so, you cannot simply gift a Metal Golem. That defies all reason!”
“Do you not see? You yourself are making claims far more unreasonable than this.”
“More unreasonable claims……?”
At Ales’s bewildered rebuttal, Binkis swept her gaze across the room. When all attention turned to her, she smiled with cold dignity.
“Let me ask you instead. You all seem to believe Edwin stole my Golem—but how exactly did he steal it?”
“……Well, by sneaking into the Research Lab.”
“Into it?”
“……Hm.”
All the teachers understood what Binkis implied. Her intention was crystal clear.
That Binkis would defend Edwin at any cost,
and that dismantling her logic now was impossible.
“My Golem is protected by multiple layers of encryption and security measures. Only I can make any modifications to its design. Teacher Ales, from what you’ve said, you seem well aware of the Metal Golem’s value—would I have left such an object in my Research Lab without precautions?”
“But……surely if one possessed sufficient knowledge of Golems, metals, and magic, it might be possible?”
“I say with certainty:”
Binkis turned her gaze. It fell upon Osprit, seated at the far end.
“The encryption I placed on the Golem cannot be broken by any teacher in this room. Not even by the Headmaster.”
No one dared to speak against those words.
Even Osprit couldn’t resolve it—he understood the weight of those words.
Osprit, meanwhile, showed little reaction. It was impossible to tell whether he was endorsing Binkis’s statement or dismissing it entirely.
Binkis turned her gaze toward Ales.
“Let me ask again. Which seems more plausible—that I gift a Metal Golem to a student, or that a mere student manages to bypass a security mechanism on that Golem that none of the teachers here could crack?”
“…Teacher Binkis, surely you don’t mean to suggest—”
“The only absurdity here isn’t coming from me.”
As these words passed back and forth,
Edwin heard their conversation as though it were merely background noise.
Guilt churned within him, and shame clouded his vision.
Teacher Binkis was defending him—him, who had deceived her, who had stolen her Golem.
In Edwin’s mind, consumed by the stigma of a Fallen Noble, Binkis had been one of his few allies. He had betrayed her, and yet she believed in him once more.
That single fact alone made his entire being tremble.
Edwin lowered his head.
Despising himself, unable to bear the sight of his own face, he could only stare at the floor.
Osprit observed him in that state.
His knees clenched, his shoulders quaking, his head bowed.
‘…Behertio.’
He had believed the House of Behertio was already completely extinguished.
The days when it was called a noble house—those were the very days when Behertio’s patriarch and Osprit had shared their golden age together.
He had thought they would grow old slowly and in step with the passage of time.
What drove it so urgently? What greed and stubbornness seduced you into ruin?
It withered far too quickly, far too completely to ever rise again, or so he had believed.
“—Teacher Malia.”
Osprit, who had maintained his long silence, finally opened his mouth.
“Yes.”
“I heard that after the Golem was destroyed, a male student, a female student, and Edwin all went to the Infirmary together.”
“That’s correct.”
“And they had nothing to say to you?”
“Ah, no. They did.”
Edwin’s eyes flew open. It was about Ellin and Frontier. As he lifted his head, his eyes met Malia’s, who was looking directly at him.
“Edwin, this is what the two of them asked me to tell you.”
“Y-yes?”
“First, from the male student, Frontier de Roach, he says:”
Malia’s expression was softer than it had ever been. Her gaze seemed to envelop Edwin in warmth and tenderness.
“He’s sorry for destroying your Golem like that. He wanted me to tell you that.”
“…!”
Edwin heard those words with an expressionless face. Tears spilled from his trembling eyes, streaming down without restraint.
“And this is what Ellin asked me to pass on.”
Edwin made no move to wipe his tears, letting them soak his hollow cheeks.
Watching him, Malia wore a rare, almost playful smile.
“She said you were asleep and didn’t know about any of it.”

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