The Academy’s Weapon Replicator - Chapter 3

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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 Episode 3
Chapter 1: The Human Sloth Frondier (2)
I’d grown accustomed to class.
That doesn’t mean I’d started understanding the material. I still comprehend absolutely nothing.
I simply store every image from the blackboard or textbook directly into my armory the moment I see it.
What I’ve grown accustomed to is the atmosphere during lectures. It’s more accurate to say we’ve all become accustomed—including me.
Everyone’s slowly gotten used to the sight of me sitting there with my eyes open, staring at the blackboard.
The fact that I don’t take a single note seems to have convinced my classmates somewhat.
“Then let me pose a problem here.”
The teacher lowered the Wizard View display he’d been holding up.
Probably the answer to the question was on that screen.
“Frondier.”
The teacher’s eyes as he pointed me out looked distinctly displeased.
The fact that I keep my eyes open and attend class.
For some teachers, that might be something to like. For others, the exact opposite.
The truth is, Frondier could sleep through class precisely because he’s a child of the Roach Family.
The educational institution I attend, Constellation, makes no distinction between nobles and commoners. The only dividing line is ability.
But that doesn’t mean everyone inside shares that principle.
Constellation’s system is meritocratic, yes—but every person within it harbors their own thoughts.
Some fawn over the nobles while looking down on commoners,
while others recklessly champion commoners and despise the nobility without second thought.
What made Frondier’s position rather amusing was precisely this.
Teachers who curry favor with nobles left me alone when I slept,
and teachers who openly dislike the nobility simply ignored me whether I slept or not.
In other words, neither side interfered with Frondier’s indolence.
‘When I think about it that way, the teacher who woke me up at first was quite a unique person.’
He’d woken me simply because I was a student, because it was class time.
A response that was remarkably teacher-like.
The more people like that exist, the more properly run an institution is.
But the teacher standing before me now didn’t seem to be that type.
The contempt evident in his eyes proved it.
“What event occurred in the year 144 of the Terst Imperial Calendar?”
……?
The answer to this question would be contained in the content just displayed on the Wizard View.
But mere minutes had passed since he showed it.
The others surely took diligent notes.
“You’re welcome to answer by looking at your notes.”
Hm. This woman.
Did it really irritate her so much that I sat there without jotting anything down?
I pulled up the image I’d stored in my armory. This was my ‘note-taking.’
While I retrieved the image and confirmed its contents, the teacher let out a sigh right in front of me.
“Unable to answer? If that’s the case, then from next time you should take proper notes—”
“His Majesty Edezion Terst passed away.”
Edezion.
Simply put, the current Terst Emperor’s grandfather.
Honestly, he wasn’t an emperor the empire’s citizens took pride in. At the time, human territory was steadily shrinking at the hands of monsters.
An incompetent emperor who left behind nothing but records of defeat.
But anyone—truly anyone—who would have occupied the imperial throne during that era would have died bearing the same shame.
That’s how difficult and desperate the times were. It was simply a matter of ill fortune.
The teacher’s eyes grew harsher as he looked at me.
Why are you looking at me that way?
The student gave the correct answer.
“……That wouldn’t be all there is to it, would there?”
“Immediately following the Emperor’s passing, the empire relocated its capital to Silester. This was the Terst Empire’s third and current final Capital Relocation.”
I simply looked at the image I’d retrieved and read from it.
It looks petty, but what can I do when ordered?
“At that time as well, the necessity for a combat training institution like Constellation itself was highlighted and brought to the legislative stage, only to be rejected. In retrospect, that decision proved correct. At that moment, securing the boundary between humans and monsters was the priority.”
“……And then?”
The teacher asked me this, apparently curious to see how far I’d go.
But all I felt was exasperation.
“…Next will be year 145.”
Since you’ve finished reading it.
“…”
“…”
A brief staring contest.
Honestly, I have no idea why we’re doing this.
The teacher glaring at me—tendons stood out on her forehead.
After a moment, she adjusted her glasses with deliberate composure.
“Very well. Now, if you look at the next page—”
The Wizard View opened again as if nothing had happened, and the lesson resumed.
Only the slight tremor in the teacher’s fingers betrayed anything, while the students stifled their snickers.

* * *
Divine Power Measurement Chamber.
This facility boasts the largest space within Constellation.
While few students possess Divine Power, their strength varies wildly—as does the scale and magnitude of their abilities.
For more precise measurement, each student with Divine Power maintains a personal record, which the instructors review collectively to render fair assessments.
“…Extraordinary.”
And standing here now is a single girl.
Around her lies a scene of desolation.
Fractured stone, charred ash, frozen earth, lightning scars etched with terrible clarity—and more besides.
The aftermath seemed impossible for one person to have wrought.
Ales, the instructor who had been observing her measurement, swallowed hard.
‘So this is the girl they call Elodi.’
Elodi is not her true name—merely a middle name bestowed upon her, having received the love of five gods.
Elodi de Elodi Lishaei.
The eldest daughter of the Lishaei Family.
A girl who monopolizes five Divine Powers—a treasure so rare that most never possess even one.
At merely seventeen years old, her future is already, for all practical purposes, sealed. A future draped in universal admiration and respect, envy and jealousy alike.
“How are the readings? Any changes?”
“Mm, nearly identical to last time. No need to worry about a drop in performance.”
Ales answered with feigned nonchalance.
“Aw. I was hoping they’d climb higher.”
Elodi spoke with playful amusement.
Ales laughed with her, though cold sweat beaded his brow.
‘If they went any higher, what would we even do?’
Yet beneath the levity of Elodi’s expression lay a subtle shadow.
She still carried the memory of Frondier, whom she’d passed in the hallway.
—…With what heart did I wait for you,
all this time.
His words had gone unfinished, abruptly scattered when a baseball came flying out of nowhere.
But now, she thought it a mercy.
Frondier and Elodi had known each other since childhood.
Though none within Constellation realized it.
The Roach Family, Frondier’s house, and the Lishaei Family, Elodi’s, had been colleagues and rivals since ancient times.
The “Iron-Clad Achievement” of Anfer, the Roach patriarch, was renowned—yet the Lishaei Family had played no small part in its success.
That the son and daughter of each patriarch, both the same age, came to know one another was inevitable.
…Elodi had harbored no unreasonable expectations of Frondier.
The son of that Anfer, the brother of that Asje.
Everyone expected him to possess talent equal to theirs.
But for Elodi, such things hardly mattered.
As an old friend, she had simply hoped he would carry his own weight.
Yet Frondier was not like that.
Without Divine Power, without talent, even his character proved lacking.
He made no effort to develop his meager abilities, showed no responsibility in fulfilling his duties, and could not even manage his own daily affairs.
The affection she’d held since childhood had dimmed over long years.
Frondier had at last broken even their final promise.
—Frondier, meet me at the east gate of Constellation after school. I have something I absolutely must give you.
It was surely no difficult promise to keep.
You were the one who said you understood.
……Yet Frondier never appeared, and in the hallway he tried to pass Elodi by as though he’d never seen her before.
‘……The hallway.’
Elodi’s eyes narrowed as she turned to Ales with a question.
“……Professor, if it were you, how would you block arrows flying through the air?”
She recalled the small commotion that had happened in the hallway when she was with Frondier.
A baseball had come flying, shattered the window glass, and in that instant she had incinerated all of it—yet.
As they fell, they had bounced back in midair.
It was clearly Frondier’s doing. But she couldn’t fathom his method.
Rather than explain it all in detail, she simply substituted arrows for the shattered glass as an example.
“Magically speaking, there are countless methods—burn them, freeze them, scatter them with wind. All you need is to rob them of their force, assuming they aren’t Demon-Breaking arrows.”
“……But what if someone blocked the arrows with something like an invisible wall, bouncing them back?”
“You mean they pushed them away with wind?”
“No, I mean literally with an invisible wall—bouncing them back.”
“Have you seen someone do that?”
“Oh, no! It’s just a hypothetical. A what-if question, you understand.”
Elodi’s question would have sounded childish and foolish coming from any other student.
But Ales took it seriously. Because the one asking was Elodi.
Whatever thought had occurred to Ales would have already occurred to Elodi. That she asked anyway meant there was genuine consideration behind it.
……Yet, thinking it through again, Ales reached the same conclusion.
“That’s strange.”
“……Isn’t it?”
“The most likely explanation is Transparency Magic. Whether it became a wall or a shield or whatever, take some object light enough for a person to carry, cast transparency on it, and use it to block arrows. To everyone else’s eyes, that becomes an ‘invisible wall.’ Literally. But Transparency Magic is remarkably difficult. It’s not actually becoming transparent—you have to apply the principles of light diffraction. Even a small calculation error breaks the spell. And even if you succeeded, questions remain.”
“……Like why do it that way in the first place, you mean?”
“Exactly. If the purpose is just blocking, there’s no need to make it invisible—a simple shield would do. Magic isn’t even necessary. If you wanted to use magic anyway, there are easier methods. And if you’re going to use a shield, there’s no reason to make it transparent. The logic doesn’t hold.”
Elodi nodded, having reached the same conclusion.
……Though she’d left out the details when talking to Ales.
In truth, the arrows were something from a wartime scenario, but in Elodi’s case it wasn’t arrows at all—just glass shards, a simple accident in daily life.
Who carries an invisible shield while walking down a hallway during peacetime? Preparing for an attack that might come someday, or might never come at all.
Ales fell silent for a moment, then slowly opened his mouth.
“There is one other possibility, but the odds are extremely low.”
“What is it?”
“Well, it’s a far-fetched idea.”
“I’d like to hear it anyway.”
Ales gave a wry smile. That expression alone conveyed that what he was about to say was absurd.
“Using Aura.”
“……Aura? The Aura that warriors channel into their weapons?”
“That’s right. Mana and Aura are fundamentally the same substance, both called Qi. Where a mage manipulates Mana through formulas to achieve magic, a warrior infuses Aura itself through tens of thousands of repetitions and cultivation.”
“But what does that have to do with an invisible wall?”
“It’s unfamiliar to mages, but warriors who’ve reached a certain level can create Aura without weapons.”
Elodi’s mouth fell open. Now she grasped what Ales was driving at.
She understood perfectly why he’d called it far-fetched.
“So you’re saying… a warrior at that level created a shield-sized Aura with bare hands?”
“It was a hypothetical, remember?”
“Ah, yes! As a hypothetical! A what-if kind of question, that’s all.”
Even as she answered, Elodi was thinking.
The possibility that Frondier had created an Aura was, of course, absurd.
Creating Aura with bare hands, weaponless, was itself the domain of the rarest few.
And he’d created one large enough to bounce back all those countless shards of glass?
‘……That makes no sense.’
So either Frondier had done something foolish like casting Transparency Magic on a shield, or else.
……Or else, what.
Ales smiled as he watched Elodi’s thoughtful expression.
She’d definitely seen something.
But Ales was certain of one thing: she must have misread it.
“But it’s just theory. Such a thing would be impossible for anyone.”
“……Yes, of course it would be?”
“If even one person could do such a thing, humanity’s lands would be far wider than they are now.”
“To that extent?”
“If someone could create a shield-sized Aura with bare hands, weaponless, then their body itself would be equivalent to a legendary weapon. A legendary weapon firing indiscriminately at that. Picture dozens of invisible projectiles raining down—and wherever they hit, there’s a hole the exact size of the impact.”
At Ales’s words, Elodi’s face went pale.
“That’s… certainly frightening.”

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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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