The Academy’s Weapon Replicator - Chapter 40

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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 40
Chapter 10: The Empress’s Eye (6)
Aten and I sat side by side in the Library.
We’d drawn considerable attention on the way in, but as expected of a library, curiosity faded quickly.
Since yesterday, Aten had been following me around—anyone who needed to know already did.
“Are you really going to teach me to study?”
“Yeah.”
Aten regarded me with something like suspicion.
Though her expression barely shifted—I was probably just reading into it.
It might have been just my imagination.
“You seem skeptical.”
It wasn’t.
The kind of person who can’t help speaking their mind, apparently.
I let it pass and opened my notebook.
Then I pulled up the lecture notes I’d duplicated in the Workshop until now.
Aten wouldn’t see it, but I was in the middle of copying content directly onto paper.
“…What are you doing right now?”
“To be honest, it’s impossible to teach you properly from here on and keep you from failing.”
The difficulty of the Midterm Exam isn’t the issue.
It’s the scope.
Aten has spent her time in the Imperial Household learning protocol and technique—she knows almost nothing about the academy curriculum.
That’s reliable information from the game itself.
‘Besides, all the Written Exams at Constel are essay format anyway.’
The game doesn’t have you actually take the exam, but that’s what I’ve heard.
Which means I can’t just transcribe what I’ve stored in the Workshop as-is.
That’s not a matter of memorization or anything like it.
It’d be Cheating, and I’d have no defense.
So I need to rewrite the lecture notes I’ve duplicated in the Workshop in my own style.
What I’m writing now is a summary that accomplishes that.
I finish one page and hand it to Aten.
“Here. Memorize it.”
“…What is this?”
“A month’s worth of lecture notes since enrolling at Constel.”
Not everything’s included.
I cut ruthlessly what could be cut.
I couldn’t write it all down, couldn’t guarantee Aten would remember it all, and truthfully, I wasn’t aiming for a perfect score anyway.
Just need to avoid failing.
Aten takes the paper and stares at it blankly.
“…Is this really course material? Not something you wrote on a whim?”
“If that’s what happened when I wrote on a whim, that’d be even more impressive.”
“But you’re writing straight into your notebook right now without a textbook, aren’t you?”
“Well, yeah.”
Since I’m copying from what’s in the Workshop.
“Don’t tell me you’ve memorized it all? The entire scope of the Midterm Exam?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
The Workshop is mine, after all.
I keep writing the next page as I answer.
Aten watches for a moment, then focuses intently on the paper I’d given her.
She seems to have grasped that I’m serious.
Quiet settled in after that.
Me transcribing Workshop content, Aten reading the pages I’d given her with full concentration.
Seeing her underline parts she thought important here and there, she was clearly doing this properly.
Eventually.
“I’m done.”
I hand the final page to Aten.
With this, I’d transcribed an overview of the Midterm Exam scope.
And in doing so, I’d rewritten the Workshop content to match my own style, so there was gain in it for me too.
Aten takes the pages I’ve handed her and stares at them blankly.
At this point, she has to know I didn’t write this carelessly.
Aten opens her mouth, still dazed.
“I heard you were lazy…….”
“I was reborn as a new person.”
Well, that wasn’t wrong, exactly.
* * *
Night found Aten studying in the Mansion.
Chasing after Frontier left her only brief hours after dark to study.
With a schedule like this, she’d thought it impossible to cover the exam material, but now it seemed within reach.
“……It was true.”
Aten cross-referenced the paper Frontier had given her with the textbook content.
……Not a single particle out of place. Perfectly accurate.
Even the spelling of difficult words was meticulously correct.
“Is memory like this even possible for a human?”
Of course, not every detail from the curriculum was there, but he’d captured all the essential material without omission.
That itself was proof that he understood the curriculum in its entirety.
Beep—beep—beep—beep—
Her Sage Phone rang.
The sound was so loud and urgent it might have been an emergency alert.
Aten answered.
“Hi, Mom.”
-Aten~ You must be working hard. How are things going?
Philly’s warm voice came through.
“Fine, just fine.”
-Have you gotten friendly with your classmates?
“Not really.”
-My goodness! Didn’t I tell you to make friends with them? At your age, studies are important, but friends are what matter most,
“Just a little with Frontier.”
-Good job, our daughter! ……Or, well, is that so?
Mom, your true feelings are showing right through.
Why does she have such trouble hiding what she really thinks?
I’ll never let myself slip like that.
-So then, did you ask him?
“About the Dragon Heart?”
-Mm-hmm.
“Not yet.”
-Good. You did right. Wait until that boy is completely head over heels for you and all dreamy—then ask him.
……All dreamy, she says.
Aten paused to consider this.
If she waited for something like that, she’d probably never ask him at all.
Philly spoke up as if suddenly remembering something.
-Oh, right—the Midterm Exam at Constel is coming up soon, isn’t it?
“……Yeah.”
Of course, Aten knew this was no sudden afterthought.
-The Practical Exam is open to spectators, right? So I thought I’d come watch my daughter in action.
“You’re coming here?”
-Yeah, with your sisters.
Aten’s expression hardened.
Her sisters were coming.
She’d only accepted the transfer to Constel because of them.
With a sigh, Aten spoke.
“Fine, I got it. But don’t come during the Written Exam. You won’t be able to see anything anyway.”
-You got it. Your mom’s busy too, you know? I’m making time to come watch the Practical Exam.
“Okay.”
After a few more exchanges, Aten hung up and exhaled.
Her sisters were coming.
In some ways, more of a headache than her mother.
She glanced back at the paper she’d been reading earlier.
The paper Frontier had written out for her.
“……I’ll do my best.”
After speaking those words, Aten picked up the paper again.
* * *
Midterm Exam. Written portion.
I filled in all the answers and left.
I’d worried the material I’d stored in the Workshop might not be enough, but it proved more than sufficient.
So this is the power of a cheat sheet.
It’s the first time in a while I’ve felt the real thrill of breaking the rules in this world.
I was the first student to leave the classroom.
No one seemed to find it particularly strange.
They’d probably assume I’d scribbled carelessly or turned in a blank sheet.
What they think doesn’t matter.
Today was the day to test out Wizergram.
I hadn’t had the chance to use it before the Midterm Exam loomed, but now that the written portion was done.
As I quickened my pace toward the Mansion,
Screech—
a car came to a stop in front of me.
“……?”
An exceptionally high-end sedan.
The sort of vehicle whose mere possession speaks volumes about wealth.
The rear window rolled down.
“Hello there—”
A woman offered a languid greeting.
White hair. Red eyes.
That face, which bore a harmless resemblance to a rabbit, I recognized.
Philly Terst.
She had come looking for me.
“Get in. We have somewhere to be.”
“…….”
I opened the car door without a word.
There was no refusing anyway.
Not when the Empress herself was offering.
And Philly was merely an awkward person to face—she wasn’t a villain.
There was no reason for me to be frightened now.
……Though the whole situation remained decidedly gray.
The car pulled away once I’d settled into the back seat.
It seemed she’d already decided on a destination.
“Why didn’t you answer my text?”
“I thought the Empress was joking.”
I’d hoped she was.
When the Empress suddenly says something like ‘Let’s meet up soon,’ it’s natural to assume that’s all it is.
Philly tilted her head.
“You must know why I contacted you.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Ahahaha.”
Philly laughed aloud.
And those red eyes, hidden beneath the laughter, opened deliberately wide.
“Liar.”
“…….”
“You know, don’t you?”
I chose silence deliberately.
Philly despises people who are unnecessarily kind to her, people who appear easy to handle.
If I cower before her station as Empress, I can’t have a real conversation with her.
“How do you know about the Dragon Heart?”
Philly asked.
Red eyes different from Aten’s.
Those eyes and expression and tone of voice—as if she were genuinely, purely curious. I met that gaze directly and smiled.
—Languidly.

“Who knows.”
“Have you seen it somewhere?”
“Perhaps.”
“And how did you know eating it turns someone into a vegetable?”
“It’s a secret.”
An answer that amounted to no answer at all.
Philly let out a low hum, grinning wickedly.
“Aren’t you curious what happens if you die here?”
Somewhere along the way, her left hand had drawn a dagger.
She pressed it gently against my throat.
I saw the blade clearly.
My Wizergram instantly catalogued it.
[Terst Imperial Ceremonial Dagger]
— A dagger required for conducting various Imperial ceremonies.
— Being ceremonial in nature, it lacks lethal force.
How interesting.
Of course, even a blade with no edge can kill you if someone keeps driving it into your throat.
Looking at it that way, Philly’s laugh and mine were remarkably alike.
“I’m curious what becomes of the Empress.”
……
At my words, Philly’s expression hardened slightly.
“You created some absurd department-store quiz just to gather information about the Dragon Heart, wandered around in secret without the Imperial Household’s knowledge, and arranged for her daughter to meet a man she’s never laid eyes on. And now—”
I closed the distance between Philly and myself.
I paid no mind to the dagger pressing against my neck.
Philly had retreated just as far.
“If that man dies in a car like this, if all that painstaking effort you didn’t want the Imperial Household to see comes to nothing, I’m simply dying to know what the Empress does then.”
“……Frontier de Loach.”
“Yes. That’s my name. You’re quite precise.”
“What do you want?”
Philly Terst, indeed.
Her judgment was sharp.
I spoke.
“I want to see the Dragon Heart itself.”
“……Mm. Just seeing it would be enough?”
Philly asked it that way.
Ah, a slip.
My smile deepened.
“So the Empress thinks just that alone won’t suffice, then.”
I heard Philly’s hollow laugh.
Well, since you put it that way.
Might as well take a bonus.
“Let me choose a weapon from the Imperial Armory.”
In truth, my choosing a single weapon from this offer meant very little.
What mattered was *seeing* the Armory.
The weapons in the Workshop had been looking short in supply.
But if I’d said merely seeing it would do, it might have raised suspicion.
“……Sigh. Fine. You’re nothing like I thought, Frontier de Loach.”
Philly let out a breath and grumbled as though it bored her.
I’d never been so grateful to be called Frontier.
Thanks to the carelessness his bad reputation had invited, I’d managed to draw out Philly’s mistake.
“Either way, it worked out. I was planning to take you there from the start.”
“Where, exactly?”
To my question, Philly spoke as though it were nothing much.
“This car is headed for the Imperial Palace right now.”

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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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