The Academy’s Weapon Replicator - Chapter 51

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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 Duplicator of the Academy — Episode 51
Chapter 14: A Binary Choice
Aten following at my heels had become routine by now.
There were still people who gaped or whispered when they saw us, but most seemed to have grown accustomed to it.
After school, heading toward the Constellation Academy gates, I spotted a familiar vehicle.
As I approached, the rear window rolled down.
“……We do keep meeting, don’t we, Philly.”
“Hello there.”
Philly waved her hand at me, and Aten behind me waved back at her.
Now that I looked closer, they had the same gesture.
So they really were mother and daughter.
“Frontdier, get in.”
“I thought our business was concluded.”
“It was. But I have a request this time.”
Hmm.
I hadn’t failed to anticipate that Philly might come to this. I had a rough sense of what the request might be, too.
But Philly’s action had come far faster than I expected—much faster. Perhaps she felt the weight of this matter keenly, or perhaps she held me in higher regard than I’d realized.
“Understood.”
“Aten, you too. Get in the front seat.”
“……Okay.”
We both boarded the car.
The vehicle moved smoothly, and Aten seemed somewhat uncomfortable in the passenger seat, watching Philly in the rearview mirror.
“Where are we going?”
“The Therst Department Store. It’s the only place we can talk freely.”
As I thought.
The reason Philly sought me out seemed to be exactly as I’d anticipated.
* * *
After arriving at the department store, Aten and I followed Philly’s guidance to a hidden chamber below.
Beyond the steel door lay a room with a design that resembled an imperial palace.
Philly took a seat in a chair before the central table and offered me the seat across from her.
Once Aten and I were seated, Philly gestured with her hand, and all the guards standing watch departed.
Only the three of us remained in the room.
Philly took a sip of the tea that had been prepared beforehand.
“……I need certainty.”
“…….”
I didn’t answer immediately.
Philly continued.
“I’ve thought long on the advice you gave me. The fact that you risked your life to protect Aten is undeniable. I’ve held that counsel dear and have spent time—much time—considering my next move.”
As Philly spoke, she seemed much as she always did, yet a barely concealed melancholy showed through.
As expected, Philly had arrived at the correct conclusion.
“……But still, I need certainty.”
“Very well.”
I nodded slowly.
“Let me hear what you have to say, Philly.”
“I met with Renzo.”
Aten seemed startled by Philly’s words.
Philly’s tone suggested it was hardly consequential.
“Renzo was never a stupid man. He knows how to weigh matters. He couldn’t possibly desire to become an enemy of the Empire—not truly. Because then the ‘amusement’ he craves so much would be forfeit.”
A sound judgment. I nodded in agreement.
Philly said she needed certainty. My mere agreement with her reasoning would be enough to let her advance her own logic further.
“If one kidnaps the princess of the Empire, no matter the justification, death cannot be escaped. To do so is to become an enemy of the Empire.”
“Indeed.”
“But there is one way around it.”
Philly paused deliberately, taking another sip of tea,
and in a voice low enough that the water in the teacup trembled with the nearness of her words, she murmured,
“Not to be discovered in the first place.”
“……!”
Aten seemed to grasp it then as well.
The greatest Irregular in this abduction of the princess was none other than me.
That I had stopped Renzo.
We know now that Renzo is the culprit only because we stopped the kidnapping. But if someone other than me had been at Aten’s side, the probability of her abduction would have converged on one hundred percent. And if that had happened, we wouldn’t have been able to identify the culprit immediately.
The surveillance drones near Frontdier were all swapped out for fakes. The drones along the escape route were probably all destroyed or replaced.
“Even if such work had been done, it would have come to light eventually.”
Even if there had been a traitor within Constellation Academy, Constellation is not so poorly run as that.
It would be impossible to hide the culprit completely. Sooner or later, Renzo’s guilt would be exposed.
But if the princess’s abduction had succeeded, there would exist a ‘window’—a gap in time before Renzo was identified as the culprit, unlike now.
The culprit wanted that ‘window’.
“To understand the full scope of a crime, one must always answer three questions,” Philly said.
She raised her index finger.
“Why this person?”
Aten answered.
“That is to say, why target me. The answer to that question is simple. Because I am the third princess.”
There were reasons aplenty to target the third princess—reasons one could not specify exactly, but reasons nonetheless. There was no mystery there.
Philly raised her middle finger.
“Why this place?”
Aten answered again.
“Constellation Academy, you mean. This too is easy to understand. Renzo has accomplices within Constellation itself. Moreover, I attend school here. There is nothing strange about that either.”
Again, no mystery presented itself, and Philly raised her ring finger.
“Why this time?”
Aten paused to think, then answered.
“During the Practical Exam. That seems odd.”
Yes. That timing was not particularly favorable for committing the crime.
The Field as a location, drones constantly watching the students, and the timeout constraint of having to sneak in and out—Renzo failed to overcome these three obstacles, which is why he was caught.
“Yet the culprits judged this time period to be the most ‘optimal’.”
“Indeed.”
I nodded once more.
Then Philly glanced at Aten briefly. It was a gesture that escaped her notice, surely.
When Aten tilted her head in confusion, Philly smiled bitterly.
“The culprit exploited you, didn’t they, Frontdier?”
“Yes.”
I gave the same answer without hesitation.
Why this time?
The answer was simpler than one might think.
[During the Practical Exam, only Frontdier would be at Aten’s side.]
Frontdier’s worst reputation.
‘Human sloth Frontdier’.
That image was sufficient to confuse Constellation’s people about who the real culprit in Aten’s abduction was.
When I confronted him, Renzo had said,
—Ah, I have no interest in you. The princess next to you is my target.
Renzo had never intended to attack me from the start. Even if he had, it would have been mere toying.
In fact, on his opening strike, he went for my ribs.
Whether he held back or not, there were countless vital points he could have struck in that moment besides my side.
In other words, he had no intention of killing me.
“Had the abduction succeeded, the only witness would have been you, Frontdier. Your low reputation makes your word unreliable, and in the worst case, you yourself could be suspected as the culprit.”
My rib injury is a staged act, and the one who abducted Aten was an accomplice in league with me.
Such a story could be constructed.
Ordinarily, when a crime occurs, the witness comes under suspicion—that is expected.
But when that witness happens to be me, the suspicion only deepens.
“Of course, this too is a problem that would eventually be solved. Once Constellation realizes you are not the culprit, they will finally—finally—recognize that Renzo is the guilty party.”
The culprit did not aim to prevent Renzo from being discovered entirely. He merely sought to delay that discovery as long as possible.
In that process, he tried to use me, but failed.
“……What does that mean?”
Then I heard Aten’s voice.
Frost crystallized in her breath.
“What are you getting at, Mother?”
Aten too had grasped it. What Philly was about to say.
Philly continued slowly.
“During the Practical Exam, you and Frontdier would very likely be paired together. That is precisely why the culprit targeted the Practical Exam. But then—how did they know? How could they have known that you and Frontdier would be paired during the Practical Exam?”
In other words,

The culprit had known all along. That Aten had been sent to approach Frontdier.
But those who knew this fact? Vanishingly few.
“……So, that—what are you saying?”
“Aten.”
Philly looked at Aten.
That smile was unmistakably her mother’s smile.
“Renzo’s accomplice is one of your two older sisters.”
Those words.
The very words Aten had feared to hear—Philly spoke them aloud.
Philly had sent Aten to me to obtain information on Dragon Heart. And she’d disclosed this intelligence to no one in the imperial palace. Not even to her own daughters, Salle and Elicia.
Yet conversely, only those two could possibly have pried that information from Philly.
The methods were countless. The simplest example: wiretapping.
-Have you gotten closer with your classmates?
-Mm, not really.
-Oh! Your mother specifically told you to befriend them. At your age, studies are fine, but friends are most important—
-A little bit with Frontdier.
A simple conversation like that between Philly and Aten—either Alesia or Salle could have intercepted it.
“……That’s a lie.”
Aten spoke with a desolate tone.
And she looked at me. As if she hoped I would deny it.
But I couldn’t deny it. Before even following Philly’s logic and deduction, I already knew the culprit.
I spoke.
“……If the Empress’s daughter is the culprit, then the ‘gap’ before Renzo is revealed as a criminal makes sense—she’d want that chaos. Madam Philly, you have many enemies. If rumors spread that you and I are in collusion, and the imperial palace is thrown into upheaval once, the true power of the Empire shifts in a heartbeat.”
In that case, Renzo becomes not an enemy of the Empire, but rather someone the Empire protects.
The princess is his accomplice—that’s why she dares commit such an audacious crime.
At my words, Aten bit her lip.
Philly opened her mouth slowly.
“……Frontdier. Do you know which of the two is the culprit?”
“……And if I said I did—would you believe me?”
“Of course.”
Her words seemed to ring true.
Philly’s acting ability was refined enough to escape my perception.
But given her nature, if she didn’t believe me, she wouldn’t have asked in the first place.
Yet I spoke.
“Even if I knew, I won’t tell you who the culprit is.”
“Why not?”
“If I tell you, you’ll suspect until the very last moment, Madam Philly.”
Philly, who doubts everything. It’s true that her nature has kept her alive in the political machinations lurking in the imperial palace—
But when pushed into an extreme situation where she must exclude her daughter, she will absolutely suspect.
Watching her daughter shed tears, insisting her innocence, baring her heart sincerely—Philly couldn’t help but waver.
“I’m simply astonished that Madam Philly trusts the words of an unvetted man like me.”
Yes. What Philly has already done is remarkable.
Not trusting my reputation, but trusting me myself. That astounds me.
To the point where I see the character of Philly in a new light.
But precisely because of that—
“That final answer must be something you discover yourself.”
It’s not my role to reveal the truth.
“Madam Philly will come to know it.”
* * *
“How is Aten?”
“She seems to be in shock.”
To change the mood, Philly and I climbed to the rooftop.
Philly was still alone, without an escort knight.
“……Madam Philly. There’s something I’d like to ask as well.”
“By all means. I’ve received considerable help today.”
Considerable help? It seemed she already knew the answer herself.
“You said you can see the future, didn’t you?”
“Occasionally. It’s often more of a feeling.”
“I mean the future where Aten and Aster are together.”
……
I couldn’t let go of this attachment yet.
Aster and Aten were undeniably the perfect pairing. And with Lunia, who came close to being the official heroine.
The other party members shift slightly depending on the player’s preference, but these three were almost fixed.
“Still now—you get a bad feeling about a future where those two are together?”
Philly nodded at my question.
“Yes. Nothing has changed.”
……
Nothing has changed. Those words gnawed at me.
I figured Aten’s awakening would have quickened because I healed her.
Yet it remained unchanged.
As I struggled to settle the weight in my chest—
“…Frontdier.”
Suddenly, a voice reached me.
For a moment, I thought it was Aten. But it wasn’t.
It was simply Philly, standing before me, who had called my name.
That single word, stripped of all formality, was the warmest I had ever heard her speak.
“There’s no dark premonition in a future where Aten is with you.”
……
“Will you stay by Aten’s side?”
Philly’s white hair, her crimson eyes. An innocent face that resembled a rabbit.
And within it lay something like a mother’s tender compassion.
“…It isn’t that I’m pursuing her, but rather Aten who keeps chasing after me.”
“Heh, that works then.”
Philly, laughing like that, seemed deeply reassured by something.

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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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