The Academy’s Weapon Replicator - Chapter 64

—————
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 64
Chapter 17: Temporary Instructor (2)
“……Whoa…….”
Someone breathed those words aloud.
The students’ eyes ignited with tension and excitement. Every shred of their attention that had been fixed on me evaporated in an instant.
Artzie is the object of admiration for every swordmaster in Constellation Academy. Actually, not just swordmasters.
The fact that I, her younger brother, am met with such contempt and disregard owes much to Artzie’s shadow.
……Though to be honest, the primary culprit was my own excessive laziness, but yes.
“Though the time is short, it is precisely because of that—my instruction bears no relation to the conventional combat techniques you’ve learned until now.”
Artzie spoke with an air of dismissal toward everything they’d been taught before. Paradoxically, the students seemed delighted by it.
They were probably hoping for some special lesson unique to Artzie.
……But having sparred one-on-one with Artzie every single day, I can already see the future awaiting these students.
“From today onward, you will learn ‘the Fundamentals’ itself. Forget about Aura.”
They’re about to experience a sensation where ‘suffering’ and ‘tedium’ mesh together in perfect harmony.
“First, I’ll need to demonstrate.”
With that, Artzie swept her gaze across all the students.
Whose name would that indifferent gaze fall upon? Could it be me? The pounding of their heartbeats seemed audible even to my ears.
“You there.”
Artzie pointed at Aster.
“What’s your name?”
“Aster Evans, ma’am.”
“You look the strongest here. Come forward.”
The students thought exactly as expected. A few even glanced at me for a moment—wondering if she might show favoritism and choose me instead.
Since they’d never trained under Artzie before, they could afford such comfortable assumptions.
“This will be a light bout. I’ll use no hands, and I won’t strike you. Land a single blow on me. Use any weapon, any method—it doesn’t matter.”
“Not including Divine Power?”
“Divine Power is fine too. However,”
At Artzie’s words, Aster’s eyes gleamed. His clothes billowed, his hair turning white.
And yet.
A dull, dry sound—thud, crack.
Aster was sprawled on the floor. Artzie’s fingers rested against his neck.
“If you can use it, that would be nice.”
“…….”
Aster said nothing. His eyes were blank—he had no idea why he was lying down.
To an outside observer, it would have seemed nothing more than a simple sequence of movements—a foot swept, a fall executed.
But as long as the students here remained ignorant of her true methods, they too would be rolling on that floor countless times over.
“Shall we try again?”
“……Please, let me try again!”
Aster sprang up with vigor.
Artzie asked him a question.
“Why do you think you just fell?”
“……Because I was caught off-guard, ma’am.”
“That’s not wrong. Let’s go again.”
Artzie signaled the start and then walked forward at an unhurried pace.
This time, Aster kept his hand on his sword hilt without activating Divine Power.
He’d judged that opening his Divine Power took too long.
And once more—a soft thud.
“……?”
Aster was down again. This time he regained his senses more quickly and rose.
I could see humiliation in Aster’s eyes. I knew why—I’d felt the same way.
Not knowing what happened during the process of finding yourself on your back was certainly galling.
But what truly infuriated was the complete absence of pain. As if an adult man were gently laying down a child. You couldn’t even fathom that such a gap existed between you.
“Why do you think you fell?”
“……Because you’re faster than me, ma’am.”
Aster offered his answer. His honesty in admitting his own inferiority was something I wanted to praise, but.
“No.”
His answer was fundamentally wrong.
“Again.”
And after several more repetitions, Aster finally began to exchange a few moves, but.
The ending remained the same—sprawled flat, without a scratch.
Artzie’s expression remained unchanged. It was exactly the same as when he’d entered. There was no flicker of disappointment as he looked at Aster—just the calm certainty that this outcome was inevitable.
I wondered if he ever grasped how much despair that face instilled in his opponents.
“Repeating until one achieves understanding has merit, but today we have a suitable demonstration partner.”
Damn it.
I cursed silently to myself.
I’d had a feeling this was coming.
“Frontdier.”
Artzie called my name. Every eye in the room snapped toward me.
“Come forward.”
I walked out slowly at his command, feeling exactly like Frontdier the human sloth in that moment.
I didn’t want to do this.
“Um, sir.”
Someone raised a hand to speak.
“Yes?”
“Can Frontdier really be a match for you?”
True to the question, most of the students were eyeing me with doubt. The look in their eyes seemed to say: Aster couldn’t manage a proper fight, so what business does he have stepping in?
Artzie answered matter-of-factly.
“Frontdier is merely a demonstration partner. The difference in skill is not the issue.”
Some of the students seemed satisfied by this answer; others clearly weren’t.
The fact that I was Artzie’s brother had already fueled suspicions of favoritism, and this only poured more kindling on that fire.
Well, they’d see soon enough what became of me.
“Frontdier, proceed as you normally train.”
“Understood.”
I took my stance—one hand on the short dagger at my waist, the other ready to parry Artzie’s movements.
Drawing the weapon, swinging it, defending—all of it completed in the shortest possible motion. Moving without being detected, finishing the action before he could react.
This was the discipline Artzie had drilled into me over countless training sessions, burned into my body through repetition.
And the result:
I managed to draw my short dagger before his hand could reach me.
Whoosh—
The dagger sliced diagonally through the empty air. Artzie advanced while evading my strike.
And here was the difference from the bout with Aster:
A left hook came whistling through the air like wind. The motion from preparation to execution was nearly invisible.
I ducked, leaving it half to luck, and the fist grazed the top of my head by a hair’s breadth. The muscles along my scalp tensed at the sensation.
In a fight with me, there were no rules like “don’t actually attack.” The watching students held their breath.
In the exchanges that followed, my movements and Artzie’s flowed together as though choreographed. Yet nothing was choreographed.
It was merely a sequence of responses I’d painstakingly learned by taking blow after blow and rolling across the ground.
Each moment offered countless options; I simply chose the fastest path that avoided catastrophe.
Artzie posed the problems. I only reacted to them.
So even if I managed to hold out longer than Aster, the outcome would be no different.
Crack!
“Gah!”
A blow connected with my abdomen, and I staggered backward. Artzie closed in deliberately.
Damn. Facing him like this, it felt no different from confronting some wraith from the underworld. There probably wasn’t much of a difference.
I retreated while swinging the dagger, and Artzie slipped inside my guard, neutralizing the attack.
My counterattacks as I fell back carried little force, and Artzie showed no mercy to sloppy openings.
I took hits to the shoulder, abdomen, and arms—and that was only after I’d managed some defense.
Then,
With a heavy thud, I was thrown down. Artzie had seized my collar and used a grappling technique to sweep my leg out from under me. There was nothing merciful about it whatsoever.
“Frontdier, your movements are getting larger. Be more careful.”
Artzie spoke.
It was something I’d already sensed myself. I’d been fighting a Chimera until recently, after all.
“Aster, what did you make of that demonstration?”
Artzie asked.
Aster glanced briefly at me sprawled on the ground looking like a wreck, then answered.
“Without question, he fought better than I did.”
“Is Frontdier faster than you?”
“…Speed didn’t seem to be the decisive factor in that exchange, at least.”
“Correct. Then what is different?”
Aster fell into deep thought. In the meantime, I picked myself up off the ground.

The students looked at my battered state with embarrassment. They wouldn’t suspect me of favoritism anymore, at least.
Aster had arrived at an answer after deliberation.
“……Prediction?”
“Exactly. That is the foundation of combat.”
Artzie turned to survey the students again.
“The fundamentals of combat are about predicting your opponent. When the shoulders shift, when the hips move, when the weight transfers—you infer what action is coming from those subtle shifts in the body’s center of gravity.”
The reason Artzie could so easily overwhelm Aster was simple: she could see everything he was about to do before he did it.
“In that sense, Aster’s movements are still too large, too obvious. The same is likely true for all of you.”
The students felt a little deflated at Artzie’s words, but no one contradicted him. After all, Aster was the most skilled among them.
“While I teach, you will learn this. No matter how extraordinary your talent or Spiritual Force, in real combat you’ll be struck down before you ever get a chance to use it. Just as Aster was, moments ago. This isn’t a matter of willpower or resolve. It’s a matter of technique.”
Indeed, Aster had not drawn upon his Spiritual Force once, from beginning to end—even knowing that Artzie meant to stop him.
“Any questions?”
At Artzie’s words, someone raised their hand. The student’s expression held a note of dissatisfaction.
“What is it?”
“Well, sir, but… that kind of fighting style feels like you’re just battling against another person.”
Another student chimed in, as if in agreement.
“That’s right. We came to Constellation Academy to learn how to fight Monsters.”
They graduate from Constellation and become professionals, or palace knights, or mages—defeating Monsters as their vocation.
And then they advance further, to battle the Outer Monsters and emerge victorious, expanding humanity’s borders step by step.
This was the dream of Constellation’s students, and humanity’s foremost mission.
To students harboring such dreams, the duel moments ago seemed hardly relevant.
Artzie spoke.
“Do you remember what happened to your seniors when they faced the Outer Monsters recently? The incident in Taibun, where eleven were killed.”
……That story Quinie told me before.
At Artzie’s words, the students swallowed hard. The air grew grave.
“One of your seniors had remarkable foresight and predicted the Outer Monster’s incursion. It was an outcast, separated from the pack, unable to integrate with the rest. Yet still, eleven died. Do you know why? Because the creature was large and powerful? Because it was a massive thing, the size of a building?”
No one answered. Some dropped their eyes.
“It was nothing more than a wolf that walked on two legs. But it hid in the darkness, predicted the paths humans would take, and tore them apart by the throat from blind spots they couldn’t see. Sometimes it killed with a single slash of its claws. After hunting, it would wash off the blood in rivers or lakes to obscure the trail, and its gait left little trace from the start.”
Disgust settled on the students’ faces. In name a wolf, but in deed—no different from a human predator.
“There are countless creatures in the wilds that surpass human intelligence.”
Only then did the students understand.
Why Artzie had entered Constellation Academy as a teacher so quickly.
“What I teach you is combat conceived entirely around fighting Monsters. The reason you don’t grasp this yet is simple.”
No one in Constellation was better suited to this role than he was.
“You’ve only ever faced stupid Monsters.”

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