The Academy’s Weapon Replicator - Chapter 84

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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 Replicator Episode 84
Chapter 24: Taebeun (6)
Sanders saw it clearly.
The moment he shouted “Fire,” something far too massive to be called an arrow pierced through the monster so brutally it was painful to watch.
Monsters from the Barrier are a different breed. No matter how low-ranked, ordinary soldiers struggle even to cut through their skin.
For that reason, the archers’ volleys only slow the creatures slightly—they don’t meaningfully reduce enemy numbers.
But what was that.
Too enormous to be an arrow, far too ornate to be a ballista—whatever it was, it pierced through the monsters and vanished.
Sanders traced its point of origin. In an instant, he saw a single man: the one who’d just impaled a monster and was already preparing his next shot.
He’d taken him for a mere boy. A child who couldn’t tell heaven from earth, come here to die.
He’d expected to see the corpse of someone not yet of age.
Yet in this moment, the youth stood there with more composure and dignity than anyone else present.
And also,
He looked extremely tired.
Meanwhile, Selena beside him was straining to hide her shock.
‘This is nothing like what I heard.’
The intelligence was completely wrong.
She’d heard that Frontdier was a collection of laziness, incompetence, and inferiority complex.
Mangoat’s information had never been off before.
So by Selena’s measure, today was a first. Utterly useless information.
‘I thought it was just my nerves when I saw him in the cabin.’
Selena remembered the killing intent Frontdier had shown in the cabin.
Certainly it had been frightening. Not extremely, but somewhat.
But the source of that fear was the Firecracker.
Mangoat had suggested the possibility that when the Firecracker was spotted at Constellation Academy, its owner was Frontdier. But that was merely speculation—no one truly believed it.
Yet Frontdier had mentioned the Firecracker in the cabin.
He’d shown her an arrow right before her eyes.
‘What incompetence, what inferiority complex?’
The words felt impossibly distant from the Frontdier she was seeing now.
Though.
‘The tiredness is… yes, that part checks out.’
At least the laziness was somewhat credible given what she could observe.
* * *
Annihilating the monsters invading right now was possible. I had the Firecracker, after all.
Since the goal was to obstruct the Barrier’s repairs, the monsters breaching it were still in small numbers—which made killing every last one ridiculously easy, but.
“Die! Die, you fucking beasts!”
“Damn filthy vermin!”
I didn’t do that.
The Death Row Inmates below, near the fortress gate, were already in a battlefield where blood and flesh scattered freely.
The gate stood open now. The Barrier’s condition was so poor that we’d decided instead to open it and funnel the monsters through. It was only possible because the monster force was still small.
My current goal was leveling up Weaving itself. To level Weaving, I either had to Weave new weapons of higher grade or execute many simultaneous Weavings. So the Firecracker wasn’t that efficient.
Besides, most of the Death Row Inmates here are literally death row—people destined to die anyway. They’re just dying early.
I glanced at the faces of the inmates. I was about to witness many casualties, and I wondered if my heart would move at the sight.
‘I… honestly can’t tell.’
I can’t tell. People die before my eyes, screams reach my ears. Whether my heart ripples with shock or whether I’m buffeted but choosing to act as if I’m not—I can’t even discern that.
Then I made a discovery completely unrelated to my original purpose.
Among the inmates, none of whom I had any connection to, there was one face I recognized.
‘Grobel.’
The Indus—the faction seeking to abolish discrimination. The mercenary that Serf of the Indus had hired back then. Grobel was there.
At the Cottage incident, Grobel had been the figurehead leader, so he’d borne the weight of nearly all the charges. This was the result.
“Hah! Hagh! Hough…!”
Grobel was fighting like a madman. In his right hand, he wielded a Scimitar nearly as long as his own arm.
Severely curved—a high arc, in fact. The classic crescent shape.
Quite some time had passed since the Cottage incident, yet he was still alive. In Taebeun, that alone was extraordinary.
Crrrunch—!
Then something massive entered through the main gate of the Barrier.
The height of two adult men, skin the color of moss, strange protruding lower teeth jutting from its mouth.
A Troll.
“Kill it! Cut down everything in sight!”
The Death Row Inmates rushed forward, screaming whether in obedience or to themselves.
Grobel was in the same predicament. He shifted to move in front of the Troll’s right leg.
In doing so, he failed to notice the club the Troll was wielding rising above him.
“……Tsk.”
I clicked my tongue and wove Gram through the air, firing it off. A massive chunk of mana drained away, but this would send the Troll flying in a single blow.
Gram spun in a great arc and severed the Troll’s neck, then embedded itself deep in the gate wall, vanishing from sight.
And so the Troll collapsed, sudden and final.
A startled Grobel confirmed the severed neck, then swiveled his head left and right, searching.
As he scanned the surroundings, his gaze suddenly lifted skyward. His eyes found me.
From that distance, I couldn’t make out his expression clearly, but he had recognized me all the same.
* * *
After all the Monsters outside were cleared, the remaining Knights accounted for the dead.
In front of the main gate, sifting through the corpses buried beneath scattered Monster carcasses proved grueling work.
Most of the dead were prisoners. Those who survived were hauled back into the Prison under the watchful control of soldiers and Knights.
Grobel, too, had managed to survive and was among those being led back. The Death Row Inmates all wore faces that suggested they weren’t truly alive at all—yet Grobel’s eyes still gleamed with purpose.
Perhaps that very resolve was what kept him breathing still.
“Yes. So there was something to believe in after all.”
A Knight approached my side. The man who’d wagered that I would die today.
“You look pleased. You must have lost the money you bet.”
“Well, yes. The money’s gone. But still—”
The man swept his gaze across the surroundings. He studied the faces of the Knights investigating corpses, those managing prisoners, those checking weapons.
“Not a single one of us actually died.”
“…….”
He was right. No one had died. At least not among the Knights.
By that measure, I was still winning the wager.
“There are people in the order I’ve grown fond of. I thought of it as paying a little to see those bastards again tomorrow.”
The Knight chuckled and walked away.
Still crude in his laughter, crude in his manner of speech though he was.
I called after him.
“……Say, what’s your name?”
“Huh?”
The Knight didn’t slow his pace, didn’t turn his head, merely spoke as he departed.
“Hector. Hector Dutoite. A name destined to echo across the continent for ages to come.”
Hector……. Hector.
I turned the name over in my mind, wondering if it was one I’d heard before.
And then I remembered.
The White Lion Hector.
‘……Ridwi’s son.’
Hector had introduced himself as “Dutoite,” but he was unmistakably Ridwi von Urfa’s son.
And he would inherit Ridwi’s position as the latter stepped back, becoming the guardian of Taebeun.
In the way he roared before a massive horde of Monsters, there he was—the White Lion Hector.
As he himself had said, truly a name destined to echo across the continent for ages to come.
* * *
I made my way toward the Prison.
“A visitation?”
The officer in charge echoed the request as though hearing something peculiar.
“Yes. Is that not permitted?”
“No, not at all. It’s simply that we’ve never had a Knight request a visitation before.”
It appeared that within the Prison, I was already known as a Knight.
Perhaps because I’d fought in this battle.
“Who are you hoping to see?”
“A man named Grobel.”
“What is your relationship to him?”
I smiled.
“A sworn enemy, if anything.”
“Ha, I see. This way, then.”
The officer readily led me onward.
I’d spoken honestly, so the responsibility wasn’t mine.
Behind a pane of reinforced glass, I took a seat, and soon Grobel emerged from the opposite side, opening the door to enter.
Grobel’s face twisted the moment he recognized me.
Trudging over, he settled into his chair and picked up the telephone receiver.
What’s the matter, sir?
You remember me. I smiled.
“You’re alive.”
I hadn’t meant it mockingly, but Grobel’s eyes flashed with anger.
[Think I’d rot here? I’ve got a brother. I’ll never die in a place like this.]
That’s right. He did have that.
This man had a brother named Rockbel.
That Rockbel had stabbed me with a blade, but it was revealed that Serf had been controlling him, so he was acquitted.
In the meantime, before all that could be settled, Grobel was already shipped off to Taebeun.
[Ever since I was captured, I’ve been dragged straight here. I have no idea what happened to my brother.]
“He probably went to an orphanage.”
As I understand it, Grobel and Rockbel had no parents. Grobel was the only person raising Rockbel. With him locked away, an orphanage was the natural course.
[I can’t believe it.]
The words ground out through clenched teeth made me tilt my head.
“The Constellation Academy treats children reasonably well. Besides, Rockbel was innocent. There’s nothing to worry about.”
[That’s not it. The problem is that bastard Gregory.]
Gregory.
The name struck me as familiar, and then it clicked.
The man had handled reconnaissance and espionage within Indus. He had a talent for commanding animals, gathering intelligence through their eyes and ears and relaying it back to Indus.
“How do you know Gregory?”
Grobel was just a mercenary hired by Serf. There was no reason he’d know Gregory, who was an Indus member.
[When Serf hired our mercenary unit, he introduced Gregory to us. Showed us what he could do, said it might help us escape if things went south. Well, now I know it was all a lie.]
Grobel clicked his tongue.
I pressed further.
“But why Gregory? He sent crows to do the work back then—he was safe somewhere else. He’s not still active with Indus, is he?”
Grobel turned the question back on me.
[Don’t you know? Gregory didn’t know Serf was dead. He went to his hideout and got caught. Well, the crow he was controlling got caught, anyway. They’re looking for him, but they haven’t caught him yet.]
Haven’t caught him yet.
The words made me narrow my eyes.
[So he’s on the run. Indus is good at cutting off loose ends, so they won’t take him back.]
In the Cottage incident, there were only two Indus members: Serf and Gregory.
Serf is dead, and Gregory is running. Indus won’t leave Gregory alone—he knows too much about their operations—so he’s probably evading both the police and Indus.
[That’s right. He’s definitely holed up somewhere in the central region.]
Gregory can read information from his surroundings, so he also knows places where others can’t see. He’d use the animals to hide from view.
“So you think Gregory might approach Rockbel?”
[Yes, sir. The money Serf gave me as payment is floating around somewhere now, right? Only I know where it is. But Gregory wouldn’t know any of that. When money gets tight, he might remember the money I received and go looking for my brother.]
I never liked that bastard from the start. Not since he was skulking around in the background, just lending his crow’s mouth to flap its gums…… Grobel kept talking without me asking.
He was more talkative than I’d expected.
The reason he ended up in Taebeun was probably mostly because of me, yet his hostility toward me was surprisingly mild.
Maybe his brother’s situation was consuming all his thoughts.
Hmm. I paused to think.
Grobel clearly worried greatly about his brother, and that could make him a worthwhile trading partner.
However, the phone in the visitation room records all conversations, so I couldn’t afford to say anything reckless.
But Grobel was a man of the Underworld. He probably had decent means at his disposal.
I used the Analysis skill on Grobel.
[Grobel]
– Former leader of the mercenary unit Legid. Was hired by Serf Danael, an Indus member, but is currently imprisoned and serving time in the Prison.
– Deeply cherishes his brother Rockbel.
– Learned Sign Language and Lip Reading for secure communication with Indus members.
Just as I thought.
I shifted my head slightly, hiding my face behind Grobel’s back from the guard watching us.
The movement was natural enough, but if I kept it up, they’d notice. I had to act fast.
—Grobel. Want to make a deal?
I mouthed the words silently.
Grobel’s eyes widened sharply.
—I’ll protect your brother. You help me get past the Barrier.

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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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