The Academy’s Weapon Replicator - Chapter 9

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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 9
Chapter 2: A Branch in the Coffin, Mistiltein (5)
Lemuse — the largest museum on the Central Continent.
From paintings and sculptures to ancient weapons and cultural artifacts, it was a space where one could experience the past in all its splendor — a veritable encyclopedia of history itself.
Quinier had stopped by the Lemuse Museum both for pleasure and study.
Viewing high-caliber artworks could cultivate an eye for judging the value of objects.
But today, her companion was proving somewhat taxing, and Quinier wore an ambiguous smile.
“I told you, you didn’t have to come.”
“No, no, it’s fun, it’s really fun, truly.”
Anne beside her answered like a recording on loop, and judging by the way she tagged an extra word onto every response, her spirit was beginning to drain away.
“Why did you follow me when you’re not even interested in this stuff?”
“My father bought a painting recently, and it turned out to be a counterfeit. Apparently he got teased about it by friends. After that, he suddenly came to me and said, ‘Daughter, you mustn’t let this happen to you,’ and insisted I study artworks. He says there have been a lot of these kinds of incidents lately, or something like that.”
“He sounds like a good man.”
“Well, honestly, I needed something like this anyway, and since it’s your father’s request, there’s no reason not to listen? Besides, I might as well learn a thing or two?”
Anne spoke while twirling her hair between her fingers. Quinier let out a small laugh at the sight.
Though truly, without a love for art, one couldn’t cultivate good taste. An eye for art, after all, was the ability to sense beauty.
Quinier considered saying as much, but swallowed the words instead. Perhaps, if she kept looking, her eyes would open on their own.
“Oh my.”
Quinier stopped in her tracks before a certain painting.
It depicted a woman in prayer. Yet she was not in a church or chapel. She knelt among sheaves of grain shimmering gold, her hands clasped in supplication. The woman was smiling — not with solemnity or gravity, but with brightness and radiance.
All these contradictory elements harmonized with one another, creating something both incongruous and magnificent.
Extraordinary. Quinier was startled — had she spoken the word aloud?
“Qui, Quinier, look, look over there.”
“Yeah, I’m looking. If you reach this level of discernment, you start to notice—”
“No, no, not the painting, next to you!”
At Anne’s barely audible whisper, Quinier’s brow furrowed slightly before she glanced to her side.
And indeed, she froze even more than before.
Frontier stood beside her.
Frontier, not in Constel but here — in the museum, before an artwork.
Nothing about this made sense, and Quinier went rigid.
Like Quinier moments ago, Frontier seemed unaware of her presence beside him. His gaze was fixed entirely on the painting.
There was no particular expression of appreciation on Frontier’s face — just the usual languid look she knew. Viewed from a different angle, it resembled the expression of someone analyzing a work.
Whether Frontier possessed taste in art or not, the fact that he lingered so long before a single piece was decidedly unusual. Curiosity stirred within Quinier.
That’s right — Frontier, who knew Mistiltein was fake. Perhaps he had some knowledge of art as well.
What are your thoughts on this painting?
“…Extraordinary.”
Frontier’s lips parted softly. The sigh that escaped seemed to confirm his admiration for the work.
“It’s a counterfeit.”
A terse assessment.
Frontier said nothing more and walked on.
His gait was as measured and plain as ever.
“…?”
Quinier watched Frontier pass her by.
She watched, and watched again,
“Wait, wait just a moment! Wait! Stop right there! Hey!”
She strode after Frontier, formal and casual speech tumbling out haphazardly.
“Oh, Quinier. What a pleasant surprise.”
Frontier turned and greeted her. At his usual composure, Quinier flinched slightly. She decided to return the greeting at least.
“Ah, yes. Frontier, what brings you here? You don’t seem like someone who’d visit a place like this.”
“I came to see the artifacts rather than the artworks — I was heading in that direction.”
“Artifacts?”
“Yes, weapons, armor, that sort of thing.”
At Frontier’s explanation, Quinier finally understood.
Frontier, who had recognized Mistiltein as a fake — he was an enthusiast for antique objects!
But there was a more pressing matter now.
“Fr, Frontier, what did you mean by what you just said?”
“Yes? What did I say?”
“You called that painting a counterfeit! Just now! I heard it clearly!”
Quinier pointed at the painting emphatically and took another look herself.
Viewed again, it was still a remarkably superior work — exceptional enough to deserve a place in the greatest galleries.
“Ah, yes. That’s right.”
Frontier replied.
His tone was utterly plain.
Had he really made a habit of calling everything a counterfeit—Mistiltein and all?
“Do you know where this is? The Lemuse Museum! The finest museum on the Central Continent! If there’s a counterfeit here, this isn’t something trivial!”
Hearing this, Frontier touched his lips, as if considering something.
“……In other words, you’re saying I should have filed a formal protest about bringing a counterfeit into the museum……?”
“That’s not what I mean!”
What was he thinking?
Didn’t he have a shred of doubt that he was wrong?
“If you casually go around saying there’s a counterfeit in the Lemuse Museum, this doesn’t just end there!”
“Whether this is the Lemuse Museum or the Louvre Museum, a counterfeit is a counterfeit.”
Frontier spoke.
His tone suggested he was stating something perfectly obvious.
The words themselves were obvious enough, certainly.
But where exactly was the Louvre Museum?
“That’s a counterfeit?”
“Yes. A counterfeit.”
“Really? You don’t regret saying that? Truly?”
“Truly. Genuinely. One hundred percent a counterfeit.”
Quinier looked at the painting again.
……No matter how or where she examined it, it was an excellent painting.
The Mistiltein incident had raised Frontier’s standards somewhat in her mind,
but she still trusted her own eye more.
“……Would you like to make a wager?”
“A wager?”
“Yes. A bet on whether that painting is genuine or fake. If you win, the Biet Company will send you money equal to the price displayed for the painting, paid by the Roach Family. If I win, it’s the other way around. What do you say?”
“How do you plan to verify whether it’s genuine?”
“I’m going to buy it. The painting.”
Anne, who had been sitting quietly beside her, let out a startled “Eek!” in surprise.
Quinier looked at Frontier with confident eyes.
In truth, she had come to the Lemuse Museum with the intention of purchasing something. This painting would more than satisfy her eye.
……It was precisely because of that that hearing it called a counterfeit had upset her.
“If you withdraw now, we can call it even,”
“Agreed.”
Frontier replied.
Quinier opened her mouth wordlessly, blinking in disbelief.
But then Frontier said something even more preposterous.
“However, rather than sending it to the Roach Family, could you send it to me personally? In cash, perhaps?”
“You really are something, aren’t you?”
* * *
The Biet Company currently commands the highest stock price.
But that is a recent assessment; before Quinier took it in hand, the Biet Company of old had lost its luster from a glorious heyday.
At that time, everyone believed the Biet Company was beyond recovery. It was, in fact, correct.
Looking at the trajectory of the Biet Company, there was no way to restore it to its former glory.
So Quinier tore it down and started anew.
She severed all unprofitable trade relationships, dismissed people, and cut off every tie with nobles she had cultivated over long years.
Once she stripped away all the bloat that had accumulated on the company, the deficit was solved. The problem was that enemies multiplied in equal measure.
The Biet Company had conducted numerous transactions with other trading firms and families over the years. Among them were many who would have fallen alongside the Biet family had they collapsed.
But Quinier cut them off without hesitation. Considerations such as the ‘time’ or ‘loyalty’ of long-standing transactions were beneath her notice. Inevitably, her enemies swelled.
From that, came the nickname: “Little Demon Quinier.”
After that, the Biet Company grew as if to prove the doubters wrong. And as the Biet Company flourished, every family Quinier had severed ties with walked the path to ruin.
Through this, the public assessment of Quinier, which had called her reckless, shifted entirely.
‘Merciless, yet possessed of vision so uncanny it chills the bone. Her eye for judging people and appraising ability rivals foresight itself.’
Families Quinier did not sever ties with, or to whom she first extended her hand, prosper. Families she cuts loose crumble.
As this pattern repeated, families that had sought to bring Quinier down found themselves in mortal peril instead.
That Quinier had severed ties became proof that they lacked sufficient value. Naturally, their standing plummeted, and they were branded as incompetent families.
Quinier possesses an almost supernatural gift for discerning people.
Though her ability is said to rival foresight itself, it is of course not foresight.
So she cannot read every sudden event that unfolds.
And yet today, of all days, that obvious truth grated on Quinier like nothing else.
“So they got everything mixed up?”
“Well, that is to say… by the time we arrived, things were already in this state.”
“So they got everything mixed up?”
The butler fell silent under Quinier’s pressing, stammering helplessly.
Quinier exhaled a long sigh.
“Let’s go see for ourselves. We need to understand just how bad this is.”
With that, Quinier led the butler out to the front of the mansion.
Before the mansion, all the cargo had already been unloaded, and servants were in the thick of sorting items.
“…Good heavens.”
The front of the mansion was utter chaos.
Quinier could see at a glance that goods she had no record of the company ever purchasing were scattered about.
“Counterfeiting fraud has become rampant recently. Organizations like ours that purchase goods in bulk are the prime targets, or so I’ve heard. They bring a similar vehicle, forcibly eject the driver, and swap similar items between the two wagons’ cargo. For the expensive pieces, they apparently had specially prepared counterfeits so convincing that nearly anyone would struggle to tell the difference.”
“If the counterfeits were prepared in advance, that means they knew beforehand what we were purchasing from the company.”
“Yes. It appears someone was pilfering records from galleries and museums.”
Quinier sighed again.
Only then did Anne’s words come back to her—something about her father having fallen victim to counterfeit fraud.
It was unreasonable to expect her to have anticipated this situation based on that single remark.
Still, the Biet Company had been fortunate. They’d caught the criminals in the act.
The problem was that the fraudsters had been in the middle of their swap when discovered, so cargo from both vehicles had gotten mixed together.
That’s why they’d brought both wagons here to sort through everything.
“…But what are they doing over there?”
While employees and servants busied themselves sorting goods, a group of people had gathered in one spot nearby.
“Ah, we’ve hired several appraisers. A considerable number of counterfeits nearly identical to what we purchased have been found.”
“Hmm.”
Curiosity drew Quinier toward the gathering. She wanted to see how closely the counterfeits resembled the originals.
But then—
“Wait, surely not. Surely not this…”
Before Quinier’s eyes lay two paintings. The painting she’d purchased in Lemuse. A painting of a praying girl.
‘This can’t be…’
The two paintings looked completely identical. Except for one thing: the girl’s expression was different. One showed her smiling; the other was expressionless. The one Quinier had bought was unmistakably the smiling girl.
“Has the appraisal been completed?”
“Ah, Quinier. My apologies. It was extraordinarily difficult, but yes, the appraisal is finished. The paintings were so magnificent that I found myself entranced despite myself. Ha.”
The appraiser chuckled, looking embarrassed.
The appraisal was done. Quinier swallowed hard. So which one was actually genuine?
She examined both paintings once more. To her eye, the smiling one seemed more authentic. The act of prayer paired with a girl’s smile—that very discord struck her as more beautiful.
“So, which one is the original? Which has the higher artistic value?”
“Well, those are two different questions with different answers.”
“Pardon?”
The appraiser pointed to the painting of the smiling girl.
“This one has the superior artistic value. We all gasped the moment we saw it. Not merely the girl’s expression, but the way color is employed, the care invested in the underpainting—all of it captures the beauty of an unfamiliar combination with precision. What’s more, while it borrows the coloring technique from the genuine work, it refines it with remarkable sophistication. Most people wouldn’t be able to distinguish it from the original.”
Having said that, the appraiser then pointed to the expressionless girl’s painting.
“The genuine work is this one. This too is a painting of excellent quality. Only the method is somewhat dated, and above all, the girl’s expression is a disappointment. We ourselves initially thought this was the counterfeit.”
“But how did you determine it was genuine…?”
“We were fortunate enough to have someone among us who recognized this work.”
Another appraiser stepped forward.
“Prayer of a Girl by Alain Busson. Both the artist and the work are extremely obscure, and the artist died long ago. Only a handful of people would know of it. The fact that the fraudsters brought the genuine article to use as their swap speaks volumes—it must have been selling cheaply somewhere in a gallery.”
A counterfeit with higher artistic value than the genuine.
So that’s why Frontier had called it an “excellent fake.”
…But then.
“Is there any way an ordinary person could identify which is the original?”
“It would be quite difficult. A museum itself displayed the fake thinking it was genuine. To distinguish genuine from false in a work like this, one would need either the extraordinary fortune to have seen the original before this counterfeit existed, or to have studied nearly every painting on the Central Continent.”
At those words, Quinier blinked several times, as though working through something, then spoke.
“Then it was just luck?”
“Pardon?”
“I mean, it was just luck, wasn’t it? There’s no other way to explain it,”
Quinier pressed the point earnestly, though the appraisers seemed unable to follow her meaning.

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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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