The Academy’s Weapon Replicator - Chapter 95

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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 95
Chapter 27: The Hollow Threat
Mangos wanted Frontdier’s Ancient Language Interpretation.
That is, if Frontdier interpreted the ancient language but then refused to convey its contents to Mangos, Frontdier would be worthless to him.
If Frontdier tried to hide the meaning of the ancient language, Mangos would extract it by coercion if necessary.
This was the directive given to Selena, and it was the same directive that had been given to Haglei before her.
Demonstrate the gap in power. Correct Frontdier’s arrogant delusion that he held the upper hand. When that moment came, she was to discard all courtesy and deference toward him.
‘……Me, threatening this man…….’
Selena swallowed hard. She was the one doing the threatening, yet she was also the one afraid.
Before she knew Frontdier, the directive had seemed simple. The Frontdier she knew from information was nothing but a wretch.
She had even looked forward to that day coming. The day she could shed the tiresome formalities and false modesty, the day she could threaten Frontdier openly.
But now.
Selena felt cold sweat trickling down her back.
‘Will threats even work on this man?’
The Needle’s tip was pressed against Frontdier’s throat—a situation overwhelmingly in Selena’s favor.
Yet Frontdier’s languid, unmoved eyes made her unable to feel any advantage at all.
“Selena, put the Needle away.”
“You’re hardly in a position to say that. Do you understand the situation you’re in?”
“It’s you who doesn’t understand the situation.”
That was when Selena felt Frontdier’s Mana manifesting. There was no visible change, but it was clear he was doing something.
“Whatever you’re planning, stop.”
“It would be faster just to drive the Needle in than to talk.”
……
Selena bit her lip. Halfhearted threats clearly didn’t work on this man.
Selena preferred the Needle not only because it suited her techniques, but also because it was more effective than a blade or magic when it came to coercion.
Threats work best when the threat is easy to imagine.
Just as a blade piercing the heart is easier to imagine than a bullet tunneling through the skull.
And a Needle burrowing under the fingernail is easier still to imagine than a blade through the heart.
‘I cannot kill this man.’
But a threat that doesn’t work isn’t a threat at all. An ordinary person would be trembling at just this situation, spilling every scrap of information they possessed—but Frontdier knew his own worth.
The directive to torture him into speaking, to coerce him if necessary, was really saying: don’t kill him.
Her ability to threaten his life right now came only from the element of surprise.
Torture required restraint first, and Selena had no confidence she could subdue Frontdier in a direct fight.
‘But still…….’
Still, she had to try. Just as Frontdier was worthless if he didn’t speak, she herself would be worthless if she couldn’t make him speak.
However long this standoff lasted, from here on it was a battle of patience.
And yet.
“……All right, Selena.”
“All right? What do you mean all right? I absolutely won’t—”
“I’ll tell you. What was written there.”
Frontdier said something strange.
“Look, I’m not so attached to life that I can’t appreciate danger, and it really does seem like I might actually die here.”
With that, Frontdier raised both his hands as if in genuine surrender.
Selena’s expression hardened. Could it be true? Did the ancient language contain something trivial? Then why hide it in the first place?
While Selena’s mind churned with confusion, Frontdier opened his mouth.
“The ancient language was written like this…….”
Selena waited in silence for his next words.
“Selena—that is your name.”
……?
“Your parents gave you that name with their own hands.”
At first, Selena didn’t understand what he was saying.
But soon the meaning struck her, and her eyes blazed.
“How dare you speak such slander!”
“Does it sound that way? Your parents raised you without want during their lives. It was only natural. After all, they were nobles—”
In a flash, Selena seized Frontdier by the collar and threw him to the left with all her weight.
She wasn’t sure why Frontdier didn’t resist, but she straddled him and looked down at him with eyes burning with killing intent.
Frontdier still wore that calm gaze, as though nothing mattered.
“Shut your mouth right now or—!”
“Selena, your parents were nobles. Your house name was ‘Banier’. Since it was in the Western Region, it would have carried the ‘de’. Your name is ‘Selena de Banier’. Does that name stir any memory?”
Lies.
She dismissed it like that. She’d made it clear in her mind, just like that.
Yet Selena’s hands trembled.
Banier.
When Frontdier first gave her the name “Selena,” she’d felt the same inexplicable unease. The sound of Selena was light, and yet it carried a resonance she couldn’t ignore.
And now, once again.
Selena de Banier.
It was too profound to dismiss as mere nonsense—that discord her intuition, no, her very soul seemed to cry out against. A vast déjà vu.
“This much, at least.”
Frontdier spoke, ignoring the confusion that gripped Selena.
“This is the part I decoded from the Ancient Language.”
“…!”
Selena understood what he meant. Naturally, this wasn’t truly a translation of the Ancient Language. Already, such details had ceased to matter to her.
“If you doubt me, go to Mangos and tell him what I’ve said. He’ll confirm whether it’s true.”

* * *
Selena’s Combat Technique was indeed formidable.
She was thrown in the blink of an eye. She’d had no intention of resisting, but it wouldn’t have mattered if she had.
But after what I said, Selena froze completely. All that remained was her ragged breathing and trembling.
Whoosh—
I pushed Selena lightly, still quaking atop me. Without doing so, she might have trembled like that forever.
As I rose, brushed off the dust, and straightened my clothes, Selena remained crouched there, her eyes darting back and forth.
She seemed to be thinking hard, using every bit of her mind, but it wouldn’t bring back any memories she’d lost.
‘But the way she’s acting suggests it hasn’t completely vanished from her mind.’
Everything I said was true. I saw it through Analysis. It had required considerable Mana, as my intuition had suggested. It was fortunate I’d amplified it with the Dragon Heart.
But there was something I withheld. One final line that Analysis had revealed about Selena. That, I did not speak aloud.
─Selena’s father was murdered by Mangos.
That single line.
I couldn’t tell her this. It would certainly break her trust. Beyond that, I had no idea what Selena might do if she learned it.
I looked at Selena, still crouching where I’d left her, from atop Cassian.
“Mount up. We’ve lost considerable time. I won’t overlook the fact that you held a weapon to my throat and tried to coerce me, but this isn’t the place for your punishment.”
“…Yes.”
Selena nodded obediently and climbed up behind me.
Cassian surged forward through the forest once more, and my thoughts deepened.
What to do with Selena was a matter for later. For now, something far more pressing filled my mind.
─For the Giant who would topple the Divine.
I recalled the passage in the Ancient Language that Merlin had shown me.
In the world of Etius, “Giants” are beings of antiquity.
Like the Titans of Greek mythology, the Jotun of Norse mythology.
Giants, despite the name, don’t necessarily possess enormous bodies, and truthfully, for ancient beings, something as trivial as size hardly matters.
The real problem was that Giants were entities that had threatened the Divine’s place—in short, the enemies of gods themselves.
But the sentence Arthur had handed to Merlin.
‘…Perhaps.’
Maybe I’ve been understanding this world incorrectly.
For all my obsessive digging into the game Etius.
Perhaps from the very beginning, I’ve been mistaken about something.

* * *
The soldiers at the Barrier were tasting hell.
They’d thought they were rolling along the very bottom of it all this while, but they were wrong.
Now, without Frontdier, they were genuinely thrashing about in the jaws of hell itself.
“Aaaaahhh!!!”
Amid the chaos of the Monsters surrounding them, a comrade beside someone suddenly was snatched up, lifted skyward.
Something resembling a Wyvern seized the soldier’s shoulder with its own talons and took flight into the heights.
At that altitude, the soldier was dropped by the Monster and plummeted helplessly, while the rest heard his screams for a long time.
“Damn it…”
Sanders cursed, watching the battlefield turn into chaos. Even so, he repeatedly checked the Barrier.
The Barrier—it still hadn’t collapsed.
“Sanders! Watch the front! If the Barrier breaks, you’ll find out soon enough!”
“Y-yes!”
Lidwei urged Sanders on.
Lord Lidwei judged that retreat was no longer an option and took to the field himself.
He raised a long Staff, and with each swing, Lightning tore through the Monsters, cleaving their ranks asunder.
The destructive force was considerable, yet not enough to stem the tide of creatures pouring toward him.
Worse still, among the Monsters outside were those that could withstand even that Lightning.
“Ugh…… I suppose I really am getting old.”
Lidwei wiped at his mouth. He thought it was saliva, but a careless glance showed him blood. He hadn’t believed himself pushed to such limits, yet his body spoke truth.
Boom!
The Barrier shook as if struck by an earthquake. Lidwei, standing atop it, staggered and nearly lost his footing.
A massive Monster was battering the front of the Barrier—an Ogre. The enormous creature was driving its head directly into the wall. Tendons stood taut across Lidwei’s forehead.
“Thick-skulled brute, every last one of them.”
Lidwei’s grip shifted to his Staff. Sparks cascaded from his eyes and fingertips.
Crack! Lightning traced a violent arc and pierced straight through the Ogre’s skull. Unluckily, its massive body began to topple slowly toward the Barrier.
“No good.”
The Ogre’s corpse was thrust through the loosened gap in the Barrier. Already fractured, the wall began to give way.
Just as it seemed ready to crumble entirely.
Ice Magic Third Form—
instant deployment, wide area, amplified output—
Glacier Fog.
With a sharp crystalline sound, the Ogre froze solid. Even the Barrier fragments that had been about to collapse fused into a single mass of ice.
“Well, that turned out rather well. The wall’s thicker now.”
The one responsible was Aten.
Lidwei confirmed it and let out a quiet chuckle. ‘The little princess and her theatrics,’ he muttered—though the words barely escaped his lips.
“Haah…… haah…….”
Behind the Barrier, Sybel clenched her teeth, breathing through the strain. Crimson threads had burst across the whites of her eyes, and her beautiful face was a wreck—sweat and blood matting her hair to her skin.
“…… Sybel.”
“Ah, yes. I’m fine. Perfectly fine. Nothing wrong at all. So please, stop calling me. It’s hard to answer.”
At Aten’s worried tone, Sybel replied with affected calm.
Aten raises the Barrier; Sybel pours Mana into it.
Originally, they were meant to alternate—one raising the Barrier, then the other infusing it with Mana—but that rhythm had broken down.
Part of the Barrier had already been breached, and Aten had covered every gap with ice.
The number of times the Monsters had shattered even those ice walls was now beyond counting.
Because Aten had to rebuild the ice barrier each time, the task of supplying Mana had fallen entirely to Sybel.
With no way of knowing when the wall might collapse, Aten could not afford to waste her power carelessly.
‘Sybel has already reached her limit.’
Sybel hadn’t merely reached her limit—she had already surpassed it.
That someone who was not even a mage could have endured this far struck Aten as nothing short of miraculous.
“Frontdier…… if you don’t come soon…… you really will be dead.”
Sybel spoke the words with a face that looked as though she herself might be the first to fall. Yet her eyes still burned with an unquenchable fire.
Aten asked quietly:
“Do you still believe, Sybel? That he will come?”
“…… Huh……?”
“That Frontdier will come—do you still believe?”
At Aten’s question, Sybel paused, seeming to gather her breath.
Then she answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Of course. So do you.”

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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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