The Academy’s Weapon Replicator

Chapter 2 – Frondier, the Human Sloth (2)

I was slowly getting used to the classes.

However, that's not to say that I was starting to understand the material.
I still didn't have a clue.

I just stored all the images of the blackboard, textbooks, and learning in my workshop.

What I got used to was the atmosphere in class.
I guess it's fair to say that everyone got used to it, including me.

I've gotten used to the fact that in every class, I was looking at the blackboard with my eyes open.

I think I had convinced them that I didn't take any notes.

“Okay, here's the problem.”

The teacher pulled down the screen.

Presumably the answer to the question was on that screen.

“Student Frondier.”

The teacher's eyes looked very uncomfortable as he pointed at me.

The fact that I was in the class with my eyes open.

That might be a good thing for some teachers, but for others it might be the opposite.

In fact, Frondier was able to sleep through the entire class because he was a child of the House Roach.

At the academy, Constell, there was no distinction between nobles and commoners.
The only distinction was based on skills.

However, this was not the case for everyone inside – not all human beings are like that.

Constell's system was indeed meritocratic, but the people inside had their own thoughts and ideas.

Some pandered to the nobility and ignored the commoners, while others sided with the commoners and despised the nobility.

But that was the most interesting aspect about Frondier's position.

The teacher who flattered the aristocracy never interrupted my sleep and similarly, a teacher who openly despised the noblility ignored me whether I was sleeping or not.

In other words, neither party interfered with Frondier's laziness.

'If you think about it, the teacher who woke me up in the first place was a unique person.'

He woke me up because I was a student, and because I was in a class – a very teacher-like response.

The more people like that, the better an academy is.

But the teacher in front of me didn't feel that way.
And the disgust in her eyes proved it.

“What happened in the Year 144 of the Trest Empire?”

……?

The answer to this question was contained in what was posted on the WeezerView.

But it had only been a few minutes since I had seen it.
Other people would have dutifully written it down while taking notes.

“You can look at my notes and answer.”

Hah.
This lady.

She was tired of seeing me sit here and not taking notes.

I pulled out the image I had saved in the workshop.
This is my 'handwriting'.

While I pulled out the image and checked its contents, the teacher sighed in exasperation.

’

“Can't you answer me? If you can't, from next time, take notes seriously.”

“His Majesty Edezion Trest had passed away.”

Edezion.

To put is simply, he was the grandfather of the current Emperor of Trest.

Not an emperor the citizens of the Empire are proud of, to be honest.
It was a time when the realm of men was constantly shrinking at the hands of the demons.

And he was an incompetent emperor who left behind only a record of defeat.

However, anyone who rose to the position of the Emperor at that time would have suffered same disgrace and died.

It was a difficult and desperate time.
I guess he was unlucky.

The teacher's eyes turned harsh on me.

Why is she looking at me like that? I answered correctly.

“There's more to it than just …….”

“Shortly after the emperor's death, the empire moved its capital to Sylvester, this is the third and so far the last celestial capital of the Trest Empire.”

I just looked at the image I had pulled out before and read it.

It looked petty, but what could I say.

“At that time, once, the need for a combat-training institution like Constell, where we are now, was raised and even made it to the legislative stage, but it was overruled.
In the end, it was the right choice; at the time, the priority was to ensure the boundaries between humans and demons were firmly established.”

“And ……?”

The teacher asked me, as if to see how far I would go.

But she was dumbfounded…

“After ……, it was Year 145.”

…Because I read it all.

“…….”

“…….”

A brief snowball fight.

I honestly didn’t know why we're having a snowball fight.

[T/N: Snowball fight here refers to a battle of nerves, or just ‘eye-fight’.]

The lady glared at me, the teacher, her forehead creased.

After a moment, she adjusted her glasses with a nonchalant expression.

“Okay, so on the next page-“

WeezerView reopened as if nothing had happened, and the class continued.

Except for the occasional twitch of the teacher's fingers as the students giggled under their breath.

                                                           ━━━━━━ ⊙ ━━━━━━

The Strenghth Test Room.

This was the most spacious room in Constell.

There are only few students with divine powers, but their powers varied in strength and magnitude.

For more accurate measurements, each student with divine powers has a record sheet, and the teachers collectively review the records to make appropriate assessments.

’

“……
is awesome.”

And here she stood, a girl.

With an eerie scene scattered around her.

Cracked rocks, burnt soot, frozen ground, clearly etched lightning patterns, and more.

It was hard to believe one person could have done this.

However, watching her measurements, the teacher, Alice, swallowed hard.

‘I wonder if she’s the ‘Inies’?’

Inies was not her exact name.
She was favored by the five gods, so she was given the middle name of Inies.

Elodie de Inies Rishae.

Elodie, eldest daughter of House Rishae.

She possessed five divine powers, which wasa a lot for one person to have.

At the tender age of seventeen, her future was pretty much set.
A future in which she will be the envy, admiration, jealousy of all.

“How is it? The Record?”

“Well, pretty much the same as before.
I don't think you'll have to worry about your record dropping.”

Alice replied with a nonchalant expression.

“Oh.
I was hoping it would go up.”

Elodie said with a mischievous grin.

Alice smiled back, but broke out in a cold sweat.

What if it goes up from there?

But there was a shade of grimness in Elodie's expression after the joke.

She was still haunted by the memory of Frondier in the hallway.

-……How I felt about you.

She had been waiting.

The words were unfinished.
Because they were cut short by a baseball that suddenly flew in.

But in hindsight, she considered it a good thing.

Frondier and Elodie have known each other since they were children.

Though no one else in Constell knew it.

Fondier's family, Roach, and Elodie's family, Rishae, are longtime friends and rivals.

Enfer, the head of House Roach was famous for his feat as the Iron Wall, but House Rishae was not without its share of credit.

It was inevitable that the sons and daughters of each Lord, both the same age, would come to know each other.

……It was not that Elodie expected anything from Frondier.

The son of Enfer, the brother of Atzier.

Everyone expected him to be as talented as they were.

And Elodie was okay with that.

’

She just hoped that as an old friend, she would do the right thing.

But Frondier was not like that.

He had neither divine power nor talent, and even his character was poor.

He didn't make any efforts to improve his lack of skills, take responsibility for getting things done, or even manage his own life.

The fondness she had known since childhood faded away with time.

Frondier finally broke even the last promise he made to Elodie.

-Frondier, meet me at Constell Alumni after school, I have something for you.

It shouldn't have been a difficult promise.

He were the one who said yes.

……But Frondier didn't follow through, and tried to pass Elodie in the hallway as if he didn't know her at all.

‘……Hallway.’

Elodie's eyes widened and she turned to Alice.

“……Teacher, if I were to ask you, how would you defend against the flying arrows?”

She remembered a small commotion in the hallway when she was with Frondier.

Baseballs had come flying, shattering windows, and she had burned them all in one fell swoop.

However, during their fall, they bounced off in the air.

It must have been Frondier, but she can't imagine how.

She don't want to explain the whole thing, so she just changed the example to arrows instead of glass shards.

“Magically, there are countless ways to do it, such as burn it, freeze it, blow it away.
You just have to make it lose its power, unless it's an arrow of destruction.”

“……
If someone said they blocked an arrow with an invisible wall or something, what would you think?”

“Do you mean they pushed it away with the wind?”

“No, I mean they literally bounced it off an invisible wall.”

“Have you seen such a person?”

“Oh, no, I'm just talking hypothetically, like, what if that were the case?”

Elodie's question might have sounded childish and silly to any other student.

But Alice was serious.
Because the student who asked the question was Elodie.

Elodie must have thought what Alice was thinking first.
However, the fact that she asked the question at all shows that she must have some concerns about it.

……
But, on second thought, Alice came to the same conclusion.

“It's weird.”

“……It is, isn't it?”

“The most likely explanation is invisibility magic.
It could be a wall, a shield, or something else, but casting invisibility on something that a person could hold up to block an arrow is difficult.
Then, when others see it, it can become an 'invisible wall'.
Literally.
But invisibility magic is quite difficult.
It doesn’t really become invisible, but rather applies light reflection.
A slight miscalculation and the invisibility fails.
And even if you pull it off, questions remain.”

“……What's the point of doing that?”

“Exactly.
You don't need it to be invisible to block, you just need a simple shield.
You don't even need magic.
If you really want to use magic, there are easier ways to do it, and if you're going to block it with a shield, you don't need to make it invisible.
It doesn't make sense.”

Elodie nodded, thinking the same thing.

’

……though she left out the details for Alice.

In fact, the arrow thing was for wartime, and in Elodie's case, it wasn't even an arrow, it was a piece of glass, it was just an everyday accident.

Who would carry an invisible shield in the hallways they normally walked down, bracing for an attack that may or may not come.

Alice thought for a moment, then spoke up.

“There's another thing, but it's very unlikely.”

“What is it?”

“Well, it's a bit of a stretch.”

“Still.”

Alice smiled bitterly.
The look alone told that what she was about to say was absurd.

“It might be the use of Aura.”

“……The Aura? The ones in the weapons of warriors?”

“That's right.
Mana and auras are essentially the same substance, called 'chi'.
Where a wizard manipulates mana through spells to create magic, a warrior nurtures the aura itself through tens of thousands of trainings and discipline.”

“But what does that have to do with the invisible wall?”

“It is a mystery to wizards, but warriors who have reached a certain realm of enlightenment can create auras without weapons.”

Elodie's mouth dropped open, suddenly realizing what Alice was trying to say.

She could see why Alice said it could be nonsense.

“So……
a warrior of that caliber could create an Aura  the size of a shield out of thin air?”

“That was a hypothetical, wasn't it?”

“Oh, yes, as a hypothetical story, I was asking if such a thing was possible, or something.”

Even as she answered, Elodie thought.

There is no way in hell that Frondier could have created an Aura.

Creating an Aura with bare hands and no weapons was already a rare feat.
But to create an Aura large enough to deflect all those shards of glass?

‘……No way.’

So either Frondier really did something stupid like enchant his shield with invisibility, or.

……or, what.

Alice smiled as she looked at Elodie, who had a troubled expression.

Elodie must have seen something for sure.

However, Alice was sure.
What she saw was wrong.

“But it's just a theory.
No one could do that.”

“……, oh, is that so?”

“If there was even one person who could do such a think, the land of mankind would be bigger than it is now.”

“Is it that amazing?”

“If someone can create an Aura the size of a shield, barehanded and without a weapon, their very body would be comparable to a legendary weapon.
And that's even for randomly shooting legendary weapons.
Imagine dozens of invisible shots flying at you, and each one puts a hole in you the size of that.”

Elodie's face fell at Alice's words.

“That's scary, that's for sure.”