The Academy’s Weapon Replicator

Frondier was mistaken because he was thinking based on his own strength, but originally, only a very small number of people had such strong personal force.

It was certain that Frondier, Lily, Elodie, and more than three digits of devils were here.

Most of the people who could use flight magic were wizards, and they weren't a force that could be handled even if they flew straight here.

Lily thought for a moment and said.

"To gather an army and charge towards this place... It would take four days for the Empire to arrive at its maximum speed."

Frondier nodded.

"Then we can take a closer look."

His gaze turned towards Manggot.

This place, where Belphegor was defeated and then investigated by the Imperial Knights and scholars.

The ancient language.

"Let's see what it says."

* * *

Arald and the devils were resting in a suitable place outside.

To put it bluntly, they had no interest in the ancient language. It seemed like they didn't even know the existence of the ancient language.

'From the setting and the fact that King Arthur wrote it, it seems certain that it's a human language.'

Frondier thought as he walked through Manggot. Elodie, Lily, Selena, and Mei were also with him.

Since the Empire's researchers had already been here, there was no discomfort in moving around. There was perfect lighting as it was a place for continuous investigation.

In the first place, most of it was just reusing the devices of Manggot that had been researched before.

"But can you really interpret the ancient language?"

Elodie asked from the side.

It was Selena who answered.

"Of course. He used to teach me the ancient language as well."

"...Selena, you look proud."

"Moreover, he perfectly distinguishes between the core parts and the non-core parts, and with that, he attracts Manggot's interest and even plans to use them─"

Selena enthusiastically talked about Frondier's abilities as if it was a good opportunity. She seemed like she would talk forever if no one stopped her.

Of course, it was Frondier who stopped her.

"I can't read it all."

"Yes?"

"Huh? Is that so?"

Elodie just asked back, but Selena was shocked.

She thought Frondier's interpretation ability was perfect. That's why Hagley approached him and valued his abilities so highly, wasn't it?

"Well, Hagley probably knew that from the beginning."

Frondier kept walking and pointed his finger at a wall.

"For example, that."

There was a short word written there.

No one could read it, but the shape of the letters was familiar to Selena.

"...It's the ancient language. As expected, Manggot was researching the ancient language written here."

"Yeah. But you see."

Frondier looked at the word carefully and tilted his head.

"I can't read that either."

"Yes?"

"As I said, the ancient language is a language system that stores sound by embedding mana in letters, and is made by combining both letters and sound. Even I can't read the half that has lost its sound due to the loss of mana."

Frondier's ability to interpret the ancient language is not something like divine power or magic, but pure talent.

It's literally the talent of the character 'Frondier de Roach'.

Therefore, that talent is not magical or mystical. It's not that he automatically understands the meaning when he sees the ancient language, or that he can arbitrarily track the past where mana was embedded.

"It needs to be longer than this for me to read it. At least it needs to be in the form of a sentence."

"...Ah. That becomes a hint."

Elodie, who understood, said. Frondier nodded.

"And the nuance as well."

"Nuance? Ah, right. You said it stores sound with mana."

Frondier's talent lies in his terrifying intuition for language.

He catches the sounds that are likely to be contained in each symbol, picks out the most plausible ones, and matches the front and back of the selected ones. If the meaning is awkward or doesn't make sense, he quickly corrects it. That repetition.

"So, it's rather helpful if it's longer. I can't be sure about short words like that. There are a few candidates though."

"Just out of curiosity, what are the candidates for the word written there?"

"Um, 'hungry', 'harpoon', 'torch'. Something like that."

"...They're really completely different words."

And they're words that don't matter what's written.

"If the ancient language was really a pure language system, there's a high probability that meaningless words would also be written."

"A complex language system that requires mana to be used is used in that way? You can just write letters."

"The high possibility is that they used the volatility of mana. Just like we do now, once they read it first, people afterwards won't be able to understand it even if they see it."

"...So, they were exposed to the risk of having their language read?"

"If the ancient beings really had knowledge they wanted to hide, but had to communicate it, it would be better to use this kind of language system for everything, not just the important things, but also the trivial things. That way, the enemy wouldn't know what was important."

If only the important things were written in the ancient language, no matter how secure the system was, there would be a risk of it being discovered.

It's like quest items in games shining differently from other items.

If you want to hide something, the important items should look like other items. The same goes for knowledge left in language.

"Anyway, I'm not interested in interpreting each and every word, and knowledge wouldn't be written that way."

Frondier continued walking and looking around. As considerable research had already been conducted, tables and research materials were piled up near the ancient language written on the wall.

"Yeah. For example, it has to be about that long,"

Frondier found a sentence of a decent length and pointed at it with his finger.

But a decent length means that he can interpret it,

Naturally, Frondier, who interpreted it with his eyes, stopped with his finger pointed.

"...Tsk."

Frondier clicked his tongue.

He was about to read many ancient languages here soon,

But the content discovered as the first sentence didn't make him feel good.

─Ragnarok has failed.