Replicator | Prologue

The man’s hands tightened around the hilt of the sword, firmly gripping it. With the blade held upright, it caught the rays of sunlight, causing it to gleam and shimmer.

[Baldur. Give me strength].

In response to his words, the blade seemed to respond, emanating a soft glow.

Taking a deep breath, the man planted his foot on the ground and propelled himself forward, a burst of energy following his movements. The ground collapsed where he had struck, and the air trembled briefly as it followed him.

Before him, a horde of formidable monsters stretched across the landscape.

The blade reached the head of one of them, a bull-like creature with two horns growing out of its head, standing on its two hind legs.

[Ugh……!]

The blade swiftly arced toward the bull’s head, slicing through flesh, but the attack abruptly halted, unable to penetrate any further.

The bull stretched out its arms, seizing the man’s leg. In mid-air, the man was held without any resistance.

Huong!

A gust of wind disrupted the air, filling the surroundings with its howling sound.

[──!]

Boom! 

In a powerful motion, the bull flung him aside, crashing against the sturdy trees with a force that weakened his body. Bones snapped, and a surge of pain erupted, causing blood to spurt from his wounds.

Thump! His body clung briefly to the tree before gradually slipping down, leaving a trail of crimson in its wake.

The leg that had been held captive now hung limply. No, shattered would be more accurate.

As he lay on his stomach, his gaze shifted upward, meeting the radiant sunlight that had illuminated his sword moments ago. It filtered through the lush canopy of trees, casting fragmented rays of light.

And there, the bull stood, its eyes fixed upon him, seemingly looking into his very soul.

[……Baldur, the guardian of Justice and Light, guide me….]

In the air, there was a crackling sound, a sign of impending consequences.

* * * * * *

I cast a fleeting glance at the monitor before me.

The words ‘GAME OVER’ were starkly displayed at the center of the screen in a plain and unpretentious manner.

Hmph, A wry sigh escaped my lips, followed by a deep breath to calm my frustration.

“Mangem!” (Game Over)

My initial impulse was to slam the shotgun in my hand, but then the exorbitant price of the keyboard flashed in my mind. As I prepared to hurl the mouse across the room, its cost likewise gave me pause.

My hands hovered in the air for a moment, then I crossed my arms.

“I’ve tried everything I could think of.”

Etius, a game that intertwined swords, magic, gods, and demons.

There was no doubt that my immersion in this game surpassed that of any other player.

Everyone else shouted Manggem (Game Over) before me and managed to escape.

And now, after finally declaring Manggem myself, I am not only the dumbest gamer but also the biggest victim.

“I thought it was a god-tier game.”

With its vibrant AI, expansive open world, captivating characters, and countless content, it was initially described as a fantasy world from another dimension brought into the game.

But in reality, it was a badly balanced game.

No one has seen the ending of this game, except for the protagonist’s death.

It had a vast open world, but there were boundaries that one couldn’t go beyond because of demons, and once you crossed those boundaries, even ordinary minions could not be easily defeated.

It doesn’t seem like a game designed to be cleared. And the company seems to have no intention of fixing it; but oddly enough, it stimulated my desire to challenge it.

‘If it’s not going to be fixed, there must be a way around it somewhere.’ That’s what I believed.

Why did I hold on to such a notion?

“I’m tired.”

I admitted, resting my arms on the desk and burying my face in my hands. The time had come for me to bid farewell to this game as well.

The game over just now was the last move I thought of to beat this game.

That also failed, leaving me no other choice.

“Student Frondier.”

Finally, Etius became the first game I could not clear. However, since no one else had achieved victory either, I decided to set it aside for the time being.

“Frondier de Roach.”

……But what is this nonsense?

I heard a strange sound in my room, where there should be no one but me.

And when I raised my head to look….

“……?”

….I saw something resembling a blackboard.

In front of it, a woman who seemed to be a teacher was holding a book like a textbook and giving a lecture, or something like that.

And now, that teacher was staring directly at me.

“Oh, me?”

Without even realizing it, I blurted out.

Frondier? I’ve never heard of that name before.

“Then if not you, who else?” the teacher replied, as if it were an obvious truth, as if I were meant to be Frondier.

Some of them were giggling as they looked at me.

‘This isn’t my room.’

This was a classroom. My room had become a classroom. I had just buried my face in my desk and woke up to this.

‘…….Ah’

Is this a dream?

Had my obsession with Etius led me to experience such vivid dreams?

“Student Frondier, do you know what the name of this weapon is?”

The teacher projected a screen to her right.

It was the ‘WizardView’, a magical device that projected images into thin air.

Experiencing magical techniques I had only seen in games right in front of my eyes was a unique feeling.

‘That one.’

I focused my attention on the weapon the teacher had projected with the WizardView.

It was a tree branch. Not a weapon-like thing.

‘……Aah.’

I roughly understood. I knew what answer the teacher wanted.

But it’s a dream, so maybe I should play along a bit more.

“That’s a tree branch. It’s not a weapon.”

As I spoke, the laughter of the students grew louder. The teacher sighed as well.

“As expected, you didn’t listen to today’s lesson.”

Of course, I didn’t listen. I should have been able to, though.

“……Teacher, was today’s lesson about ‘Baldur’?”

Baldur, the God of Light and Son of Odin in Norse mythology. According to the tales, he met his demise when pierced by a simple tree branch, known as ‘Mistilteinn.’

So, in other words, I should have answered that it was Mistilteinn after seeing that branch just now.

The teacher regarded me with an air of peculiarity. “…That is correct. Frondier student, if you were aware, then why…”

“Teacher,” I interrupted, my gaze fixed on the image of Mistilteinn displayed through the WizardView. There was no mistaking it. It was just a ‘tree branch’. “Mistilteinn doesn’t look like that.”

Sometime in the future, in the world of Etius, it would be wielded by the protagonist.

I had witnessed and wielded it countless times before. Differentiating between this ‘mere tree branch’ and the true Mistilteinn was not a difficult task.

“…….”

“…….”

The students and the teacher looked at me in silence. Their gazes were filled with displeasure, anger, and disgust.

Well, that was to be expected. Because that’s what everyone thought Mistilteinn really looked like at the start of the game.

“…….”

Let’s see, then.

When will this dream end?

* * * * * *

…A week has passed since then.

I decided to accept it. This wasn’t a dream. Whether I accepted it or not, this was the reality.

I thought it was a dream, and said something about Mistilteinn, but it only made my image worse.

As I walked through the hallway, I heard whispers directed at me.

– Isn’t that the one who kept babbling nonsense during class?

……..And I, who is in charge of both that one and this one.

“Well, I guess this body had a bad reputation, to begin with.”

I was currently inside a mansion. The mansion where the original owner of this body used to reside.

As for how I ended up here, as soon as I got out of school, there was a chauffeur waiting in front of the main gate to give me a ride in my car.

I got into a very luxurious sedan and was driven here.

…… Until just now, I had some expectations. I realized that even if I was not the protagonist, this body was the scion of a fairly prestigious noble family.

Moreover, I liked the reflection of my face in the mirror.

The jet-black hair and eyes were very dark and rather elegant, and my appearance was the same.

I was almost blindsided by this appearance until I found out my true identity.

I looked at the wristwatch on the desk in my room.

A smartwatch.

It was the only item I’d brought with me when I crossed over from my original world. Perhaps because it was worn on my wrist, and if so, why did my clothes change?

That was something I still didn’t know.

I wondered if this watch would work, but it not only worked but…

• Name: Frondier de Roach

• Age: 17 Years

• Affiliation: 
  ➡ Second son of House Roach
  ➡ First-year Constell Academy

• Race: Human

• Divine Power: None

Skill Details >

Magic Details >

Quests >

It operated in an entirely different manner. This wasn’t a watch anymore.

I had been familiar with Etius’ status screen that I had seen so often. And now, it was in my smartwatch.

Looking at it, I felt the reality sink in. I realized that I had been transmigrated to this world.

From the perspective of this world, I, as a complete outsider, saw this status screen as a small salvation.

“……Frondier de Roach.”

It was a name I wasn’t familiar with. It took me a while to recall.

I had really worked hard on this game. I made efforts to find every hidden element. But even to someone like me, this character was difficult to recall.

And when I finally recalled, a sigh escaped me.

── Frondier, the Human Sloth.

It was a derogatory nickname for a slothful person. It didn’t mean anything else, it was just a slur.

Lazy but powerful.

Lethargic but with something hidden.

There was nothing like that.

He was simply a lazy and lethargic character. That’s all he was.

“It’s not that I don’t understand being lazy, it’s just the way the skills are structured.”

In the world of Etius, skills, magic, and divine power were the determining factors for strength and weakness, competence, and incompetence.

Of these, Divine Power means the power bestowed by gods.

In Etius, all sorts of mythological gods appear and grant powers to humans. But there weren’t many people like that.

Those who were granted divine powers were no different from being the Chosen, and all those who actually had them were Named characters.

Skills and magic, on the other hand, could be acquired by anyone, but they paled in comparison to divine power. Yet, they were not easily obtained.

Indeed, only a very few individuals manage to develop skills and magic that surpass divine power through hard work and talent.

Frondier had no natural divine power, and no magic while the skills….

Skill Details>

[Weave]

• Rank: Unique

• Description: Replicates an image of an object and stores it. However, it is an illusion. It involves the processes of 'workshop' and 'replication'.

• Workshop: Stores the woven object in a virtual space.

• Replication: Duplicate the objects stored in the workshop.

…they looked like this.

If you’re wondering what this means, I picked up a fountain pen placed on my desk and used ‘weave’.

I stored the image of the fountain pen, and the stored image filled in front of my eyes as if the thread was being woven.

It was as if it had been printed by a 3D printer.

Maybe that’s why it was called [Weave].

[Luxury Fountain Pen by Viet] (Replication)

• Rank: Common

• Description: A replicated product imitating a fountain pen. It has no physical substance.

I held the real fountain pen in my left hand and the replicated fountain pen in my right hand.

To my eyes, they look exactly the same.

This was weaving. It was a virtual duplication of an object.

Once I [Weave] an object like this, its image is stored in the ‘workshop.’

As written above, the workshop is like my own virtual space where I can easily view the things I’ve stored.

Like augmented reality, I can see it with my own eyes and display my weapons, tools, and other items without hiding them.

Therefore, the weave was possible anytime, anywhere.

For only the things that I had personally seen with my own eyes.

Even if I know a weapon in my mind, it won’t be stored in the workshop until I actually see it.

Before I transmigrated, Frondier had already used it a few times and had several weapons and items stored.

…It sounds so plausible when you hear it like this.

However, they were all an illusion, so they all were fakes.

These replica fountain pens can’t write, let alone pierce through a single sheet of paper.

Moreover, they were only visible to me, so no one else could tell if I was weaving or not.

It was an illusion that didn’t interfere with reality at all.

……I’m going to call it a ‘delusion’.

I had no clue what to do with this useless unique skill

“It’s a skill I’ve never seen while playing Etius.”

Since I’d never seen it, of course, it had a Unique rank.

In Etius, the Unique rank was different from other ranks.

While ranks exist from the lowest, ‘common’ to the highest, ‘divine,’ the ‘unique’ rank was not included among them.

Instead, a Unique rank had a different characteristic. It was unique i.e., there was only one.

That’s why it was not a measure of good or bad. If there was only one of something, no matter how insignificant it was, it received a ‘unique’ rank.

…… But what a useless Unique skill.

“Frondier, the Human Sloth.”

This skill seemed to prove that nickname.

From now on, I have to live in a game that I couldn’t complete as the main character, and that too in the body of Frondier.

“It’s not a matter of just surviving.”

I clicked on the ‘Quests’ section of my smartwatch.

Quests >

[Main Quest: Change the Fate]

• Description: You know the end of humanity's destruction. Save humanity and change its fate.

This quest was there from the beginning, as soon as I opened my smartwatch. It was probably there from the moment I transmigrated into the body of Frondier.

Based on the description of this quest, I know the ending of this game. Or rather, I know what happens if I don’t clear the game.

The end of humanity was utterly miserable.

If it was a normal game, there would be a demon lord or an equivalent final boss, or a grand conspiracy, or darkness. However, that is not how humanity meets its destruction.

They are simply slaughtered by the demons. Humanity’s lands are gradually taken over by the demons, and finally, unable to withstand the tide of demons, they are swept away.

Even the protagonist of this game, his ultimate fate is so pathetic.

And they want me to prevent it. Me. Hahaha.

Snap-

A maid’s voice came from the other side of the door.

“Master Frondier, may I come in?”

“Uh, yes.”

Without knowing it, I replied with respect. Frondier was a nobleman by birth, so it would be awkward to talk like this.

The maid who entered was looking at me with a slightly bewildered expression. Of course, she wouldn’t say it out loud.

“Master Frondier, a letter has arrived for you.”

“A letter? From whom?”

I forced myself to speak in a haughty manner. It might feel awkward for a while, but I’ll get used to it gradually.

“It’s from Lord Enfer.”

“……Father?”

Enfer, Frondier’s father.

I may know the character of Frondier, but I do know Enfer. I know him very well.

Enfer de Roach, the Iron Wall of the North.

A superhuman who has never allowed the invasion of demons in his estate, Yeranhes, a territory on the fringes of the Terst Empire.

The reason why I was so familiar with the name Fondier was that his father, Enfer, and his first son, Atzier, had taken up almost all the importance within the House Roach.

Enfer was a general with the command of a legionnaire and the personal strength of a Zodiac, one of the twelve fingers of the continent.

Atzier inherited all of our father’s prodigious talents and grew upon them, making him an official Etius scam character.

Enfer, now my father, wrote me a letter.

I nervously took the letter from the maid and opened the seal. The letter contained a single sentence.

[Frondier, I have had enough of your slothfulness.

I want you to be in the top ten overall in your class at Constell.

If you don’t, you will be excommunicated.]

I read the whole thing silently and exhaled a breath. And I swallowed it just as much.

“……Manggem!”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing!”

It seemed my life was about to be cut short.

Ding! I heard a ding, a monotonous notification, and checked my smartwatch.

[Sub-Quest Created]

[Sub-Quest: Father's Order]

• Description: Frondier's laziness in the past has pushed his father's patience to the limit.

• Objective: Rank within the top 10 overall at Constell this semester.

• Reward: Earn Enfer’s recognition.

• Failure: Excommunication.

I know!

---

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