Chapter 50: Shield

Xia Nan approached the selection of his armor with absolute prudence.

After all, given his current physical threshold, even with the degree of physical damage mitigation provided by his [Iron Bones] feat, if he were to take a direct hit from an attacker with a sufficiently sharp weapon or exceptional strength, he likely wouldn’t be able to shrug it off. A proper, well-fitted suit of armor was effectively a bottom-tier adventurer’s second life.

Therefore, the moment he realized he couldn’t confidently choose between the two sets of medium armor on his own, Xia Nan took the initiative to ask Barn about the specific pros and cons of the gear, requesting the veteran smith’s professional advice.

“Well, first and foremost, weight is a factor you need to weigh,” Barn said, stroking the braided reddish-brown beard at his chest as he looked at Xia Nan. “Even though they fall under the same category, scale mail is noticeably heavier overall. Defensive performance is paramount, but you can’t let it compromise your natural mobility.”

Xia Nan was entirely amenable to good advice. Upon receiving the smith’s nod of approval, he took both sets of armor down to test their fit and weight on his body.

There was no issue. With his current physical attributes, the weight of this medium armor felt only marginally heavier than the leather armor he had purchased prior to his second mission. It was nowhere near heavy enough to impede his day-to-day movements.

“Furthermore, you have to synthesize this with your actual circumstances,” Barn reminded him.

“If you were a bounty hunter who primarily took up association contracts targeting various bandits and brigands, I would heavily recommend the scale mail. It offers extensive coverage and can effectively halt incoming projectiles or thrusting weapons like arrows and spears—it’s exceptionally practical when fighting intelligent humanoids.”

As he spoke, the burly smith cast a brief glance at the Beheading Longsword on Xia Nan’s back.

“But if you primarily make a living by hunting the magical beasts within the Mist Forest, the chain shirt is undoubtedly the superior match. It produces far less noise during movement, making it much harder to alert creatures to your presence. Its relatively simple construction also means routine maintenance is easily managed; even if you stay inside the forest for ten days to a half-month, you won’t have to worry about its defensive integrity degrading noticeably.”

Hearing Barn break it down like this, the slight hesitation lingering in Xia Nan’s heart instantly dissolved. Compared to facing deceitful, malicious bandits who used all manner of traps and insidious items, he vastly preferred dealing with the green-skinned goblins of the Mist Forest—creatures that could be systematically cleaved apart one by one.

“I’ll take the chain shirt.”

There was no need for packaging. Since his ruined leather armor had already been sold back to the smith, Xia Nan simply donned the chain shirt right there in the shop after handing over the gold coins.

Feeling the distinct, reassuring weight of the metal resting against his skin, a subtle sense of security spontaneously welled up from the depths of his heart.

“Without factoring in dodging, if I were to forcefully trade blows from the front, I wonder how many strikes from a bugbear I could tank now,” he pondered to himself.

Even after updating his armor, Xia Nan didn’t leave “Ironhammer.” He still had one final, critically important matter to settle.

“Huh? This is…”

Barn stared intently at the pitch-black scale in his hand, which refracted a faint, eerie gleam under the streaming sunlight. A sliver of astonishment broke across his rugged features. His years of forging experience allowed him to recognize at a glance that this was a scale from some manner of magical beast, but—

Ting!

A delicate, compact hand hammer tapped lightly against the surface of the scale, yielding a crisp, metallic chime. Even without conducting a rigorous series of tests, those rough, massive hands—which had handled an countless variety of forging materials—could instantly discern the staggering hardness and resilience radiating from the scale’s surface.

“Where did you manage to…” Barn subconsciously raised his head, his gaze locking onto the black-haired youth before him. He opened his mouth, but abruptly choked back the remainder of his half-uttered question.

He swallowed the curiosity right back into his stomach. In his line of work, particularly when the client was an adventurer, it was always best to keep one’s mouth shut.

“How is it? If we utilize this scale as the primary component, can it be crafted into a piece of equipment?” Xia Nan asked calmly, keeping his facial expression entirely neutral.

He naturally hadn’t forgotten the serpent scale he discovered in that cavern. In fact, to a certain degree, its priority in his mind was even higher than the scabbard or the chain shirt. After all, his past self had unleashed his absolute maximum strength—even deploying his [Whirlwind Slash]—yet had failed to leave so much as a scratch on that massive serpent. Its absurd, logic-defying defensive performance had caused him to obsess over how to utilize it to forge a tailored piece of defensive gear almost the moment he set foot back in Riverbend Town.

“Hold on, let me analyze it.”

Stepping into his professional domain, Barn’s expression instantly turned dead serious. Pushing aside his inner curiosity, he pinched the serpent scale and held it up against the sunlight outside the storefront, his eyes narrowing slightly.

“Perhaps it could be embedded into the center of a breastplate to serve as vital-point protection… That way, even using a plate armor model, we could preserve high defensive capabilities while drastically reducing the overall weight. But that feels like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.”

“Or maybe I should cleave it apart and construct a set of scale mail?”

“The edges possess excellent sharpness as well… a compact weapon like a dagger or a shortsword?”

“No, no, no… far too wasteful.”

Suddenly, looking at the scale’s elongated, diamond-like silhouette—broad at the flanks and tapering toward the center—Barn’s eyes lit up. A wave of passion unique to artisans flooded his tone as he blurted out:

“A buckler! How about an arm-mounted shield?”

As he spoke, he strode quickly over to a display rack, rummaging through it to pull out an exquisitely styled, silver-gleaming metal buckler.

“Something exactly like this!”

“Of course, if we utilize this scale as the primary material, the resulting arm-shield definitely won’t be perfectly circular, and the coloration will undoubtedly differ.”

Hearing this, Xia Nan’s heart skipped a beat with excitement.

He possessed a general understanding of defensive armaments like “arm-shields” or bucklers. It was essentially a compact shield strapped directly onto the forearm. Because of its minimal volume and light weight, even though his primary weapon was a Beheading Longsword that required a two-handed grip, wielding it would cause virtually zero interference in active combat.

When defense was required, he would merely have to position the outer side of his forearm to block incoming strikes; meanwhile, his opposite hand could easily remain free to counterattack given the opportunity. To a certain extent, this would perfectly resolve the awkward predicament he frequently faced where he was forced to use the precious blade of his sword to parry incoming attacks.

All in all, combining the natural, elongated diamond structure of the serpent scale with his specific combat style, fashioning it into an arm-shield was undeniably the absolute best choice.

“That works. Let’s go with the arm-shield,” he said, nodding firmly to Barn.

However, a look of profound regret suddenly washed over the smith’s face.

“It’s a crying shame… The association has flooded us with orders recently, and a vast portion of my auxiliary materials have already been depleted. Otherwise, given the sheer structural integrity of this scale, if I were to inspect it further, I might have been able to forge an actual piece of magic equipment out of it.”

“Magic equipment!?”

Xia Nan froze entirely on the spot, his mind reeling before he snapped out of it with a surge of adrenaline.

“No problem, I can wait!”

“How much gold will it take?”

(End of Chapter)