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Volume 1 Chapter 10-1: Preparations Complete

「Well it’s fine for now. We’ll leave it at that and figure it out later. Sistina where are we going next?」
「Alright, next we’ll go take a look at armor. It’s nearby.」

Sistina guided us a short distance away and we soon saw a shop with a sign that depicted a suit of armor. Compared to the weapons shop it looked quite a bit smaller, but I suppose that may be because of the weapon-centric society of this world.

Compared to weapons that you could register and 『equip』 they lacked in functionality. The only reason to wear armor was to improve your defenses.

In short, unlike weapons that everyone needed to have, armor was only valuable for those who wanted to enter into combat.

Upon entering the shop it gave off a boutique-like impression. Of course it was a bit different from those on Earth.

Instead of a mannequin they used a wooden frame and instead of western clothes they were covered in plate armor. On the hangers were leather jackets and defensive gear instead of fancy undergarments. On the shelves instead of folded shirts there were helmets, hats, and gauntlets.

「There’s quite a lot…what should I get? Ah, Sistina do you have any idea of what you want?」
「I wonder…I think that I’d prefer armor that doesn’t restrict my movements much since I’ll have to make large movements to swing my weapon.」
Sistina said as she moved further inwards and checked the goods. I was already using 『Arms Appraisal』.

『Plate Mail Rank: G Skills: None』

Huh? It seems like there’s too little info. Was there a difference between appraising weapons and armor? Is the reason that a Refinement Level didn’t come out a result of me being a ‘Magic Sword Master’? Can I not temper armor?

Well, either way the skill was useful enough just knowing the basics so it’s fine.

「Soujirou-sama, I think I should get a breastplate, gauntlets, and leggings. I don’t need anything particularly fancy. Soujirou-sama should choose your armor first and I’ll pick something suitable from the leftovers.」
「Body, arms, and legs huh…Hotaru-san you think I should get something similar?」
「Hmmm….certainly it would do no good for you to get armor that makes it difficult to move. We need to prioritize ease of movement for you so you can perform martial movement, martial arts, and dodge attacks. In that case it might be appropriate to choose armor of the same type as Sistina’s.」

A pretty light chest protector, gauntlets to protect my hands while I wield my sword, and leggings to defend my mobility in the battlefield.

「Don’t I need a helmet?」
「Indeed…it’d be good to have one, but if you put on a full helmet then your field of view will narrow and if you only wear a hat it has questionable defensive value. It might be best to not rely too heavily on a head protector and train without using one instead. Of course if you plan to don heavy armor and fight like that then it is an indispensable equipment, but I can’t really imagine Soujirou-sama fighting like that.」
「Hmm…right」

It wasn’t that I couldn’t imagine Sistina in full plate armor swinging around an axe…but no matter how many enhancements she got from the contract there was a limit to her strength so it was probably impossible. Even her weapon was already considerably heavy.

Furthermore, for me it wouldn’t be like in a game where if I wore full armor my entire body would receive a defensive buff.

In a game if I equipped items on my head, chest, legs, hands, and added some accessories my entire body would receive a defensive bonus of 100. But in real life only the portions of my body that were actually covered fully by the armor would receive that defense.

No matter how well armored my arms or legs were, if I took attacks to my limbs I would take damage.

「Alright then, with that in mind let’s look around.」

In the end I was unable to find a single piece of armor with a skill on it. Well, rather than that maybe it was just lucky that we found two at the weapon shop. Well honestly there was a third at the weapon shop, but it was something none of us used.

In fact who could use a weapon with so many joints like that? Even a nunchaku master would have difficulty managing all those moving parts.

So since there weren’t any with skills or above G-rank Sistina ended up getting a leather undershirt with steel plating for her chest, Gauntlets that went up to her elbows, and leggings that covered up to her thighs. These all had pieces of steel attached so they were pretty heavy, but Sistina said this much was fine. The breastplate was 12,000, the gauntlets were 20,000, and the leggings were 15,000 mars.

The amount of metal on each of them wasn’t too different, but apparently it was priced based on the difficulty of crafting them. Certainly the difficulty of making the joints was much higher and the gauntlets even needed to have fingers attached.

This was perfect for my ‘gravity counter plan’. I chose a fairly heavy chain mail and large leather coat on top of it. I chose steel gauntlets for my arms that were separated into two parts to allow my wrists to move freely and didn’t cover my fingers with steel. Hotaru-san had recommended this so that my grip on my sword didn’t end up obstructed.

I needed something that allowed greater range of movements on my legs, so we sacrificed some defensive power and went for leather leggings instead of steel.

The chainmail was 21,000, the coat was 7,200, the gauntlets were 17,000, and the leggings were 6,500.

In total Sistina’s gear cost 47,000 and my gear cost 51,700 mars. Even here Sistina’s bargaining came in handy and everything came out to a price of 95,000 mars. At this point our funds had been decreased to one third so I was grateful for any price reduction she could get.