Otoko Nara Ikkokuichijou no Aruji o Mezasa Nakya, ne? Vol 1 Chapter 30

I'm not good with the blacksmithing terms, forging, tempering, refining, etc.. and that process so I'm not 100% sure if I got those parts right. If there's a way suggested that makes better sense I might edit it. 

Even after just becoming seven years old. Once again today I'm developing new products and working on improvements for the protectors. It can't be helped much saying it myself but I think I did a pretty good job on the protectors considering how difficult the requests were made to improve it.

The requests were as follows:

One. It gets stuffy so make air circulate through.

Two. Reduce the weight.

Three. Reduce the mass.

Four. Since it's too hard, make it more flexible.

Five. Increase the defense.

Putting it frankly, it's all over the place. I can understand the requests but even with modern day Japan's technology it's impossible. Rather, it's contradicting itself. I feel like I've understood a bit of the feelings of that engineer who made the Zero ship.

For the time being I'll start with measures to fix the stuffiness of it. Well, among these improvement requests it's the most reasonable and I don't think it's impossible. During the war it seems it was almost constantly being equipped as well. It's uncomfortable when it gets stuff after all. By the way I've already got an idea of how to fix this because the squires worked on it themselves on the spot. Furthermore, the troops that had leather armor on underneath the protectors didn't have any problems other than their thighs as well. Wouldn't it be fine to just wear leather armor on the entire upper body?

Plates that are made of boards protect the chest and abdomen but of course they match the movements of the body. For example the exterior of the chest and abdomen parts I matched up to the muscles like Kamen Rider but the interior wasn't bent to match up to the exterior. Obviously it was bent to some extent but even if you flip the protector over you'll see the bends were made to match body type of the one equipping it. Due to this, it's not very interchangeable. However, since I'm proud of how flexible I made it within reasonable limits with it fit to their body type.

Obviously, there's no problems at all with it over short periods of time. Rather, I was told the way I made it when messing around that didn't fit felt more uncomfortable. But, bending it to their body type seems to have been the problem. Even though they're wearing armor underneath it, because the armor underneath is made of thick material it sticks too close reducing air flow and within an hour they're drenched in sweat and uncomfortable.

It's a problem that I didn't realize it from the start myself but I still wish they would have told me in the first place. However, compared to leather armor it was easier since it fits to the body so it seems they didn't think it would be a problem. Well, in some ways you could call this combat proofing, I guess. Supposedly Sharl was the primary one who started improving it on the spot. I guess being a woman that sort of thing bothers her after all. Everyone else was too stubborn.

It seems that Sharl increased the air flow by sticking the thin rubber band she had for repair purposes to the reverse side of the protector. The rubber band isn't very wide so if you use the right amount it certainly does increase the air flow if you put it in between your body and the plates

of the protector. However, it was just attaching a rubber band so there wasn't much effect and it still got stuffy. Though for the sake of that just loosening up the rubber band that attaches the protector to your body and then having someone re-attach it when it comes time to fight would be more simple and effective.

Hm, if that's the case then would it be better to think of a band that's normally loose and quickly tightens up? However, even in that case if the battle draws it out it'll have the same result. Thinking of the band itself, it's probably better to focus on how to make it so the air flow in the space between the plate areas increases first. After several months of trial and error I ended up trying to dig a large gap in the interior of the plate. Though reducing it like that will lower the defense as well and the gap, or rather the volume of the protuberances increased so the weight increases as well making it pointless. But, it was also found that just the gap had insufficient air flow as well so I resolved that by adding various holes close to the exterior of the plates. I opened the holes close to the armpits and hips.

After repeating tests that had my parents and the squires almost constantly wearing armor we were finally able to call it completed. I didn't forget to have them do farm work and cultivation while wearing the previous version before there was proper air flow in the plates as well. I won't forget their eyes filled with resent. It couldn't be helped could it?

Among the remaining requests two and three, reducing the weight and mass I've got nothing, it's impossible. It's a trade with five increasing the defense after all. In order to resolve this I'd have to develop a new material other than rubber and ebonite. It seems that reducing the weight can be done in various ways by increasing holes though reducing it by just the weight of a couple of holes is almost nothing.

Four, increasing the flexibility is possible if you take that much away but once again it'll lower the hardness of the ebonite and hit five, a trade with the defense. I mean, when we first started making it and testing the defense we went over all of this by testing slashes and stabs. That's the thickness we decided on. Though having said that the thickest part of it is only about 4 cm and the thin parts of the exterior area are only 1 cm so if we reduce the ebonite and increase the hardened rubber we might be able to get more flexibility without lowering the defense too much.

I was lamenting the exterior with a layer of ebonite and the interior with hardened rubber but it might be fine just to cover the chest, stomach, and import organs in front with ebonite. It might work just replacing a portion of the surface of the hardened rubber with ebonite plates. Even if I say hardened rubber, the density of the material is pretty high so it leaves plenty of defense. If that's the case then it might work adding some gaps in the front of the ebonite plate so spears don't slide in a weird direction when stabbed. It's probably fine not to modify the surface of the hardened rubber. If I do that then it's easy to figure out the direction it will slide when stabbed and just make that direction thicker or adding in a metal plate might work as well. Ah, it might be fine to do ebonite plates across the entire thing instead of just portions if we just change the thickness as well.

In any case, it's no problem as long as it's lighter than chain mail or other metal-based armor. Even if you were to compare it to metal armor now it's still much lighter and the defense is only slightly lower either way. Also, it might increase the weight a bit but unraveling chain mail and putting the chains in between the plate armor be good as well. Or maybe, save up some of the metal I'm making with magic right now, make it into wire and embed metal netting might be good as well. The iron I extract with magic I want to use for something else though so if possible I don't want to go that far.

By the way, I forgot about a few things that are far more important than improvements to the protector. Farming and Forging. Just as promised Hegard purchased farm horses. Three of them all at once even. Thanks to that the cultivation of land for the new gum trees we're planting is progressing at a high pace. I don't know when exactly to plan the seeds so up until now I've been planting three seeds per month. Around November of last year I started planting them but none have sprouted yet. Well, this is something that should be resolved at latest within a year so we don't really see it as problem.

More importantly than that my parents hands down should be praised for deciding to allot the two cart horses we had until now to normal farming as we have the three new horses all allotted towards cultivating new land. The lending of the horses is a rate based on need* and the order is managed by the squire leader Beckwiz. Here I thought they would be lent out equally but it seems they're being lent out while watching the rate of progress on each farm. It seems that the crops which have slow progress because the workers are doing forced labor in cultivating the new land are being given priority.

As a result it seems they've managed to get all of the farms even. This isn't a situation where just Beckwiz should be praised. I thought that rubber making money and bringing outside currency into the village was the result of my parents gaining some leeway but, wow, it was my older brother Farne that requested it. As expected of my older brother. As expected of a good looking guy. Farne is already 13 years old, one step away from becoming an adult. Next year, he'll turn 14 years old and enter the knight group of Marquis Webdos, he's going straight down the Bakkudo elite course. It looks like he'll do fine just like this inheriting the viscount title from our father who was invested as a knight.

"What needs to be done to make the village better, if you think about ways of developing it the answer naturally comes out. If you think about it until you feel like throwing up it's unlikely you'll make a mistake."

Farne said those sort of cool guy lines as though they were obvious while laughing. Though I don't know about the throwing up part my older brother is really a cool guy. But my parents might be more amazing having raised him to naturally say those sorts of lines. While I'm slightly dumbfounded after hearing his lines this time Mill says.

"That's right, older brother is going to succeed after father so he has to start thinking about various things from now. We should just move as older brother decides."

..Mill is the type that's easily influenced I guess.

"But since older brother is here we can leave if want as well."

And whispered in my ear. Ah, she's doing it intentionally. Come to think of it, Mill is still listening to Sharl and Hegard's adventurer days stories. I guess you can't erase aspirations from your childhood. Recently, not just magic, but she's been doing sword training seriously, just like Farne from a short while ago she can swing around the sword where you wouldn't think she's a child. It might be possible in terms of pure swordsmanship she's the strongest among us siblings. At this point there's various problems with the statue size difference so Farne is holding back, but in terms of form and technique she already can hold her own against the squires. When it comes to me...I'm still just swinging the sword. Sorry about that.

It's become a bit of a complex so I made a wooden sword, or rather a wooden gun. Of course, it's because it's easiest for me to use the bayonet and bayonet fighting that I trained for in the past. Everyone around me just sees it as a distorted and bent short spear. It's fine, this shape. Rather, even if you were to say sword, a forged sword has a dull blade and the sword itself only has a reach of about 70 cm. Though it's short, it's only obvious that a spear is better. Even a Japanese Katana is normally 60~70 cm, so a spear is good. Come to think of it, I wonder what I should do with the broad sword I stole from the spy I killed. Melt it down and make it into something useful I guess. But, it's a bit of a waste.

In terms of forging, Hegard taught me himself. It seems in the past Hegard experienced repairing armor a bit in the past, only the most basics, but even then it's still better than having no example at all. Together with me the dwarf Arnold Flintogel also learned forging. Even though his father Geldan can't do forging all he seems to be talented, he does a better job at repairing ploughs and hoes than me. Until now someone has always gone to Doritto once a month to get repairs on all of the tools so this is a factor towards developing the village as well I'm sure. Thanks to forging Arnold was removed from producing rubber and in exchange Josh the 14 year old son of one of the squires was added. Being close to Farne in age Josh seems to have been on good terms with him, so that's fine I guess.

I'm focused on tempering the iron I've accumulated. All of the iron I've saved up gradually until now has reached about 1 kg. It's plenty enough to make a short sword, almost more than enough to make a 30 cm bayonet blade. If I place a stone pot on burning charcoal and add to the temperature of the flame using fire magic it quickly reaches the temperature needed to fuse iron. More importantly than that is making sure that the temperature doesn't go too high and break the fireproof brick or stone pot we bought for forging. If I remember correctly by adding carbon to iron you can make steel and increase the hardness and toughness of it. In my case I'm taking just the iron out of earth with magic so smelting and refining isn't needed. After going through two failures it's good news I somehow manage to temper something like a short bayonet. The one who forged it was Arnold though.

Arnold and Hegard didn't know about the concept of forging with a hammer so I wracked my brains trying to explain to them how to use magic to make it easier. That's obvious. In this world the concepts of molecular fusion and crystallization from molecular adhesion don't exist, even if I were to explain it they wouldn't believe it. I mean the hammer is used for almost nothing other than heating farming tools up and striking them back into proper form. Well, normally it' used to "forge" the impurities out that weren't removed during the refining process so there's not much meaning to hitting it. If an appropriate amount of carbon is added while hitting it to make the iron crystals bind then that's plenty. Magic banzai.

Since it's a bayonet there's no need to add a curve like a katana as well. The point of the edge I imitated and only made it a double-edge blade part of the way through. In reality I wanted to make it the same as the armor with a thickness of 1 cm or so but after two failures I started to run out of iron so it was a last resort. Simply put it sucks. Even then I managed to get the thickness of the ridge to 6 mm or so it's plenty to use for piercing. The sword blade is 30 cm or so, normally it's supposed to be 12 cm down to the hilt of the pommel, 400 g or so for the type 64 bayonet straight sword. Even with just creating the hilt, making the rivet, and wrapping leather string around the hilt it looks somewhat right. If I were to remove the hilt and add a handle around the 1 m point where a gun would have it it could be used the same way a type 64 rifle is. There's no magazine so I can't use the magazine for a strike though. The hilt is made from oak using magic to dry it and mixing it with ebonite. In reality I wanted to make it easier to attach and remove by making the holding device for the bayonet but it was difficult so I gave up.

With the type 64 minus magazine I thought I could compete with Mill and Farne but I forgot about the size of my body. It was too big for me. I can't help this without getting bigger. Damn it. For the time being it's fertilizer for the storeroom. Just as expected I was made fun of by everyone. Remember this. Maybe I'll make a small one that matches my body size.

I'll eat more, exercise, and become a big man.

Ah, physically and mentally.

Chapter end