1.
For now, I was mind-controlling myself by staring at Seren’s face.
It was awkward to do anything before the detailed order specifications arrived.
Even the materials had to be selected based on what the client wanted, then billed back to them after I designed everything.
And if I were to assess Seren’s looks as I stared at her...
"First of all, I’m sure of this."
The Dawn Apostles—this was a reasonable suspicion, but...
"Did they recruit people based on their faces or something?"
Even thinking back to the celebrities from the world where I used to live, I didn’t think there had been women like this. Had they handpicked and gathered only the most gorgeous ones?
Every person I met was like this, seriously.
Anyway, she was a woman whose blonde hair and violet eyes suited each other perfectly.
Just as I was lying on the workshop desk, rolling around...
Knock knock.
"Lionel..."
Mm, that was definitely Yeomhwa’s voice.
"Come in."
Creak...
Yeomhwa came through the door, looked at me for a moment, then lowered her head.
...And just as expected, her shoulders soon began to shake.
"Pfft..."
Heh.
"Pwahahaha!"
In the end, she burst out laughing.
Still seated, Yeomhwa cackled away for quite a while.
"I mean, I was making her wash her face... but no matter how much she wiped, it just kept coming off. How much did she even put on...?"
"You had a hard time."
"No, what hard time? She said that next time, after she washes it all off, she’ll try it with me."
Just as I thought. It had been a good call to send her with Yeomhwa.
Yeomhwa wiped a tear from the corner of her eye with her finger, then stared at me.
"But the kid’s got good sense, huh?"
"Good sense?"
"Wouldn’t most boys laugh there and make her cry?"
"...She was cute."
I wasn’t the type to tease someone until they cried.
"Anyway, I came to tell you that. I need to get back to her. If I leave her alone, I think she’ll turn into a ghost again."
Yeomhwa finally stopped laughing and opened the door.
"Good work, kid~"
"Yes, I’m counting on you."
Fortunately... Yeomhwa seemed to have properly set Ruby straight.
What a relief.
What was such a relief, you ask?
It still hadn’t gone down, so I’d nearly been found out.
"Phew."
Then, just as I was back to my happy time watching combat footage...
Ding!
Ding!
Notifications began to ring.
"Kkyaht."
I sprang to my feet and opened the DM window.
[Seren de Lumiere]: I’ve organized everything and sent it to you.
[Seren de Lumiere]: It’s a little long.
[Seren de Lumiere]: As for my requests... I wrote down what I wanted as broadly as possible for now. I wrote down everything I really want.
[Seren de Lumiere]: So... please trim out anything that would be too difficult....
Hmm...
Going by this alone, it sounded like she had written down a bunch of absurd requests.
But asking me to cut out anything unreasonable... It was kind of cute how timid she was.
What the hell could she be requesting that was so grand and insane?
I expanded the long message below.
The first thing written was Seren’s body measurements.
Like I said before, body measurements and units here were pretty much the same as in the modern world.
"...Is this for real?"
─────────────────
[Body Measurements]
[Height: 171.6 cm]
[Shoulder width: 42.1 cm]
[Bust: 109.3 cm]
[Underbust: 71.2 cm]
[Waist: 57.8 cm]
[Hips: 103.6 cm]
[Arm length: 58.4 cm]
[Inseam: 82.7 cm]
[Thigh circumference: 61.3 cm]
─────────────────
"..."
Back then, even if I saw those numbers, I wouldn’t have had the slightest idea what they meant...
But now, I knew.
She was tall, and her shoulders were broad.
As befitted a swordswoman, her arms had lean muscle and were firm.
Her waist was so slim you had to wonder whether she was even human, while her hips and thighs flared out in that ideal, firm hourglass shape.
And...
Most decisively, her bust was on a level that rivaled Dolores’s.
Her whole body was extremely fitting for a Dawn Apostle.
"Hmm."
Lean and toned with muscles that were by no means bulky, yet still strongly feminine.
She had the kind of ideal figure Ruby might aspire to.
In other words...
"A body that makes crafting worthwhile."
That kind of body.
No, I hadn’t realized from her pictures because she had been wearing armor, but...
She was the "what’s under the clothes is incredible" type... It really was incredible.
Now then, let’s look at her requests.
Honestly, I didn’t know whether I should say this, but her body specs...? Her figure...?
They were so admirable that, even if it made me sound like a pervert, I had been prepared to work hard even if she had listed some slightly unreasonable requests.
AI missiles launching from the armor?
Or infinite attack reflection?
What exactly did you want, Seren?
With a suitably solemn mindset, I scrolled down.
I had expected systematic demands sorted by category, but...
[Seren de Lumiere]: First, I hope the joints won’t rattle too much when I walk or move.
[Seren de Lumiere]: Of course, I know that since it’s iron, it’s natural for it to make noise!
[Seren de Lumiere]: This is only something I hope for. If it’s difficult, you can skip it....
"...?"
O-Okay, next.
[Seren de Lumiere]: And I hope it won’t be too heavy... I sweat a lot....
[Seren de Lumiere]: Of course! Of course, I know that because it’s iron, it can’t help but be heavy.
[Seren de Lumiere]: I’m okay with it being fairly heavy... I’d be happy if it were even a little lighter.
What was this?
What kind of requests were these?
Equipment not rattling was common sense by my standards, and making iron light despite it being iron was a blacksmith’s lifelong challenge.
In other words, these were things that should be done even without her asking.
[Seren de Lumiere]: From now on, I’ll write down the things that have been a little difficult for me normally... Please just use them as reference....
[Seren de Lumiere]: When I raise my sword high, the shoulder joint section pokes my bare skin, and it hurts a little ㅠ
[Seren de Lumiere]: It was integrated with the pauldron, so it was really difficult to put on ㅠㅠ
[Seren de Lumiere]: I’ve gotten used to it... so if this is difficult too, it can be similar to what I have now!
[Seren de Lumiere]: If possible, I hope I can put it on and take it off by myself, without my attendant....
Huh?
So until now, she couldn’t put on her armor without an attendant?
This was less of a list of requests and more...
"Hmm."
Just a diary.
Like a diary, chattering on and on about how this was difficult, sniff sniff.
She apparently wasn’t used to making demands, because even after saying what she wanted, she still sounded uncertain.
The diary-like section went on for a while, then stopped at a certain point.
[Seren de Lumiere]: And...
[Seren de Lumiere]: I think this might be my most unreasonable requestㅠㅠ?
[Seren de Lumiere]: It’s just too...
And that was it.
"What?"
Was this her real request?
Seeing how much she was hesitating...
Ding.
Then the message arrived.
[Seren de Lumiere]: I don’t want to look like I’m wearing a tin can....
"..."
[Seren de Lumiere]: What I mean is...
[Seren de Lumiere]: If...
[Seren de Lumiere]: If it’s really possible, please also take care of the appearance a little, so I don’t look like a man.
[Seren de Lumiere]: I still want to look pretty....
And that was the end.
I calmly looked back down through everything from the top.
"..."
Now I knew for certain.
These people...
Had practically no expectations when it came to equipment.
Maybe it was because they only cared about high star ratings...
But they were hesitating and watching my reaction even when asking for things that should naturally be included.
"Now, let’s see."
At a glance, it seemed highly likely that even if I asked her to tell me what else she wanted, she wouldn’t be able to give me a proper answer.
Why?
You needed to know something before you could ask for it.
In my view, this was the most Seren could say.
Then what was the client’s central request, based on this conversation?
"Yuna?"
Analyze it.
Of course, I already had a feeling.
I could smell her frustration.
[The community’s evaluation of Seren is... she’s cool but scary, and she looks like a man when she wears armor.]
...That face looked like a man?
They must have shit for eyes.
[There are... almost no reactions calling her pretty.]
[Yeah... Maybe that’s what’s stressing her out?]
I still want to look pretty.
Defense was important, and everything else was important too.
I had to take care of all the effects as well.
And hidden among those requests was, ultimately...
"Found it."
The thread through the gap.
You want to look like a woman, Seren.
Something was flashing brightly in my head right now.
[Cristiano]: I understand perfectly.
[Seren de Lumiere]: Really?
[Cristiano]: Of course.
It seemed I needed to start work immediately.
[Cristiano]: I’ll use the materials first and bill you afterward.
[Cristiano]: And please send over the armor you’ve been wearing right away. I’ll return it to you later.
I ended up sounding somewhat forceful, but it was urgent.
I needed to take the armor completely apart and inspect it. I had to find out what the problems were.
At a glance, it seemed I would need to try all sorts of materials too.
To do what I had in mind right now, I needed to try everything.
Without looking at her reply, I closed the DM window.
Then I awkwardly rose to my feet and stared into empty space.
There was no need to ask why I had stood up awkwardly.
"Now, then."
What was the key issue here?
Seren wanted full plate armor—the armor she would wear.
Defense and all that were naturally essential... but Seren also wanted to look pretty at the same time.
Obviously, prettiness and defense could never coexist.
Right?
If you removed even one piece of iron plating, Seren’s white, firm skin might show, but that much more of her would become vulnerable.
In the end, exposure and defense, appearance and defense, were inversely proportional.
"..."
If this were an RPG, I could make something like bikini armor with high defense despite the heavy exposure.
But this was reality.
Ultimately, solving this paradox of exposure would be the central theme of this project.
Ding.
[Mail has arrived.]
Looks like she had sent it already.
I pressed the receive button in midair.
Thud!
"That startled me..."
A huge lump of metal fell into the middle of the workshop.
"Damn it, it probably wrecked the floor mat."
I waved away the dust and inspected the armor.
"...Well, look at this."
From the photos, I’d thought it was simply cool armor overflowing with romance.
It looked like all of that had been photoshopped.
For starters, there was a huge hole punched through the very center of the chest. It was fair to call it half-destroyed.
And looking closely, the Imperial Palace’s characteristic flashy colors weren’t even the material’s colors... It was just iron.
It had originally been iron-colored, but it looked like they had painted it in the Imperial Palace style and added decorations.
When I looked inside, all I could see was silver.
And on top of that...
"...You must have had a hard time."
There wasn’t any consideration whatsoever for the wearer.
It was structured to forcefully cram in and crush Seren’s absurdly voluptuous hips.
How much must those childbearing hips have hurt? Sob.
Her breasts were the same.
That area must have hurt especially badly, because the inside had been patched with something like cushioning.
This...
Was just a tin can. A tin can.
Maybe because the equipment was wrecked, even a status window didn’t appear.
Still, considering it had a massive hole punched through it, it had looked intact in the pictures, so perhaps its defense was at least somewhat decent.
Even so, a tin can was a tin can.
I circled the armor once, then quietly crouched down.
A tin can was a tin can, but... What kind of scent did Seren have?
I had been wondering since earlier and couldn’t hold myself back anymore.
This was important. It helped with image training.
Since she was blonde, perhaps something warm and fluffy, like blankets dried in sunlight...
But...
"..."
The smell of lubricant. The smell of iron.
I couldn’t smell Seren’s scent at all.
God damn it.
"This is pissing me off."
I gave up and stood back up.
This made me even more certain.
"It’s miserable. Absolutely miserable."
The standard was so miserable that it was almost tragic.
I sat down... and began my research.
First, performance category one.
Defense.
What exactly was important for defense?
You might think the material was what mattered, but that was only half right.
No matter how hard a metal was, if an impact was concentrated in one spot like an awl, it would be pierced.
So...
When designing this armor, I wanted to borrow a miracle of nature.
The diabolical ironclad beetle.
There was an insect with that name.
It was a beetle only about the size of a finger, but...
It was so tough that a mere insect could withstand being run over by a car.
The secret was in the way its wing covers interlocked...
The connecting parts meshed tightly together like puzzle pieces.
When it took an impact, it wasn’t just one side bracing itself like a log and taking all the force...
The interlocking pieces moved a little at a time, spreading the force out.
Simply put, rather than trying to make armor that would never break in the first place...
I would make a structure where puzzle-like interlocking sections distributed the force and let the impact flow away.
So that even if one spot was struck, the entire suit of armor would share the impact.
"...Good."
I had decided on the structure that would raise the equipment’s defense.
Now, you might ask where the prettiness came in if I was copying a beetle’s armor.
And the conclusion I reached after much thought on that matter was...
"Form change."
The interlocking structure of wing covers was, in theory, close to a puzzle.
Which meant... it could fold freely and even come apart.
So I would control that mechanism to create form change.
First Form, Armor.
Combat mode, where it covered the entire body and the plates spread out fully.
Second Form, Ceremonial Dress.
A mode in which the plates partially covered her body along its lines, emphasizing Seren’s figure.
For ordinary times or simple combat.
And then there would even be a Third Form.
What was the Third Form?
"..."
A third Easter egg that the wearer would never even know existed—known only to the creator.
"Bikini armor."
That was what it would be.
It would probably only respond to a specific phrase.
Seren... would likely never know for the rest of her life.
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