“I’ll go ahead and throw a few things together for you as long as you can pay me later.”

“Would you?”

“If it’s a request from you, kid—the one and only—sure. Besides, working with strange, new materials never gets old. This armor is really something. That blacksmith must have been quite the artisan, no doubt.”

“Oh?”

Such generosity despite my dubious financial circumstances . . . The old guy had a big heart that made me genuinely want to repay his kindness. To be honest, I really did want to recruit him to be my territory blacksmith. I wouldn’t push the issue right now, though, but once I finished developing the territory I’d try approaching him about it again.

“We should probably make the armor our top priority for now. Once that’s finished, I guess we can’t go wrong with making a shield, right kid?”

“Agreed. If nothing else, I can just make a copy of the shield.”

“You understood exactly where I was going with that. Alright then, leave the armor and get out of here.”

“I’m counting on you.”

“Righto!”

The old guy removed the core stone from the armor and handed it to me.

“You hold on to the core stone for now, kid.”

“You sure?”

“I’ll make it so that we can embed the stone afterward. You can pay me when it comes time for that.”

“Thanks.”

“What will you wear in the meantime, kid?”

“I’ll just use some old armor from the castle stores, so you do whatever needs to be done.”

“Righto! What next? There’s more, right?”

I nodded in response to the old guy’s question.

“Next up is . . .”

I laid the Angel Breastplate on the counter along with the miko outfit that Raphtalia had been wearing. I wondered if I should show him the Filo Pajamas, too, but I decided to leave those for later.

“What’s this? A breastplate and . . . a miko outfit?”

“That’s some of the gear we were using in the other world. It stopped functioning just like the armor. Is there anything you can do?”

It was pretty exceptional equipment if only we could make use of it, and considering how well the outfit looked on Raphtalia, I had to ask even if it was unreasonable.

“This one was originally made out of the Filo kigurumi. The Filo Pajamas that Filo has been wearing were, too, but those are functioning fine, so we don’t need to worry about them.”

“You bring me all of the tough ones! Who was wearing a miko outfit, anyway? The little miss?”

I nodded and then whispered to the old man so that Raphtalia couldn’t hear.

“The outfit looks super good on her, so I want to have her wear it in this world, too. Is there any way you could make it seem like she has no other choice for equipment?”

“So that’s your plan?”

Apparently Raphtalia had heard me. I should have asked the old guy when she wasn’t around. Fail!