Chapter 28 Infighting

After falling into Elder Sung's mischievous ploy, both Azi and Shizu were walking in a bit of a daze to their next destination. During this period, Shizu was able to recompose herself a bit as the red on her face did somewhat fade but she was unable to speak up on what had just occurred.

She was still processing and reflecting on the emotions she felt in those brief moments when she had kissed Azi and when he kissed her. It was a level of closeness that could not compare to the time she had accidentally nibbled on his neck.

While Shizu was reflecting, Azi was doing much the same. He was recalling the calm feeling he felt well up inside him and tried to understand why he moved to kiss Shizu. This befuddled Azi as he knew very little about love and could only remember from his fractured memories of a crush he once had but was later lost for a reason he could not remember.

This made him feel depressed due to how, even though he forgot the reason why he lost his crush, he still felt the feelings of loss that remained in his heart.

It was as if he discovered a hole in himself that he didn't know was there. Azi thought back to his feelings when he kissed Shizu and felt the hole close up slightly. He felt a bit happy when he remembered that moment as an awkward smile crept onto his face.

The two continued through the town in total silence and eventually made it to a blacksmith and weapons shop that were located next to each other. Kajima had recommended these shops as the pair of brothers that ran it were on good terms with him.

Kajima told Azi to give them his name and they would help him with getting the materials he needed. As added insurance, Kajima gave him some liquor to help quell them as he warned that they were a bit rowdy.

When Azi and Shizu walked to the entrance of the shops, Azi continued to hold Shizu's hand and turned to her before entering.

Azi had a somewhat worried expression on his face which got Shizu's attention which prompted her to ask in a soft tone.

"So ummm what do you need to do here?"

His tone the same as her's, he looked at her with a bit of trepidation in his eyes.

"I just need to ask the owners for some materials. I should be finished shortly."

"I see...."

The silence between them persisted as neither seemed to want to let the other's hand go and they were just waiting for the other to make the first move. Breaking the awkwardness, Azi tightened his grip a bit and looked up at Shizu with an apologetic look.

He thought that what he did was too forward of him and was inappropriate as he was a lower class citizen of the empire when compared to her standing. While she may have agreed to the ceremony, it was his blunder for doing something so inappropriate to her in public.

"Ummm about what happened before. I am sorry. I should not have done that. If you wanna hit me you can but please do it after we get back to Kajima's house."

With confusion in her eyes, Shizu wondered why Azi would apologize. She felt that Azi had nothing to be sorry for as she was the one who agreed to perform the kiss of fealty. This caused her to have an annoyed expression on her face and when she attempted to clarify Azi interrupted again with another formal apology.

"I am truly sorry for my behavior. I will do what I can to not let it happen again."

Still not sure what to do, Shizu felt a headache forming as her thoughts began to spin wildly as she tried to put her mind in order, but it instead continued to spiral out of control. This caused her to only give a short sigh in response.

"Just let me think for a bit, ok?"

Feeling that he might be causing her distress, Azi let go of her hand and moved a bit away.

"Alright, I'll leave you alone. If you need me I'll be talking to the owners here."

He then turned to enter the weapons shop, while Shizu followed and separated to sit at a nearby chair inside. Moving to the front counter of the shop, Azi was met with a pair of short men who were about the same height as him at 5 feet tall. This was rare and Azi began to think that these men were dwarves, but had to take back his thought as their fluffy ears and tails said otherwise.

They wore tanned leather aprons and thick leather gloves. On their waists were an assortment of tools that a common blacksmith and craftsman would use.

Taking a breath to refocus, Azi got their attention by calling out to them as they seemed to be more focused on their work. One was reading through a book while the other was examining a broken sword.

"Excuse me! Are you Ben and Bail?"

"Yeah whatcha need kid?" Said the man looking at the broken sword.

"You wanna weapon from me shop?" Said the man reading the book.

"Oi Bail, don't sell to my customer!"

"Whacha talking about you old fart, he came to my weapon shop so he be my customer not yours Ben!"

"Oh no, that's not how it works, I will be the one asking him the questions first, so he's my customer!"

"Why you little damn moron!"

"Hey! I'm the taller one you pipsqueak."

The two looked like they were about to throw down but before Ben and Bail could escalate, Azi interrupted them with a harsh tone as he really wanted to get his business done so that he could sit down and think on the prior matter in peace.

"If you keep bickering, I won't give you what Kajima told me to hand you."

The two men went silent and looked at him with a questioning gaze.

"Kajima! How do you know Kajima?"

"I'm his apprentice!"

Azi then brought out the liquor Kajima gave him and the pair of brothers both started to tremble when they looked at the proffered bottle. They coughed a bit before calming down and accepting the bottle of liquor with trembling hands.

Ben then straightened up and asked.

"What do you need?"

While Azi questioned why these two seemed so scared of Kajima, he put a pin on that thought to get his business finished.

"Is there a substitute for refined steel?"

"Sorry little lad, but unfortunately there is no substitute for refined steel, it's the best metal we currently have." Said Ben.

"Agreed." Added Bail. "When the emperor gave us the knowledge on how to make it, we thought it to be a god sent material from the divine."

"Lighter than iron and stronger than bronze." Praised Ben.

Sighing from disappointment, Azi began to rub his head in exasperation. 'I knew this was going to be difficult. Kajima already told me that there were no substitutes so I was somewhat hoping that what Kajima said wasn't the whole truth.'

From this Azi chose to quickly move on.

"What do you have on hand right now? I'm short on materials for a project so what can you get delivered to Kajima's place by today or tomorrow?"

"Well, we got a lot a scrap weapons, some leftover copper, nickel, tin, and plenty of iron ore since we got a new shipment of that from Yamato." Said Ben.

"I got some Kengiri carapaces, beowolf claws, and a few corpses of beowolves and gengiri that need butchering." Added Bail.

From this information, Azi thought to himself on what he could use. He remembered he could try his hand at making the refined steel but recalled his conversation with Kajima who said that the process required a coal called coke. Since Ben and Bail didn't have any in stock, Azi was again out of luck.

Digging through his mind he tried to think of what he knew of metallurgy from his memories of his past profession as an engineer. To Azi, it was basically the combination of materials at certain temperatures and the use of certain processes through trial and error that would result in better metals or metals with the desired properties.

In his case he needs the metal to be strong, light, and easy to produce for a beginner like him.

The thought of trial and error made Azi remember a time where he was researching the possible combinations of crafted items in games and synthesizing pure chemicals in real life chemistry.

He thought to apply his experience and remembered that the gengiri and beowolves had some magical properties to their material. From Kajima's books he learned that all parts of an animal or monster contain unique traits. He theorized that he could potentially incorporate these traits into a metal and while the idea was far-fetched he knew from experience that you never knew what would happen unless you tried.

Knowing that he had a lot of work ahead of him, Azi turned his head to the list of items Ben and Bail had given him as he was thinking on what to do next.

"I'll take all I can with what I have. I need a bit of everything but the bulk of it will be the scrap weapons and iron ore. How much can you spare for 5000 Minos?"

"Not to worry." Said Ben. "I think about 1/10 of our stock should be what you can buy with that. Do you agree? Bail?"

"Now hold on, the boy knows Kajima and he is his apprentice. We can't go giving him a bad deal after giving us such good liquor. How about we give him 1/5 of the stock? We ain't got much use for all the scrap weapons and monster corpses."

" OH alright don't got to logic me into agreeing. So, there you have it boy, 1/5 of the stock sound good to you."

Doing a bit of mental math with the given inventory data in the list, Azi calculated how much that would be and nodded.

"Yes, Thank You. I'll be sure to put in a good word with Kajima for this. If you can, please deliver it to Kajima's house sometime tomorrow afternoon. Just give him my name, it is Azi by the way."

"Sure thing." Affirmed Ben.

"Azi huh, sounds foreign." Said Bail.

"No shit sherlock!" Yelled an annoyed Ben. "The guy looks and talks differently from us. Course he's not from around here. You must be going dull in the head with yer age."

"Don't be calling me an idiot, you pot belly....*******$%%#%$#%$#" Retorted Bail

"##&&#&#%%#!" Yelled Ben.

Azi at this point had covered his ears and walked away from the now two bickering men who cursed at each other. He felt that he should quickly leave but wanted a moment to himself to think about his situation with Shizu so he began looking at some of the weapons in the shop to pass the time.

As he was window shopping, Shizu suddenly got up from her chair and called out to the two still bickering men at the front counter.

"HEY, BEN, BAIL! LET ME USE YOUR TRAINING FIELD!"

The two suddenly stiffened up at her voice as it sounded cold, harsh, and authoritative. Yielding to her intense stare, they began to shiver a bit in fear.

"SURE GO RIGHT AHEAD!!" Said a fearful Ben and a nodding Bail.

Shizu then turned to Azi who was staring at her with a fearful look on his face as well.

Directing him, she pointed Azi to a rack of weapons.

"GRAB A WEAPON AZI. I AM GIVING YOU YOUR FIRST LESSON! STARTING NOW!!"

(BATTLE! BATTLE! BATTLE!)

(BEN AND BAIL. Another colorful pair of characters.)

(Did you like how I made them speak? Let me know in the comments.)

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