Chapter 95 - Swords and Shield

'Let's Get to Work', Eiro thought to himself as he entered the hut, fully prepared to work for the rest of the day to get everything done, and then first stepped up to the bath with the wooden Ovoya blades, quickly taking them out of there with the help of metal tongs, and then he placed them directly onto a fire that he just lit in the corner of the room that was built with brick, where the bathtub usually stood.

It was causing a rather strong smell, so Eiro opened the window that was directly next to the fireplace, and then looked around and soon found the Avenos that he set down here to make Sammy's bow.

Since the parts of Rudy's shield still needed some time in the treatment-solution, he would first get the base for this done before getting those parts out and letting them dry.

Making a bow was in itself not necessarily that complex, especially considering the structure that the plan Eiro got was going for. The wooden body had three main parts in it, the Riser, and the two limbs.

The Riser was the center-part that would be held and was usually a rather thick, strong part since it wasn't supposed to bend either. As for the two limbs, they were the recurve type, and luckily that wasn't too hard to do with the pieces of wood that Eiro had here. It might be a little annoying to tightly attach the limbs to the riser though, so Eiro wasn't necessarily excited for that.

And so, Eiro quickly got started on first making the rather basic riser, leaving out the parts that he needed to attach later to properly connect the limbs, and then set that to the side. This didn't take too long, since Eiro would later shape the handle to fit Sammy's hand better, meaning that would come as a later step. For now, he left enough material to properly accomplish that on the strong piece of wood, and then got started on the two limbs, thinly carving along them where the part where the limbs and riser met where the thickest and strongest, making sure to get the curvature right.

In a normal bow, the end-parts of the bow where the string would be connected to, the nocks, were pointed at the one that was holding the bow, and it had a single regular curve to it. But for a recurve bow, the nocks were pointed forward toward the target, bending forward just right before the end-part.

Eiro didn't necessarily know the reason behind this, but it seemed to help with the speed that the arrow would then be shot out.

For now, just like with the riser, Eiro left the limbs too thick, although not for the purpose of fitting them to a certain shape later, but rather to more easily be able to adjust the way the bow could bend. After all, you could always remove more of the wood, but you couldn't add more once it was gone. Once Eiro was done with one of the limbs, he chose to finally take the parts for Rudy's shield out of the bath and then left them out to dry outside, with the door open so that he could keep an eye on them more easily. Of course he could hear everything what was going on, but he wanted to be sure he could see if anything was wrong.

And then, Eiro got started on the second limb, and when evening came around, had the body of the bow fully constructed and connected, and then just needed to start the fine-tuning. The Ovoya still had to stay in the fire a little while, and Eiro figured he would be done by then and could place the bow into its own treatment bath while finishing up the training swords.

So, the Demon got started on the thread. Forest-Spider Silk was an incredibly strong type of thread, well known for both how much it supported the flow of mana, as well as the fact that it was hard to cut through with regular blades. When Jura taught Eiro about different types of materials like these, he said that this silk was often used to cover the inside of the clothes of important officials or nobles to protect against Assassination attempts.

However, it was rather hard to get by, so it was usually pretty expensive and even then only available in small quantities. Even the thread that Eiro got would have cost him a fair amount, despite it only having enough thread to cover for a little over half a dozen bowstrings. Well, since money wasn't really an issue for Eiro, once he got the chance to, maybe he should look into having some clothes for Leon and Avalin made using Forest-Spider Silk.

That was just something for the future, however, and for now Eiro had to get the training weapons done first and quickly bound the thread tightly around the nocks, and then spent a minute or so trying to cut through it since the rest of the silk was still hanging onto it.

And then, Eiro just fixed the riser in place and pulled on the bowstring to see how well and how evenly it was bending before starting to carve away a little bit at a time at the back of the bow's limbs, so on the side facing toward the target, and soon managed to get a rather flexible, well-balanced bow, although he might still need to do some adjustments when Avalin actually started using it, depending on how well she could manage this specific way. He didn't learn to be a bowmaker, after all, just how to make realistic, magical wooden limbs.

And so, the bow's wood was soon done, and Eiro removed the bowstring with satisfaction and then placed the wooden piece into the treatment bath, before grabbing the wooden blades that were basically completely covered in soot, so Eiro just waited for the wood to cool down and then ran over the wooden blades with a piece of wet cloth to clean them up, before grabbing the handles that he had prepared before, placing them onto the blades' base before Eiro looked at them with satisfaction in his eyes.

"Alright, perfect." The Demon said, although just when he did, he noticed a bit of an embarrassing mistake. There was a slight bit of a rough part on the handle that Arc could hurt his fingers on… Arc himself wouldn't notice, so Eiro had to properly make sure to get rid of anything like that. With his carving knife in hand, Eiro just lightly ran over the rough part to smooth it down some, making a notification appear in front of him.

[Apprentice Carving Leveled Up!]

[Apprentice Carving hit Level 100 and became Intermediate Carving]

There it was, the notification that Eiro had been expecting for quite a while. It seemed like that small part finally pushed it over the edge, huh?

"Oh! Congrats, Eiro!" Nelli exclaimed as she noticed the notification floating in front of the Imp, and the Demon himself just nodded his head with a smile. Like this, he could really do Jura's teachings justice, couldn't he?

With satisfaction, as well as some underlying bitterness at not accomplishing this before Jura's passing, the Demon just placed the two Training swords, one of them two-handed and the other one-handed, to the side and then moved on. Since Eiro woke up pretty early, it was the middle of the afternoon, so he should have enough time to at least get started with Rudy's shield, which he quickly did.

The construction method really wasn't that complex, really. It was basically just an inward-pointed spiral.

"Hmm, that shield-design is pretty weird though… You sure it's not a mistake?" Nelli asked as she looked at Eiro, and the Demon turned to her surprised, "Weren't you there while Jura sketched this up?"

"…I was there, that doesn't mean I was paying attention…" She replied, and Eiro looked at her with one of his brows slightly raised, before Nelli quickly elaborated.

"Anyway! Usually, shields like this have an outward spiral, so the center of the shield is the point that's going most to the outside. But with this one the center is the point that's most going to the inside… That's weird, right?" She asked, and Eiro leaned back in his chair and slowly nodded his head as he closed his eyes and thought about it.

"Hmm… I think I've read about something like this before…" Eiro muttered quietly and then remembered it again, "I don't know if that's right, but I think the impact to a shield like that dislikes travelling into empty space, so part of the impact still goes directly through the shield? If that happens, it would be possible to throw Rudy off-balance with enough raw power. But if the impact is led directly into another body, then that doesn't happen. Because Rudy doesn't take damage, nearly all the impact should be negated then." Eiro suggested, although he really had no idea if that theory was actually plausible. It seemed enough for him at the moment, at least. Jura came up with it, so there had to be a reason for it, and that seemed the most probable.

No matter that, Eiro started to place the parts of the wood together, layering them to turn them into a proper inward spiral, and then properly connected them with the help of proper wood-glue and ridges that he pushed together to make everything stay in place.

That alone took a surprisingly long time, actually, and Eiro soon had the base of the shield done. The Glue had to dry for a little while, but in the meantime, Eiro got started on making the handles and parts that Rudy was supposed to push his arm into for the highest amount of stability possible. It was a rather large and heavy shield, after all.

It seemed like there were even some parts attached that could allow the shield to have some straps pulled through so that Rudy could carry it on his back. It seemed rather well-thought through, actually.

Once the glue finished drying, Eiro attached all of those parts to the shield tightly and then once more set it to the side to let everything dry. And once it was dry, the Shield would be done as well, meaning that today, Eiro managed to finish up two out of the four things for the kids, although he wouldn't give the swords and shield to either Arc or Rudy yet. He wanted them all to get it at the same time.

Either way, since that was the case…"I won't have anything to do tomorrow, huh?" Eiro muttered quietly as he looked out of the window. The Staff still had to stay in the water for a couple more days, and the bow had to stay in the treatment bath for a total of 36 hours as well, meaning that it would be in the early morning of the day after tomorrow.

"Guess I should gather some things before winter really takes over." The Demon said and then stood up from his chair, making his way out of the hut and back to the front door of the main house, swiftly stepping inside, where the children were already doing their own thing, mostly relaxing since it was evening now.

Since he figured this would be a better time to bring this up than last night where everything turned into a rather heavy conversation about personal responsibilities, Eiro called for two of the six children. "Rudy, Leon, come over here for a bit." The Demon told them, and Rudy raised his head and placed the pair of pants he was fixing for Arc to the side before standing up from his bed, while Leon also came up to the Demon with his regular tired expression.

"Alright, I know this might be a bit weird, but I'll be smelling you for a bit now, okay?"