Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4) by Jez Cajiao (beach books .txt) 📗

She smiled sadly with the admission, nodding to Lydia. “As you’re a member of Lord Jax’s personal retinue and, as you call it, the ‘tank’, my recommendation would be for you to work towards either Speculatores Praetoriae or full ‘standard’ armor, but I’ll warn you, you’ll need to increase your stats before you can wear either. You’re a bit… scrawny…”

I couldn’t help but burst out laughing at Lydia’s mortified expression, and the careful way that Thornapple had said it.

“It’s okay, Thornapple. Honestly, we all know we need to seriously improve ourselves to be able to wear full Legion armor properly,” I said, still chuckling.

“I’m glad you’re not offended, Lord Jax. Okay, I’ll need to examine you all and make some notes, get some measurements, and then late tonight, we can have a fitting? With a final fitting in the morning? What time are you planning on leaving?” she asked, and I shrugged.

“We’ve got a meeting with the researchers first thing tomorrow, so following that, I’d say; why?”

“Because‒and I need to say this‒we don’t have enough time. Any extra time you can give me tomorrow will be appreciated. To make this happen, we will work through the night, but still, if you could hold off an extra few hours?” she asked hopefully.

I paused and considered her request. The timetable was arbitrary, as I’d just made it up, that was true, but I needed to get back to the Great Tower as soon as possible. Even an hour lost here could mean defeat when Barabarattas and his forces came for the Tower, but… we also needed to level as much as we could, and I couldn’t afford to walk away from any chance to do that. Plus, the engineers needed time to work on the Battleship. Besides, if we died because our armor was shit, then it was all over anyway.

“Noon,” I said eventually. “I can give you until noon; that way you have a bit longer to finish up, and we have a bit longer to train and prepare, but then we need to move on.”

“Thank you!” Thornapple said, sagging in relief. “I warn you, it’ll not be my best work, but it will be the best I can do in the time I have.”

“Then I can’t ask for more,” I said graciously. “Once we’re back to the Tower, I’ll ask that you work on getting a proper forge set up, and then start to build us some more specialized pieces, so spend the next few days thinking about that, and what resources you’ll need, okay?”

“Ah… to set up a forge, or to make custom armor?” she asked cautiously.

“Both, either… why?” I replied distractedly as she stepped in close and lifted my right arm, holding a knotted piece of string to my armpit and grunting as she felt my current armor shift.

“This really wasn’t even fitted to you, was it?” She clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “I’m going to need you to take it all off…” she started to say, stepping back as I started to strip the battered pieces off. I saw the look on her face as I did so, even though she hid it quickly.

“Yeah, and I’ll need new clothes as well,” I said to her. “Clean ones… preferably without bloodstains…and that fit.”

“Yes, you definitely need those…” She wrinkled her nose involuntarily at the acrid smell. Beyond a quick wash down when I’d first awakened and Oracle had been feeling frisky–with an icy cold fountain of water, I’ll add‒I’d not had a proper bath or a shower since the fights in the arena. The Skyking raid had followed immediately after, so now, after several days of sweat, blood, and more soaking into my armor, I had to admit to myself that I was a little... ripe… “I’ll send for the clothiers as well, and share your measurements with them, if that’s acceptable?” she offered, and I nodded thankfully.

“I’ll go find a river or something to dunk in as well…” I muttered, having caught a whiff of myself.

“Let me get your measurements first, please…” she asked with a smile, going back to work, and making notes in a small journal as she went. “As I was saying, though, I can set up a field forge easily enough, and we brought all the complicated and expensive sections of our full forge, leaving only the heaviest and largest parts. The new forge will be achievable fairly soon, although it’ll be a few months to get it fully built and as good as we can make it. The custom armor, though…” She paused hesitantly.

“Yes?” I asked, waiting.

“Well, you know the Legion doesn’t do more than four armor designs, right? Scout, Standard Legion, Speculatores Praetoriae, and Praetorian Guard. That’s it,” she said slowly. “It’s law…”

“Is it?” I asked, raising one eyebrow. “Law, I mean? Or is it tradition?”

“Well… in the Legion, tradition… kinda is law…” Thornapple said slowly, sneaking peeks at me from under her eyebrows as she worked.

“And would learning new armor designs really be a bad thing?” I asked. “Would you hate it that much?”

“No!” she said quickly. “No, we wouldn’t hate it at all! Well, most of us wouldn’t…”

“Let me guess. It’s tradition, so you can’t change it, right? And there’s someone within the leadership structure that’s making sure of that?” I asked, already having a certain Tribune in mind.

“I… uh… we’d not be opposed, my lord!” she repeated, bowing her head quickly.

“Good,” I said, straightening up and watching the huge woman that was trying to both remain unnoticed, and drop hints as subtly as she could.

“Thornapple, I need to make some changes to the way the Legion does things. Amongst them is the belief that change is bad. Because I’ve got a goddamn robot‒horse‒thing down in storage that’s an amazing feat of engineering, and I can’t believe that things like that exist, yet our armor is as basic as it gets. We’re making new weapons and armor. Yes, there will be a