"Va... lyr!"
"Valyr... wake... up...!"
"Wake up, Valyr!"
"Mngh..." Letting out a groan as he gradually regained consciousness, Valyr looked around his surroundings for a bit, clutching his head as waves of pain radiated from it.
"What the..." Just as he wondered whether or not he was hearing voices, the young man eventually noticed a familiar being appear at the workshop's entrance, dashing towards him after seeing he was awake. "Braum?"
"You're finally awake..." said Braum, letting out a loud sigh of relief as he looked at the young man with a hint of worry. "You scared me, you know?"
"What... what happened?" Finally regaining the entirety of his consciousness, the young man closed his eyes for a bit before looking at Braum for answers.
"You tell me." In response, Braum looked back at him. "Earlier, I was waiting around the entrance of the Blacksmith Guild since you said the two of us would meet up there. However, even after waiting for a while, you didn't come."
"So, I decided to head into the Blacksmith Guild myself to see if you were in here," added the man. "Lo and behold, I find out that you were on the workshop floor out cold. What the heck have you been doing to yourself?"
"Wait... what time is it?" Though he already had an answer to the man's final statement, the young man decided to focus on the first statement, taking a look outside the window's workshop to get his answer.
"Shit..." Seeing that the sun was close to reaching the zenith once more, the young man inwardly admonished himself for not noticing the passage of time. Then again, after a while, he let out a long sigh, feeling sorry for the man who had arrived instead.
"I'm sorry I wasn't able to uphold my part of the deal," said Valyr to Braum, who could only look back at him with a raised eyebrow.
"That doesn't really matter at the moment." Braum shook his head. "After all, you were on the workshop floor unconscious."
"That was because I was up all night working on something." Hearing the man repeat his words from earlier, a wry smile appeared on the young man's face as he replied. "Something you'd be glad to find out now that it's done."
"Are you... are you serious?" Getting an idea of what the young man was hinting at, Braum did not know whether to feel excitement or more concern. After all, if what he was thinking was correct...
The armor set he requested Valyr to forge was already done.
"Well, if anything, it's the reason why you found me on the floor unconscious." Letting out a bit of a mocking chuckle, Valyr nodded in response, finally recalling what had transpired for things to turn out this way.
While he was in the midst of forging Braum's armor set, the young man felt like he had gained a greater understanding of things out of nowhere, prompting him to realize that [Flow] had unknowingly activated at some point.
Not wanting to let the chance pass up, he abandoned the thoughts of going to sleep as he wanted to maximize the effects of [Flow] on Braum's equipment.
Then again, even though he had abandoned any thoughts of sleep for the meantime, that did not mean he abandoned the thoughts of taking a break. It was just that, by the time he had finished the final piece of the armor set, he decided to give himself a long break before deciding to take some actual rest.
However, with how far he had overexerted his body, his body was the one that ended up deciding for him, causing him to eventually fall on the floor unconscious at some point in his rest.
"I..." Hearing from Valyr that he was the one that indirectly caused the former's earlier state, Braum began to feel a bit of guilt. For a moment, he was at a crossroads on what he should do next.
Fortunately, after a bit of silent ponderation, a brilliant idea flashed in his mind. With the thought in mind, he looked at Valyr with renewed confidence as he faintly smiled.
"You know what? Consider the information you're requesting from me free of charge." As Braum said these words all of a sudden, the young man looked at the man before him with his mouth agape. After all, he was expecting the man to still charge him for the information.
Though, as he pondered over why Braum decided to tell him something like that, it did not take long for him to put two and two together in his mind. Bitterly smiling at the realization for a brief moment, he did not know whether he should feel guilty or feel glad that Braum had changed his mind.
In the end, he let his pragmatic side take over.
"I'll have to thank you in advance, then." Giving Braum words of sincere gratitude, Valyr went ahead and led the man to the armor set he had forged for the former. Naturally, with the materials and the effort he had put into it, Braum was left in a state of awe after looking at it.
With the overall armor set taking on a color that was part brown and gray, there were many areas on the armor that were accentuated by light gray metal, giving the armor a feeling that it would suit someone that was part of a military unit or something similar.
However, if one were to ignore the external appearance of the armor, one would instead come to face with the intimidating aura it passively emanated, making one feel as if one was standing in front of a mountain that seemed to have a limitless peak.
"Does... does this armor set have a name?" Taking a while to remove himself from the aura the armor radiated, Braum looked at the young man behind him and asked.
"To be honest, I haven't given it a name yet," said Valyr in response, looking at Braum with a soft smile. "Perhaps you would like to give the set a name?"
"Me?" Pointing at himself, the man looked back at the young man with surprise written all over his face. "Are you sure?"
"I wouldn't have asked the question in the first place if I wasn't." Seeing the young man nod in response to his question, Braum scratched his head for a bit before letting out a faint sigh. Then, falling into a pensive state, the man went through the various ideas that lingered in his head.
"Ah. Got it." Eventually, after a couple of minutes, Braum felt like he had a fitting name for the armor set, looking at the young man with a calm yet confident expression. "How about we go with..."
"Aegis."
