Book 2: Chapter 40: Women’s Armor

Under the mesmerizing sunset, the sky had taken the color of a faint orangish hue, and the air oozed with warmth. Lily and Shiu walked among the still bustling market streets of Kamakura city in such beautiful weather. Shiu led the white horse that was carrying all the purchases they had made, and together with Lily, they were on the way back to the dojo.

Lily had purchased the grade 4 women’s armor for 800 kan. As the war was imminent, the price of armor had skyrocketed.1 The set of bow and arrows she acquired were also grade 4 pieces, and since she wasn’t that good at archery, Lily just got a random bow for 300 kan, and a quiver of 50 arrows for 100 kan.

“Is it really proper… to wear this armor outside?” Lily’s face was aflush with worry2. “Master, that Soufune Toshirou said this armor design is the most popular one among women right now, so there must be some truth to it.”

“Mhm…” Lily had a feeling she had been tricked into buying this armor. The quality wasn’t an issue, as Lily knew how to discern that, but the problem was with its design. However, since the other female samurai were going out to battle wearing such a model, she decided to follow in their footsteps too.

As she would have to go out to battle soon, Lily didn’t undertake any specialized practice in the following two days. She just did some standard practice and then visited Sakiko to learn some basic knowledge about warfare, formations, military regulations, etc.

And finally, the day of the expedition had arrived.

Military orders were inviolable, and so, even if Lily weren’t afraid of Shimizu’s punishment, she had no plans of arriving late to the expedition. As she was too excited, she woke up pretty early in the morning.

Even though she was excited, she managed to fall asleep at the right time last night and got enough sleep.

After waking up, Lily donned a white yukata and entered the dojo’s bathing chamber to take a bath. She pa.s.sed through the mist and took the dewy, light-blue limestone pathway back to her house.

As she still had a lot of time, she decided to spend it to prepare herself properly. Once she reached her house, she summoned Shiu to help her don the armor in her room. It wasn’t feasible to wear this armor by herself, so Lily needed another person’s a.s.sistance in wearing it. She needed Shiu’s help to join the links and tightly fasten the straps of the armor.

As it was Shiu’s first time doing it, she wasn’t that proficient with it. After a lot of trial-and-error, she was finally successful in arming up Lily properly.

The door slid aside with a whoosh, and a samurai girl donned in brand new armor exited her room.

“Can this… really be worn outside?” Even Lily felt a little fl.u.s.tered when she felt the cold, morning breeze hit her thighs.3

Lily usually wore kimonos when she went out, and except for her ma.s.sive cleavage, all other regions were firmly secured under the cloth, but this time…

“It looks spectacular, Master. It’s dashing, soldierly, and…” “And what?”

Shiu smiled with a blush on her face and said no more, but her sight kept wandering across the beautiful armor that Lily had donned.

It was a set of armor that utilized the red and black colors as its primary colors and made from grade 4 weaving bamboo as well as grade 4 metals.

To match the style of the armor, Lily had styled her hair in a ponytail, which she rarely did.4 Her long ponytail stretched longer than her armor’s skirt, and to some degree, it acted as a guard to protect the view of her posterior a bit.

She also wore a small face armor mask over her beautiful face. This red mask just protected a section of her forehead and cheeks, possessing a pretty design that made her appear very graceful. However, the portrait of the golden twin-horned oni demon on the side covering her hair actually made her look quite formidable.

And past her long neck lay a ma.s.sive cleavage formed by a pair of bouncy, luscious b.r.e.a.s.t.s. A breastplate consisting of two red-black pieces made from metal and cloth propped the weight of her gigantic bosom. Although the breastplate acted as a protective piece, it revealed more than it ought to protect.

A pair of red-painted shoulder plates created from bamboo and metal rested on her shoulders, while her arms were covered in leather pieces.

And the region below the breastplate was adorned with a pretty golden sash, followed by a battle skirt that consisted of linked bamboo, metal, and leather pieces.

Although the skirt was too short, it somehow managed to hide the place between her legs from the front while walking. However, the curves of her b.u.t.t cheeks were out in full glory to the regular eye-level with just the slightest movements.5

On top of being short, it was also the sectioned type, so as long as Lily moved even a little, it would expose her fully. And the inside… the thin white loincloth that female samurai used, would become faintly visible.

As for her s.e.xy legs, white stockings covered them for the first time ever since Lily had arrived at this fantasy world of Heian.6

Of course, if we were to consider it from the perspective of the soul, there was no chance Lily would have worn stockings before coming to this Heian world.

The squeezing sensation from the section in between her plump thighs made her conscious of the fact that she was a fair, shy maiden. And that everyone will be paying attention to her.7

A fair section of her thighs was also visible between the stockings and her battle skirt.8

On her feet, she wore a pair of black wooden sandals that had toe thongs made from red-black fabric.

In short, the sense which the entire set of armor gave to Lily could be summed in a single world — revealing.9

Even the parts which covered her body worked only to reveal more of it and emphasized those exposed parts even more. This really made Lily doubt the intentions of Master Hosokawa, who, according to Soufune, had created this armor and was a women’s armor specialist. It was a wonder to her whether it was made for actual combat or just to boost the morale of the troops.

Is he not afraid it might actually rile up the enemy’s fighting spirit instead?

Lily naturally knew this wasn’t the case.

Female samurai specialized in speed, flexibility, and guerrilla warfare. They delivered heavy attacks and had a light defense, so this design actually conformed well with the requirements and battle styles of female samurai that had mastered spirit power.

Lily was just complaining as she felt embarra.s.sed to wear this overly revealing armor.

“Hum—” The horn sounded out from the expeditionary force before the dojo. As a girl, even though Lily had woken up early in the morning to get ready, she still felt a bit nervous at the end. She donned Crescent Moon on her waist, hid the mirror inside her sash securely, and then rushed towards the meeting place.

As for Shiu, she packed the bow, arrows, sakura parasol, and other essential items women required into the bag on the horse’s back and followed behind Lily along with it.

“Let’s hurry. We can’t arrive late this time!” Lily urged her.

Finally, Lily had somehow managed to reach the meeting place, an open s.p.a.ce in the dojo, just before the stipulated time.

Sakiko, Shimizu, Shimizu’s maid, and a dozen or so retainer samurai from the dojo were already waiting there.

“You’re finally here,” Shimizu called out to Lily. She wore full blue armor along with a headband on her forehead. Paired together with her hair trailing over her shoulders, it made her look very dashing and soldierly.

“Sister Shimizu looks so dashing!” Lily remarked internally, but…

“Why is Sister Shimizu’s battle skirt so long, and although it’s sectioned too, it covers till her knees?!”

Lily felt dumbfounded when she realized that various parts of her body were “debuting” in the gazes of the samurai present here.

Everyone had worn standard armor, while only she had worn an armor that seemed to be designed to seduce the enemy rather than to battle them.

“???????? women’s armor specialist!” Lily grumbled internally, feeling endless regret for buying into Soufune’s words.

Sakiko and Shimizu’s gazes shimmered when they saw Lily’s attire.

“You’re dressed rather lightly, Lily,” Sakiko enunciated the word lightly.10

“I…” As it was too late to feel regret now, Lily could only bear with a flushed face.

Sakiko, on the other hand, had worn a kimono as she wasn’t going to set out along with them. She told Shimizu, “Everyone is here now. Shimizu, it’s time to begin the march!”

“Yes,” Shimizu nodded with vigor.

She flipped her long hair back, walked to the front of the gathering, and yelled with a lovely, reverberant voice, “Onwards!”

She then calmly walked over towards the dojo’s entrance. At the same time, the other samurai, retainers, as well as Lily and Shiu, followed closely behind, each raising their fists up high to yell chants.

“Hey—Hey—Hey!” 11

1. Robinxen: That’s upsettingly cheap. It’s really hard to judge the value of things in this setting too because they have mystical gradings which throw things out of whack.
2. Silva: Is it one of those? Bikini armor!! (Or well, armor that reveals more skin but magically provide higher defense)
3. Robinxen: Author is a man of culture.
4. Robinxen: Hecking Princess Knight?! I’m down for this 100%! I want to swear a bit too but I can’t be asked to open up the text file for the acceptable versions.
5. Robinxen: I…is this even armour anymore?! What is this an MMO?!
6. Robinxen: Author I’m sorry for questioning your armour earlier. I wholeheartedly approve.
7. Robinxen: Drool.
8. Robinxen: More drooling.
9. Robinxen: Ah yes. Armour that reveals. THAT MAKES NO SENSE DAMMIT. But I forgive your transgressions.
10. Robinxen: I wanted Shimizu’s reaction. Though Sakiko not offering advice prior is a bit of a failure in her role as an instructor.
11. Robinxen: This chapter made me laugh because there’s a scene in Phantasy Star Online 2 where they discuss, in total seriousness, if more revealing amour is proportional to strength. They give some weird excuse like absorbing stuff from the atmosphere. But then agree that there’s no correlation between exposure and power.