HC: Handyman | Ch. 209 - When Is a Bar Not a Plate?

Jack’s hand shook as he brought the cord through the hole in the bone plate. When it refused to go through, he whetted the tip with his mouth and finally managed to push it in. He threaded the cord under and around the ropes, securing it in place.

That’s the last one.

He’d cut corners wherever he could—barely sanding the bone, skipping the waxing of ropes and cords entirely, and rushing through the collar and fringe. The resulting chestplate wasn’t pretty. But even so, it didn’t look half bad.

The mountain grass was an excellent fiber—sturdy and compact—and the added plates gave the ropework some much-needed structure.

“There! Done.”

He stepped back and waited for the system to process his work.

After a moment, a warning floated in front of him.

Crafting failed! This item doesn’t match any of your recipes!

Jack clicked his tongue.

Figures. I’ve pushed too far.

He’d deviated enough from the recipe that the system wasn’t buying it.

“When is a bar not a plate?” he muttered. He chuckled. This problem sounded like the setup for a terrible joke.

He’d been accused of being an expert at cutting corners—according to former teachers and employers, it was practically his specialty. Now, he was struggling to see more corners left to cut. Still, he wasn’t ready to give up.

“OK. So if I split the bone into four and flatten it, the system counts it as bars. But if I only cut it in half and don’t flatten it, they’re considered plates. What makes the difference? Is it the size? Or the curvature?” he said aloud, trying to work through the problem.

There was only one way to figure it out. He grabbed another bone, split it lengthwise into three strips, then chopped each into three sections. The resulting shape was a thick rectangle. Nine in total.

He sanded them. With their increased size, he didn’t have enough material to make them perfectly flat, but he did the best he could—sanding off the angled tips of the inner bone and the protruding center of the outer bone.

The result was a slightly curved bar. “It looks like a bar to me.”

He scored the bar with a knife and drilled the holes.

He kept repeating the process. His hands were covered in white bone powder, sticky with sweat, and speckled with bits of grass. He looked like a scarecrow coated in baby powder.

He re-used the base of the failed chestplate, unthreading the old pieces and replacing them with the new ones.

Three plates across the chest. Two for the shoulders. Four lower down, covering the abdomen and sides.

It wasn’t as solid as the first attempt. But aesthetically, it wasn’t bad. The spacing between the bone bars gave it a rough, cool look. And it still had weight and structure—enough to block blows.

More importantly, it might just trick the system.

He held his breath as the chestplate settled into place. A flicker of light pulsed across the armor as the system evaluated the item.

Come on… come on…

This time, he received a much more encouraging notification.

Congratulations! You’ve crafted [Studded Grass Chestplate].

+1000 XP in [Bushcraft]

+1000 XP in [Butchering]

Studded Grass Chestplate (Common)

A reinforced chestpiece woven from grass rope and reinforced with bone bars. It offers a solid mix of flexibility and protection.

Crafting Grade: D

Durability: 28

HP: 30

Strength: 1

Constitution: 5

Defense: 14

Block: 8

Crafting Grade Debuff: Drops a rarity grade

Requirements: Lvl. 20

Jack let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Despite the D-grade, the chestplate wasn’t half-bad. Compared to his current equipment—the rope overall that covered both top and bottom slots—it held up surprisingly well. In theory, the chestplate should only carry half the stats of the overall, yet it exceeded expectations.

The higher-quality materials made a clear difference, even with rushed craftsmanship.

“OK. So now I know that the bars can be this thick. That saves a lot of work with cutting. The problem is still in sanding…” He frowned, already picturing the hours he’d lose grinding bone into shape.

He opened the recipe again. It listed sanding and flattening the bone bars as a requirement, but didn’t specify the extent. He glanced at the plates he’d just used.

I wonder if I can skip sanding the outer side without penalties.

If he could, it would save him hours.

He removed the plates from the chestplate again and grabbed a fresh bone. This time, he sanded only the inside, leaving the outer curve untouched.

He repeated the process until the chestplate was half-covered with protruding bone bars. As he tied off the last cord, the system processed the result.

Studded Grass Chestplate (Common)

A reinforced chestpiece woven from grass rope and reinforced with bone bars. It offers a solid mix of flexibility and protection.

Crafting Grade: D-

Durability: 25

HP: 25

Constitution: 4

Defense: 12

Block: 7

Crafting Grade Debuff: Drops a rarity grade

Requirements: Lvl. 20

“Yes! Now we’re getting somewhere!”

The armor had lost several points across the board, but the system still recognized it. That was what mattered.

The first time he’d run the numbers on this armor, he’d come up with over 200 hours of sanding alone—more than nine days of nonstop labor just to finish ten chestplates. Even with the streamlined “lite” design, it was still two and a half full days without breaks. And that didn’t include cutting, threading, drilling, or any of the other tasks. Just sanding.

This new version had taken him twenty minutes, start to finish.

He checked the time again to be sure, then did the math. If he could keep up this pace, he could craft all ten chestplates in under four hours.

That was massive.

Sure, the armor wasn’t winning any awards. But it didn’t have to. Its base stats were good enough to serve their purpose: protecting the NPC soldiers. He wanted them covered, yes—but he didn’t need perfection. D-grade was good enough if it meant everyone had something to wear before the next wave.

At this rate, he was going to have them all geared up well ahead of schedule.

Now that the process was locked in, it was just a matter of repetition—cut, sand, drill, thread, repeat. With the outer sanding scrapped and the plates cut thicker from the start, everything moved faster.

Time passed. The pile of bones shrank. The pile of armor grew.

*

The Slayer looked down at his parents. Even though they were both smaller than him, they looked gigantic right now.

“How on earth did you get suspended, Roth?” his father demanded.

“He punched a teacher, that’s how,” his mother snapped.

“I swear, Roth! If you keep going on your rampages, one of these days the police will put you behind bars!”

His father wiped sweat from his long forehead with a crumpled cloth. His face was red, like it was about to explode.

“What gives you the right to say what I can or can’t do?” Roth shot back.

“Don’t you dare talk back to your dad like that,” his mother said.

“Argh. Whatever. I’m outta here.”

“Wait! Where are you going?” his father called.

“None of your business, old man!”

He stormed out, slamming the door with every ounce of force in his arms. The walls trembled. The door held. High-end wood. Reinforced hinges. He’d paid for it himself after he’d ruined the last one.

His boots hit the pavement hard as he stomped down the street.

I can’t believe this. He works away for months at a time, and the first thing he does when he comes back is yell at me?

Not a “hello,” not a “how’ve you been.” Not even a “thank you” for all the things he’d bought for the house.

He clenched his fists. Maybe if his dad actually showed up more often, he’d see how much he was doing. Maybe he’d realize Roth wasn’t the screw-up he thought he was.

Suspension? Who cares?

A few minutes later, he reached the studio. The curved, gleaming sign above the doors caught the afternoon light just right: IronIre Gaming Studio.

For a moment, he stopped and let the sight of it settle his breath.

If I’m so out of control... then how did I build this?

He smirked.

Maybe I do have the right to hit a few people—especially the ones too stupid to show me some respect.

The studio doors slid open with a soft hiss. Cool air greeted him, replacing the heat and noise of home with the clean, low hum of capsule systems.

Inside, a few pods sat idle, waiting for his schoolmates to arrive after school. Others pulsed faintly with light—already occupied by full-time guild members.

He took the stairs two at a time.

Someone passed him. “Good morning, Slayer.”

He gave a quick nod. “Morning.”

His office waited at the end of the hallway. Simple. Deliberate. A desk to one side. A shelf of New Earth memorabilia—plastic dinos, a custom figure of his in-game character.

But the centerpiece was the golden capsule, gleaming under the track lighting. Limited-time edition. Only one hundred ever made. He owned one.

He reached out, fingers brushing the beautiful engravings.

“Alright,” he said, cracking a smile. “Time to go back to the game.”

He logged back into New Earth. His avatar spawned just outside the gate of Clawgate, the characteristic parallel gouges in the stone giving the location its name.

Within seconds, a flood of message notifications hit his vision.

“System—filter for urgency. Forward everything non-critical to Gary,” he commanded his AI.

The AI chirped once and got to work. He watched as dozens of requests, reports, and alerts vanished into the background queue. Gary would handle them. He was good at it.

Only a few messages remained. One caught his eye immediately.

From: IronFoot

To: IronIreSlayer

Subject: Rob got away.

Hello Slayer,

I was standing guard over Rob’s grave when someone broke him out. We tried our best, but we couldn’t stop them.

We are terribly sorry about this,

IronFoot

The Slayer’s eyes went wide.

“What?! Rob got away?!”

This was bad. Rob had lied to him, misdirected him away from Amari’s trail. And now he was gone. If word got out that traitors could get off the hook, what would happen to guild loyalty? What would happen to order?

The Slayer’s mood soured.

IronFoot wasn’t incompetent. If Rob had escaped under his watch, then someone powerful had helped him. He clicked the attachment. A battle recording loaded.

He recognized him immediately. The Steel Dancer. Broad, precise, graceful. He moved like a wall with legs, intercepting attacks from three directions in a single motion.

The Slayer narrowed his eyes.

The damage numbers flickered—and vanished. Nothing stuck.

That armor… something was off.

He leaned closer.

Clay? It looked like clay. What kind of armor was made of clay? And it shone with a red glow—not the usual tone from a standard imbuement. This one was darker. Denser. There had to be a support skill active. Something shielding the Steel Dancer.

He’d already been a pain to deal with—his dodging had forced the Slayer to dig deep in their skirmishes. If he had a way to shrug off all damage now…

The camera panned.

A bard stood in the back. It was also a familiar face.

Rob’s cousin. Jack.

The Slayer’s scowl deepened. The mouthy idiot who’d dared pass on those insults through his guildmates. And now, apparently, a bard.

The Slayer clicked his tongue. A bard. How he wished that IronIre had one. Why did Amari get all the lucky draws?

The fight dragged on. The Steel Dancer kept stalling until, in a sudden flash of light, all three vanished.

“A teleportation skill?! Group-based?!”

He clenched his fists.

IronIre didn’t have anything close to that. Last he’d heard, only three guilds did.

Where did they even get it?

He replayed the video from the start, slower now. The envy throbbed in his chest.

He typed a reply to IronFoot. Normally, he’d have sent something sharper, but IronFoot had owned up to what happened, and truth be told, they’d put up a solid fight.

“Don’t worry about it. That guy’s beyond your league.”

Still, the bitterness lingered. He wanted a rematch.

Until then… he needed an outlet.

He pulled up the list of players he disliked. Scanned it. Ryder…

He typed into the guild chat: “Anyone seen Prejudice around Clawsgate?”

Replies came quickly.

The Slayer stood up, straightening his armor.

“Time to vent.”

Ch. 208 - Cutting Corners

INDEX

Ch. 210 - Strike 1