Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

The guy that was screaming for his life caught the attention of the other shopkeepers, and once they saw the yellow puddle under him, all of them just started laughing. I almost felt sorry for the guy since he embarrassedly scampered away but another guy who I thought was a person just browsing around took his place.

He was shaking his head, wearing an annoyed look, while ashes from his lit cigar were dropping down on their merch, but he first kicked some dirt on the puddle his companion made before he placed the cigar between his fingers and sighed at me.

"Tsk. D'you know I just came out of my shift? You gotta buy something here at least!"

I scratched the side of my cheek, "Sorry about that. I didn't think he'd piss himself–"

"Hah! That was fucking funny though– But what the fuck did you just do? I thought Mr. Cuervo was here for an instant. But yeah, at least buy a knife or two so he wouldn't give me shit later."

'He could feel it, huh?'

"Okay–"

"Wait, before I scam you– Err, I mean scam other people, how'd you know that this shit's fake?" the guy said, mouth-pointing at the expensive 'katana' in front of us.

"Hmm~ If you give me a discount, I'll increase your knowledge on the matter. That way, you'll have more words to throw around when making a sale. Deal?"

He threw me a nod and a smile, "Deal."

I pulled out my katana which was still in the scabbard and placed it side by side with their own, "Take a look between the two. What's the first thing you'd notice?"

He turned his head sideways, "Eh~ I don't–"

"C'mon, just say the first thing that comes to mind."

"Hmm~ Yours definitely look more… expensive. Just the details alone are night and day. How much does that cost?"

I shook my head, chuckling, "Didn't you hear me the first time? This shit's priceless."

"Ah… Right… B-But if you'd put a price on it. How much–"

"Trust me, even I don't know. Probably everything in this Bazaar. Heh, just kidding. Let's check these two things again. You said the details are different, right? What do you mean by that? Any specifics?"

"Right, if I really~ look at yours closely, there are certain engravings or designs that aren't present in ours, but aside from that, even the sheathe is completely different in quality. Ours wasn't even shaped properly– I mean, there is unevenness in some parts unlike yours. Oh! And ours is a little scratched up, the wood is showing…"

I nodded approvingly, "Those are great points but to add to that, you gotta look at the handle."

"The handle?"

"If you'd just look at mine, you'd notice that the way it was wrapped was tighter– and proper, and the materials used were different. Yours doesn't even have the ornament between the ray skin and the silk wrappings. And speaking of ray skin, real ones are supposed to be real bumpy and uneven, unlike yours that looks like pressed mini-Orbeez."

"I doubt ours even used ray skin or silk. But what do you mean by tighter?"

"Put your finger where the wrappings intersect and try moving it around."

"Like this? Why is it giving way? Is it not supposed to do that?"

"Yeah, it's not supposed to move. If you're handling something as sharp, it's better to have the tightest grip on it because even a millimeter of divergence when it slips your hand is a fucking recipe for disaster. My katana– well, authentic katanas are ductile enough to retain their shape from performing a wrong swing but if you miss with a longsword and the edge alignment is skewed and hit something hard, chances are, there'll be a chip or something similar. There are a lot more things to consider besides that, but there's always a trade-off with longswords being more versatile. Oh! We have to consider what type of longsword it is too–"

He started to wave me off, "Now you fucking lost me. When did we start talking about longswords?"

"Ah– I got carried away but let's just move on."

"Okay~ I got some info about the handle down, I think. What's next?"

"Why don't we pull it out at the same time?"

Tatiana quipped from the side, "That sounded so different in my head…"

Natasha bumped her, "Shh! This is interesting, don't disturb them!"

The two started a short argument of their own but Quinn was on the opposite side, listening intently. I noticed a few others were dropping in into our conversation but most of them would lose interest in a few moments or so.

With that said, I drew my katana at the same time as the guy in front of me and we held them side by side.

'That one's definitely a fake…'

I didn't even need to ask the guy to take a closer look while we had them side by side, but the first thing he did was to pick up the ridiculous price tag they had on it before crumpling it into a ball and throwing it into their trash can.

His eyebrows would scrunch up if he would notice something different, and it took him a few moments before he turned to me.

I just smiled back, "What do you think? Sight-wise."

"I… I don't even know the right words for it but the difference in quality is fucking obvious."

"At which part?"

"T-The blade obviously but there's a lot of unevenness and roughness going on. Ours doesn't even have the little engraving by the back and honestly, I wouldn't even try to brush my fingers on the edge of your blade. It just looks too fucking sharp."

I nodded approvingly once more, "Nice, but do you know what a Hamon is?"

"Hamon? Isn't that Christmas Ham?"

I chuckled, "Ah– that's true too but the one I'm talking about is the sharpened section of the blade that forms this wavy-like or flame-like pattern due to the hardening process. Can you see it? It's better if you move it around against the light."

"Eh~ I think I see it?" The guy leaned over to inspect the edges closely.

"Do you see it or not?"

The guy scratched his head, "I can definitely see the wavy part in yours but the one in mine is a little too jagged-y or rough. Is it still a Hamon?"

"It's not a natural one, unfortunately. You see, a Hamon or the direct translation: "Edge Pattern" doesn't actually do much combat-wise, but it's a way to see if the katana you're buying or holding is authentic and made with the original forging processes or not. Furthermore, just the aesthetic of it adds a lot of dollar signs to it. That's why some blades such as this were made to look like it has one to increase its value but the one who made that one wouldn't even go through regular weebs."

"What's the right way to do it then?"

"That'll be a different conversation but how about this? You told me yours is a little rough, right? Some ways to synthetically produce one are to acid etch it, wire brush it, or even sandblast it, but the one done here was with the use of an angle grinder. Can I?" I said as I motioned to borrow his blade.

"S-Sure..."

I picked it up and I brushed the edges with my fingers. Almost immediately, I felt the roughness of it and I doubt the one who made it look like it had a Hamon was in a fucking hurry. And after that, I grabbed the handle and tried to wiggle it off.

"W-What are you doing?!"

"Relax. A grinder was definitely used here. At least the handle is a tight fit with the blade… I thought it would give after a bit of pressure."

"Uh-huh…"

"But yeah," I said as I handed back his blade and sheathed my katana, "If you want to burden yourself making a 'believable' Hamon, why don't you put the effort into making a real one? It's–"

"Well, the way you put it earlier made me think that it's fucking difficult. I believe only blades like yours– the real ones, have them."

"That's true… Most of the blades here– well, most of the blades all around the world don't have the natural edge pattern katanas have because of their own forging techniques. There are a dozen ways to make katanas– especially the ones that would take months or years to make, but if you're just gonna make the simplest one, it'll boil down in the hardening process. In short, to explain differential hardening with katanas, you gotta make the edge hard while making the spine or the back soft."

"I think you're losing me again…"

"I'm just giving you a bit of the other conversation I talked about earlier but yeah, if you make steel too fucking hard, it'll be sharp but it'll be brittle, so you just have to have a portion of it not as hard to absorb the shock by a degree– so it'll be more inclined to bend instead if something ever goes wrong. You just have to find the right balance between hardness and softness though and there's a lot more I haven't told you yet."

"…"

"And yeah, your blade bending doesn't sound too great but it's better compared to your blade snapping in two. However, a katana bending is a rare occurrence because unless you're using it to chop huge-ass trees, it'll be fine. It's not as flexible as a longsword but it's fucking ductile."

"U-Uhh… yeah… right. Thanks for the info…"

"Ah– Did I rattle on too much?"

"N-No, it's good… it just takes time for me to process all that info. S-So… what do you have your eyes on?"

"Let's see…"

With that said, I just picked out a couple of those old bushmaster "Rambo" knives that had those compasses in the butt of the handle, which we could also twist off to reveal a small cylindrical space in the handle, where we could put a stack of matches or anything that would fit in it.

Furthermore, I also bought several concealable knives that almost looked like corkscrews, and I threw a piece to Tatiana and Natasha which they promptly accepted.

I offered one to Quinn but she just looked at me like I'm an idiot and quickly rejected the present.

"I'm not carrying that with me."

"Okay, sorry. But tell me, what do you use though?"

"Huh?"

"You don't just kill everything with your heels, right?"

"Oh. I have a Desert Eagle in my car. I rarely get to use it so I would always leave it there."

"That's it?"

"What do you mean?"

"How about for something up close and personal? You don't carry a rake or a pitchfork around, do you?"

"You fucker, you think I have the time to bash heads in?"

"Bash heads in? You got something blunt then?"

"Hmm, something like that. I machined one from my shop but I never got to use it. It's kinda encumbering too so I took it apart and put it in my trunk."

"But, w-what is it?"

Quinn was just about to answer me when she turned her head and looked past me, but someone just jumped and grabbed on me from the back. I first tried to stabilize my footing because it was a little sudden, but I already knew who it was.

Just the fragrance that invaded my nose was enough for me to figure out that it was Kaley, and I just grabbed on her legs so she'd put less pressure on my neck.

"Hey, Kaley. You found us. Been here for a while?"

"We're looking all over for you and you're just shopping for knives!"

Then I heard Cynthia's voice, "I'm here too~!"

I turned around and saw Cynthia pouting. She was holding a bit of air in one side of her cheek while she was crossing both of her arms together.

"Hey. What are you guys up to?"

Cynthia was about to answer but Quinn cut her off.

"You two didn't lie, he fucks. He fucks good, I'm impressed."

'Uh-oh.'

"Ah–"

"WHAT?! Y-YOU GUYS– W-WHEN?! HOW?!"

Kaley was just stunned in place but Cynthia was fucking shocked. She almost blurted what Quinn and I did inside her tent, but she was able to calm herself down. However, what concerned me was that Kaley jumped down from me and she was pouting almost the same way as Cynthia earlier.