@Merilirem I mean, you're not wrong, but you also kinda are. At least in this instance. Spears are better than swords in about 80% of situations; the 20% is pretty much just civilian life and/or places where the length of a spear is a hindrance. However, a shield can negate much of a spear's power by allowing the user to deflect the tip (much more reliably than with just a sword) and get inside its range before the spearman can recover (if you're aggressive enough, that is). Funnily enough, while a spear and shield is absolutely
fantastic for formation and defensive fighting, it's utter garbage in 1-v-1 situations, because only having one hand on the spear makes it that much harder to recover the spear; this becomes truer the longer the spear is, since all that weight is going to be acting against you.
As to Almus having a metal spear, while it's true that he very likely could handle it, the
cost of such a weapon would be ridiculous; part of why spears are the preferred weapon of the battlefield (aside from being good in formations and being very easy to learn) is how cheap they are. You can have a spear anywhere from 6-20ft (2-6m) for basically the same cost, since you really only need about 6-8oz (170-230g) of metal for the spearhead, with wood essentially being free. Compare that to a sword where you'd generally need
at least 2lbs (1kg) of steel for
just the blade (at least when talking about swords of the size shown in the chapter). Making the spear shaft out of metal would completely negate that and would very likely end up costing
more than the sword, because you'd need to heat treat and temper the shaft in addition to the head if you wanted it to be flexible enough to receive a blow without shattering.
As to the sword breaking or being deflected before it could pierce the shield... That highly depends on the actual type of sword. Anything from Type X to XIV? Most definitely deflected or flat out blocked. XV through XVIII (the latter of which is pretty spot on for the sword used by Almus)? That's trickier, because it depends on how well the sword was forged, the thickness of the shield, and whether or not the strike managed to find one of the gaps between the boards; that last is especially important because there's no shield that I know of that's made from a monolithic piece of wood,
especially not a scutum like Ferme's carrying.
While he would definitely have the strength to carry one, would he have the stamina? I can't remember if the King's Blessing (I think that's what they both have) grants superhuman stamina or just strength. If it doesn't give any extra stamina, making something stupidly heavy just because you can lift it is not a very good idea if you can't carry it for more than 5 minutes without getting winded (this is also an argument against Almus having an all metal spear, since that'd probably be about 20lbs (9kg) at the least). More to the point, while a monolithic shield would offer the moderate benefit of being sturdier and stronger than wooden slats glued and banded together, it would be a pain in the ass to make and remake every time it got damaged. Shields were typically considered disposable, after all.
Why was he using his spear as a bashing weapon? ... Uh, he kinda explicitly said he panicked and just lashed out. Besides, in a sitting/reclining position like he was in, where the spearhead is off to the side, it's far easier (and quicker) to just swipe with it like he did rather than try and set up a thrust that wouldn't be very powerful.
Sure, mechanically, he would be an absolute
beast with a sling, but the power of the King's Blessing is directly proportional to how many people believe in him and call him their leader. This world is still very much in the period of time where honor in battle was stupidly important, as evidenced by the fact that they could reasonably stake the outcome of the entire war on a single duel between leaders. If he's sitting in the back lobbing rocks, unwilling to engage, a lot of people outside his core followers would probably call him a coward, weakening him by a few magnitudes.
You could offset that by giving him a mace or a warhammer, but neither of those weapons was very prevalent or really in much use prior to plate armor being developed; Almus is also
very Japanese despite being reincarnated and the kanabo/testubo was pretty much the only real club-like weapon used throughout Japanese history (the yoroi just wasn't sturdy enough to warrant the development of a specialized tool to defeat it, particularly not with the relatively large gaps in its protections), so he may not really be aware of them as a concept. Even if he was, swords have pretty much
always been seen as the mark of a leader because of how expensive they were, so they've subconsciously become the weapon of a hero, which would play into his King's Blessing, so it'd be kinda hard to give up that advantage.
