Spending My Retirement In A Game

"Oh, they’re finished already?" Eisen asked rather excitedly as he took a look at the four different magic metals, each infused with a whole different element.

The Gold had turnd into ’Flaming White Gold’ after being infused with the Fire Element. And now, like the name suggested, it was just pure white while being slightly hot to the touch. The Silver had just turned into regular Mythril, a slightly blue metal that was capable of absorbing blunt damage.

As for the Iron that had been infused with the air element, it became incredibly light and weak High-Iron. Regular Magic Materials were already a pretty bad fit for physical uses, meaning that they were a bad choice for weapons or armor, but this ’Breathing High-Iron’ seemed to be even worse. It didn’t bend to regular pressure from Eisen’s fist like the old man had initially expected it to due to the low weight. Instead, it quite literally formed a crack in the center.

But the material that Eisen was most interested in was the last of the four metals, the Orichalcum created by infusing bronze with the water element. After he first heard about this peculiar metal, Eisen had read up on it and found that it was supposed to be the toughest, hardest material there was! And in some ways, that did indeed seem to be true, as it seemed to be able to hold off against a good bit of physical damage, but this particcular version was rather soft to the touch, somewhat reminding Eisen more of tough clay than a metal.

That quality was most likely a thing due to the water element and wasn’t a natural quality that Orichalcum had, however.

Either way. Eisen was glad that he got to see such new, nice materials that ended up giving him a few neat ideas that he wanted to try out in the future, but would hold on to for another while until he was able to actually produce large amounts of different materials.

"Yes, everything’s finished! You just needed them from the lowest grade, right? Luckily the elemental mana was enough for that though..." Xenia answered with a smile, before Sigurd stepped up next to the old man and took a look at the materials.

"Hmm, what do you need these metals for?" The Core Guardian asked while Fafnir stepped up next to its side and pushed his head against its palm, apparently wanting to be pet, before Eisen just smiled at Sigurd.

"For a little puzzle. But we’ll unlock it tomorrow morning when the other originals are awake. This probably has something to do with them as well, after all." Eisen pointed out, before the High-Elf in front of him sighed loudly, nodding her head in response.

"Right... We need to wait..." She muttered out disappointedly, but Eisen just chuckled as he sat down on his chair with his size fully increased. "Sorry, I’m just as curious as you are, but I feel like the others should see this as well." Eisen explained, and Xenia shrugged quietly.

"I guess... Well..." Xenia said and then looked around to make sure nobody that wasn’t allowed to hear about this actually did end up hearing her, and then looked back at Eisen, "I’m actually not going to be there tomorrow... I’m taking a look at a new apartment..." She explained in a whispering voice, and the old man just raised his eyebrows.

"Oh, you’re moving again?" He asked, before Xenia nodded her head.

"Yeah... I k-kind of want to get away from that apartment..." The young woman slightly stuttered out, and Eisen couldn’t blame her in the slightest. After all, the only reason she moved there in the first place was to escape from her abusive, stalking ex-boyfriend. But as he found her just a short while ago, her whole reason for being there was just gone, as if it disappeared into nothing.

Although Eisen had a different idea. "Do you want to get away only from your apartment, or the whole town?" He asked with a light smile, before Xenia looked at him rather confused. "What do you m-mean, exactly?" She inquired immediately, and Eisen just slowly shrugged.

"Well... In a few weeks, my grandchildren and my son will leave the house again either for work or school. Sure, my son and my two youngest grandchildren won’t be far away, but I’m sure all of them would be happy if they knew I wasn’t alone in that big house. It’s a bit out of distance of the other houses in the area, after all, so none of my neighbors can actually see my house. Having someone else there would be quite reassuring, in my opinion." Eisen pointed out, and now, Xenia got only more confused at what Eisen was trying to say, so he simply continued, hoping she would catch on before Eisen had to really say it.

"You know, my house is pretty roomy. It does have an upstairs and a basement, but I’m never there all that much anyway, so you wouldn’t need to worry about stairs. After the break-in into my house a few years ago, we installed a pretty high-tech security system as well, and I’m good friends with the top guys at the police department. It’s only a few minutes away, actually. On top of that, I have a nice porch and garden, and I could use a helping hand for cooking or other basic chores." The old man said with a smile on his face, although he actually started drifting off for a while.

"Hmm... Although, getting some bots for cleaning would be a good idea anyway... I wonder, is the company that made the bots in my basement still a thing?" He muttered to himself quietly, and now, Xenia was slightly catching onto what Eisen was actually talking about, although she felt too awkward to actually properly ask about it in case she was just utterly wrong.

"W-Wait, d-do you me-mean that I sho-should..." She asked confused, and the old man replied with a slight sigh.

"I would love to have a roommate, at the very least. So, would you like to move in with me, Xenia?" The old man asked with a smile on his face, but before he really got an answer, Xenia’s body formed glowing runes all over her body while her body and her clothes themselves turned into crystal structures.

"Well, I guess I should give her a little time to think about it." Eisen chuckled to himself before taking a look at his monsters in front of him with a smile on his face before they all climbed onto his large lap. And while the old man made space for them all to cuddle up on top of him, he noticed that there was a particular person that seemed slightly jealous.

"Come on, go to sleep with us as well." Eisen suggested, but Sigurd just shook its head immediately. "A-A Core Guardian is kept running through the energy of their core. We don’t require sleep." It replied, but Eisen just smiled and extended his hand before picking Sigurd up and setting it down on his lap next to his monsters, making sure to create a nice armrest with his literal arms.

"You say that, but the Dungeon your Core belongs to is rather lazy, you know? Fafnir sleeps all the time!" Eisen exclaimed with a grin on his face, and Sigurd slowly just nodded while obviously trying to hide its face.

"Then, I guess that’s it for today." Eisen said with a smile, before leaning back and closing his eyes, slowly dozing off into sleep.

And what awaited him then was once more not his room, or the inside of the capsule, but instead the same dream-world that he was in the last two times that he actually just slept while in the capsule. The dream started off the same way, with the giant version of Eisen in front of him again.

Once more, Eisen was picked up by his super-sized representation before it tried saying something, although this time not as fiercely. Instead of yelling at Eisen, the giant simply seemed to repeat one word over and over again.

As its mouth was open the whole time, Eisen got a good look at the Giant’s tongue-movement to at least get some hints toward what it was saying. First, it pressed its tongue against the roof of its mouth and then against its bottom, before it pronounced the first syllable with its jaw slowly moving up and down. It somehow seemed to Eisen as if this giant version of him was aware that he couldn’t hear it, and was trying to pronounce the word as well as it could so that Eisen could read what it was saying off its lips.

And after saying the first syllable, it moved on to the second, where it pressed its tongue against the roof of its mouth again. It repeated the same thing over and over again, until Eisen got a slight clue at what it was saying.

For some reason, just as that thought crossed his mind, the Giant moved on and set Eisen down to the ground, before reaching over to the side into the flames that were burning in the fireplace, or more specifically the coals underneath, and then it used the soot to draw onto its own face.

And in a quite simple shape, at that. Just quickly around its eyes and then to the sides, as if going to the ears. It reminded Eisen of a certain thing, although he felt rather confused at the moment at what this weird dream was. But just when Eisen was thinking that, he found himself back in the meeting room, without any transition in the slightest.

It just felt as if he suddenly appeared back inside of there, and his brain had to get used to that fact first. It was the same unpleasant feeling as the last time that he had this dream, although this particular one was far worse, and Eisen tried his best to really remember what happened in the dream.

"It said something... What was it again..?" Eisen asked himself, somehow feeling confused at the fact that he wanted to figure out what just happened so badly. It was just a dream, and to be frank, not even nearly the weirdest one that he’s had in his life.

But noticing that the old man was in such a rush, and that his sleep-transformation hadn’t even properly worn off before he started moving around, Brody and Jyuuk stood up immediately and walked over to Eisen.

"Careful, old man." The Demon-Orc told him as he held onto Eisen’s shoulder, while Jyuuk tried to figure out what was going on exactly.

"Are you okay? Are you in pain? Do you have a negative reaction to your medication?" Jyuuk asked with worry in his voice. He had asked Eisen about a bit more information about what exactly he was taking after his arm was amputated so that he could make sure Eisen wasn’t reacting weirdly within the game. That was an important information for Prime Industries to have as well, because it really wouldn’t be good if the capsule’s technology caused some form of weird reaction with different meds, but luckily, this didn’t seem to be the case at the moment.

"I’m fine, don’t worry... I just... need a piece of paper..." Eisen muttered to himself, and he grabbed one of the ones that were always laying on the table together with a pen, before trying to write down exactly what he had heard or seen within the dream. And in the end, he managed to figure out that the word he had read on lips of the Giant version of him was the word ’Lion’, and on top of that, he remembered the soot-drawing on the Giant’s face.

He tried to draw that on the piece of paper as well to see if he could find any connection, but he really couldn’t. But someone else that knew about it as well ended up doing so in his stead.

With a curious smile, Stahl, who had stepped into the meeting room during the commotion after logging back on, looked at the piece of paper and grinned. "Oh, are you telling them about Grandma’s ’Raccoon in a Lion’s Mask’ thing?"