Spending My Retirement In A Game

With a whistle as he approached the stall, Eisen swiftly looked at Fafnir with a light smile, "Open the smaller gate." The old man said, "And hide the entrance if you can." He added, before the Dragon swiftly stretched its body and just did as asked, stepping into the space carved into the rock wall behind the stall and rolling up on the ground while making a simple door appear out of nowhere.

"You five go ahead and get in there to practice a bit. Sigurd, you try and supervise that some, if you can." Eisen told the Core Guardian, who swiftly nodded and looked at its Master, "Sure. Are you staying here now?" Sigurd asked, but Eisen simply shook his head in response, "I’m afraid I have to take care of something first." Eisen explained, and then turned over toward Bree and Sky while the Half-Dragon Knights made their way into the Dungeon, passing Parc and Rouge who were both working on the inside of the carved out space behind the stall.

"I’ll leave the stall up to you guys a little bit longer for now, alright? I’ll be back in a little while, it shouldn’t take too long anymore." Eisen explained, and the two Fey-Kin siblings simply swiftly agreed and seemed to be perfectly fine with waiting a little while, so Eisen swiftly turned toward the three Monster children and told them to stay here at the stall as well so that Eisen could really do whatever he needed to do without worry.

With a lightly smiling expression, the old man stepped along the roads and made his way toward the Guild he was looking for, the Adventurer’s Guild. Once he stepped inside, without a single moment of hesitation, Eisen stepped up the stairs and made his way toward the Garon’s, the Guildmaster’s, office, where he luckily found the man in question while Jaz came up running behind him.

"Hey, what do you think you’re doing here again?" Jaz asked angrily, trying to stop the old man, but he simply kept on walking with his overwhelming physical strength when compared to her. Garon himself also immediately jumped up and glared at the old man, but he himself without a moment of hesitation made his way into the room and summoned his Sword from his Soul Storage before Garon immediately took up a fighting stance.

"You want to go, old man? Don’t you dare-"

But before Garon could even finish his sentence, Eisen swung the blade downward, causing blood to splatter onto the ground to shock both Jaz and Garon as a lump of meat fell onto the ground and the old man ground his teeth, "Damn... hurts like a bitch." Eisen sighed deeply, trying to ignore the dull pain, and then stared at the two people just standing there confusedly.

"I have not consumed any potion, you can test my skills in a bit to see that I don’t have any weird abilities that make this all possible, and I will answer any question you have in one hour." Eisen said in a clear tone, as he figured that should be long enough to have his hand completely grow back after being cut off, and then he logged off and stayed inside of Desktop mode.

"Rover, Speed up my perception of time to the max and log me back into the game once one hour passed in-game." The old man said and then plopped down onto the armchair in this cabin-like environment that he set as his ’Desktop’ before and waited for the small floating sphere to appear.

"Will do! Anything else I can help you with?" Rover asked, but Eisen just shook his head and sighed deeply, trying to pass the roughly seven minutes that it should take for him from his point of view by just thinking a bit about the different things that were going on right now and that would be happening once he logged back into the game.

While he was at it, he even thought about a few practice items he could make with his Magic Craftsmanship skill before Rover appeared in front of him again.

"You will now be logged back into World of Magic, have fun!" Rover exclaimed with an enthusiastic voice and Eisen swiftly started concentrating again when he already noticed himself being back inside of Garon’s office, and then let himself drop down onto the couch he logged out in front of, raising his left hand that had grown back like there was no issue there to begin with.

"It’s back. Believe me now?" The old man said, and Garon and Jaz stared at Eisen and then immediately shook their heads, "I-It has to be a trick!" Jaz exclaimed, "You might just be one of those Artificials!" She added, but Eisen simply crossed his legs and rested his elbow on the couch’s armrest, placing his cheek onto his palm tiredly.

"I’ve come sign up at this Guild before the first Artificials even appeared at any place in this world. Isn’t that proof enough that I’m not one of them?" The old man pointed out, and Jaz just shook her head immediately, "Of course not! It-"

"Why us?" Garon interrupted quite swiftly, and while Jaz looked at him confused, Eisen just started smirking since he liked where the conversation was going, and Garon soon continued, "If you really are who you say you are, why are you coming to a town like this and trying to convince a third-rate Guild Master and his wife to accompany to your country?" The Man inquired, and Eisen smiled back at him.

"Perfect question. It’s rather simple. Jaz, you’re part of the Irengard family, aren’t you?" The old man asked, and Jaz swiftly nodded her head, rather confused and even scared, "Well, I am, or rather I used to be, friends with your grandfather and grandmother. Back in Prototype, the town you will be coming to, I saw a painting with a woman that looked nearly identical to you, and when I asked my... assistant, he told me that she was Ingrid Irengard, so I had Raziel investigate you, since I don’t really believe in coincidences like that. I mean, come on, I was friends with a talented woman like that, and a woman two generations later that looks directly like her ends up living in a town that I myself founded? As if that could be a coincidence."

"Wh-What are you even talking about, my gr-"

"Don’t even pretend, you’re not a good liar, Jaz. You know just as well as I do that your grandparents were great people, although your parents ruined that a little bit. That necklace you’re wearing. Show it to me." The old man said, and Jaz immediately grabbed her chest where the small locket was supposed to be hidden underneath her clothes as she turned away.

"Also don’t try to hide it, I can basically taste the condensed mana. Your grandmother seemingly wore the same one, and you don’t seem to be able to open it." Eisen told Jaz, and the young woman slowly nodded her head and opened the necklace up behind her neck with shaking hands, and slowly handed it to Eisen.

And by simply pouring his mana inside of the small item, the locket opened with a click and the old man returned it to Jaz, who looked at it once and then opened her eyes wide, "H-How, but..." Jaz muttered quietly, "Nobody could ever open it... And you could do it within a split second..? We managed to have an appraiser check the requirements, it literally can’t be opened! The requirement is to not possess any mana, but you need mana activate the enchantment! It’s an impossible item! And the enchantments could never be removed either, so how?!" Jaz asked, practically yelling, and Eisen sighed deeply in response as he pointed at the item.

"Appraise it again. Right now." Eisen said in a clear tone, and the woman swiftly looked down at it and did just that. Sure, Eisen helped out a bit with a half-activated demonic transformation, but she seemed to want to do it anyway.

"A Divine Quality Locket... It even says that it’s impossible to be used in the description... The only way you could have opened this is if you..." Jaz muttered quietly, "If you really are him..." She muttered quietly, and the old man swiftly smiled back at her.

"Exactly. So, that’s proof now, isn’t it?" Eisen pointed out, and with an immediate nod, Jaz dropped down onto her knees, "Y-Yeah, of course it is..." She replied, and showed the item description to her husband, who just stared at Eisen confusedly.

"But if this is proof enough, why didn’t you just do this last time? And why did you just cut off your own hand?" Garon asked, and Eisen just lightly smiled at him.

"Well, the reasons for that are rather simple, if I’ll be honest. For one, last time, my instinct told me not to. Or rather, my instinct forbid me from even noticing the locket. The reason for that is what is on the inside of that locket right there. I was unaware of something rather important at the time, and that is the extistence of the ’Otherworld Disease’." Eisen explained, "Inside there is proof of a certain thing. And there we come to the reason for why I just cut my hand." The old man added, and with a deep, even scared stare, Garon and Jaz both stared at Eisen with intensity that was beyond compare, before Garon slowly asked.

"Wh-Why exactly..? I don’t understand..." He said, and Eisen just lightly smiled, even if there was a slightly bitter undertone to it.

"For one, I needed some time to think about whether I really should do this. After all, it might ruin your life, or even end it." The old man said with a light chuckle as he stared down onto the ground, "And then, it would have been an apology. It hurt like shit, after all, so it might make up for the result at least a slight bit." Eisen explained, but in the end, neither Garon nor Jaz really knew what was going before Jaz slowly stared at the inside of the locket in her hand after pulling the front face a bit to the side, and then opened her eyes wide in shock as she dropped the locket onto the ground. She didn’t even know why she did it, it was simply out of instinct, and the air slightly began to crack the moment the locket hit the floor, as if it was a glass pane that was just about to shatter, as Eisen started to speak and looked at the image inside of the locket.

He had finally gotten the information that he needed from Raziel through a small note, so he chose to test it out right here.

"To the Artificials, this world is nothing but a game. A Videogame created by a company called Prime Industries. My true, or rather original name, is Benjamin Joyce, and my world lives in the belief that yours is a fake, nothing but a simulation. But that actually isn’t true, since it seems like Prime Industries is a Cliché-Evil organization that somehow wants to use this world for their benefit." The old man said, and the moment that he did so, the air finally shattered and opened a hole into a space that was purely black behind it, and a muscular, heavy figure stepped out of it with scars covering its body completely from head to toe. And as Gonor, the God of Combat, stepped out of the black space and set his foot down onto the ground with a quake, Eisen just lightly started to smirk and averted his eyes from the picture of the New York Skyline, copied from a generic postcard you could get at any New York souvenir shop, that was inside of the locket.