Spending My Retirement In A Game

"You’re a lot more talkative all of a sudden, huh?" Eisen asked with a smile on his face as he looked over toward Sal, whose lower body was currently simply covered in some thick threads to act as temporary pants while the group made their way back to the surface and Eisen could get started on making actual proper pants for the young boy.

"Apparently so, dunno why." Sal said with a smirk as he was walking around, trying to rely less and less on the fake spider legs he made of thread and more on his actual legs, and Eisen just lightly smiled back. "Well, I don’t mind it. And what about you two? You’re both growing up really well too." The old man pointed out, and Caria just looked at him with a big, bright smile. "Hehe~! I know, right? I’m so tall now~!" She exclaimed happily, while Bree looked over toward her jealously, considering that Caria was now a fair bit taller than her.

"Don’t worry, you’ll grow up some more as well." Eisen said reassuringly, and the Fey-Kin girl just huffed and nodded her head. "I know, I’m sure I will!" She yelled out confidently, while Eisen just smirked in response and looked forward with a smile on his face.

"Either way, for now, I think you three are alright being where you are, right? I think it should get pretty tough to level up for you guys now, at least with the monsters that we can find around here." Eisen pointed out, and Bree sighed deeply as she nodded her head.

"Mhm, the highest-leveled group-monsters that are here are Rank 7... On the whole continent, I mean... I think there’s some areas with Rank 8 or 9 monsters, but only in three or four places? And luckily, there barely are any Rank 10 monsters here... On the other continents though... That’s a different story." The Fey-Kin pointed out, "I’ve never actually been there myself, but I’ve heard that on the other continents, ’regular’ monsters start at Rank 5! That’s insane, right?" She asked, so Eisen slowly raised his brows in surprise. Well, it didn’t seem like the other continents had such a high population of people anyway, so that would be a good reason why.

"Hmm, fair enough... Where I grew up, the monsters were super tough, so I barely went out to anywhere, ever..." Sky replied with a slight frown, and Eisen just placed his hand on top of the boy’s head with a smile, "Don’t worry, we’ll go there at some point to take a look at all the places you missed." Eisen suggested, and Sky looked back up at him and nodded his head.

"Thanks, I’d love that." He replied, just before they could see the sky above them as they finally left the cave system. It was in a bit of a different place as they entered, but it actually worked to their favor, as they were closer to the ’shortcut’ area that Eisen was speaking about before.

The moment they got outside, the old man took a quick look around with his mana-sight to see if there were any monsters in particular around here, or if there was something weird or unusual he could see, but soon enough he just sighed in relief as he closed up the cave entrance one everyone left.

"This place is pretty off from where the monsters are, apparently. So let’s set up camp here and rest for the night. We barely stopped in there, after all." Eisen pointed out as he turned his eyes toward the time-display floating next to him. It was pretty close to the time where his doctor would be coming to check up on him, after all, so he should get out and get ready, and check the phone that surely didn’t have any messages left on it by a certain Prime Industries employee.

"Sounds good. I’ll get a fire going, then!" Bree suggested, but a certain young man quickly stopped her as he held his hands forward to let out some thread, quickly forming a magic circle in his hands while Caria got started on growing a little bit of wood that could be used for the fire, and soon enough, Sal just let the thread-magic-circle down onto the wood as it slowly started to heat everything up, and then created stable flames.

"Like this it’s going to last all night!" Sal pointed out with a smug grin, and while Bree just looked at the fire heavily impressed, Melissa looked at her ’brother’ with a slight frown. "Stop trying to impress anyone here, it’s hard to take you serious without pants." She pointed out, and Sal just turned over toward Melissa annoyedly.

"Says the least intimidating Rank 5 monster I’ve ever seen! You’re like, five inches tall!" Sal exclaimed, and quickly stared the girl in front of him down, although Eisen quickly stopped the two of them.

"Quiet, you two. Sal, I’m about to start working on your pants, so come here so I can take your measurements. And Melissa, you please go ahead and help Bree with the food-prep, yeah?" The old man asked of the two of them, something that they quickly agreed to, although they were still throwing glares at each other.

And once the two of them were a bit more ’alone’ and could speak in peace, Eisen chose to just ask Sal about some things. "So, are you upset over having less legs?" Eisen asked, and Sal cupped his chin in thought and then quickly shook his head.

"Not upset, it’s a bit... weird? But like this I can actually properly learn to dance, right?" The Spider-Boy pointed out, and the old man just chuckled in response. "I see. I’m glad you still like dancing, then."

"Heh, of course, how could I not? It’s super fun!" Sal laughed loudly, and Eisen just smiled as he quickly started making some mental notes of what Sal’s proportions and direct sizes now were after his transformation, to make him some nice, fitting pants and maybe a new vest that fit him a bit better. Some shoes maybe wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

"Hmm, got it. Then I’ll try to make something that helps with your stamina problems. Oh, and can you still enhance your movement speed by pulling and pushing yourself along with mana?" Eisen asked curiously, and Sal nodded his head in response immediately. "Mhm, of course I can. Even if I’m super... fleshy now, I’m still the good ol’ me." Sal responded, so Eisen nodded his head with a smile as he quickly asked Bree to give him some of the cloth that he asked her to bring just in case some clothes ripped on the way.

"Color-Wise it won’t be a great match right now, so sorry about that. I’ll make you something better when we’re back in Melroe. Oh, and I hope you’ll be fine walking barefoot for now..." Eisen pointed out, "I have neither leather nor cork with me..."

"I’ll be fine. I mean, Caria’s walking around without shoes, and you’re not worrying about her." Sal said as he pointed at the girl happily playing around with her ’hat’ that she could now actually take off of her head, and Eisen smirked in response.

"That’s because she’s a Myconid. She absorbs her nutrients through contact with the ground, so she doesn’t really like wearing shoes. But you and Melissa are different. Especially you, Sal. A Dancer has to take care of his feet, right?" Eisen pointed out as he quickly cut out the four pieces that he would need to make these quick makeshift pants, and Sal shrugged.

"Oh right... And with only two legs, you have to be especially careful, huh?" Sal asked, while Eisen just smiled and started sewing the pieces of cloth together, and Sal quickly noticed something when he was doing so.

"Actually, how can you do that so quickly? It’s like you can manipulate your thread better than I can mine..." Sal muttered quietly, and Eisen just chuckled and shook his head.

"It’s not that I can control it amazingly, it’s that I know how to avoid mistakes, so it might look like that. But all I’m really doing is letting the thread follow behind my needle." Eisen pointed out, and Sal slowly nodded his head as he held his hand forward and let a bit of thread out of the tip of his finger, before he quickly started to play around with it in the air in a few different ways, and Eisen chose to take that chance to inspect what he was doing with his mana-sight.

"You’ve got your element in every part of that, right?" Eisen asked, and Sal slowly nodded his head. "Yeah, that makes control easier, right?"

But immediately, Eisen shook his head. "Not necessarily. Of course it depends on the situation, but you should try and concentrate on only the necessary areas. If you have some thread and move it forward, if you move every part of it at once, sure, you will be able to move it with good, nice, steady control. But you don’t always need that. Instead of splitting your concentration on all parts of the thread, concentrate only on one end and pull the rest of the thread along with that. It’s going to have the same effect, really." Eisen explained, and Sal raised his brows and chose to try just that, although he immediately managed to apply the same thing to different other techniques, for example when ’folding’ or ’twisting’ the thread around, and Eisen couldn’t help but chuckle at that.

"Yep, exactly like that. Much easier, right?" Eisen asked, and Sal nodded his head immediately. "Yeah, and a lot faster!" The Spider-Boy pointed out, before Eisen smirked and stood up, pushing the pants that he had just finished into Sal’s arms.

"There you go, good job." Eisen said with a smile, "I’ll go get started on Dinner then, so put those pants on. After that you can go ahead and keep practicing if you want." The old man suggested, so Sal nodded his head in response as he smiled brightly and pushed his legs into the pants that simply fit him perfectly, before Eisen walked up to the worksurface that he had priorly created for Bree and Melissa with his element so that they could properly take care of the prep-work so that Eisen could start working on Dinner with what they had prepared.

It wouldn’t be anything special, just something tasty and filling that was satisfying to eat on a trip out like this.

After they had finished eating, Sky and Sal both worked on cleaning the dishes up a little while Eisen ’fed’ Cabarum and Aulu their oil as the sun slowly started to set.

And then, Eisen logged off.