Spending My Retirement In A Game

"What were you like before?" Serio asked surprised in response to that question, and Eisen simply nodded his head. "Yes, I would like to know. From all the things you told me, there’s some parts about the old me that are vastly different to my current me. I never used to be so obsessed over any one things, and I don’t know what I usually did with gifts from other people, but judging from Constant’s expression before, I’m sure it wasn’t anything great. And to top it off, my Workshop is the northernmost part of the whole town, and it’s a fair bit away from the castle, surrounded by a hedgemaze. I don’t remember ever cutting myself off like that." Eisen pointed out, and in response, the four Guardians looked at each other for a moment before Serio slowly spoke up.

"You... You used to be very cynical. Cold toward others around you. You were always smiling, but your smile from back then was vastly different to the smile you have now. Now, it’s genuine, back then, I doubt it was." The Town Core Guardian slowly explained, and Eisen looked at him with a nod, while Constant spoke up next.

"The only thing you ever thought of was crafting, Master Eisen, and it was all supposed to somehow lead up to the creation of artificial life. And about before... I witnessed one time, where a young Kobold child gave you flowers that it picked for you... Without hesitation, you thanked it for the flowers, and in a single motion started ripping out the petals and turned them into a state where you can immediately work on a potion with them, before standing up and leaving without another word." With a slightly sad expression, Constant tried to avoid Eisen’s gaze, and the old man was slowly getting choked up in a way that he hadn’t in a very long time.

Next, Ruth seemed to have something she wanted to say, but she stayed quiet instead while Jard took her hand and spoke for her. "There was one time... where I was asked to bring something to the Guild room. It was weird, because I was never supposed to leave the Treasury to properly protect it, so I knew something was up. And then when I entered the Guild room, you..." The Tired Guardian started, and then looked over toward Ruth next to him, before continuing, "You were crying. I don’t know why, Ruth never told me, but there still were tears in your eyes. I handed you what you wanted me to bring you, and then left again. That’s the first time I ever saw you in any state but your endless fake smile." The Helper pointed out, and Eisen slowly looked at these four in front of him and started moving his fingers through his beard.

"Was I a bad person?" Eisen asked them, but without hesitation, the four of them immediately shook their heads. "Of course not! It wasn’t that you were a bad person, you just weren’t very open! The only being in this world that has lived longer than you is the Great Goddess, although I’m not even necessarily sure about that. There are things in the past that only you two can speak witness to. Thinking like that... It would be uncommon for you not to be a bit cynical." Serio explained, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in reply.

"I see." He muttered quietly, and then smiled at the four of them. "Then if I can re-gain my memories, I hope that I won’t returning to being that kind of person." The old man said, and quickly took a step forward toward the four Guardians in front of them to give them a hug before his departure, which all of them seemed to be genuinely surprised about.

"Haha, I guess I wasn’t a hug-person back then?" Eisen asked them, and they all shook their heads immediately, without a moment’s hesitation.

"Then just know that I am now, and that you’ll get another big one when I’m coming back here in the future." With a wink, the old man slowly let the four of them go and made his way back toward the carriage that was standing just a little bit away from them, sitting down on the front bench of the carriage while making sure that everyone that wanted to come was really inside of the Dungeon at the moment.

While waving at the group of Guardians, Eisen then started to drive the carriage away from the castle and toward the distance in the direction of the Harbor.

---

"Now... What can we do on this ship for now?" Rouge and Parc asked Eisen, who simply crossed his arms with a bright smile.

"I’m going to keep teaching you, of course. Until now, we weren’t really working together as Master and Apprentices, but from now on, we will. When we get to the Mainland, we’re going to start traveling around, and I want to try and set up shop at as many places as possible. So while that’s happening, I’m going to try and teach you in more depth using comissioned items as an example. Of course, we’re going to go over theory as well, but you know what I mean." Eisen explained to the two of them with a bright smile on his face, before he started moving his fingers through his beard, while his Apprentices were smirking excitedly.

"In town, you were mostly working on basic things like farming tools, weapons, simple armor, clothes, and then things like furniture, right?" The old man asked them, before the two quickly nodded their heads in response.

"Yes, exactly. We were trying to help out wherever we could, so we wanted to make sure everyone from Handor was properly settled in, and that the ’Guardians’ also had everything they needed. So that was basically it." Rouge explained in response, so Eisen nodded his head slowly in response.

"Alright, then that was probably enough raw experience of those kinds of things to start out with. Fafnir, could you open the gate?" Eisen asked the Dragon-Dungeon, who slowly stood up, stretched, and then jumped up to create the gate, before the three of them stepped into the Dungeon again.

"So, erm... What’s with that giant bottle?" Parc asked in the end, something which Rouge was slightly afraid of doing, and then Eisen just started to laugh.

"That? Yeah, it’s a bit of a supersized version of Snake Wine. It’s filled with regular Rice Wine and I trapped this snake-like Dragon inside there. The Dragon itself is called a ’Nidhogg’, so it’s Nidhogg Wine." Eisen explained with a loud laugh, and Parc and Rouge simply side-eyed the dead creature in the bottle as they entered the Dungeon behind Eisen.

They were already inside here before, so they weren’t exactly surprised by this interior here, nor by the seemingly infinitely-stretching environment that was painted onto the walls, but by the machinery that Eisen constructed before.

Most of it was just lumped together, so it was hard to really see what everything was and did, but after the old man’s explanation of everything, the two stared at everything excitedly.

"This is so cool..." Rouge muttered quietly, especially looking at the finely enchanted parts of each type of machinery, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Thank you, I’m glad you like it, then." The old man pointed out, before turning toward the short boy next to him.

"The last part of the Potion-Setup was actually inspired by your idea from before. With this setup, it wouldn’t work properly to mix flavoring into it at the start, and depending on the potion, it might cause some unwanted effects, so I did that step at the end." Eisen pointed out, and Rouge slowly nodded his head excitedly, before turning toward Parc as well.

"I want to try and figure out a good way to work on potion-candy as well, but that requires a whole new setup. It’s going to take a little while, but I’m going to work on that at some point. Until now, it’s just going to be flavored potions and pills." Eisen explained, and then slowly ran his hand over the metal surface of the Potion-brewing setup, before Parc quickly shook his head.

"That’s fine! Erm, but I do have another question about this..." The young man pointed out, looking over toward the Bottle-Making setup.

"This works with transmutation, right? Why didn’t you just make a regular metal press? Wouldn’t that be more mana-efficient?" The young, tall-built Apprentice asked, so Eisen slowly nodded.

"Of course, of course, but in this case, I figured this could be used for marketing as well. When there’s a display case where it’s directly shown how the bottles are made in front of the customers, they’re going to feel more drawn in, won’t they?" Eisen suggested, so Parc slowly nodded his head.

"Oh, that’s true..." The young man replied with a mutter, trying to properly inspect every part about this machinery, and Eisen figured he should let the two boys take a look at everything on their own for now.

"Try not to break anything, you two. I’m going to be on the third floor for a while, if you need me." Eisen pointed out, swiftly opening the window that would let him create a gate to the third floor, although it already appeared in front of him just then, and Eisen just smirked at Sigurd who appeared right next to it.

"Thanks." The old man said and smiled at the Dungeon Core Guardian, slowly patting its head as he stepped through the door into the space behind it, before he found himself in a truly giant space that currently had nothing but rock walls and a dirt floor, as it seemingly wasn’t ready yet.

"Wow, this is really going to be pretty huge, huh?" Eisen asked with a smile on his face, and Sigurd nodded its head in response immediately.

"Yes, although it’s already nearly done. Another 100 meters into each direction, and then this space is going to be finished." The Core Guardian pointed out, before handing Eisen the pickaxe he was surely about to ask Sigurd to bring to him.

"Haha, thank you. Now, then let me know if I’m digging into the wrong direction later." Eisen told Sigurd, and then swiftly activated his Demonic Transformation, using the new technique that he learned before of how to extend his demonic transformation onto his tool.

While he was technically destroying things while mining, it seemed like that skill still counted as a ’Constructive’ skill, so one that counted more toward Yang. It seemed like the Yin side really was just supposed to be for fighting, for some reason. Either way, Eisen didn’t really care either, as long as he could use the right transformation to this.

And soon enough, the pickaxe turned into its demonic state, with the metal parts now golden and the rest like cracked-rock with golden flames underneath.

"Let’s hope that this didn’t ACTUALLY turn into gold, huh?" Eisen muttered with a laugh on his face, and quickly started to carve the rune for the ’Mining’ skill into his chest, before he quickly got started.

With a quick swing toward the rock-wall in front of him, Eisen managed to already create a pretty strong cracking all over, and with the next one, all that was loosened up came crumbling down.

Eisen wasn’t sure if this would really properly help with his Mining skill, but this was definitely better than just running around, doing nothing or trying to think of something else to do.

Like this, he could build up the connectivity with this pickaxe as well, which might end up helping Eisen out in the mining in the future, even if just slightly.

Etiher way, for now, Eisen figured that doing this was the best thing that he could do, and like that just swiftly continued.