Spending My Retirement In A Game

In the evening, or rather in the middle of the night, when the regular Merchants had already closed down their stalls and the only ones really walking around town were thugs, Eisen was waiting for Dragoon to come back to see him to pick up the items. He was a little late, but the old man figured it wasn’t that big a deal. Sigurd had only closed the Dungeon down just now anyway and was now on its way back into town together with Fafnir to pick everything from the stall up.

But just when Eisen was thinking about the Changeling, he was approaching the Stall from the other side of the market and quickly looked around himself to find the right place, soon finding Eisen just standing there, waving at him to get his attention.

"Sorry for being late. Something came up that I had to take care of." Dragoon apologized, but the old man shook his head in response.

"Don’t worry about it. Anyway, here’s the two items you requested. The item to store the information is just a beastiary. There’s some extra paper if the pages completely fill up." Eisen explained, while the Changeling grabbed the leather book and flipped through it excitedly.

"Whoa, this looks pretty cool! Will it just automatically fill with monsters?" He inquired, but Eisen swiftly shook his head. "Not really ’automatically’. Here, you can pop the lense at the front off. Then when you focus it on a monster and just pour your mana inside of it, it’s going to fill a page up with the proper information." The craftsman explained, making Dragoon nod happily.

"Awesome!" He exclaimed, before taking a look at the cloak. "And this will really let me change my size as well when changing into something or someone?" The changeling inquired as he placed the book down for a moment and then pulled the cloak around to his back to put it on, before pulling the hood up as well.

"It should, yes. How about you try it out on me again?" Eisen suggested, and the young man nodded his head quite swiftly and once more just stared at the elder in front of him. His eyes were moving around rapidly as Eisen felt another immense, uncomfortable shudder, before he then had a ’copy’ of himself standing in front of him. It still wasn’t perfect, meaning that this version was still an inch or two shorter than Eisen, but it was definitely an incredible improvement to the last time.

"Nice!" Dragoon exclaimed, before de-activating the enchantment again. "These are both really damn cool." With a broad smile on his face, that’s what Dragoon muttered to himself, and Eisen just nodded his head.

"Yeah, they were pretty interesting for sure. So, about the price for these..." The old man started with a slight smile, and Dragoon’s transformation swiftly stopped as he returned back to his pale-faced version.

"R-Right..." He replied, before Eisen just started to laugh loudly. "Don’t worry, don’t worry, it’s not a major amount. You’re the first proper comission I took on in a while, and the items were something slightly new as well, so I’ll just have you pay the material costs." The old man said with a wink, and Dragoon raised his brows surprised.

"Really? Awesome!" He exclaimed, and Eisen slightly chuckled as he and the young player finished the transaction and Dragoon slowly left the area the stall was in and stepped through the market, all the whilst Sigurd and Fafnir made their way back to the stall as well.

"Was that the changeling guy you made those items for?" The Core Guardian asked, before Eisen nodded his head in reply. "Mhm, he was. But nevermind that for now, I’ll tell you more about the items later. How did everything go on your side?" He inquired curiously, and Sigurd just sat down on the counter of the stall, which had been cleared up pretty well, and started to explain what happened.

It seemed like for the most part, everything worked out pretty well, everyone was relatively civilized and nice, but there were the occasional few that didn’t really get the concept of this new type of Dungeon and tried to attack the Receptionist-Goblins or the Kobolds and Lizardmen working in the town.

Of course, Sigurd could intervene pretty easily and just threw those guys right out of the Dungeon by pushing them through a temporary gate, but those weren’t even the ones that really annoyed the Core Guardian the most. Instead, it were the people that were conceited enough to think they owned the place and started looking down on other Dungeon-Goers.

Most of those were part of the newest Player-Group, seemingly. They pushed their way through to the counters no matter how long the line or thought it to be unnecessary to even go to the counters at all and stepped outside into the town anyway, and didn’t even consider the fact that they had to wait before entering the actual maze so that they wouldn’t end up just running directly behind a group. Of course Sigurd tried its best to make sure everything was working orderly, but at times things happened at two places at once, so it had to take care of some things with the help of the monsters.

"Hmm, do you perhaps need a Core Helper or two? Or I can just make a few Golems that connect to the Dungeon that you can act as Guards." Eisen suggested, and Sigurd immediately nodded its head, without even needing to think about it.

"Yes please, I would really appreciate that. Those Golems would be enough, I really just need proper enforcers in case I’m busy." It pointed out, before the old man nodded his head slowly as Sigurd starting bringing the stall into the Dungeon.

And while the Dungeon Core Guardian was doing that, Eisen was thinking about something else that seemed like both a good, and insane idea.

"Just wondering, but what happens when someone that isn’t part of the ’Dungeon Team’ tries to destroy parts of the Dungeon?" Eisen asked, and Sigurd just shrugged. "Nothing. They just can’t actually destroy anything. Sure, there’s certain things they can ’permanently’ destroy, and that’s specific items like crates, barrels, chests, and so on that were bought in the Dungeon Menu. But those are similar to monsters and are just replaced in the spot the destroyed ones were before." Sigurd explained swiftly as it swiftly disappeared in a small cloud of mist to bring away one of the last pieces, while Eisen slowly shook his head.

"No, no, that’s not exactly what I mean. What I would like to know is if they can destroy things like the walls of the maze, for example." He added, and as Eisen told Aulu and Cabarum to stop sleeping behind the carriage so that he could hook the latter up to the carriage, Sigurd crossed its arms in thought and continued.

"Well... When it comes to things like walls, trees, or even the buildings or stalls made from the wood from those trees, they can be destroyed, but they’re far tougher than the regular versions would be? And even if they’re destroyed, they will immediately start regenerating, so no damage is permanent. Even insanely high damage should be repaired within a minute at most, and with ’insanely high’, I mean damage that could make a tunnel between two corridors of the maze." The Core Guardian explained, so Eisen just nodded his head in satisfaction.

"Is that so? Well, well, well, seems like one of the floors needs to be expanded a little more, doesn’t it?" Eisen stated, making Sigurd and the others look at Eisen questioningly, because that was a rather weird conclusion he came to. Although, Eisen’s reasoning really wasn’t all that complicated.

"Well, I think it just makes sense, doesn’t it? We have a fair bit of DP left, and I think we should try and invest it in something that might fit to a future theme, even, I don’t really know what you and Evalia planned for the next Hundred or so floors." The old man explained and made Cabarum pull the carriage into place so that they could just make their way inside and start driving to the ’grinding’ area near Melroe that Eisen promised to have Sal level up at.

"Could you stop speaking so cryptic and just explain?" Sigurd asked, both curious and slightly annoyed, although Eisen just ended up slightly chuckling before sitting down at the front bench of the carriage.

"I’ll explain on the way. Let’s just get going for now." The old man suggested, and while Fafnir made tiredly made his way into the carriage to lay down on there followed by the Monster kids, Kirisho sat down next to Eisen and the Fey-Kin siblings just sat down in the back as well, while Sigurd transported itself directly next to Eisen so that it could listen to the old man’s explanation.

"Now then... There’s the ’Environmental Material’ tab, right? You already bought things like water, rock, dirt, bricks, and so on there that you used to make the different floors." Eisen started, before Sigurd slowly nodded its head.

"Yeah? And what about it? Is there anything special inside of that tab?" The Core Guardian asked curiously, before Eisen immediately nodded his head. "Of course there is. It was unlocked when you reached Rank 2 as a sub-material for Rock."

"Hmm, a Sub-Material for rock? That could only be..." Sigurd muttered quietly, and then opened its eyes surprised. "Oh, so THAT is what you want to do? You know you won’t be able to use any of the materials outside of the Dungeon though, right? They’ll fall apart into mana the moment they leave through the Gate. I mean, I guess as long as the gate is open, the materials should hold up for a little while as long as they’re within my own Range-Limit..." It pointed out, before Eisen just slightly chuckled and nodded his head.

"I know, I know, don’t worry. But for a few Helper-Golems, that should be more than enough, shouldn’t it? And that’s exactly what I’m counting on." With a loud laugh, Eisen steered the Carriage through the streets of this small town toward the gate, although Kirisho, who was sitting next to Eisen with the small Fox Golem on her lap, looked at Eisen and Sigurd curiously.

"Could you maybe fill the rest of us in as well?" She requested with a slight smile, and so the old man just nodded his head as he took a look around. "Of course, just wait a moment, we’re about to reach the gate. I’ll explain properly once we’re out there." The old man promised.