Spending My Retirement In A Game

Eisen started to carve into the wood that he was holding in his hand, slowly forming it into the shape that he remembered the necklace being. Or well, that’s what he initially planned, but it was like his hands were moving on their own anyway. Like they knew exactly what needed to be done in order to create this necklace perfectly.

And that included the small mistakes that the creator made. It was a pretty rudimentary piece, but something that held a lot of value to the former owner, that was for sure. Instead of actually having to recreate this necklace, it seemed like Eisen had to simply take over the part of the creator. Let the original process that had been gone through in order to create that small wooden piece flow through him.

He slowly recreated it and was feeling incredibly annoyed at the completely wasteful, idiotic movements that his own body was making by following the original process of creation. He cut too deep into the wood, he roughed areas up that should be smooth, and most importantly, he wasn’t even holding the knife properly. It was infuriating, really. But on the other hand, it really was something that amateurs would do. It let Eisen figure out a lot about the creator of the necklace. He wasn’t someone that spent his life creating things. He wasn’t used to holding something like a knife, and wasn’t incredibly concerned with the safety of his own hands.

That meant that he neither did something that required his hands, nor that he was a fighter, because a person like that would definitely know how to hold a blade even a slight bit, while also focusing on their hands to make sure they were fine.

Instead, what Eisen figured was that this man was simply used to his hands being roughed up. In general, the knife was moving in straight lines and was very rough, rigid, way, creating a lot of straight angles. Probably, the person that was making this was a laborer, someone that did hard physical labor every single day where he was used to cutting up his hands, getting rough bruises, but didn’t deal with a lot of details in anything he did.

From that, Eisen already knew that this couldn’t be the same person that killed the Dragon of Life. Sure, Laborers often had impressive strength to them as well as muscle-stamina that others may not have, but beside that, they weren’t great fighters. They didn’t have to use their insticts on the daily, so they would be blunted.

So, there were three possible conclusions that Eisen could come to through this. The necklace was created by someone important to the one that killed Lirgtur, and it was something like an inheritance or a memento from them.

Two, Lirgtur’s killer stole the necklace from a follower of Zain or pretended to be one in order to get close enough to her to get a good attack on her.

And three, these two events, the creation of the necklace as well as the death of Lirgtur, had a long period of time stuck between them. So far, Eisen couldn’t really say too much about which one it was, because all three of them seemed possible to an extent. One thing that Eisen could say was that it didn’t seem like the necklace had been created recently.

The one that Lirgtur gave Eisen had been worn down quite a lot, and it didn’t seem like something that happened in the heavenly realm but rather something to the one that used to own this item before. It was probably something that meant a lot to whoever used to own it before.

While he was deep in thought, it seemed like Eisen’s body simply continued its work on the necklace, and soon he was holding a rather rudimentary version of it. There were a lot of parts missing on it. It was really just a very, very rough shape that only loosely resembled the shape of Zain’s symbol. You would be able to recognize it, sure, but a lot of people would probably have to think for a while before being able to figure out what it was supposed to be.

However, a feeling welled up inside of Eisen’s chest, an emotion that wasn’’t his own. It was one of pride over the creation of this piece. And all of a sudden, the wooden shavings on the ground disappeared, followed by the knife that Eisen used to carve it.

And before the old man knew it, the walls simply fell over to the sides, similar to how it worked when Eisen’s portable structures folded open or down.

But now, the walls simply sat there flat on the ground and nothing else happened while Eisen was surrounded by a black void. But from that void, things started to sprout. Trees, moss, flowers. The sound of bugs buzzing appeared in the old man’s ears while birds were singing. Sunlight that practically came out of nowhere started shining through the trees that grew in a matter of seconds, even faster than Eisen had seen through Jyuuk’s plant control.

And when Eisen looked back down at the ground underneath him, the walls that fell down before turned into the forest-floor, covered in leaves and twigs. The old man still held the necklace in his hands, before he felt something like a pull on it, and Eisen was practically forced to start moving, since he somehow was incapable of letting go of the small wooden piece.

He went where it brought him, and then soon stood in the middle of something like a rudimentary tribal area, with tents pitched up against trees and people working on their projects right outside. For the most part, they were doing things to help different animals, or preparing hides to be turned into clothes, shoes, or other important objects.

But all the people that Eisen could see were slightly off. He couldn’t concentrate on their face, but simply on their whole figure. He had no idea what they actually looked like. Eisen might be able to describe the rough style of the clothes they were wearing, but he couldn’t tell what the specific details were even now while looking at them. Were there buttons, straps, pieces of metal? Did they have tools on their body? If so, what kind? Whenever Eisen tried to answer these sorts of questions inside of his mind, it simply went blank for a few moments.

And after Eisen noticed this, he realized that this wasn’t only the case with the people, but with the whole area around him. He could only see the big picture as if it was heavily blurred. The old man was able to tell what area had what rough things in them, but he couldn’t pin-point anything, and he couldn’t tell what exactly was going on where. It was... a weird feeling. He was technically able to perfectly see everything around him, but it was like he was forgetting most things about everything he was looking at the moment he saw it.

But then, Eisen’s whole being was filled with different emotions. It was like numerous things happened all at once, but he wasn’t sure what exactly, but for a different reason to before. This time, it was all just so overwhelming.

The area around Eisen slowly started to change, shift into something else. The beautiful, bright, warm feelings that were filling Eisen slowly became tainted as the tribe grew bigger.

The wooden piece in Eisen’s hands was getting more scratched up as time went on. And then, every single bit of positivity that had been filling out Eisen had gone, and all that was left was an aching. He felt too lethargic to move, as if everything was hopeless.

Together with Eisen’s emotions, the scenery became darker and darker as well, as larger buildings of rock were constructed around Eisen and this tribal village became a proper town.

But then, something like a ray of light appeared that cut through that lethargic darkness as the old man felt the wooden piece tug on him once more. He was pulled to leave this conceptual town and made his way back into the forest.

Slowly, all the dirt and paint that had gathered on the wooden piece were removed. Some of the older, more serious cuts were patched up and repaired, and in general, the wooden piece just seemed to be in a much better state than it had been since it was first created. Actually, it might have even become better, as it was refined to look more like the Symbol of Zain. This time, you would be able to understand what it was just by looking at it once. Well, if you knew what the Symbol of Zain looked like, at least.

The wooden piece, from here on out, had been taken care of well. But then, something else happened. Another feeling filled Eisen, and it was a feeling he would never forget. It was the feeling of when he first fell in love with his late wife. It seemed like the current owner of the necklace found themselves someone to spend their life with.

But that cozy, warm feeling once more soon became cold, but for a different reason than before. It didn’t rot over time like before, but it had been shattered all at once, and Eisen was filled with emotions that reminded him of a certain other point in his life as well.

And slowly, the reasons for Lirgtur’s killer’s actions became simply apparent to Eisen. He watched as his body was dragged into a cave atop of a mountain that bathed in the sunlight every single day, looking down at a beautiful forest underneath. And inside of that cave was a shapeless mass of light.

And just before that shapeless mass took on the shape it had been missing so far, the old man found himself back where he was before. Sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of Lirgtur, who was patiently waiting for the old man’s revelation.

He slowly looked up at Lirgtur with a bitter frown on his face, before the Dragon of Life looked at him curiously, "So, did it work? Did you find out what happened, and why that man had slain me?"

"...I did..." Eisen slowly replied, and the Dragon seemed pleased with that answer, "I see. Did someone take control of him, or force him to slay me?"

"No. He made the decision to kill you himself, even if he didn’t want to." Eisen explained as he slowly rubbed his eyes with his index finger and thumb to get his emotions under control again, "The love of his life was dying, and the only thing that could help him save her at the time was your blood."