Spending My Retirement In A Game

"Alright, if you’re sure about that, then I won’t fight you about it." Eisen replied, before he swiftly looked over toward the other Originals.

"So, is there anything else that needs to be done right here, or is everyone fine if we leave soon?" The old man asked, but Jyuuk scratched the back of his neck and looked over toward Kai with a wry smile. "Let’s just spend the night here again, I’d like to speak to Kai about some things." Jyuuk pointed out, so Eisen slowly shrugged in response.

"That’s fine to me. Then we’re just leaving tomorrow morning. I’ll head upstairs and take a nap for now." And as the old man said this, he slowly winked at the other Originals as a signal that it was time for the checkup with the Doctor, for which Eisen quickly made his way to the meeting room and sat down on his chair, of course while his monsters quickly snuggled up to him, and then just logged off.

---

"Ah, Mister Joyce, I was just about to wake you." The moment that Benjamin logged off and opened the capsule, he saw the Doctor already standing in front of the capsule. With a slight glance at the Clock, Benjamin was quickly aware that he stayed in the game a little too long right now.

It was Saturday, so they pushed the appointment a little later into the day, but it seemed like the old man didn’t manage to keep up with that perfectly with all of the things that were going on in the ’Game’.

"Sorry, I hope you didn’t wait long." Benjamin said, but the Doctor immediately shook his head. "Not at all, don’t worry. I just got here five minutes ago, so I took the time to take a look at your current values while you were inside hte capsule." The Doctor replied, so Benjamin simply smiled and sat up properly, slowly exiting the capsule to stand up a little bit.

"Hmm, it seems like your body is doing extremely well despite you not moving much for quite a while now." With an astounded expression, the doctor took a closer look at Benjamin’s overall physical state, and the old man couldn’t help himself but laugh in response. "Of course, it would be a shame if muscles I worked on for more than 50 years were to just shrivel up after a few days." The old man exclaimed, and the Doctor chuckled and started on the basic physical check-up to see how Benjamin’s shoulder reacted to the lack of an arm, before he nodded his head in satisfaction.

"Your body really is astounding, your muscles and tissue adapted to the new situation as if your body has always been like this. Over the next few days, I suggest starting to slowly take some walks, as I mentioned before. First a bit through the house, then when you feel like you don’t have any issues with that, start walking a little through the garden, and at some point you will surely be able to return to walking through town. I expect that to be in a week or two. Due to the medication and the stress on your whole body, your stamina should have been impacted greatly, so don’t overdo yourself."

With a nod and after taking some notes, the Doctor packed all of his things back together and made his way out of the room, although he turned around as he was doing so. "Ah, and if you want, I can bring a catalogue of different types of prostetics tomorrow that we could look at for when your shoulder properly recovered." He suggested, so Eisen just slowly nodded his head.

"Thank you, I would appreciate that." The old man said, before the Doctor left the room again, and Benjamin sat down on his chair for a little while, and Tony slowly entered the room with a seemingly worried expression.

"Hm? Is everything alright?" Benjamin asked his son, who slowly shook his head. "Not... not really. So, I’ve been speaking to Melody a lot over the past few days, and she kept saying that Michael still wasn’t home. We figured he just stayed at a Hotel or something like that and wanted to take his time getting back, but he’s not back even now. I know that Michael is a prick, but he’s still Sophia’s dad, so if something happened to him, or he did something to himself, then..." Tony started, but Benjamin just looked at him with his eyebrows raised.

"He’s still in town, of course." He told him, but Tony for a moment just stared at him confused at what he said. "What do you mean..?"

"Both Greg and Xenia- sorry, Jasmin, mentioned him, didn’t they? Greg talked about a ’religious guy’ that knew us and riled him up a little, right? Jasmin mentioned that she saw Greg and a religious guy speaking as well when she was outside her building, and she lives next to the only hotel in town. It was kind of obvious to me that it was him, but Michael himself didn’t do anything yet, so I figured we should just leave him be." Benjamin explained to Tony, who slowly ended up grinding his teeth and nodding.

"Then if he’s still in town, we shouldn’t let Sophia and Kim walk around together alone, right? What if he sees them?" Tony asked, but Benajmin swiftly shook his head, "I’m sure he already did. I mean, he can try to do anything to her if he wants to, but if he does, then I’ll kill him." The old man said with a light smile, before Tony slowly sighed in response.

"Right, of course you will. I’ll tell Sophia and Kim to be careful, maybe they should only meet here for now." But just as Tony was about to leave the room, Sophia was standing there in the doorframe, seemingly having heard all of it.

"I don’t think that’s necessary..." She told her Uncle, who just looked at her with a frown. "I know he’s your father, but especially people like him can end up more dangerous than you would think, you know?" Tony pointed out, although Sophia immediately shook her head.

"That’s not what I mean... Of course I’m scared that Dad will do something... But this Monday on noon, Kim is getting her capsule and will start playing the game, so we’re going to be able to hang out in the game instead. I mean, Evalia and Benji are basically dating just through the game, so..." Sophia pointed out, and in response, Tony raised his eyebrows.

"Benji and who? What do you mean ’dating’?" He asked, confused about why he didn’t hear anything about this yet, and just then, Benji walked past the door and heard them speaking, before stopping and staring at his cousin.

"You ratted me out? What the hell!" The young adult exclaimed as he pushed his hand forward toward Sophia, who just slightly smirked and shrugged. "Oops." She replied, and Tony looked at Benji confused.

"You’re dating someone you met in the game? You should know that people on the internet aren’t always who they pretend they are!" Tony exclaimed, but Benji looked at him with a wry smile.

"Ehm, nah Dad, in this case I’m pretty sure I can be safe to assume that she’s who she says she is..." He replied, looking over toward his grandfather. "Right?" Benji asked, so Benjamin swiftly nodded his head.

"Actually, yes, in this case it’s pretty safe. I mentioned Evalia before, right? And you saw her in the trailers as well, and actually, didn’t I already mention who Evalia is in reality?" Benjamin asked, and slowly, it seemed to dawn on Tony who they were talking about.

"That Evalia? As in ’Nataly Klein’-Evalia?" As Tony asked this, all three of the people currently in this room beside him nodded their heads without a moment of hesitation.

"Now then... That’s... I don’t even..." Tony started confused and then just looked at Benji, before placing his hand onto his shoulder with a light smile. "I... I’m proud of you, son."

"Dad, what the fuck..." Benji replied with a wry smile, and Tony looked at him with a slight chuckle. "What do you mean? Can’t I be proud of my son who managed to woo a person that literally everyone has heard of before? And only positive things, at that. Like this, we can truly show off how charismatic the Joyce family truly is!" Tony exclaimed, before both Sophia and Benji looked at their grandfather.

"Yeah, I think if you want to pull attention to the Joyce’s, then you should rely on Gramps for that. Because he’s the person that at least half the online discussions tagged with ’World of Magic’ are about." Benji replied, before Tony raised his eyebrows surprised.

"Isn’t your grandfather just casually spending his time in some workshop?" He asked, and both Sophia and Benji had to fight hard not to start laughing immediately.

"Right, he’s literally working toward becoming the King of a country that every single player will head toward at one point or another, he’s the champion of two Ancient Dragons, is the literal father of a God, and makes absolutely insane items. Oh, and of course he’s also the Guildmaster of the only Rank 1 Guild there currently is in the whole Game." Benji laughed, in response to which Tony stared at Benjamin confused.

"Erm, what have you been doing exactly? I’ve been reading through information on the game for a while now for my application, but I literally haven’t heard about any of that yet..." Tony pointed out, letting Benji simply nod his head.

"Of course not! It’s not something you’re usually able to do, it’s just because of the backstory of ’Eisen’. He has insane connections, so he’s basically being pushed to being at the peak of everything." The young man explained jealously, but Benjamin simply laughed in response to what was just said.

"Well, it’s not all just puppies and rainbows, you know? There are some serious things going on as well, for example the situation with Kiron and his grandparents, the illegal and inhumane trading of monsters as done by Komer’s brother, the fact that the ’Game’ doesn’t actually seem to be a game and is just a parrallel world or something like that, and of course also the Failure running around destroying my Guardians." Benjamin said to them with a deep sigh, and although the old man meant all of that completely seriously, because a part of what he said was completely ridiculous, the others just slightly laughed in response.

"Stop joking arround, it’s a ’Parallel World’? Is that some in-game lore we haven’t heard about yet?" Benji asked with a laugh before looking at the clock on the wall, "Anyway, I’m going out for my run now. See ya later, losers." The young man exclaimed as he rushed out the door, swiftly followed by Sophia, who just wanted to get some food.

"Ah, Dad, we’ll speak about Michael some more later... I’ll talk to Sophia first, alright?" Tony asked, quickly following his niece to the Kitchen, leaving Benjamin to sit there alone in his room, while the old man just stared at his remaining hand.

"Of course it’s ridiculous..." Benjamin muttered to himself quietly, before slowly drooping down and resting his face inside of his hand, slowly grasping it tighter in frustration at what was going on. He was definitely changing.

Just a few minutes ago, he announced that he would kill his son-in-law if he did anything to Sophia with a smiling expression. And while Tony thought he was joking, Benjamin himself knew. He was dead serious.