Spending My Retirement In A Game

\\"Yeah, there is. It would also be pretty useful if you could use two different spells on the roots themselves. For one, that spell that decreases friction, as well as the spell that decreases the weight of the roots.\\" Eisen suggested. Bree quickly thought about it and then nodded her head with a broad smile.

\\"Ah, got it! So you can pull them out more easily!\\" She exclaimed.

\\"Exactly. But yeah, let’s start with these ones back here for now. These obstruct us the most at the moment.\\" The old man pointed out as he increased his size to the maximum and climbed over the root. He dug his fingers as deeply into the thick root as he could and looked at the spot where it was slightly digging down into the ground.

Bree placed both of her hands onto exactly that spot and pushed her mana into the root for a few moments. Immediately, Eisen could feel his hands nearly slip away from the root already, despite not actually pulling on it all that hard just yet. So, the old man tried to turn his hands into the draconic ’claw’ mode again, and as such quickly managed to get a safe grip on the surface.

Then, Bree stepped over toward Eisen himself and quickly placed her hand onto Eisen’s leg to give him the strength buff. And as a warm energy coursed throughout the old man’s body, he could quite literally feel the increase. Since most of Bree’s buffs were percentage-based, this really did an amazingly wonderful job.

And now, Eisen pulled on the root while continuosly pushing his claws deeper into it. It took a while, but soon, the old man started to feel the root give in. And the moment that it did, the rest happened pretty quickly.

At some point, Eisen managed to just pull the whole root out of the ground together with some smaller sub-sections that split off of this thick root, all the way up to the thin ends that were the size of a regular tree’s roots.

And just when Eisen placed the root onto the ground, Kirisho appeared out of the amulet around Eisen’s neck, since she seemed to have a little bit of a question, \\"The answer to this may seem quite obvious to you, but... Is there a reason why you are not using your Alchemy skill to compress the roots? You can compress other wood as well, right?\\" She asked, but before Eisen could reply, Bree took that over for him.

\\"That’s because a regular tree is filled to the brim with natural mana. When you cut through the log, that natural mana is gone for the actual log, but it’s still in the roots. And natural mana kind of rejects that kind of thing... Otherwise every woodcutter would learn the alchemy skill instead to learn transmutation.\\"

With a chuckle, Eisen quickly nodded his head, \\"There you have it. It would be pretty nice if I could do that, though. But of course it’s not as easy as that.\\" The old man pointed out, \\"For now we have to take care of these roots like these, remove the main part of the stump, and then have Kiron get rid of the roots that lead far too deep into the ground for us to even hope pulling out.\\"

\\"I see.\\" Kirisho replied, and then looked at the root for a moment, \\"Would there be any way for me to help with this as well?\\" She asked. After a bit of thought, Eisen started to look around to maybe figure out a task for her, and then slowly nodded his head when something came to mind.

\\"There is, actually. I think we might be able to clear these out quicker if you could push your mist into the gap that forms inbetween the root and the ground when I start pulling them out and then maybe try to slightly widen the gap toward the end parts. Those places in particular are the ones that make it a pain sometimes. Your mist can turn semi-solid after all, right?\\"

\\"Of course. Then I will help you however I can.\\" She said reassuredly, so Eisen just returned a smile to her for a few moments, before the two of them were interrupted by Bree.

\\"Yeah, erm... can we continue?\\" She asked slightly awkwardly, even though she still kept up her regular bright smile, although the old man just looked at her with his brows raised in response, \\"Mhm.\\" He said with a smirk on his face as he started looking for the next good root, and Bree seemed a little surprised at this, \\"What’s that face for?\\" She asked with her eyes slightly squinted, and Eisen just chuckled.

\\"Nothing, nothing.\\" He laughed, although Bree was just looking at him with a slight pout now as she kept following him. And soon after, a certain woman appeared right behind the group of three.

\\"I think Eisen was just trying to make the irony clear, here. You’re always so disgustingly lovey-dovey with your own boyfriend, but you get weirded out when others are even remotely so?\\" She asked with a rather blunt tone, and Eisen slowly turned around toward the figure.

\\"Raziel, what a pleasure. What are you doing here?\\" Eisen told the angel, and she just slightly looked toward the Wood-Giant, \\"First of all, I must say that I’m impressed with what you managed to create right there. And all alone, at that.\\"

\\"Thanks, but I’m kind of surprised. You never seemed all too interested in my items.\\"

\\"You kidding me? You’re expecting me not to be a little curious at the fourty meter tall wooden ego-golem you made within just a couple of days?\\" Raziel pointed out bluntly, so Eisen just lightly smiled and crossed his arms.

\\"Fair enough. But still, just tell me what you’re here for.\\" Eisen told her, and the angel slightly clicked her tongue, \\"Can’t you be a little more appreciative here? I came all this way for this, and this is how I’m treated?\\" She asked, and Eisen’s smile slowly turned into a frown.

\\"I don’t even know what it is that you came here for.\\" He reminded her, so Raziel just shrugged and looked at Bree and Kirisho.

\\"So it’s cool to talk about that stuff in front of them?\\" Raziel asked, before Eisen simply nodded his head, \\"If you’re talking about stuff related to the other world, then yes. They know. Now please, tell me the reason why you haven’t been responding to my attempts at contacting you for weeks now.\\"

\\"Well, I was a bit busy, you know? In the gods’ realm? Where my actual master resides? You know that I don’t work for you, right?\\"

\\"Raziel, please stop trying to tick me off with everything you say. Just please, tell me the reason you came.\\" The old man told her, and the Angel just shrugged.

\\"Sure. Well, for one, I wanted to come get my payment. After all, you said you would tell me everything I wanted to know if I found out what happens to those you reveal the truth to.\\"

\\"Fine, let’s get that done tonight then. Anything else?\\"

\\"Yup. I have a divine revelation for you.\\" Raziel started before clearing her throat, \\"Your arrival is awaited in hell, so hurry it up and die.\\"

Immediately, both Bree and Kirisho wanted to try and ’protect’ Eisen from Raziel by stepping in front of the old man, since they seem to have understood it as a threat, but Eisen understood what Raziel was really saying, \\"Don’t worry you two. She won’t try to hurt me, it’s an actually pretty helpful tip.\\"

\\"Oh, now is it~?\\" Raziel said in a pretty bored tone, \\"But that’s not all. I was told that the ’Administrator’ didn’t appear all too much for the past few weeks. Like a handful of times, and he was in a worse mood each time. He came by yesterday and nearly threatened to kill one of the gods for some reason.\\" Raziel explained to Eisen.

The old man didn’t really need to think about the cause for Samuel’s sour mood either. Although, something was confirmed to Eisen through this once more. Samuel didn’t have any actual ’power’ here. Eisen already figured this to be the case, since otherwise he would have just been able to constantly send monsters too strong for Eisen to him, or maybe even just ban him from coming to this world in the first place.

Seeing how Samuel was threatening to kill one of the gods, it just once again showed Eisen that Samuel really wasn’t a deity here. He just had a way to easily access that plane. Samuel had tried to have all the originals killed at one point or another, so Eisen was sure he wouldn’t refrain from killing or replacing one of the gods here if he had the actual power to.

With a satisfied expression, Eisen nodded his head and looked back at Raziel, \\"Alright, that’s all good to know. Thanks.\\" He told the Angel, although it seemed like she still had something else to say.

\\"If you’re happy about this, then I’m sure you’ll be happy if I tell you about something else as well.\\" She started, and Eisen looked back at her with a slight shrug, \\"Who knows, we’ll see when you tell me.\\" He replied to her, and Raziel just started smirking as well, something that she didn’t do all too often.

\\"Wait, sorry, I think I confused something there. It’s nothing that’s going to make you happy, but it’s something that’s going to make me really, really happy. After all, I love seeing how you deal with these kinds of things all the time.\\" Raziel announced, and Eisen stared at her with a slight frown, \\"And what is that?\\"

\\"So, it hasn’t been long since you’ve been impersonated by a really dumb changeling, right?\\" She said, and Eisen nodded his head slowly, \\"Yes, I’ve dealt with that in public and showed that it was a bad fake. What about it?\\"

\\"Well, ever since then, there’s been a couple of people popping up everywhere that are trying to pretend to be you. There’s even some guys selling copies of your necklace there.\\"