Spending My Retirement In A Game

The others thought about it for a moment and in the end simply agreed, as Xenia’s words did seem to make some sort of sense to them. At the very least they all understood what she was getting at, "Then what if you can do even more with experience than we think is possible? Create a literal rift from here to there, or somehow alter someone’s body over there so that they can produce mana and use magic freely."

"But then why would they market this as a ’game’? Wouldn’t it be easier to somehow extract the experience from the world in another way?" Evalia asked, but Jyuuk slowly shook his head. He had read up on how experience was supposed to work in this world, so he was the most knowledgeable about it amongst everyone here.

"Not exactly. There’s no way to directly ’extract’ experience in its raw form, since it doesn’t exist that way. Experience is something produced by living beings when different conditions come true. Let’s say... People themselves produce experience not in the form of levels, but rather in the form of skill proficiencies. Sometimes we can produce normal experience and level up through actions, quests, or special conditions, but usually that’s not the case. Monsters and animals on the other hand produce both proficiency and regular experience in an equal manner."

"Then wouldn’t it just be easier to have some gods create different strong monsters and then have them kill them again?"

"Yes, but it would be inefficient. As I said, experience is produced, it’s not something that’s innately in a living being. It would take a long time for those monsters to have experience worth speaking of. Although, I think they probably did just that already, when they first created monsters, now that I think about it. But instead of having the gods kill them, the ’Artificials’ are taking over that task. I think the thing is that both we originals and artificials have an extraordinarily high rate of experience absorption, possibly a level that not even gods can achieve." Jyuuk suggested, "No experience is truly lost. The experience worth one level that we lose after death is probably just the experience necessary to directly revive us, which would be a worthwhile investment. But imagine at some point, in one, five, or even ten years on our side, when some of those artificials with their extremely large absorption rate reach the peak-level. After the first one, more and more people will get there. At some point, they will have gathered much more experience than just the five of us would have ever been able to gather."

"So what..?" Eisen asked with a deep frown as he ground his teeth together, "Is that supposed to mean we were just guinea pigs? Really just people supposed to figure out how it’s possible to live in this world and how experience is supposed to be used?" The old man looked down at the ground, once more getting a slight bit agitated just thinking about this. He didn’t particularly like being toyed with like that.

Eisen stared at the ground and took a deep breath to calm himself down, "Alright, let’s say that’s the case... Let’s say this is really what’s happening, there’s at least one good news in it. One ressource that we were unsure about until now." The old man started, and while the others weren’t particularly sure what he was saying, Brody seemed to have understood somewhat.

"Time." He pointed out, and Eisen immediately nodded, "Yes, exactly. It will take years and years to reach that level of experience for even one person. Until they reach a point at which they have a higher level of experience than the five of us used to have combined, it should take much longer. They should at least wait for that point to make it worth it and not a complete waste of time."

"That’s for sure..." Jyuuk muttered, and then leaned back in his seat, "I wish we had some kind of way to confirm this theory. That would really, really calm me down if we had any way to confirm that this is truly the case. We really wouldn’t need to rush, at least not on this side."

And with those words, Jyuuk raised a little bit of confusion in the others. Immediately, everyone that was here beside the five originals stared at him in confusion, "What do you mean, ’at least not on this side’?"

"Ah..." Xenia started, "Well, I think he may mean one of two things. Either, he means that time here is four times slower than over there, so one day over there is four days over here, or... he means that we’re kind of in danger over there at the moment as well."

"Hm? Again, what do you mean?" Komer asked immediately as he jumped up and stared at everyone there, and Eisen looked up at him with a smile, "Samuel has been trying to get rid of us over there. He made armed men intrude Evalia’s home, someone burnt down Jyuuk’s lab, the triad attacked Brody’s home, had Xenia’s stalker-ex boyfriend break into her apartment, and not only had my brother come to my house with a presumably loaded gun and made my son-in-law literally go crazy enough to try and attack his own daughter."

Everyone in this room looked at the old man in shock and confusion, as a figure of mist appeared right in front of him, staring down at Eisen intensely, "What did you just say?" Kirisho asked, and Eisen looked at her with a simple smile, "Exactly what I said."

"I... I can’t believe this... Why didn’t you tell u-" Kirisho started with an angry expression, upset at the way that Eisen so nonchalantly revealed that they were hiding such things from them until now. But Eisen had something else to say about that.

"Why should we have? Would it have changed anything? Would you have been able to help us? I’m already well aware of how anxious some of you are after we revealed this all to you. Thinking ’will they come back’ every time we go to bed because you’re scared we want to live our lives over there rather than here. Why should we have given you another reason to be even more scared that we may not come back?" Eisen asked in a clear voice as he looked up at the Spirit from his seated position. He figured that would be enough to make the others understand, at least. That’s what his thought process was for not really telling them about the extent of the dangers going on on the other side. They’ve been speaking about small things, but they never told those from this side about the more serious things going on on the other side. Simply to protect them, really.

But before Eisen knew it, he felt a firm hand hit his cheek. It was weak, and there was a miniscule, if any, feeling of impact even. But it still had enough strength and meaning to it to completely shake up Eisen’s mind.

With a deep, angry stare, Kirisho stood in front of Eisen, "Don’t you dare speak as if this was for our sake! You may be thinking that you did this for us, for us who can’t do anything for you over there, but what about Komer then? He knew as little about it as we do, and he is on that side with you, is he not?"

"Komer is just 20 years old. I didn’t want to involve him in something that-"

"Stop it already!" Immediately, Kirisho interrupted the old man, "These are all excuses! I understand that your reason for not telling us about the other side were truly genuine! You may have killed not only yourselves but us as well just by muttering it, but why wouldn’t you tell us about this? Why wouldn’t you try to get our opinion on it? Who knows, maybe we simply have better ideas of how to handle this than any of you five do!"

Slowly, Eisen turned his eyes and glanced at the other originals. It seemed like they were rather conflicted as well. They had spoken about this before, that they wouldn’t particularly try and hide it from them to the level of lying about it, but that they would try and keep it low-profile. Like they just did, they would speak about it if it came up or if they were talking about these things anyway, but they wouldn’t go out of their way to start a conversation with the goal of telling the others about the situation.

With a deep frown, Komer stared at Eisen, "You realize that we sell security systems, right? Surveilance cameras, special fences, infrared sensors, literally anything you may need. You’re letting me lead something that you’re actively trying to turn into the largest commercial conglomerate in this world, but you won’t let me make a few calls for you in the other world?"

"They have a point..." Evalia muttered quietly, and immediately Komer turned his head toward her, "Of course we do! We’re not idiots, at least not as much as you seem to think we are! Eisen, give me your address over there right now, I’m heading over to see what we can do."

"Komer, what-"

"Eisen." The young man interrupted Eisen, staring down at him with a deep glare that he only ever saw him with during meetings related to starlight as a company. This was the expression Komer had when he wasn’t going to step down anymore.

With a slight sigh, Eisen opened his and Komer’s chat and types his address in it so that Komer would be able to easily see this information outside the capsule as well, and the young man stared at him intensely.

"Good, then I’m heading off immediately. I’ll log off outside, don’t worry." Komer said as he practically ran down the stairs with a deep frown on his face, just a few moments later slamming the front door of this shop shut.