Spending My Retirement In A Game

"Is that so? I am glad to meet someone with the same opinions as me. Even if we are in the realm of the Crystal Dragon King, who was once a simple Monster himself, the majority of those that I’ve met are of the opinion that monsters are nothing but a plague, while the most beautiful, intelligent monsters we can have are soaring through the sky above them. It is quite sad to hear."

"It sure is. Don’t worry, while there are still a lot of people that think that way, there are plenty that realize that not every monster is the same." With a reassuring tone, the old man looked at the woman and then down at the small piece of wood that she was holding.

Thinking that this topic was a little heavy, Eisen made the attempt to change the mood a little bit, "What is it that you’re trying to make there?" He inquired, and the woman slowly looked down at the wood and the carving knife, "Ah... Nothing incredibly special. It is just something that I always wanted to try out. Time passes rather quickly here, incredibly so, so I figured I should try and spend it well before it’s gone forever."

With a quiet laugh, Eisen nodded his head, "That is quite a nice view to have on this. If you’ll allow me, do you want me to show you a couple of tips?" The old man inquired, "I’m a craftsman, after all."

"Oh, that would just be great! Thank you." The woman replied with a smile on her face, and the old man quickly stood up as he summoned Bai out of his soul storage and told it to transform into a carving-knife while the old man grabbed a small piece of wood similar to the one that the woman had been holding out of his item storage.

He made his way outside the item-storage room again and grabbed Bai from the chair that it transformed itself on, and the woman looked at the old man and the knife curiously. The only thing that Eisen could do was chuckle slightly at her expression, "What, did you expect a living person visiting the heavens to be normal?"

With a laugh from herself, the woman shook her head, "I guess I should not." She said, and Eisen turned back toward his piece of wood. He showed the soul next to him how she was supposed to hold both the wood and the carving knife first, and then went over the rough basic motions. Of course, Eisen hurried it up so that he could quickly bring his piece of wood to a similar state that the woman’s was in, and then continued to show her how she was supposed to handle things like details or finishing something like this up.

The woman was actually getting the hang of this rather quickly, to Eisen’s pleasant surprise. He wasn’t exactly sure what she was trying to make, but he tried to help her bring it to a pretty nice point and to a new level of quality.

But somehow, Eisen’s eyes got stuck on the piece of wood when it started to take on a specific form. It wasn’t an amazingly detailed form, but it was still something that Eisen seemed to vaguely remember in the back of his mind.

"That’s... From a children’s book, isn’t it?" He muttered out quietly, and the woman raised her brows surprised, "Oh yes, it is! How did you know? It was hard to find even while I was alive... Did they start publishing it again?" She asked curiously, but Eisen just slowly shook his head.

"No... I don’t think so." The old man replied, as he continued to watch the woman work. The small sigil that looked like a classic shield, resembling the shape of a diamond, had a small flame carved onto its center with two swords by its side.

After she was seemingly done with the casual carving, she took out something else. She grabbed a set with simple paint and chose to give the wooden piece a little bit of color, painting it in the same colors of that in the original picture book. At least Eisen thought that’s what it was. While he couldn’t directly remember it, he seemed to simply know that it really was painted in the right colors. She seemed to have written something on the backside that Eisen couldn’t see right now, but it didn’t seem to be anything incredibly long.

When the small item was finished, Eisen looked at the woman was a blank expression as he held forward the small bag filled with all the coins that Eisen made in this realm, "Would it... be possible for me to buy that from you? I just feel like I should."

The woman raised her brows and looked at the small, palm-sized sigil in her hand and then turned back toward Eisen, "And I feel like I should accept that offer. But please, you helped me with my carving, so just keep that money."

"I would, but I have to leave soon. Since I can’t take this money with me, I think it’s better left with you than wasted." The old man pointed out, and with a bit of hesitation, the woman grabbed the pouch with the coins inside while Eisen grabbed the small piece that she made. This would be another small, nice souvenir. It was pretty random, and nothing that was directly related to this Dragon Realm, but Eisen figured this was better than nothing. This might be a nice souvenir for Kiron, after all, the sigil was from a story about a small, weak, and excluded boy that was different to all the others, which made his way through the world to become a knight while gaining strength.

"How do I even know this...?" The old man sighed. He knew for sure that he never read a story like this before, but he somehow remembered what it was about perfectly. It felt like Eisen would somehow end up remembering that story if he slept tonight as well.

For now, Eisen just put it into his item storage and then stepped over toward the door. He turned around and looked at the woman with a light smile on his face, "I’ll probably end up coming back sooner or later, so I’ll try and come visit you when I do." The old man said, and the woman quietly chuckled as she nodded her head, "That would be great. It was fun speaking to you."

"I can only say the same back." And with that, Eisne stepped outside and activated his Draconic Demon King transformation, quickly sprouting wings through it, before just lifting off into the air. Once they were floating there, Eisen turned over toward Ambriel, "Let’s leave." The old man told them with a slight glare, incredibly opposed to the expression that he had just now while speaking to that woman, but Eisen didn’t even want to pretend that he could stand Ambriel anymore.

The Angel slowly nodded their head and then waved their hand to the side. The moment they did so, a large white gate appeared right behind Ambriel and slowly opened up. Behind that gate, Eisen could see the giant space filled with numerous gates that they were in before.

The old man flew into the gate and immediately felt something like a slight pull on him, as if any sort of trace that Eisen had been inside of this realm had been pulled from him. Well, he still had the few items that he was given in there, so it wasn’t that big a deal or anything. It just felt slightly uncomfortable.

But for now, that didn’t matter. Eisen took a look around to find the next gate that he could enter through, but before he did, Ambriel suggested something else.

"Before you enter the next realm, you should rest a bit, like Lord Trygan suggested to you." The Angel said and waved their hand to the side, before a large, white, fluffy bed appeared right behind him. But Eisen just shook his head as he slowly squatted down on the ground before sitting down cross-legged.

"No thanks. I don’t need a bed." The old man said as he leaned up against the wall behind him and closed his eyes. He could practically feel Ambriel’s glares, but Eisen seriously didn’t care, "Night. See you in an hour." The old man said, and then took a deep breath. Before he knew it, Eisen fell asleep, soon finding himself in the space where all his memories seemed to gather.

For now he ignored the golden orbs and focused on the three white ones. Eisen didn’t know which one was which, but he knew what the memories could be about. About heaven, about Trygan, and about that children’s book. He would try and learn the memories to all three of these, so it didn’t matter which one he picked first anyway. The old man stretched his hand out toward a random one of these white spheres of light, and then watched as the space around him changed.

And to the old man’s surprise... the Eisen that he was looking at wasn’t one. This version of Eisen seemed to be in his late 20’s or early 30’s. Physically at least, Eisen knew that he had a much longer natural life-span, being a half-giant, so the Eisen he was looking at was probably over a hundred years old at least. But it really felt pretty unusual to see his young self just walking around there.

This made Eisen wonder about what exactly this memory was about even more, since this must be a memory from around 100 Thousand years ago.

The old, or rather the ’young’ Eisen, hacked down onto the ground and removed a little bit of rock, seemingly while mining for metals. But what he found in there was anything but a metal. It was a dark, muddy-colored egg the size of Eisen’s head.

And it made the old man wonder if this was supposed to be Trygan’s egg. Because it looked very different to what Eisen expected.