Spending My Retirement In A Game

’The Gods?’ Eisen thought to himself quietly as the people that just entered through the large door came closer and sat down at seats that shot up from the ground to form seatings in a fashion similar to a parliament meeting of sorts, with all the attention focused on the five, six including Samuel, sitting in the center of the room.

"What do you mean? Are you saying these are the gods of this world?" Jyuuk asked with evident surprise written on his face, while Eisen tried to look around the room in search of a particular figure, obviously with his truth-seeing-eyes activated.

He knew that he couldn’t possibly inspect ’gods,’ and there wasn’t even an option to do so at the moment, but he was still able to see their mana. They were in the most intense colors that he has ever seen at any point so far, and not only that, they had certain ’textures,’ as if they were simply images.

One Goddess had mana that looked like the leaves of a tree, while another one had mana that looked like an amalgamation of different runes and magic circles. Eisen looked around until he saw a particular type of mana. It was slightly translucent and broke the light, making what was behind it seem somewhat distorted, precisely like a crystal.

With a grin, Eisen stood up with his eyes set on the source of that exact mana. "Eisen, what are you doing?" Brody asked, confused, turning his eyes away from looking at the gods toward the old man next to him. But that old man ignored him.

With slow but steady steps, Eisen walked through the hall toward a few of the gods. Of course, that caused even some conversation amongst the gods, while one of them, directly in front of Eisen, stood up and crossed his arms.

"What do you think you’re doing, youngster?" A large man, outwardly maybe in his mid-thirties, asked with a scowl. He had a quite similar build to Eisen, although his muscles were more formed toward combat than crafts.

With a surprised expression, Eisen began to smile while running his fingers through his beard. "Uh-oh? I haven’t been called that in a long time. Feels kind of nostalgic, though." He laughed before the obviously hot-headed man looked at Samuel.

"Hey, Administrator, why did you even call us here? What’s so special about those five?" The god asked before Samuel quietly chuckled. "We’ll explain that in a bit, Gonor, don’t worry. Although I’m surprised, you don’t recognize the one man that beat the living crap out of you in the past." Samuel asked with a grin as he pointed at Brody, making the originals question whether that was always part of the story, or he just changed it within this moment.

After looking at the originals one more time, Gonor, the god of combat, sat down again quietly while continually staring at Brody with wide-open eyes, leaving Eisen to move forward once more while the talking of the gods became even louder.

But Eisen ignored this, and he then stood in front of a certain tall, young man. And although he looked young outwardly, he had a right amount of features that showed he was quite old, similar to Eisen himself as well, although this man didn’t have the same build as Eisen, but was instead ’scrawny,’ for lack of a better word.

"I’m sorry if I’m wrong, but are you, by any chance, Trygan?" The old man asked, before the god in front of him slowly stood up, revealing his crystal-like white-grey eyes.

"I should have known. Even without the memories of your previous life, you have led in this world; it is impossible to fool you." He said with a powerful, but at the same time extremely cheerful, voice. Slowly, the god then bowed forward respectfully. "I am glad to be able to see you again, Father."

As Trygan exclaimed this, the talking of the gods became even louder and turned into something akin to what you could only call an uproar, and also the other originals were trying to figure out what was going on. With a loud laugh, Eisen then looked at Trygan in front of him, patting him on the back as if they had known each other for years. "As I thought. Well then, Trygan, how about we have you explain the situation to us?" Eisen suggested before he looked at Samuel, who nodded and shrugged with a smile.

"Sure, I don’t mind that at all. Now then, please come here, and we will talk. Oh, and if any of you didn’t figure it out yet, these five are the ’Original’ Players, those with the background lore to have peaked in the game world."

As Samuel explained this, it became more than evident that all of these gods were aware that this was actually a game, despite being AIs in the end.

"Alright, now then. Trygan, if you may." Samuel said with a smile before the Dragon-God nodded his head. "We called you here as a simple introduction. As gods, we are aware of the role you have been given by those in your world, as guidance for the others that will join this world. The Administrator told us to assist you with this." Trygan explained as he looked over at Samuel before the ’Administrator’ nodded.

"Exactly. You’re leading roles in this game, but that’s a little too much pressure, despite your obvious abilities. But of course, I can’t just have you become instantly even more OP than you already are. I’m thinking more large-scale." Samuel told the five originals before Trygan continued.

"We were told that you wish to found a town on an island group central to many different continents of this world. The Administrator told us that it is probably the perfect place for you to do so. But there is an issue with that. You are, by far, not strong enough to conquer those islands. There are monsters reaching up to Rank 8 on some of them. The most central island should be within your reach, but not so much on the others. You see, those islands are an ancient land governed directly by us gods." Trygan told them before the five originals looked at each other in surprise.

"What do you mean? Like, you live on those islands or something?" Xenia immediately asked before Trygan shook his head. "We are not governing them like that. Rather, you could say that they are representations of us and our powers. The central island is a ’no man’s’ land and the largest of the islands. None of us govern that island. There is, however, an island inhabited by different greater and lesser dragons. Some are kind, some not so much, and only the far minority is sentient enough to be spoken to in any way. That would be my island. Then there is an island with monsters based around the usage of weapons and quite rough martial arts in a natural way. That would, for example, be the island of Gonor, who you met just now."

As Trygan told them that, they all could hear Gonor scoffing in the background, but they quickly ignored that and continued the conversation. Further explaining everything in a more game-like way, Samuel then spoke up. "As Trygan explained, each island there represents one of the gods. Since that’s the case, there’s obviously a lot more islands than is publicly known by NPCs, mostly because nobody can actually get close enough to confirm the numbers. Scale-wise, I would say the everything together is large enough to be seen as a country. Anyway, each Island has a town. Some more developed than others, of course. But as they are towns, they also have town cores. Once you have founded the town on the central island, the only island that doesn’t have an actual town with a town core, it’s possible to take over other towns. That can either be done through war, or diplomacy as in, forcefully taking them over, or making the towns join you on their own. There are more requirements for that, but you’ll figure it out on your own. It’s not that complicated."

With a slow nod, Eisen made plans in his head for all of that, before he turned to Samuel. "Alright, that’s quite useful to know. But why is it that you called us in front of all of these gods to tell us about it?"

After slightly grinning, Samuel looked at the five players in front of him. "All of these gods will give one of the towns you take over a blessing. Obviously, the one on their assigned island, and for that, I thought introductions would be useful. Also, because each of these gods will give you a little something for the guild once you have taken over the town on their island. And honestly? I wanted you to meet them just cause I thought it’d be fun." Samuel explained before the five originals looked at each other in surprise.

"Seriously? That’s the reason?" Brody asked with a frown before Samuel nodded.

"Mostly, yes. This space is the best place to explain and show to you, the gods who know about this being a game, though." Samuel explained, before standing up and walking around the table a bit. "In this game, there are only a few entities that know about it: the Gods, and those directly connected to your in-game character. In the game world, that’s called those connected to your souls. Whether this is tamed monsters, or some NPC you marry in here doesn’t matter. But only the Gods will know the ins-and-outs. Those directly connected to your in-game characters will most likely ignore it, except if you talk to them directly about it. I recommend not doing that either, though. Anyway, these gods know, and if you happen to meet them while playing, no need to worry about what you say. They’re aware that they are nothing but fake beings that exist for the pleasure of us real people." Samuel explained with a grin, and Eisen frowned deeply.

"Samuel, even if they know they are artificial intelligence, it’s a bit rude to say it like that, isn’t it? They have actual emotions, actual worries, and fears, so saying that they are ’fake’ isn’t right, now is it? And to them, this is obviously still their real world. Even if we didn’t actually spend thousands of years here, Trygan just talked about me not remembering the life I led in this world. That’s not something he would say just for lore, is it?" Eisen pointed out before Samuel looked at him in surprise, and he seemed not to be the only one that felt that way. Even Gonor, who was one of the more hot-headed and witty Gods in this hall, didn’t know what to say. But soon enough, Samuel scratched the back of his head before speaking up. "Sorry, I guess I should have worded myself better. I just now realized that this sounded pretty villain-esque, huh? Of course, to them, this is a real world. But we know better, we know that they’re not actually real. I mean, I was there when this world sprouted into existence with the press of a button. Guess I did forget what our AI specialists managed with this one. They are like real people, so you’re right, I shouldn’t talk like that."

After Samuel apologized, he looked at Trygan and nudged his head toward the group of other gods, telling the Dragon God to leave again. "Anyway, that’s basically all that this was. You were all just given the role to found a kingdom that is supported by every god in existence to create a base-point for other players, while they slowly make their way through the world, found guilds of their own, and inevitably try to take control of your kingdom from you. Alright, let’s get going, Eisen’s family is waiting."