Spending My Retirement In A Game

Eisen and Kirisho just looked at each other silently for a little while before the Mist-Spirit spoke up, asking what seemed to be on her mind since Eisen started telling the other world’s side of his life-story, "You mentioned your wife from over there..." She started quietly, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, before the Ghost continued, "Was that this ’Hanako’ that you mentioned when we first met? The woman you confused me for?" Kirisho asked, before once more, the old man nodded his head.

"Yes, that was her." He said with a light smile, and the Spirit slowly raised her head, "You had other wives here in... this world, didn’t you?" Kirisho inquired.

With a rather complicated expression, Eisen moved his fingers through his beard, "I wonder. I don’t truly remember any relationship I had in that form from here... I have not met any of my blood-descendants in this world either, so I don’t have any leads to finding that out. But considering that I have lived for 100 Thousand years, it doesn’t seem quite so unlikely that I was able to move on." The old man explained, before the Spirit slowly nodded her head.

"I see... Eisen, do you think that even without that much time, you would find it in yourself to move on again?" She asked, but the old man just slightly chuckled, "Of course. It is not like I still cling to Hanako. I am ready to move on, but I just never knew where to, so I thought I could just linger for a while longer." He explained, and Kirisho raised her hand in front of her mouth, hiding half her face with her Kimono-like robes, "Is that so?" Kirisho muttered quietly, and Eisen just slowly turned over toward the door, ready to make his way outside, but then spoke again first.

"Since I currently don’t know who I even am anymore, the time to move on seems like it has to wait a little longer." He started, slowly heading toward the door before placing his hand on the handle before turning his body back around toward Kirisho, "So please, until I remember myself, just be patient with me." Eisen smiled, and the Mist-Spirit looked at him rather surprised, still keeping her mouth hidden from him while slightly turning away with a slight nod. "Of course." She replied, and Eisen simply smiled and opened the door, slowly stepping out of the Dungeon where everyone was already waiting with some drinks ready for everyone.

Although ’some’ would probably be a bit of an understatement, and Eisen couldn’t really blame anyone either, considering what everyone here just found out. And so, both Kirisho and Eisen joined the group by sitting down next to them, and then started their second ’Farewell’ party here in Melroe in this private room.

And of course, Eisen let Parc and Rouge drink a little as well. They were technically ’a.d.u.l.ts’ over here, and since they were only drinking Mead and Beer, and no hard liquor, Eisen didn’t really mind it as long as he could keep an eye on what they were drinking exactly.

Although, since they both were craftsmen, they did have comparatively high endurance compared to other occupations so that they could keep their work up properly, despite being just Apprentices.

But not just those two got to drink a bit of alcohol for the first time today, but even Sal and Caria had a little bit to drink, since their bodies were like those of 15 or 16 years olds right now. Melissa still had to wait a while, however.

And Eisen wasn’t really surprised to see that while Sal was obviously extremely weak to Alcohol, due to his abnormal state of having his physical stats cut in half, Caria seemed like she would be able to drink even the two full-blooded dwarves in this room under the table. Since she seemed rather fragile just judging from her body, one wouldn’t really expect that, but on the other hand she was a Rank 5, plant-based monster. She could take toxins like that pretty well, apparently.

Either way, everyone seemed to have a fair bit of fun tonight, using this little time they had to try and forget about what they were speaking about before at least for this evening, before the reality would set in tomorrow morning and everyone had to properly get prepared for possibly making their move to Prototype.

Eisen was a bit disappointed that Koro didn’t come along and have a drink, but in the end, he figured it wasn’t that much of a surprise, since the boy still seemed quite bitter about everything that happened, and Eisen really didn’t expect anything but that either, considering his personality.

Once the evening came to an end, everyone slowly started to make their way either toward their own home or toward their Inn rooms, and Eisen sighed out deeply as he sat down on a chair in his room once everyone had gone to bed.

He of course wanted to make sure that everyone would be fine for now, so he waited a little until everyone that seemed to have had a little too much alcohol before was properly asleep to log off himself. And for now, he did so with Kirisho’s Amulet added to Eisen’s current necklace hanging from his neck.

---

With a groan, Benjamin pushed the capsule open and sat up, taking a look at the blurry room around him as it returned into focus after waking up. And to his surprise, he wasn’t alone in his room.

In the Corner of the room stood a tall-built, muscular man with a rather grim expression on his face and his arms crossed, basically just showing off his well-toned muscles even more. "Yo." The man said, and with a slight chuckle, Benjamin stood up and looked at him.

"Well, well, I wasn’t aware you made your character that much more handsome." The old man pointed out, but the other man just groaned slightly and smiled wrily as he extended his left hand to pull Benjamin into a hug.

"F.u.c.k off, you damn geezer." Andrew sighed, before Benjamin just smiled and properly greeted him, "It’s nice seeing you, Brody."

"Same to you, Eisen." The man said, and with a light and bitter smile on his face, Benjamin looked at him for a short while, "Are you doing alright?" He asked, but Andrew just pressed his palm onto his forehead and shook his head in response, at which point Benjamin spotted the small, seemingly fresh cuts and wounds on Andrew’s neck, arms, and even face.

"Not really. Still feel like makin’ those bastards regret ever f.u.c.kin’ with me and my family, but... You were probably right, it wouldn’t have done me any good in the end. Still feel like havin’ a drink though..." Andrew laughed lowly as he closed his eyes slightly, the dark, pitch-black rings underneath his eyes slightly crumpled up.

"You know I literally have enough to drink to knock out the whole town, right?" Benjamin pointed out, and Andrew slightly chuckled and nodded his head. "Yup, saw that down there when we got our stuff inside... By the way... I hope you don’t mind I brought along two more people than mentioned..." The man pointed out, as if he just remembered mentioning it, and Benjamin just shook his head immediately.

"Don’t worry, there’s enough space for everyone. Who did you bring?" He asked, and Andrew swiftly sighed in relief, "My old lady and lil’ sis. They live in the apartment above the wife and I, same building as my dojo, so I couldn’t really just leave them there..."

"Of course, don’t worry, then. Then let’s go, let me greet everyone." Benjamin said, although the moment he started walking to the door, another man stood in the door of his room with a rather annoyed expression and looked at Benjamin and Andrew.

"Sorry, that will only be possible after we’re done with the checkup." Benjamin’s Doctor pointed out, and the old man sighed and looked at Andrew, "Sorry, could you just wait in the livingroom for now?" He asked, and Andrew just nodded his head, switching places with the Doctor who practically came storming into the room while Andrew left.

"Everything alright?" Benjamin asked, and the Doctor just glared at him, "That’s what I would like to know. Your son just told me that you nearly collapsed this morning. Why didn’t you immediately call me when that happened?" The Doctor asked, and the old man just smiled at him.

"Don’t worry, it’s not that big a deal. I was just feeling a little weak." Benjamin pointed out, but the Doctor looked at him with a rather annoyed expression even then.

"Let me just check up on your data..." The Doctor sighed, and quickly got out his laptop, typing a few things in, and then frowning deeply, "Directly following this morning, your values were at a very dangerous level of disarray, and fluctuating heavily. Your heartrate went down, then up, then down, then up, same with your blood pressure, and I don’t even want to mention your lung-function... But when you were inside of the capsule just now, everything was incredibly stable, and even better than we’ve seen over the past few days... I guess this would be called the calm after the storm then, huh?" The doctor said, seemingly growing more relieved the more he was looking at each of the values, and then sighed deeply.

"Even if it seemed to have miraculously worked out this time, try not to repeat whatever made you this stressed out in the morning. It probably won’t ever turn out this well." He pointed out, and then went over everything more calmly, while Benjamin was thinking about what this might mean. Of course, on a whole different level to what the Doctor was thinking about.

Maybe Benjamin’s body was starting to handle the mana a bit better? If that was the case, then would he be able to actually use things like magic over here at some point? It seemed rather unlikely, but technically, he did already do so. He expelled some of the little mana he had out of his body through the cut he caused on his hand, which could be seen as the most basic form of magic.

It was a bit insane, but it didn’t seem that unlikely, once he actually thought about it. Nothing seemed impossible at the moment, considering that a couple months ago, the situation that Benjamin was currently in was one that everyone would have called the definition of ’impossible’.

Finally, it seemed like now everything was starting to go his way a bit more. Hopefully soon, he would recover Eisen’s memories.