Spending My Retirement In A Game

"A Knight's Pledge?" Eisen muttered out and immediately a notification popped up in front of him.

[Basic Information about Knights - As some changes will appear to the Knight once the pledge has been accepted that may accidentally lead to revelation of the existence of the game, the Player has to be warned and informed about basic changes so that they can be prepared.

By becoming the Knight of a Player, an NPC will gain some usually player-specific abilities, such as the regular chat option to only communicate with their Lord or other Knights serving the same Lord. Other than that, they will also gain mock-immortality, as it will be possible for the Player to revive them. The conditions for revival will depend on cause of death.

More specific information on the Knight system has to be gathered In-Game.]

Surprised at this notification, Eisen carefully read through it and began carefully thinking. When he heard it at first, Eisen wanted to decline since he didn't want to be a Person's 'Lord'. It was a different thing with pure monsters and taming them like it was the case with Caria and Melissa, since they would otherwise just end up being wild beasts and with Kiron, who was basically just a person that was 'technically' a monster and even had a parent that wasn't a monster, having a Follower like that just seemed way too weird to Eisen.

But now there were some reasons for Eisen to accept. While he didn't want anyone else in his group to be far away from him, having someone like Kiron that was capable of taking care of himself quite well, that knew a lot about the world they were in simply because he lived in it for 150 years, and that he could talk to through the chat function was definitely useful for many things, especially the thing that was coming closer and closer without delay through Eisen's killing-spree in the monster-shop. He was only two levels away from reaching level 99, and after finishing the quest he would get then, he could reach level 100 and found a guild just as Jyuuk suggested.

Eisen already made plans to prepare for that quest as well as possible, which was part of the reason why he wanted to get the Bookbinding skill. According to Jyuuk, it would require the Originals to learn many different skills or have certain achievements to make it happen, so Eisen wanted to prepare as much as he could before getting that quest, but it seemed like that wouldn't work just as well now.

And the reason that Eisen didn't want to leave anyone in his current group behind or let them move alone was quite simple as well. Bree couldn't take care of herself all that well, since she wasn't capable of fighting all that well yet. She had been getting better with the hammer, but it would still be a while off until she could fight alone.

He obviously didn't want to let his tamed beasts go, as they were litterally just children and Eisen just didn't feel comfortable leaving them alone. As for Komer, Eisen wanted to, at least for now, keep an Eye on him as much as he could. He didn't know whether or not Komer would end up returning to scamming again because he was desperate if Eisen wasn't there.

So if Kiron joined his group, Eisen would finally have someone he could entrust with tasks such as finding a great spot to start a town, or to simply go on recon missions if necessary. This would be an immense help in the long run, but it would require Kiron to become his 'subordinate'.

While Eisen was thinking about all of this, Kiron, who was still bowing in front of him, lightly nodded his head.

"It is so. I am deeply indebted to you for freeing me from imprisonment. And I know that you are of a pure heart, you and the other four that reached the peak of existence all are. You are all my father's benefactors and friends, after all, especially you." Kiron explained, leaving Eisen to simply sigh out loud.

"What do you mean when you say that we're your father's benefactors?" He asked, before Kiron shook his head.

"I do not know such details myself, I have only heard this from my father myself, and he did not tell me much in the end. But what I do know is that he trusts you more than he does the other gods. That is why I trust you as well and swear to protect you as you regain your former glory."

Eisen crossed his arms and began scratching his beard slowy while deep in thought, and simply ended up sighing loudly. "I see… Maybe I can find out something about that sooner or later. But with your current pledge, I will not accept." The moment that Eisen spoke this out, Kiron ripped his head up and stared at Eisen. "But what else can I swear on? I have already given you my life, what else could I give you that you do not have?" He asked nervously, but Eisen simply shook his head.

"It's not that. I want you to 'give me less'. I will accept your pledge as long as you change the terms. I do not want you to give your life for me. If your father really trusts me so much, I do not want to betray that by having his son give his life to save mine. And I do not want you to be my shield or my sword. You may have to be our main combatant, yes, but I don't want to treat you like a tool, but a friend. If, in any way, it is possible to have a Knight's pledge voice out equal standing, then I will accept it." Eisen explained with a clear voice while Kiron stared up at him in awe.

"Equal standing? Knights are supposed to be their Lord's servants, but you want us to be companions? If this is truly what you want, I will repeat my pledge. I would still be your servant in the broadest way, but in a different way." Kiron smiled lightly as he continued bowing in front of Eisen.

"As long as I live, I pledge to be your Loyal Knight that will walk alongside you and protect you from any danger that may come your way by fighting your enemies in your stead. "

Eisen smiled softly as he heard Kiron rephrase his pledge. He felt far more comfortable with this one. "I humbly accept, Kiron." He said, and immediately some notifications popped up in front of him.

[Kiron is now officially your Knight]

[Due to the unusual pledge, Kiron's loyalty to you will be far stronger and his will to fight has been increased]

Eisen quickly read through the notifications before smiling softly and then waved them away before Kiron stood up and looked at him.

"I thank you, M'Lord. You will not ever regret accepting me as your Knight." The Half-Dragon smiled, as he lightly bowed forward again, and Eisen simply chuckled.

"I'm sure I won't. Thanks for accepting my conditions as well" The old man smiled as he sat down and leaned against a rock, before he looked around the group of monsters with a soft smile while talking to both Sky and Kiron. Soon enough, he laid his eyes on the small Hobgoblin boy that was rolled up at the edge of the group, and Eisen chose to call him over. He did seem to be injured or sick before. Slowly, the Hobgoblin came over to Eisen nervously, basically crawling over on all fours.

"Come here, lil' guy." Eisen smiled as he was extending his hand over to the young Hobgoblin, who grabbed it in return and got closer. "So, are you hurt anywhere? I saw that you were dragging your leg before."

After Eisen asked this, the Hobgoblin hesitantly nodded and pointed at his left ankle and his right ribs.

"I see, so that's where you're hurt? Can I take a look?" He asked while grabbing some potions to use on it if necessary.

Once the Hobgoblin nodded again, Eisen leaned forward and looked closely at him. As Eisen thought, there didn't seem to be any recent external injuries, but instead there were injuries caused a while ago that didn't seem to be able to properly close. Everything was swollen up and the Hobgoblin was immediately in immense pain when Eisen even lightly touched the area around it.

After taking a closer look, it seemed like there were some kind of metallic splinters stuck inside its skin that wouldn't allow everything to properly heal, so Eisen ended up sighing loudly.

So that he would get a slightly better idea of the metal's position, Eisen chose to use his mana by pouring it out of his hand and simply taking a look at what he could find inside of the Hobgoblin's body. Soon enough, Eisen found the small shard of metal in its chest and ankle.

"Sorry, kid, this is probably going to hurt a bit… Kiron, can you hold him for a while so that he won't fidget and move around too much?" Eisen asked, and his Knight instantly did as told.

While the Hobgoblin became scared, Eisen began first transmuting the metal from sharp shards that would simply cut the Hobgoblin up further into small spheres that could be easily pulled out. During this procedure, it was already writhing around in pain, but Eisen quickly continued on, further using transmutation to slowly pull the metal out of its body after making small cuts on the top of its skin again.

Eisen felt horrible for doing something like this, but if it wasn't done, it would probably die soon. Once these two pieces of metal were pulled out, the Hobgoblin began settling down a bit, since its main source of pain was now gone, but of course he still was in quite a lot of pain.

Because of that, Eisen grabbed a potion and slowly poured it into the Hobgoblin's mouth. The external wounds quickly closed up again, but the swellings didn't go down and or rather slime, that he was going to use to help it recover. It seemed like it still hurt quite a lot when Eisen touched the area around it, so he had to come up with somehing else.

Eisen looked through his backpack to find anything that he could possibly use at the moment, and then grabbed two items that would probably work. First, the Recovery Jelly that Eisen made before while experimenting with different combinations of Amran and Byron, and then some simple cloth, which Eisen quickly ripped up to make some simple bandages.

Eisen always carried the Jellies and Mists around in case he would end up needing them at some point, so he was happy that he had them with him even now. Quickly, Eisen spread the recovery Jelly on the inside of the simple bandages quite thinly and began wrapping them around the Hobgoblin's ankle and chest to somehow let its wounds slowly heal over time.

"Sorry about that, kid. I had to, I hope you're not angry with me." Eisen smile as he placed his hand on the Hobgoblins shoulder as it was shaking its head, and Eisen brought him over to the rock he was leaning against before and rolled up some more cloth to make small pillow for the Hobgoblin while it was lying down and instantly fell asleep.

"Well, that was quite gruesome…" Eisen muttered out quietly as he looked at the quietly snoring Monster next to him, before sighing loudly and shaking his head. "Let's not think about that for now and just wait for my friend." Eisen said as he was looking at the two people in front of him, Kiron and Sky, who stared back at him in return.

It seemed like his party grew by two more people today.

---

As Eisen was staring up into the sky while talking to his two new companions, he heard the sound of something rushing closer through the nearby high grass. Immediately, all of the monsters reacted basically in perfect synchronicity, staring into a single direction together, while Kiron was standing in a position that would allow him to attack anything that was coming closer if necessary.

Eisen jumped up at that same time as well, trying to figure out who it was that was coming toward them. And soon enough, Eisen managed to figure out that it was indeed the person he was expecting, Jyuuk. At immense speed, he was apparently riding on Tsurishika, who was looking quite different to before, which meant that he probably evolved at least once since then.

With a smile, Eisen looked at the group of monsters and held up his hand to the side. "Don't worry, that's who we've been waiting for."