Spending My Retirement In A Game

"Oh! Great halberd! Great weapon!" Gran exclaimed excitedly as he started to swing the item that the old man just finished for him around, although the old man quickly stopped him from doing so and took the halberd from him for a little bit again.

"Stop that. It's not a toy, so don't treat it like one." The old man said with a slightly annoyed expression, and Gran looked back at him with a slow nod, "Aye... Gran sorry..." He replied while looking down at the ground, and Eisen just sighed.

"Fine, you can have it already, but don't swing it around, you hear?"

"Aye!" Gran exclaimed as he took the halberd back, but was just holding it tightly in his large hands for now. Meanwhile, Eisen returned to his work. Since he already had the forge up and running, Eisen figured he should work on the metallic parts of Gran's armor first.

And since it wasn't really all that much, Eisen just had to create three plates in total. One covering Gran's chest over his heart, one protecting him alongside the center of his back, and one that would be attached to the top of his helmet. Besides that, Gran didn't want any metal to be added to his armor, and Eisen respected that. He was supposed to make this gear for Gran and not for himself, after all.

So while these metal parts were cooling down, Eisen started to work on the leather parts. Since the elemental spirit already prepared everything that Eisen needed for that, all that the old man really had to do was cut the leather into the right shapes, which was something that Eisen could do relatively quickly.

And before he even knew it, the elemental spirit already prepared the thread that Eisen needed, so he could just get started on his sowing. He even prepared the right type of metallic thread, and was even keeping the mana-thread maker ready for Eisen as well.

The old man was really glad to have the spirit around, he was speeding these processes up a lot. And sure, Eisen's current apprentices were great at what they were doing, and they were great assistants in a workshop at all, but considering that the elemental spirit was literally part of Eisen's soul, he was obviously able to know exactly what Eisen was trying to do without any sort of explanation, and even went through the same thought-processes as him. So, it managed to figure out what Eisen needed before he himself even figured it out completely, so it was as if the spirit was basically completing him perfectly.

The old man put all the pieces together and then started to finish off by cleaning the leather armor with metallic plates attached to it a little more. And since this meant that it was now finished, as it wouldn't receive things like enchantments and magic inscriptions, the old man handed the armorset off to Gran again as well.

Of course, the large warrior immediately stripped out of his current armor and clothes and changed into his new armor excitedly.

"Strong armor!" He exclaimed excitedly, and Eisen looked at him with a slight smile on his face, "It is. The leather comes from a Rhinoceros Turtle, so it's especially sturdy." The old man explained to him, as he then slowly stood up from his seat and stretched.

"Alright, for now, I'll take a quick look at your mount, and then I have to rest for about an hour before I can get to work on its armor. But then, I'll focus all my attention onto it." Eisen told Gran, who stared at Eisen for a moment and then quietly rumbled to himself, "Okay. Sleep, then make."

With a nod, the old man made his way out of the house and approached the red, scarred ground dragon. It seemed a bit aggressive toward others as it stared at Eisen and started growling when he came close, but the old man just smiled as he stretched his hand out.

The ground-dragon stared at Eisen some more before focusing its attention on the hand.

It slowly approached Eisen and then started to sniff his hand for a bit, and then slowly pressed its snout against the old man's palm, before Eisen carefully rubbed over its scales.

With a loud laugh that made it seem like the ground was quaking, Gran approached Eisen and hit his back excitedly, "Buldor like!"

Chuckling quietly, Eisen nodded his head, "I'm glad he does. By the way... what is he, actually?"

Gran looked back at Eisen and tilted his head to the side confusedly, "Buldor is... Buldor. Gift from master."

Eisen raised his brows as he continued rubbing his hand over Buldor's scales, "Really? Then maybe I should ask him about it when I get the chance." The old man muttered quietly, before getting a pretty good idea, "Actually, I have a suggestion. I would like to sleep here, so can you let Buldor sleep where he's laying right now, and sit down against him like when we met just now? And face me while you're doing that, please. Ah, and stay like that the whole time while I'm asleep."

It seemed like Gran was a bit confused, but he wasn't directly opposed to it. With a satisfied expression, the old man sat down on the ground cross-legged.

--- 

Benjamin finally got out of the capsule again, after just having a quick dream about meeting the others' apprentices, which was probably spawned from meeting Gran just now. There wasn't anything overly special to those memories, but they were something valuable to know. Like this, he would be able to recognize the apprentices of the others should he meet them in the divine realms.

The old man stretched and slowly made his way out of his room. He stepped into the livingroom, where he saw Andrew sitting with a glass of whiskey in his hand just leaning all the way into the armchair.

Benjamin smiled as he sat down on the couch and slapped Andrew's knee. He jolted up and looked at Benjamin immediately, nearly spilling the contents of his drink, "What the- Oh... Eisen, it's just you." Andrew sighed loudly, not even trying to hide his current mood, and the old man looked at him with his brows raised.

"Is everything alright?" He inquired, and Andrew slowly raised his head as he looked at Benjamin. Andrew properly sat up in the armchair and looked into Benjamin's eyes.

"I don't know, actually. I... visited the Island of Combat today. And I remembered something then." Andrew explained, and the old man in front of him looked back with a bright smile on his face, "Really? That's great! What was the memory?" He inquired, and Andrew looked back at him nervously.

"That's the thing, man. I don't know if it's really great or not... I remembered fighting alongside a friend I had, but he died because of a mistake I made." Andrew pointed out, "I fucked up. I was cocky, overconfident. I apparently didn't even peak at the time yet. I think I was like... Level 800 or something? We were fightin' some monster, and my friend just... He was cleaved clean in half, and I couldn't help 'im. We wanted to make it more of a challenge, and left all healing items behind... Like a big fuckin' game of chicken. Well, I lost that game, because I chickened out after he didn't and died. And do you know what the worst fuckin' thing is? I remember who that guy was to me, he was my best fuckin' friend, and he just died. But I remember nothing beside that one fight and his death. I just feel so... disgusting." Andrew said as he looked up at the ceiling, and his hands were squeezing the glass in his hands tightly, so much so that Benjamin was scared it was about to shatter into pieces soon.

"I understand what you mean. That' s a horrible feeling, only remembering snippets of something important like that. You remember your emotions, you remember your connections to other people and how important they were to you. But you don't know anything else. Their name, maybe, but that's absolutely it. You don't know about their personality besides what you saw in your memory, and you don't know any other moment you shared with that person. It's truly horrifying, isn't it?" 

Andrew looked at Benjamin, staring at this old man's face, "Who did you remember?"

"..." Benjamin stayed silent for a while, as it was hard to find the right words... No, that's a lie. Benjamin knew exactly which words to use, he just didn't want to say them. He didn't want to acknowledge it like this. Right now, he could still pretend like it wasn't real, but the moment he let others in on it, that wasn't a possibility anymore.

But he knew that he couldn't do that, so Benjamin slowly opened his mouth and admitted to it. He told Andrew about how he remembered his children, about how he remembered nothing but telling them a children's story.

He saw these tiny snippets in the lives of his own kids, but nothing more than that. At this point, Benjamin had made the choice that it was impossible for him to keep on living if he didn't recover his memories.

Until now, Benjamin tried to get his memories back basically 'for the heck of it', but now, he did it because he had to. Because he couldn't call himself a father anymore if he didn't. Because what kind of father could live with forgetting his childrne? How could he not remember their first words, their first steps, their first loves, their painful and their happy times?

Benjamin sat there on the couch and was staring down at the ground, grasping his own face with a pain-twisted expression, "It just hurts so, so much..."

The old man started to breath heavily as he teared up and just started to cry. An old man like him in tears like that. It was sad, and Benjamin felt bad for basically turning Andrew's bad situation into talking about his own, but he just couldn't hold it in.

The tears started and kept flowing without him being able to do anything about it at all. And like a good friend, Andrew was there for him. Without hesitation, he turned his attention toward the old man next to him.

"Don't worry, man... No matter how long it takes, I'll help you remember. I'll make sure that all of us remember." Andrew said, "I know that it's painful, but right now, the only way we can stop the pain is by getting back all of our memories, right?"