Spending My Retirement In A Game

Eisen slowly woke back up from the memory of his first death and slowly pushed himself off the ground before rubbing the slight tears out of the corner of his eyes. He stared at the chair standing in the center of the room and then let out a deep sigh while trying to get his thoughts in order properly.

The old man looked walked over to the door and drew all of the different runes onto their respective panels, now that Eisen knew about them properly. The moment he did so, they started to glow in a bright light and changed, displaying five different symbols. A hammer, a pill, a wolf, a mountain, and a knife. Eisen figured that this was supposed to be connected to Eisen's memory as well, so he slowly pressed his hand down onto the symbol of the knife. The moment he did so, the hexagonal panel opened up as if it was waiting for something to be inserted into it. 

Eisen took a look around the room and soon saw a closet with a glass-front. There seemed to be some sort of puzzle connected with opening it up, and each of the five different sections of the closet had to be opened separately. Each section held the different things on the plates in different forms.

One of them had a hammer, another one a bottle of pills, a figurine of a wolf, a model of a mountain, as well as a knife that looked eerily similar in shape to the one that Eisen just saw. Of course, there was a lot of clutter inside of there and all five of these things were rather hidden, but that was probably just to make everything seem a little bit more hidden. But in the end, as far as Eisen was concerned, only these five really mattered.

Eisen took a look at the different carvings connected to the five locked sections of the closet to figure out how to open the one with the dagger inside of it. And then in the end, on the wall he could find something connected to different carved lines. As if this was an enchantment and Eisen had to turn the different pieces of this thing around so that it would actually work out and send a 'signal' through the right line.

And so, the old man quickly got to work to try and figure out what exactly he had to do. Within a few moves, Eisen already coincidentally twisted everything in the right way that he could have opened the closet with the wolf figurine if he needed it. But he didn't, so he moved on and kept twisting the different parts around. Soon, he got the hang of the way that it was supposed to work and quickly twisted everything around until he managed to unlock all of the parts of the closet, with the exception of the one that he actually needed.

With a deep groan, Eisen looked at this panel and took a step back, trying to figure out what exactly he had to do. He looked down at the ground and sighed deeply. He had been silent the whole time, so it seemed like even Ambriel became a little concerned over what could make this old man act like this.

Eisen turned his head and saw that only 15 minutes of the full hour had passed while glancing past the Angel, not even really acknowledging him.

And so, the old man tried to get a better look on this system, before he noticed that there seemed to be one part that was just blatantly wrong and out of place here. If it was different, then it would all work out. The old man rubbed his hand over that part and soon had it fall out of the wall.

With a light frown, Eisen became concerned that he broke it for a moment, but instead figured that this was supposed to happen considering how easily it fell out. The old man stood up properly and looked around the room, even slightly increasing his size to look on top of different pieces of furniture. And soon, he managed to find a replacement-piece for the one that he just took out of the wall.

Eisen placed it where it where it was supposed to go, and then managed to unlock the last section of the closet as well. He grabbed the knife out of it and then brought it over to the knife-panel that he opened up earlier. He pushed the knife into the thin slit that he found inside of it, and felt the knife soon considerably heat up.

With his mana-sight, he noticed that there was a lot of mana flowing into the blade, and when he pulled it out, he noticed that the knife had suddenly turned into the exact knife that he saw the former Eisen stab himself with in his memory. Well, somewhat, at least. It had received the runic carvings, but it wasn't like it really worked properly or anything like that.

Eisen held the knife in his hand and looked around for a moment, before he noticed the chair from before again. He squatted down in front of it and inspected it properly again, maybe to find some form of hidden mechanism, until his eye got caught on a part of the wood that wasn't perfectly the same to the others.

It was a part of the backrest. A tiny scratch, really, but a small area had been filled in with the wrong type of wood. Eisen rubbed his fingers over that part and watched as it fell out of the center of the backrest.

Eisen pressed the tip of the knife against the small slit and effortlessly pressed it deeper inside. Usually the blade should have come out of the other side of the backrest, but it simply ended up disappearing as Eisen pressed it inside.

For now, nothing happened. Eisen looked around with a bit of confusion, before he tried to pull on the handle of the knife again. And suddenly, the actual handle just came off the knife, and a small metal key dropped out onto the seat.

The old man grabbed the key and quickly walked over toward the door. He pressed it into the keyhole and twisted it around. And with ease, the door opened up and led Eisen and Ambriel into the next room beyond. It was a huge, empty dark room. The only light that Eisen had been able to use to see anything at all was the light from the first room that was shining into this large empty hall.

But once Eisen and Ambriel both stood inside there, the door was shut immediately and automatically. And now, a new lightscource illuminated a small part of this room. In the form of a spotlight, a small pedestal in the center of the room was now lit up. From this far away, Eisen couldn't tell what exactly it was that was laying on that pedestal from afar. But when he approached a bit more, he soon recognized the shape.

It was another simple metal key, albeit a different kind that Eisen used to open up the door just now. And somehow, this gave Eisen the feeling that there was a memory connected to this key as well. Or rather, to this whole room again, even though there was little to nothing in this room in the first place.

Although then, Eisen figured he should just use his element to make some light for himself. He waved his hand forward and created some bright flames that started floating around the room. And in the end, Eisen was right. There was nothing here, with the exception of a few enormous chains hanging off the walls. They were the kind that one would see a ship's anchor be connected to.

As these chains gave Eisen even more of an eerie feeling, the old man knew what it was that he had to do next, even though he didn't really want to do it after the last memory that he recovered. He squatted down onto his knees and dozed off into sleep again, where he tried to access his new memories once more. 

The spheres all appeared, and then after all of them did, the new one poppe up. Ignoring the memory that the former Eisen had told him about that he still had to remember, the old man pushed his hand out toward the glowing white orb that seemed to be connected to that giant, empty room.

After the scenery around Eisen changed, he found himself in the same dark room as he was just in, as he assumed he would. Eisen slowly stood up and looked around, even waiting for a little while, but nothing happened.

"Hello?" Eisen asked loudly, "Are you here?"

"Of course I am." The voice of the former Eisen replied. It seemed to be a younger version of Eisen again this time. But something was off... it was as if this Eisen was exhausted, incredibly tired. And his voice was just loudly echoing throughout this empty space, but Eisen didn't know where it came from exactly.

"Then where are you?"

"I'm right here." The former Eisen replied. The current Eisen let out a deep sigh, "Where, exactly?"

"Just take a close look around, I'm sure you'll find me soon." The former Eisen replied, and the old man slowly looked around a bit more. He couldn't use magic here, so he couldn't use it to get a look at the things around him this time. So instead, he had to try and just look through the darkness. Eisen stepped through the room to see if he could find himself, and then slowly turned around.

His eyes did get used to the darkness a little. Not amazingly so, but still a bit. That's why he was able to see the silhouette of a giant version of himself kneeling on the other side of the room, shackled up with the chains that Eisen had seen before.

This place was supposed to be a prison for himself.

"I think you should stop staring and better ask your questions. This time around, we don't have all too much time, you know?" The former Eisen pointed out, but the current one just stared up at himself with a blank mind, unsure what he should even start with.

"Why are you locked up here?" He ended up asking, and with a slight laugh, the fragment of the old Eisen shook his head, "You're going to find out real soon. Well, if that's all you wanted to know, there's no reason to delay it any longer. The others are coming in right now anyway."

And just as the giant, former Eisen said so, the door behind the real Eisen opened up.