Novel Full Chapter 661 - Execution
Eisen lived through this memory intensely. For quite some time, he even had to feel what it was like to be entrapped there fully. Just sitting there, unable to move, unable to see or hear anything, for days at a time. Eisen knew that this was sometimes seen akin to torture to be left alone, deprived of one's senses completely. Unable to know how much time has passed, hallucinating shapes or certain beings appearing in the space in front of you. But somehow, the former Eisen was able to just let it all happen, for whatever reason.
He hung there, sometimes for a week or two at a time without any influx of anything. He wasn't even given food. But somehow, he was able to survive without issues.
And then, it dawned on the old man, that the former Eisen most likely wasn't as helpless as Eisen himself thought he was in this situation. He tried to take a look at the giant that was hanging onto the wall through the chains that were just lightly rubbing against each other every once in a while.
Eisen looked at the figure in front of him and started to try and figure out what exactly he was doing, and just as he did, that information suddenly flowed into the old man's mind. Usually, the knowledge of these sorts of memories didn't flow into him all at once while he was experiencing them, but just piece by piece. Only when he was truly back in control of his body would he have recovered everything about the memory he just experienced. Just like he did now, Eisen was able to sometimes cause a certain part of a memory to resurface earlier than others.
And the part of the memory that he recovered just now was the way that the former Eisen was keeping himself awake. In order to give himself the opportunity to survive, the old man did something that Eisen wouldn't have inititally thought of.
He did his best to squeeze a part of his apron up to his mouth, and bit off a small part of the metal parts holding the straps in place. That sharp metal shard was then used by the old man to slowly but surely carve into his own teeth. This kind of thing was something that would end up healing if you used a potion, so he didn't really worry about doing permanent damage at all.
And so, the former Eisen created an array of enchantments using his own teeth. Of course, if it was possible to use transmutation on biological matter like that, Eisen would have just instantly turned his teeth into three-dimensional enchantments. But for now, he had to make use of simply carvings.
At that point, Eisen actually noticed that these enchantments were incredibly, incredibly simple compared to what he would make nowadays. They were basically jsut strings of runes placed right behind one another. Sure, it wasn't a wrong way to do it, considering that it worked out in the end, but it was an incredibly inefficient way. Eisen might be able to create an enchantment of the same level as the former Eisen did within a few minutes now, just using the methods that he currently knew about.
Most likely, at this point in time, research of magic hadn't become that advanced yet. It might even end up taking until Xenia was born until that really happened. Eisen wasn't sure at the moment... But at the very least, he just discovered the next question to ask of the fragment of his former self while recovering the next memory after this one.
Either way, the enchantments that Eisen created in his teeth were quite simple. One was supposed to create water that the old man could drink, and the other was supposed to create something like moss over time that Eisen could eat. It wasn't anything particularly tasty or even healthy, but it was still a way to supply his body with all the raw calories that Eisen needed to function properly.
And since the old man literally was doing nothing here, the amount of energy he used up in a day had become quite small anyway. And his rather high endurance stat probably helped out a bit more as well.
Either way, this was a pretty unique way to make use of enchantments. Maybe Eisen should try creating fake teeth with different functions in them, or maybe he could offer dental procedures to actively enchant the actual teeth of others.
There had to be at least a handful of people that enjoyed fighting using things like biting, so having the strength of their teeth increased must be a rare opportunity for those. And on top of that, creating a tooth that might be able to produce air in case of an emergency wouldn't be so bad either. It would allow someone to breathe in any sort of situation, after all.
For now, Eisen had to ignore all of these ideas, however. He just focused on the former Eisen as his mind ran through all of those random thoughts like it quite often did. And then, Eisen figured out how the former version of himself was keeping sane.
Quite simply, he was just meditating. If you meditated, as long as your skill's rank was high, you would be able to just 'skip' through a certain amount of time. Basically as if you were sleeping. And while sleep would cause your whole body to lose strength at least momentarily, and meditation allowed you to keep up the weirdest stances you wanted to as long as the balance was right, even a handstand if wanted, this was the better way to try and pretend like Eisen was someone unbeatable.
As if he was awake the whole time, keeping his sanity to spite the King's expectations, while not asking for even a single drop of water to get through the time.
In the eyes of the King and his men, Eisen must have just become even more of a monster, although the current Eisen wasn't sure if maybe exactly that was the former Eisen's plan. Scare the king so much that he wouldn't dare anger him. Although obviously, that wasn't the case. Eisen wasn't sure if the King saw through the old man's plan, if he was more fearless than he seemed, or if he was just the kind of big idiot that Eisen assumed him to be, but it was clear that the King didn't pay any heed to what Eisen was trying to do.
Either way, that didn't matter too much for now anyway. Because just when Eisen was thinking about this, he noticed that the whole room started to shake. As if it was part of a huge cart and was now driven along to somewhere else. And just as this happened, the former Eisen woke up from his meditation again. It seemed like he was trying to prepare for something, at least mentally.
After an hour or so, the room started shaking again, and for roughly half a day, it stayed the same. And just when Eisen thought that this rattling was nothing but a fluke, something else happened. Along the corners of the room, slits opened up and widened just so slowly. Three of the four walls dropped to the side, letting bright, blinding light flood into the room. And then, the roof was taken away as well, being flipped over the last wall that was still standing, the one that Eisen was still chained to.
The old man looked around and soon saw that this place was in the middle of a small town. The buildings seemed kind of rough, and honestly somewhat badly constructed compared to what you would see nowadays all over the place in this world.
There was no support anywhere, and most of the buildings didn't even have proper doors or windows. It seemed like this place was in the middle of the process of becoming more developed as a whole though, so that was good, at least. Either way, that didn't really matter right now.
Eisen knew why exactly the former version of himself was brought here. Because not too far away from here, there was another cage, with a starving family of five inside of it. They were dirty, frail and thin, so much so that you could see the outline of basically every sinle one of their bones.
"This must be the family that I was with..." The old man muttered quietly to himself, and as he did, some people walked up onto the platform that used to be the room that Eisen was trapped in.
"Today, we have gathered here on a truly delightful occasion!" The King spoke, starting with his obviously rather long speech. Eisen mostly faded it out, not even registering it. Maybe that was because the former Eisen did the same and simply didn't remember this part of what happened, though, but Eisen wasn't sure yet.
All that Eisen knew was that the king spoke of how amazing it was that they would be able to get rid of such a horrid monstsority such as the former Eisen was in their eyes. Killing a monster like him was something that gave one nothing but true honor, it seemed.
Eisen watched all of this happen, he watched the crowd grow larger as more and more people became excited about seeing all of this happen. They looked at the chained-up Eisen and the locked-up family, swearing at both. Although most of their insults seemed focused on the latter, since many were most likely too scared to agitate Eisen himself.
But then, Eisen started to pay attention to the King's speech again.
"Now, we shall begin by punishing the sinners that have chosen to throw away their beautiful lives by helping this wicked, wicked being. Five people who have become part of our community, but have done nothing but disappoint us in the end! We cannot allow them to paint this kingdom in the pitch-black colors of despair any longer!" The King screamed out, and finally, the group just started screaming, as if they were either cut down by a swordsman or simply found extreme pleasure from the King's words. They watched as the family of five was taken out of the cage and brought over in front of Eisen. The two adults were forced onto the ground while the three children were taken to the side.
"But of course, these cute little, innocent children are not at fault! Their parents are the wicked ones! As such, I have chosen to save their lives and allow them to keep breathing as mere slaves, while these two will be executed alongside this horrid monster!"