Spending My Retirement In A Game

Eisen slowly closed his eyes, thinking back on the memories that he did have, as well as the image of a king he currently held inside of his mind. If he was honest with himself, he could tell that there was quite a bit of disarray between that image and his past actions, as far as he could tell. No wonder Girland acted like she did. Now that Eisen was actually trying to be a halfway responsible king, she was grabbing onto that fact immediately to try and make him a proper king this time around. That's what it felt like, at least.

The old man let out a slight sigh before glancing across the table at the grandour. He still seemed nervous, but much more relaxed compared to before, now that the whole situation had been explained to him properly.

"Well, let's move on. We're not here to talk about my past, but our future." Eisen pointed out, "The main reason why I'm here is to build up a proper relationship between us, after all."

"Of course. Your country, Asgard, offers a lot of things that we are obviously interested in as well. Our country is far up north, so when it comes to non-metallic materials, we often have to improvise. The islands of Asgard are unique in that sense, since each hold a unique climate and terrain, so setting up a trade-relationship would be perfect." The grandour explained, "There is, however, an issue with this. As a whole, the country of giants doesn't have a great relationship with the central continent, and the way things are going right now, a war might break out in the near future."

Eisen started running his fingers through his beard while deep in thought, "Hm, I wasn't aware that the situation was that intense. I know that your relationship to the central continent isn't the best, but..." He pointed out, while thinking about what best to do, "Obviously, I would want to stop a war from breaking out as much as possible. While I'm not looking to ally myself with either side of this conflict, a war will cause a lot of other trouble that I don't want to deal with."

The grandour looked at Eisen with a slight frown, "You're not here to ally with us?"

"Hm? No, of course not. Again, this trip is mostly just something to establish a good relationship between our countries, and for me to visit the place I grew up in the hopes of remembering some more things." He explained quickly, "Of course, the trade relationship you mentioned you're interested in is something I would very much look forward to as well, but that would be the end of things. We already have a trade relationship with a kingdom on the central continent as well."

"...Well, as long as you don't ally with anyone else, I guess there would be nothing to complain about. Generally, we're in a pretty favorable position in the first place. Even if a war did break out, we would pretty much annihilate the other side." The grandour explained, although something seemed a little weird to Eisen about that. The grandour was definitely right. There was no way for the central continent to fight back against the giants should a war break out, but the main reason why the relationship between the giants' country and the central continent had dropped this much was because of the central continent in the first place. Since giants were technically monsters, they tended to treat them as such, putting them just slightly above a common beast in many regards. But even then, despite their xenophobia, the people in charge of the central continent couldn't possibly want to lead a war against the giants, could they? Anyone would be able to tell that the combat-loving, naturally powerful giants were going to win against the generally low-level populace of the central continent.

And then, something seemed to just click in Eisen's mind. Players were now a thing. Currently, the 'Global Main Quest' was something related to taking down Kotam. The players were supposed to interact with the different dragons on the central continent to become their champions to join that war between the good and evil dragon factions. But what then? Once one of the sides had been annihilated, the 'game's' story couldn't just end. That wouldn't be entertaining anymore. So obviously, Samuel would have prepared a second story arc to follow afterward, while opening up a second continent as a reward for finishing the first arc.

The war against the giants. After raising their level during a conflict against each other, the players would then start working together against a common enemy. Players were able to become stronger at a much, much faster rate than normal people, since their bodies were able to absorb experience more easily. That being the case, by the time that war with the giants' country was going to happen, through the players' help, the central continent's combat force would be just that much stronger.

However, there was something else that annoyed Eisen with this. The only way that this was possible was because the strength of the giants was limited. Eisen had somehow established a limit for all giants to stop them from being affected by the curse placed onto them by Samuel. It seemed to have been some sort of punishment, since Eisen did something that Samuel didn't like. So now there was just on question on Eisen's mind. Did Samuel lead the world into the direction of this plot after the limit had been established, or was the limit part of the plot that had already been planned out?

"Haah... This is just so annoying..." Eisen said, grinding his teeth angrily. His fingertips pressed onto the rock surface of the carved table in front of him, but the grandour soon stopped him, "Please be careful. There are a lot of people inside of there that I doubt you'd want to hurt."

Eisen looked at the grandour, and let out a deep, grumbled sigh, "Right, I'm sorry. It's just that this whole situation is far more annoying than I thought it was." He explained briefly, before thinking for a while, "This country... it's ruled by a council, right?" He inquired, before the grandour quickly nodded.

"Yes. The heads of each clan are part of the ruling council. We elect our leader, the official 'King' of this country, amongst ourselves." The grandour responded.

"Can you call a meeting for the council?" Eisen asked immediately, but the grandour didn't seem particularly happy about that idea, "And why should I do that? The only times when we come together as a council is when serious matters are to be discussed. If you want to form a trade relationship with other clans, then you have to travel to each one."

The old man shook his head, "It's not about trading. I could do that separately without issue. However, it's extremely necessary for me to speak to the council."

"Really now? And why is that?" The grandour asked, before Eisen's face formed a slight grin, "Because I'm not going to let things go like that brat planned." 

Confused about what Eisen meant, the grandour looked back at him. He was going to ask something, it seemed, but he was quickly interrupted by the old man, "But before that, I guess we really should talk about trading, huh? Tell me what it is you want most from our country."

The grandour silently thought about that question for a few moments, trying to come up with a good answer, "The thing I want the most is a guardian, but-" the grandour started. From his body-language and expression, it seemed as if he was trying to joke around a bit to lighten the mood, but was soon met with something he didn't expect, "Alright, that's not too bad. What else?" Eisen replied, "We have ways to mass-produce a lot of different types of natural materials that you would probably want. Wood, herbs, crops, and such. In return, I would like some access to some natural produce of this continent, though. We were going to explore the island of giants in Asgard soon, but as far as I was told, there are only a limited number of the things that I'm personally interested in there. More generic things, I guess. I would love to trade some domesticated animals from this country with you as well." Eisen explained, basically just saying everything that came to mind when he thought about what sorts of materials he personally wanted to work with. Girland was probably going to chew him out because of that, but that was fine. They could figure out other more generally useful things later as well.

However, right now, Eisen was a bit confused. The man sitting across the table was staring at him in what could only be described as disbelief, "What's wrong?" He asked, and the grandour looked back, "Did you.... really just agree to giving us a Guardian?"