Spending My Retirement In A Game

Benjamin turned his head and looked at his grandson, not sure what he was supposed to say. As the silence continued, Benji rubbed the back of his neck, "You know, because... here in this world, you only have one arm, and all. And you spent literally a hundred thousand years over there. Compared to that, this is just a drop in the bucket, isn't it...?" 

The old man looked away, "I don't know what I would choose in the end. Right now, I certainly don't think I'm capable of making that choice while being content with either possibility. That might change when I recovered all my memories from my time over there, but... for all it's worth, while I might have gotten side-tracked here and there, in the end I still always tried to do what I had to so that I could come back here." Benjamin told him, "I love both this world and the other. But always remember that I loved this place enough to forget everything I have accumulated over there."

Benji slightly smiled and nodded his head, "Yeah, you're right... sorry, that was a weird question. Anyway, how's the erm... the giant country?" He asked, trying to quickly change the topic, feeling a bit awkward after asking something like that just now. The old man started running his fingers through his beard as he tried to figure out a way to best explain the situation, "Well, it's been a lot more eventful, to say the least. I remembered some swordsmanship I apparently learned over there, and coincidentally met an old friend of mine." 

"Oh, that's fucking awesome!" Benji replied, clearly mostly curious about the swordsmanship that the old man remembered. With a slight chuckle, Benjamin shook his head, "Of course, it wasn't all great. The grandour didn't believe that I am who I am at first, so we had to find another way to convince him. I recorded it all, so I can show you the footage later. It worked out great for the most part, but toward the end, things just sort of escalated. Kiron was poisoned, but he learned how to get rid of poison in his bloodstream with his element and managed to survive, luckily. We're still looking for the perpetrator, though it doesn't seem like the grandour had anything to do with it himself." The old man explained, while Benji raised his brows confused.

"Seriously? So is Kiron alright now, or, like, what's going on?" Benji asked somewhat anxiously, but his grandfather could quickly calm him down, "He's totally fine. He was able to remove every last bit of the poison. He felt a little drowsy afterward, but that was the extent of it. Of course, we're still making sure to keep an eye on him, in case there are some side-effects from the poison from now on, since a small amount did manage to affect him before he could get rid of the rest, but I think he should be fine." 

"Ah... alright, that's good, I guess. But isn't that kinda weird? He's a half-dragon, shouldn't he be decently resistant to something normal like poison?"

"I mean..." Benjamin replied, before thinking about it some more, "To an extent, yes, but that's just the case for most common poisons as far as I'm aware. There are plenty of more unique and advanced poisons that can even affect a full dragon." The old man explained, "But yeah... I think I should look into some of the more powerful poisons that are used and create a bunch of different antidotes."

"Well, I met some healer guy with an antidote element a couple weeks ago, I can probably find him again and copy his element or something, my enchanting skill should be good enough for that by now." Benji suggested, "It was apparently able to easily heal most poisons and venoms. I think there were some limitations to it, but I think you should be able to use it to enhance other antidotes, right?"

"I think so. But really, there are some unique elements, huh? An antidote element... I wonder what he did to get that sort of magic."

Benji thought about it a bit more, "Hm, I'm not sure if it was really just an antidote for poison, I think it might be useable against general status effect stuff? Like, canceling whatever status effect someone is affected by or something. I'm not entirely sure, I just saw him use it once or twice."

"That... might be a lot more powerful than it seems at first. I heard that a lot of players rely heavily on potions, so being able to remove than benefit from them would be incredibly useful."

Benji scoffed, "Right? They overuse potions so much that there are a shitton of alchemists now. Komer complained to me about it the other day, but potion prices are dropping fast as hell. I think he's pretty annoyed by it, since potions made up a good bit of our profits or something."

With a slight smile, Benjamin shook his head, "No, that's a good thing, trust me. Potions include things that increase your stats or give you special abilities temporarily, but with the exception of a few categories, most medicine belongs to that. The more people become alchemists, the more medicine is going to be developed as a natural consequence."

"I mean I guess, but healing magic is a thing over there, so we don't really need it... And it's not like we can get sick anyway." Benji replied, leaning against the kitchen counter, as Benjamin locked eyes with his grandson, "Players can't get sick, sure, but the people of that world can. Healing magic can only cure physical wounds, and not diseases. And trust me, diseases in a world where literally everything mutates uncontrollably through the influence of magic will naturally be a pain to deal with. With just a bit of bad luck, the common cold with suddenly mutate into a zombie virus. There are quite literal 'disease' type monsters, just like there are earth of fire types. Even if there's really powerful healing magic over there, advanced medicine is much more necessary." He pointed out, and just on time, Haruo returned to the room, now with his tail sticking out of the hole that Benjamin sewed into his shorts.

"Exactly. The five of us were all limited in what we were allowed to do for that world. Eisen couldn't introduce most modern technology that he wanted to, Xenia was forced to limit the advancements of magic, and I wasn't allowed to progress medicine beyond a certain degree. Just for the sake of some crappy 'realism' that Samuel wanted." Haruo explained, "But I'm completely positive I did research on how bacteria and viruses work over there anyway, I just need to either find documents relating to that research, or find a way to directly recover all my memories of it."

Benji scratched his neck awkardly, "Well shit... I guess I didn't realize how serious that kind of stuff was..."

"It is serious, of course, but at the same time, with the help of the system, it should be much, much easier to create certain frameworks to fight diseases. We can use magic to instantly analyze someone to see if they hold any disease, and then figure out the best treatment method nearly instantly. And then, we can just generate a personalized quest to guide them through the recovery process. There is a lot of danger in that world, but there are a lot of positive aspects that come from the same place as that danger." Haruo explained with a smile on his face, "And once I find my old research, it shouldn't be too hard to push medical technology forward radically. At that point, we can even figure out ways to advance in this world. That's the best way to make use of this setup, right? Use each world to help both of them strive more than they ever could alone."

Benjamin reached out and placed his hand on his friend's shoulder, "That's exactly the way to think about it, Jyuuk. As long as we do things that way, we will be able to get things under control." The old man said, "Oh, and if you need any help with your search, just let me know. I can probably figure out a way."

"Ah, there's no need. I'm already having a horde of undead critter search the places that I think my lab might be at.. It should only be a matter of time at this point."