Spending My Retirement In A Game

Once everything was ready, Eisen stood outside in front of the ship and made sure everyone that needed to come with them was really properly on the ship. They had to wait a while for Evalia to log in again as well, and for some others to arrive, so that they could get onto the ship, but that only took up a couple of hours that Eisen could make sure the ship was really in a good enough condition to carry the wood-giant all the way. It was still pretty risky, after all.

But when Eisen was thinking about this, Komer asked a question that the old man hadn’t spent too much time exploring so far, \"So, what’s that guy’s name?\" The merchant asked, and Eisen looked at him with a brow raised, \"I actually haven’t come up with one yet. Why?\"

\"Seriously? You’re going to ask me why? Well maybe because I want to use the literal physically biggest, and coolest, Golem any of these people have ever seen for advertisement. And I can’t do that if he doesn’t have a name.\" Komer pointed out as if it was obvious, although he then formed a broad smile on his face, \"Ooh! Wait, let me come up with a name! I have the perfect one! ’The Giant that reaches for the sky, Star-’\"

\"Askr.\" Eisen interrupted with a light groan, since it was clear what kind of name Komer was going for. Although, somehow, Komer seemed a bit confused, \"What that?\" He asked, and Eisen turned toward him with a light smile.

\"It’s the norse word for ’Ash Tree’. And yes, I know that it’s made of Ironbark, not Ash. But the world tree Yggdrasil from norse mythology is supposed to be an Ash tree. So, Askr.\"

\"...That does actually sound pretty cool then, and it’s definitely going to make it easy to advertise... I mean, at least every single Artificial must have heard of Yggdrasil before.\"

\"Hm? Really?\" Eisen asked, now being the one that was surprised. As far as he remembered, there weren’t that many people that knew about it back in the day. Outside of the northern european countries, of course.

\"Hell yeah, norse mythology is awesome. It’s used in a lot of games, novels, even anime. That’s what I heard, at least.\" Komer pointed out, \"I’m not really in that whole scene.\"

\"Interesting. Although, you do usually seem like the kind of kid that would enjoy games.\"

\"Well, I used to, but it’s been kinda hard to for the past couple of years...\" Komer admitted and scratched the back of his neck silently, \"Ah right, I have something for you.\" The young man said before Eisen could ask him what he was talking about just now.

Komer extended his hand forward and seemed to push mana into the spatial ring on his middle finger before a thick black file-folder filled to the brim with high-quality thick sheets of paper.

\"There’s a bunch of contracts in there so that you can do some proper recruiting on the islands. There should be a hundred regular guild recruitment contracts in there. Just in case, there’s 5 sub-guild formation contracts as well.\" Komer explained, and then took out another folder out of the spatial ring. Just that this one was a bit thinner and bright yellow in color.

\"Then a bunch of work-contracts. It’s similar to how the requests at places like the adventurer’s guild work, just that you won’t have to go through a proxy. You just have to fill in the specifics of the requests, the reward, and then you and the one that’s taking the request have to sign. You might not need it since you have quests to give out, but these contracts have a slight twist to them that kind of make them worth it.\" Komer explained. He pulled another one of the same type of contract that he gave Eisen in the yellow folder out of the spatial ring together with an inkpen.

Before Eisen knew it, the contract was floating in front of Komer in a way that he could write on it with the pen without an issues, \"The thing that is special about these contracts is that...\" Komer started as he quickly finished writing down some examples before twisting the contract around to let Eisen sign it. The content of the request was to shake Komer’s right hand within one minute of the contract being activated. The reward was a copper coin being given to Eisen, and the failure penalty was a copper coin being given to Komer.

Since it wasn’t a big deal, Eisen quickly signed the contract, although Komer swiftly handed him a second one before the first was activated. The contents of this one were nearly exactly the same, just that Eisen was supposed to shake Komer’s left hand instead of his right hand. Once more, Eisen swiftly signed the contract.

The young Merchant grabbed the two contracts and smiled as both of them started to burn, \"They are fate contracts.\" Komer finally finished. The contracts both burnt up in a large flame. But soon, from inside of those flames, two white spheres with golden carvings on them appeared. Along the carvings, the spheres folded open and revealed two angelic figures. They were really just the size of Eisen’s hand, and had the proportions of an androgynous child. They were as white as snow with the exception of the golden angel-wings on their back.

They didn’t have any details to them whatsoever. No eyes, no clothes, no genitalia, nothing. They were really just like dolls, somehow.

\"Those two are ’Enforcers of Fate.\" Komer explained as he pushed his hand to the coin-holder strapped to the front of his belt and split the coin inside it up to pull out two copper coins, handing each of them one of those two coins. And soon, both of these figures floated over toward Eisen and stayed behind him all the whilst still carrying the coins.

\"If the contract’s reward is something like an item or money, it has to be given to them beforehand. Then once the contract has been fulfilled, they give it to the other party, which in this case would be you. If it’s a reward that isn’t in the shape of a physical item, the enforcers will, well, enforce the contract. If for example the reward was that I give you a hug, they would make sure I give you that hug. Ah, by the way...\" Komer explained as he quickly held his right hand forward toward Eisen. With a curious smile, Eisen quickly shook it and watched as one of the two enforcers floated over toward Eisen’s hand and placed the copper coin onto his palm, before disappearing in golden flames.

\"Like that, the contract has been fulfilled, and you were given your reward.\" Komer explained, and then pointed at the other enforcer, \"And since the minute is nearly over...\" He said, and Eisen slowly turned his head toward the other enforcer. The second the minute was over, the enforcer’s body turned ink-black and its wings started burning just to turn into demonic wings instead. The kind that Eisen also had in his demon form.

It now held the reward-coin in one hand and then floated over to the coin Eisen was holding in his hand right now and picked it up immediately, and then floated over toward Komer to return both coins to him, \"This is what happens when a contract has been failed. There are a few things to keep in mind other than this, of course. For one, only those that signed the contract can see the enforcer of that contract. Then, depending on the ’Value’ of the contract, the form of the enforcer would be different. For example, let’s say the contract was about... bringing me a divine quality item. The fail condition is that a full year passes, the reward is your own country, and the fail penalty is for you to die 100 times. The form of the enforcer wouldn’t be this, but rather one that would actually be capable of this. It would probably carry a weapon or something and be the actual size of a human.\" Komer explained, and then thought about what else to say, \"Ah, also, enforcers are mostly incorporal, so you can’t hide from them, you can’t kill them, and you can’t steal the reward item from them. But of course, they can move through walls, attack you however they want, and steal whatever you owe the other party from you.\"

\"Huh...\" Eisen muttered quietly, \"That’s kind of...\"

\"Extreme? Yeah, a little, but it should come in helpful. Especially if you manage to get to hell or heaven... That is, if these contracts can even affect divine beings like that.\" Komer muttered out, and then just ended up shrugging, \"Well, either way, you should be careful with these. Oh, and don’t promise something you can’t give. If you do, then you’re going to get the failure penalty you wrote on the contract, times three. And since the reward and penalty need to have a similar value, the penalty for that won’t be pretty.\"

\"I see. Well then, thank you. These definitely seem like they’re going to come in handy. But really, your occupation skills are pretty interesting, aren’t they?\" Eisen asked with a light chuckle, and Komer, the Fate Merchant, immediately nodded his head.

\"Oh yeah, they really are. I never expected them to be this cool. They’re not really made for one on one combat though, although who would expect one on one combat from a merchant?\" The young man replied with a laugh, and then looked over at the ship, \"Now then, I think you guys should head off. Apparently a storm is hitting this area soon, and you should leave before being caught up in it.\"

\"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.\" Eisen replied with a smile on his face.