Spending My Retirement In A Game

"Wrong? Absolutely not! Just extremely, extremely unexpected!" The fire giant pointed out, "Numerous countries have been requesting to receive a guardian from your country, but you never gave one to them," he explained, while Eisen looked back with a wry smile. If that was the case, then maybe he shouldn't have agreed so easily. Although he didn't directly see a reason why he shouldn't give one to them, as long as they fulfilled some conditions first.

"I'm not building one for you for free anyway, at the end of the day. I'm doing this in order to build up a positive relationship between us. I'm going to have the council sign a contract as well, to make sure that you're not mistreating the guardian."

"...Mistreating? Aren't they just golems?" The grandour asked a bit confused, "I heard that they're humanoid tools to assist in the management of a core."

"Right, but they all hold souls within them. They're actual people, with actual thoughts and emotions. I build them with a task in mind, sure, but at the end of the day I try to treat them well. At least in this life. I can't say much for the person I used to be, but that is the case for the man sitting in front of you right now." Eisen explained while crossing his arms, leaning back into his seat, "For the most part, I would like you to treat the guardian as you would any other high-level employee."

"...Right. If they possess souls, that's the least we can do." The grandour agreed, still somewhat suspiciously looking at Eisen, "...So you really lost your memories, huh..?"

"Again, yes. I thought we got past that already." Eisen replied, and the grandour slowly nodded, trying to gather his thoughts, "The one thing we would like the most from you is for you to create special tools or weapons for us. They're known to be incredibly powerful, after all."

Immediately, Eisen's heart skipped a beat. That was an issue. Sure, Eisen can still create incredibly powerful weapons and tools, but he doubted that it was at the level that the top craftsmen of the fire clan wouldn't be able to create something at a similar level, even if it might take them a bit more time. Currently, Eisen wasn't capable of creating items at the scale that he used to. That being the case, this request from the giant country would be something that he couldn't fulfill, at least not now. However, it seemed like the grandour realized this as well.

"However, considering your situation... well, I assume that your skills are at a lower rank than they used to be, correct?" He asked, and Eisen replied with a simple nod, before the grandour began to think, "In that case... while I doubt that the other clan chiefs would accept this as proper payment, I think our clan would most benefit from your direct assistance."

"I'm not helping you in your war, remember?" Eisen replied immediately, but the grandour quickly shook his head, "That is not what I mean, don't worry. I mean that... and please hear me out completely before this... I would like for you to teach and help the improvement of some of this clan's craftsmen." The grandour suggested. Eisen raised his brow surprised. Teaching some giants might not be the worst thing he could do. If that, on top of a guardian for this country, was enough to get at least one of the clans fully on his side, then that was probably the easiest decision he had to make as of late. But of course, he couldn't just say that. Especially after realizing that he had replied too lightly with the promise of a guardian, he couldn't let the grandour know that Eisen would have offered so much more than just that.

"To what extent are you imagining this? I doubt you want me to raise one of your craftsmen to my former level." The old man pointed out, slowly running his fingers through his beard. Although, now that he mentioned it, it reminded Eisen of the fact that he should probably spend some more time with his disciples, Parc and Rouge, helping them reach a new level as well. They were doing quite well already, but the old man couldn't help but wonder just how useful it would be to show the two of them different perspectives as well. While Eisen was certainly a skilled craftsman, he still had his own way of going about things. Some of the habits he developed might make them a bit more inefficient, so maybe giving them a slightly different environment could help their development further.

While Eisen's thoughts trailed off again, the grandour tried to find the best words to describe the details of his request that he made, in return for a trading relationship with the fire giant clan, "Of course, I don't want you to create a legend. But the minimum that I would like for you to do is to help remove the gravest faults within some of our craftsmen. As I'm sure you know... or well, maybe not, but while we from the fire giant clan are natural-born craftsmen, we often lack finesse. Due to our innate strength, many of the things we make are created through brute-force, although we've learned to make up for it by manipulating our sizeto focus on other areas when necessary while also limiting our strength at the same time."

Eisen raised a brow and thought about this statement some more. He couldn't particulary refute it, honestly. He did notice that while in his giant form, he did have a tougher time controlling his strength, so if even he couldn't easily adapt to this while creating something, it made sense for this sort of fault to become ingrained in craftsmen through multiple generations.

"Of course..." the grandour continued, "I'm not saying that our craftsmen have no finesse whatsoever, but overall, our techniques could still be considered somewhat crude compared to what is used by other races. As you probably noticed, we have quite a few dwarves in our clan as well, and we have been cooperating with them to make up for our individual faults. Dwarves are stronger than for example humans, but even they struggle with materials at a higher rank than their own skill's, while we giants have the strength to often ignore such struggles, while they have some of the greatest dexterity and finesse around, so they help us with more detailed work, often finishing up the groundwork we set up beforehand."

"If that's the case, wouldn't my assistance disturb the system you have created over time? If your craftsmen can work without the help of the dwarves, that is."

"Ah, I wouldn't want you to only help the giant craftsmen, of course. Doing things in a way that will increase productivity and the quality of the final item would be the best outcome for us, whatever that would mean from your side." The grandour explained, while Eisen continued thinking about it, "So... you would give me free reign over what to do with your craftsmen, as long as better items are being produced at the end of my time with them?"

"That is a good way to put it, yes."

"I have a better idea." Eisen replied, as an idea suddenly came to mind, "How about we don't make this the requirement for our trade... but part of our trade?"

The grandour looked back at Eisen, clearly not understanding what he meant, "So you mean... you will teach our craftsmen directly in return for the materials you requested?"

Immediately, Eisen shook his head, "No, I was thinking something else. A cultural exchange."

The moment that Eisen mentioned the idea, the grandour's eyes widened, "A cultural exchange... you mean that we send craftsmen to Asgard, and Asgard sends craftsmen to our clan. We learn from you, you learn from us... it's that, right?"

"That's exactly right. And the best thing is, we can do something like that even without proper trade relations set up yet. You should be able to decide this within your clan. There isn't an official travel-ban, after all."

The grandour grinned broadly, nodding his head without hesitation, "Even if nothing else comes to fruition, I want that cultural exchange to happen."