Spending My Retirement In A Game

"Eisen?" Silber said, with his head slightly tilted to the side. He was staring into the air, so Eisen figured that he was looking at some system windows, "Yeah?"

"When did the 'system' change so much?" he asked, and Eisen looked at him confused, "What do you mean?"

"I mean that everything is different. The names of basically all of my skills changed... and what are titles? Wait, they used to be achievements, I guess?" Silber stared at the system windows intensely. Eisen stared at him.

"Wait, so... it's changed? Seriously?"

Silber looked at Eisen with a raised brow, "It would change every few decades, but usually just slightly. You said Samuel was 'updating' it regularly?"

Eisen's gaze slowly moved toward the broken system message that still floated beside him, "Is that it..?"

While he didn't know what the system's actual nature was, he had never really thought about it all too much, simply assuming that it was something innate to this world. And while that might still be the case, what if all Samuel did was create a way to interpret or guide these raw forces of this world?

"Silber... were there ever messages that were 'broken'? Or skills that didn't have a name?"

"Well... sometimes, I guess? But those issues were resolved pretty quickly for the most part."

Eisen rubbed the bridge of his nose. So that was it. The system, or rather, the force behind the system, saw something in Eisen that the system's 'display' didn't recognize, so it was a broken, jumbled message. But... that still didn't explain why Eisen first saw the message on earth. Did that force start leaking into earth after Eisen overused all that mana?

Considering how deeply intertwined his fate was with all this, and how often he must have used and taken advantage of the system over the millennia, then it made some sense for the system to have left some marks on him.

The old man sighed annoyed, "I guess I'll figure it out some other time," he rubbed the bridge of his nose, "I don't have time for this right now. Silber, come on."

"Right," Silber slowly stood up and stretched a bit, "So, what're we doing?"

"First... we've got to introduce you to some people," Eisen replied, trying to turn into his demonic form. However, something about it felt... off. It didn't work properly, and Eisen just saw a slight discoloration to his skin that faded pretty quickly. He was using it just fine earlier, so what was going on?

Maybe the difference was that he had 'logged out' in that form, and was still like that when he woke up? With a frown, Eisen tried to keep forcing the transformation, and before long, he managed to get it done. It was just a lot more annoying than usual. Even increasing his size through his giants' skill felt weird.

Eisen felt a slight sharp pain at the side of his head, as his control of his size-change got even worse. He felt his body practically morph and change its size irregularly. His arm was longer than it was supposed to be, and his foot was far too heavy. It only lasted for a few moments, and then he got the hang of it again. He increased his size, but needed to control it a lot more.

And then, Eisen looked to the side. The broken system window had changed.

[XXXXXXX S%i!l le/el"d u+!]

Eisen frowned. So that broken skill was making it harder for him to use his skills? Was that it?

The old man ground his teeth annoyed. He should figure it out with time. For now, he really just had to go meet the others. To make things faster, Eisen picked up Silber and carried him for now. He headed toward the closest person he could see; Jyuuk, who was flying around on one of his eagles, trying to scout out the area. Due to his skillset, he had become able to see the 'life' of others.

Basically, it was a sort of visual skill that let him directly see the life force of everything around him; plants, people, animals. Anything that was technically 'alive' counted. And like that, he could use this skill to look for even the most subtle of life forces, which made finding survivors that had been buried or trapped within the rubble much, much easier.

Whenever he found anyone new, he would send out some of his undead to rescue them. However, as soon as he saw Eisen, he stopped for a few moments.

"You're back! Are you alright? Are you in any pain?" Jyuuk asked with a slightly nervous tone, "You nearly died there, you know..?"

Eisen smiled at him, "I'm fine, don't worry. Thank you for coming and taking care of everything after I fell unconscious. I don't know what I would have done without you four," the old man tried to express his gratitude, but Jyuuk just let out a loud laugh, "What are you even saying? Isn't it obvious we'd come?"

Jyuuk glanced around, spotting something in the distance, "Ah, sorry, I've got to go. Did Brody tell you about-"

"The meeting at midnight, yeah he did. I'll be there," the old man replied. During the short period that Brody had logged out to give an update to Eisen, he had also told him about some things they had all decided. For example, that they would all log out and have a meeting on earth later on. It was probably so that everyone could check on Eisen's body over there, but Brody didn't say it directly.

Not to mention, here in this world, the threat of them being spied on always existed.

Jyuuk flew off, and Eisen quickly did the same. He headed over toward the castle carved into the wall on the other side of the city. It seemed like at some point as Brody was trying to kill it, the Mountain Gobbler's body had shifted ever so slightly, so there was a huge crack running down the middle of the castle. It was a complete mess, so he should try and see if the chieftains were all okay.

After landing in the castle, Silber jumped off Eisen's hand, quickly shooting up in size as well, "By the way... can you still..." Eisen asked, and Silber smirked lightly. He immediately grew even more, having to squat down to fit into the giant entrance hall of the castle, "My transformative power was one of the effects of my transcendence.

Since those abilities are sealed for now, I probably can't reach the size that I was at before, but something like this is easy," Silber replied, shrinking back down to Eisen's size. The old man was currently in the largest size that he was able to get to right now, and Silber absolutely dwarfed him. Just now. Eisen wanted to see how tall Silber could get, but he also figured that it could wait.

Silber was hiding it, but he was obviously not in the best physical state he could be. He just woke up from a hundred-thousand year coma a few hours ago, after all.

Silber and Eisen made their way through the castle, straight toward the meeting room that they were in earlier. The whole place was desolate, since the guards were surely in the city to help with the rescue of the citizens, but he was sure that at least the Irngrad was here right now.

He didn't have the time to do physical work; rather, he had to figure out other matters related to this catastrophe, like organizing aid from other places, or figuring out where to source food from while the city recovered.

Eisen pushed open the already ajar door to the meeting room, seeing the man who he had been expecting standing over the large table. A few of the other chieftains were also still here, including the the Stone Giant chieftain and the Cloud giant chieftain, though the latter seemed to be recovering from the aftereffects of the forceful possession from Samuel right now.

"Eisen..!" the Irngrad let out, "We saw you fall, but are you alright?"

Eisen nodded, "I'm fine. More importantly, is everyone else okay?"

The Irngrad looked out toward the window, clearly not sure what he was supposed to say to that. The Bralfam soon shook his head, "The others are... shaken. Most of them headed out to help however they could. We sent some messangers to other cities as well," the stone giant explained, before looking over at the man standing next to Eisen, "And... this man is?"

Eisen turned toward Silber, who quickly sighed and introduced himself, "My name is Silber de Grandour, Eisen's younger brother, and the one who had been petrified over there for a while. What did you guys call me... the..."

"The god of the mountain?" the Irngrad finished for Silber, who quickly nodded his head, "Yeah, that one. Though that nickname's honestly sort of rubbing it in..."

"Rubbing... what in?" the Bralfam asked. He didn't even realize it himself, he was just so baffled by what he was seeing that he was mumbling the first thought in his head. Silber scratched the back of his head, "I mean, I failed to become a God, so that nickname's kind of... iffy."