Spending My Retirement In A Game

"You walked in on my doing that once, and it's the only thing you fucking talk about anymore," with a deep sigh, the martial artist leaned back into his seat as Xenia smirked and continued on.

"Anyway," she started, flicking her wrist to activate the magic tool she placed onto the table. A holographic screen appeared, similar in appearance to a system window.

On there were two simple sketches, one depicting Samuel up in his own separate realm, and the other one showing the five originals, "So, as you all know, I've been struggling quite a lot in trying to figure out how this space really works. The patterns worked into the walls, the actual material they're made of; all of these things are incredibly complex beyond what I was really able to understand.

After all, it was created over the course of thousands of years; understanding it in just a day or two would be impossible, right?"

"Right. But you managed to do it now?" Eisen asked, and Xenia smugly nodded her head.

"Exactly so! Frankly, I was completely stuck before you unlocked that system-blocking 'skill', but after you told me more about it, I started to get a bit of an idea.

Until then, I wasn't able to figure out how exactly Samuel tracks people," she said, pointing at the holographic screen, "The ability to track others no matter where they are, no matter when, potentially without any real consequences, that's... insane. That kind of magic doesn't exist. Or at least, it shouldn't; but then, I realized that there already is something that is doing that exact thing."

In the middle of the screen, a symbol showed up, seemingly representing some kind of computer. Arrows were drawn from this computer to the sketch showing the originals and back.

"The system?" Eisen asked, and Jyuuk raised a brow surprised his tail stiffening behind his back, "Hold on, did you manage to replicate Eisen's system-blocking?"

Xenia quickly shook her head, "No, this isn't to that degree... Frankly, I was sort of hoping it would be that, because in that case we might be able to access whatever the system is more directly, but it's different than that," she explained, as another arrow was drawn on the screen. One from Samuel, through the computer, over to the originals.

And then from the originals, an arrow was drawn right back to him again. These arrows were moving around, as if the one from the originals was reacting to the arrival of Samuel's arrow, "Basically, it looks like the system itself doesn't really know what we're doing. It really just accesses and manipulates the force that is already inside of us according to some rules.

Now, what Samuel is seemingly doing is sending a ping through the system's signal. Once that ping reaches us, more information than usual is brought back to him, once again through the system's signal."

Evalia was a bit surprised, "So he's doing the same thing as what happened with Eisen's new skill? Does that mean that skill doesn't work in here either?"

"Well, no, it still works fine," Xenia replied. On the screen, a vertical line was drawn between the computer and the originals, where the original lines representing the system's signal traveled through without issues, but the arrows traveling to and from Samuel directly were blocked, "Basically, what's going on here is that the additional, foreign signal is just sort of...

forced onto the original one. Like another, secondary message at frequency distinctly different to the system's. This room is a filter. It filters out any signal coming from the system's source that's not the actual system's. That's why Eisen's skill still works here; that new force is already stuck to him. But if he had been in here, that force never would have gotten to him."

Jyuuk cupped his chin into his hand and thought for a bit, "So this isn't just a protection from Samuel, but from anything else that might want to take advantage of the system? Since it seems like there are others, like the one that gave Eisen his skill... this could be even more useful than we thought.

Eisen, his legs crossed, looked at the room's walls. He was getting a weird feeling from all of this. Like there was something else that was stopped by this room. The old man opened the system windows, as if letting himself be guided by intuition, until he reached a specific button. He pressed his finger onto it, and... nothing happened.

Surprised, Xenia looked at Eisen, "What are you doing?"

"I can't log out," the old man replied immediately, and shivers ran over the others' bodies. Brody was the first to react, jumping up from his seat, "Wait, is it the system resistance thing? But... already? There's no way, right?"

Eisen closed his eyes, trying to collect his thoughts. It seemed like his feelings of frustration of not being able to leave this world for so long was still affecting him right now, even though he knew that this wasn't actually what was happening. The old man took a deep breath, but before he could talk, Xenia was the one that denied it first.

"No, that's not it... none of us can log out in here," Xenia pointed out, closing her eyes, "This is something else that I was about to get to. This room blocks logouts. I don't exactly understand how, but I've managed to isolate what part of the structure does it. But with that come some good news, Eisen."

Xenia looked at the old man, a smile forming on her face, "The part that's blocking the logout doesn't access the system at all. Moving from this world to the earth, and this is just a guess based on what I've come to understand here, is a power connected to the soul itself, and the system just happens to be able to activate that power.

This room blocks said power in the first place, so the system can't do anything with it. But the important part is this; no matter how far your system resistance proceeds, you're not going to lose the ability to return to earth. It... might be a lot harder, it might take a while to figure out once it gets to that point, but in the long run, you'll be able to do it."

Eisen felt himself overcome with a sense of relief that he didn't have the words to describe. He let out a deep breath and smiled, resting his face in his hands for a few moments. It didn't matter if it was rough, or if it took some time. He already had to wait more than a thousand lifetimes to get back to his family. He would be able to deal with having to wait a little bit.

As long as there was a shot, he could get through it. And more importantly, knowing that this was the case, Eisen was able to start slowly getting used to logging out manually, or at least try to learn how to already.

However, as Eisen was thinking about that, Brody had come up with another idea, "If that's the case... wouldn't it be possible to... just hypothetically... seal away any of these powers?"

Xenia thought about it for a few moments, "I guess it should be possible, yeah. But why would we do that?"

"...Because if we can find Samuel, and trap him in a space that seals his powers away, then we win."

Once more, the room grew silent. Was that what was going on? Was that why this room had an ability to it that didn't make sense for the originals from just a few years ago? They weren't able to log out in the first place, so why would they have a room that could block that, if not to teach the ones that had lost their memories about how they could do it as well.

This room wasn't just a shield. It was the beginnings of a weapon.