Spending My Retirement In A Game

The townsfolk had gathered. At first, they were scared at what was going on around them, and what it was that was injected into their arms by those bees, but by now, their hunger and the divine smell of the food that Eisen and the inkheart chefs were preparing overpowered that anxiety with absolute ease.

Especially when they watched Eisen and his companions slay the artificials with ease. They, who had taken over this place with the powers they were given by the black dragon, or simply with the powers that they possessed long before they came here in the first place. They terrorized the poeple of this town, and nobody was powerful enough to do anything against them. But now, this old man took care of them with absolute ease. No matter who came, no matter what position in the clan they possessed, they all fell one after another.

Before long, Eisen was cleaning up after himself, putting away the ingredients. He had prepared a large amount of extra food that would be able to feed everyone in this town for a few days that was kept in special vats that preserved its quality perfectly.

He approached one of the nearby townsfolk, absolutely not hesitating or attempting to hide what he was planning, "Where are their headquarters?"

They thought about it for a few moments, though it didn't seem like they were trying to remember where their base was. Rather, they were trying to figure out if they should really tell him.

"I'll just tell you, but I will find that place sooner or later anyway. I would simply prefer the 'sooner' option of the two," Eisen pointed out, and that seemed to do the trick convincing the villagers to some extent. Though, even then, they only told Eisen that it was the largest building here. And that was to be expected, to some extent.

"Alright, in that case, let's get started," Eisen sighed, looking at his companions, "Sky, Bree, could I ask you two to watch everyone here? If some artificials come here and try to overwhelm you, use the dungeon to evacuate them temporarily if need be."

"We got you, boss," Bree said with an excited salute. It seemed like she was happy to go on an adventure with Eisen again. For a while now, it was just travelling and diplomacy, but this felt like the 'the good old days'.

Eisen smirked lightly, rubbing his hand over Bree's head as he left, with Caria, Melissa, and Sal following behind him.

"You kids know what to do too, right?"

"Of course," Sal replied with a sigh, as if he was annoyed about being underestimated by the old man.

Caria nodded, skipping ahead of the group for a bit, "We just have to take care of the small fry, right?"n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Right. But be careful not to be overwhelmed by their curses, we don't know what effects they might have. We haven't faced those kind of things yet," the old man explained, "They usually include things like healing reduction, continued damage over time, weakening, and such matters. And if the curses combined with their personal elements, they could have even more unique effects."

"Don't worry, we got it," Caria replied, "This ain't our first rodeo!"

"... Who taught you how to say that?"

"Brody!"

"... Don't listen to him anymore," Eisen responded with a slight chuckle, as the small group made their way to the town's largest building. It really wasn't hard to find. It was probably the only building in the whole town that was still in decent enough condition. Plus, plenty of players were standing around it, as if getting ready to defend the place.

With a sigh, he stared at the players, "I'm sorry, but do you actually think you're enough to stop us?"

The players looked at each other, and then back at Eisen, nodding with unearned confidence.

"Hm, alright, in that case..." Eisen glanced over at the monster kids, who were itching to go. The old man nodded, and then watched as they got started.

Sal swung his arm around, with threads shooting out of his fingertips. They formed magic circles in the air, and the roots of the thick forest's plants immediately dug through the ground and created a wall around the building, which seemed to be the town hall, blocking any players from escaping what was about to happen. Caria took a deep breath, and then blew it all out in one go. Spores were pushed out from her lungs, and the ground was immediately covered in small red mushrooms. The players simply laughed in response, but there were some that figured they might as well counter attack, even if they didn't even register this as an attack yet. But the moment the first of them stepped forward, crushing the mushrooms underneath his black leather boots, a new cloud of spores popped out and right into him, covering him in small, bulbous mushrooms. They sprouted from everywhere. His mouth, his eyes, and basically every single inch of his skin was covered.

"What the-" one of the players yelled out, nocking an arrow onto his bow. He didn't hesitate to shoot it right at Caria, trying not to step on any mushrooms. But before the arrow reached even halfway, a few dozen of Melissa's bees flew toward it and caught it mid-air. The arrow wasn't just slowed – it was actually stopped, bringing the arrow over to Eisen. With his truth-seeing eyes, he quickly took a look. It was coated in a thick, wicked energy. It wasn't mana, but something more akin to the energy permeating the underworld. A bit curious, Eisen took the arrow and poked the tip of his finger with it. Immediately, a black, ink-like pattern started spreading over his arm. It was practically inflicting a deep rot on his flesh. If this kept going, Eisen's arm would go necrotic and die.

"H-Huh?" the player who shot the arrow stared at Eisen confused. Why did he just stop the arrow, and then afflict himself with its curse anyway? That was just... weird, right? "Are you serious? Dude, how fucking stupid do you have to be?"

While the player and his friends started laughing, Eisen sighed.

"How disappointing," he grumbled, as he momentarily activated his demonic transformation, just focused on his arm. Focused on his yang energy, he could cancel out the negativity of the curse quite easily. The black ink was practically burnt away in just a moment, as Eisen casually walked forward.

"Who the hell even are you? Why are you messing with us, man?" the players asked confused, seeing that simply curses clearly weren't going to work all that easily. Frankly, they were just a little upset.

Eisen raised a brow, "What, you're playing this game and you didn't even watch any advertising materials? No trailers or teasers?"

The moment Eisen said this, the players' faces went pale. Finally, they drew the connection, but the old man was too bothered and bored to really play around with these guys. He sent forward some pulses of magic, trying to copy the structure of the building in front of him for now, so that no matter the damage, he could repair it later.

Eisen pulled out his demonic greatsword again, and raised it over his head. The sword immediately grew in size to the largest that Eisen was able to make it grow to. It was a sword that almost towered over the town hall now, and in a swift motion, he swung it downward, cutting through the building's walls, causing one of the town hall's sides to completely crumble away.

Plenty of players died in that first attack, but the ones that didn't quickly came running outside. They stomped down onto Caria's mushrooms, immediately being covered like that first player was, crushing them as the mushrooms kept on growing, whittling down on their health.

Most of the players that relaized what was going on managed to avert this danger rather easily by just getting rid of the mushrooms first. It seemed that most of their 'curse' abilities were really just related to imbuing their attacks with simply cursed energy. Again, Eisen was a bit bored by that, so he figured he might as well finish this sooner rather than later.

He pulled his sword to the side, destroying the west wing of the building. It crumbled like a sandcastle.