Spending My Retirement In A Game

Benjamin looked at the large screen hanging in front of the group as the logo to the game appeared and the trailer ended, before immediately everyone began to excitedly freak out.

"That’s so awesome! That was a gameplay trailer, right? It looks like actual real life!" One of the young men in the front exclaimed while looking at his friend, who seemed to be thinking about something else.

"Yeah, but more importantly, that old guy Eisen, wasn’t he also that demon who was trying to kill an angel? Or did they just look similar?" He asked out loud as he was scratching the hint of a goatee at the bottom of his chin, and it seemed like others wanted to give their opinion on that topic as well.

"Well, that was obviously just one of the bad guys, right? Maybe he’s something like the final boss?"

"Didn’t you listen, dimwit? That woman said that he was also the hope of the world, so he couldn’t possibly be the bad guy."

"But he was working together with a dragon as well, and those are supposed to be the ’evil forces’. At least it looked that way..."

And while the group was saying these things amongst themselves, the store employee chuckled lowly with a light smirk, as if everyone there beside him was an idiot for not getting what he was thinking right away. "Obviously you guys wouldn’t get it... I’ve done a good amount of trailer analysis, so listen here guys, I’ll tell you what’s going on. Each of those five people that were shown were great at one of five disciplines, and the characters were named after them as well! Combat, Life, which I guess is just taming, Magic, Artistry, and Mechanical Arts, although that seems to be only crafting. Since they are called ’Originals’, we can see them as a ’source’ of sorts, meaning that they are important characters for each playstyle, maybe they are something like trainers! And that old man that’s in charge of crafting might be a sage character, which is why he’s the only old guy, and there’s obviously more behind him than just crafting! I mean, you saw his muscles, right? He’s obviously some kind of demonic creature turned away from evil that’s now on the player’s side! I’m guessing that it’s giving us a hint to how we’re supposed to finish the game, and that we’re not actually supposed to just kill-"

"Nope, that’s just blatantly wrong." Benji quickly interrupted the employee, since he couldn’t continue listening to this bullshit explanation that was mostly very wrong, although he got the basics right, while the employee was wearing a very smug expression. "First off, yeah, that guy isn’t evil and he never was, he can just get very scary when you make him angry. And he’s really just a craftsman, he’s done basically nothing else in his life than make stuff with his two hands. Oh, and he’s not a character in the game, none of the originals are. They’re all players."

With an annoyed face, the employee stared back at Benji, while the others were watching Benji him with a weird look of petty in their eyes. "Well, first off, you’re wrong. How the hell could that be a player, the game isn’t even out yet. And how the hell do you explain the way he looked then, I doubt that’s just a playable race in the game?"

And as Benjamin was hearing the employee get somewhat aggravated, the old man stood up again to show him. Immediately after the trailer, he squatted down to the ground to put Katy back, but he didn’t get a chance to come back up since both she and Sean wanted a few answers. What did that Angel do to deserve getting beaten up? Why was the lady from the movies in the game? And most importantly, why was grandpa so awesome?

But now that he managed to answer their most important questions, Benjamin was allowed to stand up straight again, immediately catching the attention of everyone there, considering that Benjamin was incredibly tall and was basically just towering over everyone, making the employee’s jaw drop instantly.

"Wh-wh-what? Wait, you’re- Eisen?" He stuttered out in confusion, and the old man crossed his arms while beginning to laugh.

"Seems like you believe my grandson now, huh? Yeah, I’m Eisen, and the five originals are players. I can’t say too much, but that should basically all be common knowledge, especially after you literally just got a closeup shot of Nataly." Benjamin chuckled out, and finally the realization hit everyone there.

"That really was Nataly Klein?! That wasn’t a computer model?!" One of the teenagers in the crowd yelled out, but Benjamin simply replied with a quick wink before turning around and signaling his family to come with him, since this would otherwise probably end up pretty annoying, and since Benjamin wasn’t technically allowed to reveal any major information, he just wanted to leave for now and have a nice day with his family.

And luckily, all of these kids new what boundaries were, since none of them followed behind the five of them. Soon enough, they were all sitting on a bench in peace, where Benjamin began to answer some of their questions. Obviously, even though he wasn’t allowed to leak any information, that would be different in a few weeks anyway, and he trusted his family to keep everything a secret until then, and he very badly could just say nothing to Benji’s next question.

"So... you’re actually friends with Nataly Klein?" The teenager asked with a wry smile, and Benjamin chuckled lowly.

"Well, I’d say so, yes. At the very least we get along quite well. Oh, and I actually made the guitar that she was playing in the trailer." Benjamin lightly bragged, since he was actually quite proud of how that Guitar turned out. It confirmed to him that with the right synergy between a person’s skillset and their equipment, you could push both far higher than usually possible. Of course that made sense, since that was the case in real life as well, but now Benjamin knew that different in-game magical abilities synergized greatly and created all new effects when you had different tools or weapons.

"Do you think you could maybe... introduce me to her when I start playing?" Benji asked with a wry smile, unsure of how to word what he wanted to say.

With a smile, Benjamin nodded before giving his answer that made Benji unsure of what to say. "What a coincidence, Nataly asked me to introduce you to her as well."

"...what? She wanted to meet me..?" Benji asked quietly with excitement building up in his body, and his grandfather hit him on the back with a chuckle. "Just try not to react like that when you actually do meet her, just be yourself. She’s a normal person. There’s just a lot more people that know about her than average."

While Benjamin was talking to his oldest grandson, Tony gave his opinion on it as well. "That’s quite a surprise though, I didn’t expect a celebrity to have helped the developers out like you did as well."

"Oh yeah, she’s incredibly talented, and she studied art history as well, so she was probably the best choice. And of course marketing was probably also part of it, since most people know what she looks like." Benjamin guessed with a light shrug, and Tony could only agree.

"Maybe..." Tony said as he looked over at the two young children sitting next to Benjamin, intensely staring at their grandfather. "What are you two doing?"

Immediately, Katy responded, not keeping her eyes off of Benjamin for even a split-second. "We want to see if we can catch Grampa when he becomes a demon again!" She whispered quietly, and Benjamin chuckled lowly before grabbing the two kids and setting them down on his lap.

"Sorry to disappoint the both of you, but Grandpa isn’t really a demon. Just in the game." He laughed, and Katy turned around to look at him again, climbing up to whisper in his ear.

"It’s okay grampa, I won’t tell anyone."

"If I’d tell anyone, it would be you. Sorry Katy." The old man chuckled, rubbing his hand through the young girl’s hair.

He was really glad that he could see all of them again.

---

"Good morning, everyone." Eisen exclaimed as he stood up and stretched inside the carriage, where Kiron was sitting on the bench right now while Bree and Sky seemingly were driving again, while Komer was apparently still offline.

Immediately, Kiron looked over to his Lord with what seemed to be a smile, but was somewhat hard to figure out considering the Half-Dragon’s facial structure. "M’Lord! Welcome back!" He said excitedly, and Eisen responded with a chuckle.

"Thanks, Kiron. Anything happen while I was gone?" The old man asked while helping both Caria and Melissa up, since they were slowly waking up as well.

"Not much, truly. We took a break at a small town yesterday, and there were a few situations where we had to fight off some monsters as we were driving. Beside those, it has been a quite uneventful three days." Kiron explained carefully, and Eisen nodded.

"Got it, thanks for the update. Did you grab the materials again and put them with the others?" The old man asked as he squatted down and greeted Aulu as well by moving his hand through her metallic fur, before the half-dragon continued to speak.

"Yes, we have done so. And during one night, we even encountered a quite rare species of monster, a swarm of crystal bats. You have to inquire about the materials we gathered from those with Bree, as I do not know much about them myself." After Kiron said this, Eisen once more nodded with a smile and stuck his head through the window at the front of the carriage to talk to the two Fey-kin.

"Hey there, you two." Eisen greeted them, before Bree turned around, showing her pearly whites through a happy grin.

"Hello Eisen!" She exclaimed, but Eisen quickly put his hand on the top of her head to make her look to the front, since the group was currently driving along a road with a steep way down on their side, and since Bree was driving, he didn’t want her to somehow confuse Cabarum and make him run off the edge.

"Look where you’re driving, please." The old man told her, and she quickly nodded, before Eisen turned to look at Sky who was currently reading a thick book.

"And what are you doing?" He asked, and the Fey-kin boy turned around and looked back at him with a smile as well.

"Ah, I’m reading a book about advanced magic theory that came out recently. I heard Kiron tell you about the town we stayed at yesterday, and I bought some books there." Sky explained, and Eisen curiously looked at the book that was held up to show it to him, and for a while the old man simply looked at the impressively sized object before reading a single name. Xenia.

The book that Sky was reading right now seemed to have been published by Xenia herself, and since it was recent, that meant that she wrote this whole book with theories over theories within a few weeks, although Eisen didn’t really know how she managed that. After all, in the trailer it seemed like she has been quite busy herself during her stay in the magic city.

"Interesting... Anyway, what are the other books you bought?" Eisen asked him, before Sky told him with a little bit of embarrassment.

"Well... Mostly, books filled with Fairytales and fables..." He explained, but then, before Eisen could misunderstand continued to speak. "Ah, but it’s not because I’m a kid or anything! It- It’s for my magic! Yeah! Here, let me just show you..." Sky hurriedly exclaimed, climbing through the window into the carriage to be able to properly stand up, before grabbing one of the books he seems to have bought.

Sky was flipping through the pages quite quickly, as if searching for a very specific one, and then placed his palm flat on the page. "The Rabbit’s Paw. Come out." The boy commanded, before the page began to glow in a bright light, and the words written in black ink on the page seemed to split off of the paper, starting to float around Sky’s arm in spiraling motions, slowly changing size and shape before melting together and forming a single shape.

A completely black Rabbit, peacefully sitting on Sky’s shoulder.

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