Spending My Retirement In A Game

Eisen stepped back into the small office that he had turned into his domain earlier. Aaron was still sitting there, anxiously waiting for the old man to return.

"I-Is everything alright?" he stuttered out, and Eisen nodded his head.

"Yes, everything is fine. But we need to make something clear here, okay?" Eisen asked. Aaron swallowed loudly.

"Of course... I... I understand if you can't trust me anymore, so I-"

"This isn't about trust. Whether or not we can trust you is irrelevant, it's all about whether we can trust the one giving you those quests," the old man said, "So, we're going to do something new. You're going to tell us whenever you get a new quest, and we will find a way to circumvent it."

"Circum- what do you mean? Your majesty, I can't... I can't tell you about it outside of this space, can I? So how could I inform you?"

"Once you get back to Litgern, you will just live your life, okay? Just do what you would normally do, and live your life as you would like. If you get a new quest, go to one of Starlight's potion shops and buy two honey-flavoured stone-skin candy drops, and a single bottle of stamina strawberry juice," Eisen said, and Aaron anxiously nodded his head.

"Yes! Yes, of course, and that will be enough to inform you?"

The old man continued, "Not on its own, of course. There are many people that just buy random things together to sample everything. So, when you go to pay for these items, you ask for a special-order potion with drake liver as a central ingredient," Eisen explained, "And then after that, use a combination of health and mana potion ratios to explain the situation. Health potions to explain the difficulty and level of the quest, and mana potions to tell us how soon you need our help. One to three parts each, with either lesser, middle, or greater grades. Alright?"

Aaron nodded, mentally noting down the instructions, "I didn't know you sold potions with drake liver."

"We don't. It's not a potion ingredient, or at least not a good one. That's why it's the last signal we use to tell our employees that a message needs to be passed on."

The prince slowly nodded, "I see... And you're sure that it's not going to be registered as me telling you about the quests?"

"No, how could it be? That would be ridiculous. If I understand things right, they won't even know that you told me about it now, so there won't be any reason for them to assume you suddenly told me," Eisen pointed out, "So just calm down and take it easy, alright? If you get a new quest, take it easy and head straight for the nearest potion shop."

"Alright, I... and what about until then? Should I just... act like nothing happened?"

"Yes, exactly. Do what you would usually do without the quests affecting you," Eisen said, placing his hand onto Aaron's shoulder, "But before then, I do still need you to tell me something."

"Of course, anything at all!"

"Did the quests teach you about how to summon the Filth?"

Aaron nervously looked up at Eisen, "Yes, but... not just recently."

"What do you mean?"

"The quests first spoke about 'the Filth' about five years ago. There is a cult in the eastern continent that's more closely connected to it, it seems. Over the past few years, I have been helping them infiltrate different groups in our continent," Aaron explained, though he slightly frowned, "But... what happened with that thing was different to what I know about them."

"... Different in what way?"

"They tried to summon a creature, right? Or well, they succeeded. But from what I know, that cult accesses that world beyond and uses powers from it to affect this world. But trying to bring something from there to here? That's not something I've heard them do before."

Eisen thought about it for a moment. Eisen knew what this was, though it was honestly kind of insane for Samuel to choose. It was another 'Story Arc', probably planned for a few years down the line. And of course, he could already see some kind of use for this in the long term. Maybe Samuel wanted to use that arc to expand his reaches to other worlds beyond this one or earth. If this world had a force that could turn him into a literal god, then other worlds had to have powers or forces that could do something similar. Give him something that could make him truly omnipotent. Of course, this sounded a little bit like what a cartoon-villain would do, but at this point in time, Eisen had to assume the worst of the worst. He would prefer assuming the worst and have the truth turn out to be better, than assume something mild and have the truth turn out to be absolutely horrible.

"Can you tell me a bit about that cult? Even just basic information would be great," Eisen asked, and Aaron quickly nodded.

"I can't tell you anything particuarly in depth anyway. But I can let you know some locations of bases in the central continent, and where to find a larger base in the eastern continent," Aaron explained, grabbing a piece of paper from the table and noting down a few things. Eisen could already tell that it would come in useful, and he should send one of the others to these places to investigate. And maybe he should ask the Filth about this as well. Maybe it knew something about this. Preventing Samuel from meddling with other worlds more than he already had was definitely at the top of the priority list.

The old man took the note that Aaron wrote and placed it into his item storage, "Thank you. But... now, I hope you understand that we can't openly treat you as we have in the past."

Aaron quietly nodded, "I know... I..."

"It's just that we can't take the risk right now. You are still our ally, and I truly believe that, but those quests have done something horrible to you that anyone would struggle to break free from. I and the other originals were also under control of quests like this in the past, though they most likely functioned differently," Eisen explained, "This is not something you need to feel at fault for. But even so, we can't take the risk right now."

"Of course. I'm really, really sorry for everything," Aaron said, but Eisen just shook his head. He started guiding Aaron out of the small room.

"No, as I said, it's fine. Just for now, take it easy, join the other envoys, and then make sure to rest well on your way home. Alright?"

"Alright. Thank you," Aaron said with a smile on his face, clearly relieved that the situation went the way it did. Eisen continued guiding him out to the main meeting hall, and then returned to the other originals. The five of them immediately started planning on what to do now. First things first, Eisen would go and look for the black dragon in the dark forest, and then hopefully find clues on a transcendent monster, while the others would look for the standard materials needed to resurrect Silber. And after that, once Silber was back or when the others could start concentrating on other matters again for a while, they would start trying to investigate this cult, bit by bit, to see what was going on with it. If they had the ability to open that gateway to the other world, that could have catastrophic consequences for everything here. Of course, that was why Eisen doubted that Samuel would just let that happen so easily, but maybe he also had some way to control whatever came through there that the originals didn't know about, similar to how he was able to manipulate the five of them.

But for the time being, it was time to make sure that the envoys reached their homes safely. Now that the treaty had been signed, Eisen doubted that anything else was going to happen, or it would cause some massive fallout that even Samuel couldn't do anything against. Discover hidden content at empire

The next morning, almost the moment that the trains left from the station, Eisen transformed and got his group into his transport carriage, immediately starting to fly toward the central continent.