Spending My Retirement In A Game

Eisen sat there for a while, just looking at the items that he had just prepared. Dried up, rusted... rotting and falling apart. The fact that he had made these things just to let them fall into decay was both uncomfortable and unusual for him.

Of course, he was the one that had made this choice in the first place, but now that he was looking at the irreversible state of his items, he was having some rather complicated feelings.

But of course, that was the reason why he had made it. These five giant floors were going to be riddled with things that made Eisen feel like crap. Come-down ruins, traces of battles lost, and the things that the people had left behind. Particularly the last of the five floors; the ruins of an old giant city, infested with giant monsters that were feeding on the decay of what had once been.

The destruction that would have ravaged that place was a force of nature that was impossible to fight against.

The old man took a deep breath. He sighed and stood up, opening a gateway leading to the second giant floor, which was currently still not under construction, but was instead used to house a certain giant.

Khan was seated on a log bench that Eisen had prepared for him. It was cushioned with layers of fur and was set up against a large stone so that Khan could lean back. Eisen had tried to accomodate him as well as he could, and quickly decided on making furniture for Khan that he could use during the trip back to Asgard.

Since it wasn't possible to keep him shrunken down for an extended period of time without taking an extreme risk of injury, he was basically locked inside of this place up until the point of arrival. Once in Asgard, Eisen could create some better accomodations for him, whether within Prototype or on one of the other islands.

Whichever the case, he wanted to ensure that Khan would have a good life in his country, and make sure to allow him to do whatever he wanted.

As such, he finally came to Khan, who had been avoiding the conversation this whole time, trying to finally get an answer.

Eisen approached the elderly giant, who was currently whittling something out of a piece of wood he asked Eisen for, sitting down on one of the other logs in front of Khan, "How's your day been?"

"Coulda been better. The sea air's makin' my joints hurt," Khan grumbled, and Eisen laughed slightly. So that Khan had at least a bit of fresh air and could enjoy the journey in spite of being basically trapped here, Eisen had asked Sigurd to place a connection to the entrance gateway inside of this space whenever it wasn't use elsewhere.

It was basically a small window that Khan could look through to enjoy the journey.

"I know what you mean. If you want you can have some healing salves," Eisen offered, "I've been trying out new recipes for potions and salves recently, so I made a few with pain-relieving qualities."

Khan looked away from the wood that he was whittling down and glanced at Eisen, "Pah, stop treatin' me like an old man! Ye're ten times my age!"

"Oh, it's not about age, don't worry," Eisen replied, "I've got a lot of pain relievers at my home on Earth. My body there is starting to become strengthened, but the process itself is fairly painful, so I've been using them a lot.

And I had a large surgery there recently where my arm was amputated, and that whole process had vastly painful side effects," the old man pointed out, and Khan stopped what he was doing.

"Amputated? Yer arm was cut off?" Khan asked, trying to make sure that he heard correctly, "What kinda beast could hear ya enough for that to be necessary?"

Eisen shook his head immediately, "We don't have beasts or monsters there. I didn't explain that to you in the past?"

Khan thought for a while, "Ya didn't talk about that place a lot. But I guess maybe you mentioned that, just been a second. So if it wasn't a beast, or monster, was it a battle with someone else? Or wait, did you not have those either?"

"Well, it's sort of a thing, sometimes. Not to the degree that we know here, of course... It was disease. Cancer. I was injured in different ways on my arm, and it was right at the beginning of my body there adapting to my body here. I can't say so for sure, but I used strength that was too much for my already weakened arm to handle, and it broke all over the place.

And then, my body was trying to heal itself, as it would here. I spoke to Jyuuk about it, and his guess is that the mana that was starting to flow through my body somehow strengthened the growth of the cancer to the point where it was impossible for my broken arm to heal anymore. So...

the decision was made to just cut it off, before the cancer spread throughout my whole body," the old man explained, holding his arm with a complicated expression. Khan looked at him, sighing, "If ya got some of that salve to spare, I won't say no."

Eisen smiled lightly, "I'll bring it to you in a bit," he said. The two of them were silent for a few moments, before Eisen finally opened his mouth. But before he could speak, Khan asked him a question instead.

"That other world... are ya happy ye can go back there?"

Eisen didn't even have to think about it for a moment, "Stepping out of that capsule into earth for the first time was the happiest moment in my life," he pointed out. He knew that this weren't his own feelings. Or rather, that they weren't the feelings of the current him, but of the former Eisen. It just came so naturally that he wasn't even able to filter his thoughts before they left his mouth.

Khan smiled, "I see. I'm glad you were finally able to do so."

"...Did I speak about that a lot? Wanting to leave?"

"I don't think you ever did, actually," Khan replied, "But whenever you were telling me about your achievements... making some grand new item, or some escapades you and the other peaked ones got into... there always seemed to be this yearning in your eyes. Your wanting for not something more, but for something else. Something that this world would never be able to give you."

"...Earth is my home, but so is this world. I first stepped into this world as a sense of escapism. My body was too weak for me to recklessly do what I wanted anymore. My shoulder was tense, my back hurt, and I went through tubs of pain-relieving salve so fast that my pharmacist was worried about what I was doing with it. But then, I came here, and... I was reborn into another world.

A world without my children, without my friends. Without the people I so cherished. And from that moment on, all I wanted to do was escape from here," the old man said, his feelings flooding out of his mouth without anything to stop them, "I resented this world, I truly did. But I came to love the people here. My parents, my siblings. My friends, lovers, and the children that I fathered.

For a while, I'm sure I was just trying to act like earth was nothing but a long lost dream, but... I couldn't act like that forever."

Eisen looked out through the dungeon's entrance onto the ocean. The sun was setting, and the sky was dyed in purple and red. The old man looked at Khan, and then asked him a question in turn, "Why do you want to come to Asgard? I'm ecstatic to have you there, of course, but what is it you want to do there? Is there anything I can help you with?"

Khan smiled lightly, shaking his head, "There's nothing in particular I want. Really, I just want to live somewhere new for a while. Breathe another country's air. I traveled the continent thoroughly, to the point where there's no place I can't write a book about, but...

I haven't left in nearly two thousand years," he explained bitterly, "Even giants travel on ships while shrunken down as much as they can. It saves space, and with that, money. Trading vessels wouldn't take me because of my size, and the weight of my stone. And personal vessels simply weren't large enough to accomodate me either.

Since all our trading partners outside of our country have ports built for non-giants, all our ships have to accomodate that as well. I tried finding my way there on my own once. Buying a ship just barely large enough for me to sit on, sailing it to the central continent. But I hit a storm, and nearly drowned. My petrified body made it impossible for me to swim against the currents.

I hadn't been that far out from the coast yet, and managed to make my way back luckily enough, but... since then, I didn't dare try again."

The elderly giant looked at Eisen, a genuine smile on his face, even if it was mixed with the bitterness of the situation he found himself in, "Even if I gave you little choice, just appearing here and forcing myself onto you... I truly thank you for allowing me to see a new world once more."