Spending My Retirement In A Game

It was twisting around a bit, and if Eisen didn’t know any better, he would think that this was an actual natural cave-system. But at some point, they left the cave again, and found themselves in the area that was inside of the hill. It covered a rather large area, even larger than it let out from outside, and the top was open so that Gran was able to see the sky from here.

This place seemed rather idyllic, with a small pond, some flowers and trees, and random other plants. And all that showed that there was someone living here were the few items that were scattered around in the center of this space, a rudimentary mattress made by putting some soft leather on top of a pile of straw.

It really seemed like Gran was someone that enjoyed this sort of serene nature a lot, which came quite unexpected from the way that he was carrying himself usually.

The old man looked around and in this large open area found a good place to put up shop. To properly protect the plants and not just crush them, the old man first used his magic to create stilts and a base platform before placing down his portable shop.

He turned around and looked at Gran with a smile on his face, "I will have to work in the-"

"Where come from?!" Gran exclaimed, "Why hut here?!"

With a deep frown, the tall man walked up to the portable shop and was about to swing his halberd at it, but luckily, Eisen was able to catch the weapon and stop him, "If you even dare try and do that again, I swear that I will rip your head off. This is my house, I put it here through magic if you will."

With a deep frown, Gran looked back at Eisen, "Magic weak! Magic user weak! Man weak, go! Go, leave!"

Somewhat angry, for whatever reason, Gran stared at the old man and tried to push him out of the way, but Eisen himself just groaned annoyedly.

He activated his Draconic Demon King transformation again and tried to force it to turn into the Yin form, something that was incredibly hard to do due to the sort of energies coursing through heaven. But with a little bit of concentration and will, Eisen was able to do it.

Eisen still had a good grip on the halberd Gran was using, and that grip only tightened as the old man slowly grew in size, staring down at the Warrior, "Be quiet and let me do my work, or you will regret it. Understood?" Eisen asked. Gran just stared up at him with a deep frown, "No. Magic weak. Gran no like weak. Gran no like weak man. Man leave. Strongest man no use magic, so magic weak."

Suddenly, something jolted in the old man’s mind. This feeling that he had until now... With a deep sigh, Eisen deactivated his transformations as certain words crossed over into the old man’s mind that he didn’t have the ability to filter out before speaking, "Your master would be disappointed in you. Didn’t he teach you that anything can be used for true strength?"

The information was put together in Eisen’s head and he soon understood what he himself was speaking about. Gran was one of Brody’s former students.

The old man looked back at the Warrior, who just stared at Eisen with a deep glare, "Master teach me to be strong! Magic no strong! Magic we-"

Without a moment’s hesitation, Eisen pushed his fist forward toward Gran’s stomach with as much force as he could absolutely muster. The warrior was sent flying to the other side of this huge open area, "Shut up, Grastkindan." The old man growled loudly as he stepped into his shop, and Gran stared back at him, ���How man know that name?!"

Eisen slowly turned around and stared into Gran’s eyes, "I wonder how I know. Come on now, Grastkindan. I want you to sit there in silence and only speak when you’re spoken to."

It seemed somehow, using that name made Gran weirdly submissive. He wasn’t aggressive anymore, and instead, was actually rather excited all of a sudden as if he realized something of importance.

Ambriel watched this whole thing happen and stared at Eisen with a surprised expression, "I was not aware that this tribe of Barbarians was one with ’true names’. Are they devil-like in nature, so that you could use their names to control them and make them submissive, I wonder?"

Eisen turned around toward the Angel and stared at him with a deep frown, "Of course not, are you an idiot or something? That’s Gran’s juvenile name. When a warrior of his tribe becomes an adult, they get their adult name."

"But how did you-"

"I knew him while he was still alive. He’s obviously not the smartest, so he probably forgot what I looked like already. This probably helped him remember." The old man pointed out bluntly, "And now, shut up. I already told you that I don’t want to hear you speak anymore, remember?"

For the second time now, Eisen was able to see Ambriel’s face twist a bit, just a slight bit away from their regular emotionless expression. But instead of disgust like before, this one was just completely filled with anger all the way through.

Eisen turned away from the Angel and stepped further into the shop. Gran also quickly followed, and luckily the ceiling was high enough to let this Heroic Soul stand there without any issue.

"Alright, then let’s get started with the planning. And I tell you, if you freak out just because I’m using a bit of magic or things that look like magic, I’m going to leave immediately, alright?"

With a quick nod, Gran accepted the old man’s conditions, "Yes! You strong, even though magic!"

The old man sighed quietly and nodded his head as he sat down behind the counter, "Right. So, I assume you want a weapon similar to that halberd again?" Eisen asked, and Gran immediately nodded his head, "Yes! This weapon good, but not great! You make great halberd!" He exclaimed in his regular loud tone, and Eisen slowly nodded his head.

"Got it. What about armor then? Do you want this kind of barbarian style?" The old man asked, and with the use of his visualization ability, he showed Gran a form of armor that Eisen mentally connected with barbarians, so a sort that showed a lot of skin and otherwise had a mixture of metal plates and leather bits making it up.

It seemed like for the most part, Gran did want this kind of armor just with a few slight changes to what Eisen initially suggested. It didn’t seem like Gran wanted any sort of other items, so instead, the old man made another suggestion.

"Then how about I make some armor for your mount as well?" The old man suggested. Honestly, Eisen wasn’t sure how Gran would react to this. After all, he was rather... well, passionate. And he was hard to read as well, so Eisen wasn’t sure if he would react well or if he would start trying to attack Eisen again for saying something ’dumb’.

But surprisingly, Gran just nodded his head, "Buldor armor. Yes, please make." The Warrior said bluntly, "If Buldor had armor when life, he would not have death now. Gran wanted Buldor and Gran to die together. Buldor hit with poison arrow. Kill Buldor, but Gran survived."

Eisen looked at Gran with a slight smile on his face, "Is that so?" He asked, and the warrior slowly nodded his head, "Then let’s take a look at what we could make for Buldor." The old man suggested, and quickly showed some of the old man’s ideas to Gran, and in the end, he chose something that actually covered quite a bit of Buldor’s outer body. As if this special ground-dragon was wearing full plate armor but Gran was wearing the bare minimum as basic defense.

But in the end, Eisen didn’t really care. It was Gran’s choice, and the old man would surely be able to create something that was amazing for Buldor. He was a rather unique mount, so Eisen was happy that he would be able to make something for him.

And so, Eisen made his way to the back, where the elemental spirit had already been preparing everything that the old man needed for Gran’s own gear. As far as the old man understood from the brief explanations he was given, Gran couldn’t use magic, or even had any mana to speak of. He was a similar case to Brody, where he didn’t have mana but instead some sort of other energy instead.

So of course, that meant that Eisen couldn’t add something like enchantments, since those would just be useful. Gran probably would reject anything that had to do with enchantments anyway. It made Eisen’s job a bit easier, although it felt a little bit weird. It was fine, though. Eisen learned to create things without enchantments in the first place, after all. On earth, they weren’t actually a thing, so it really didn’t matter that much.

Eisen glanced at Gran to figure out his proportions and things like weight, mass, center of gravity, and so on so that he could figure out the proportions for the halberd properly. All that was important, after all.

In the end, Eisen figured things like that out relatively quickly and then simply got to work with the help of some good, high-quality steel. He formed it into the head of the halberd, a weapon that Eisen actually didn’t make that often compared to other sorts. It was simply quite rare to see people that liked using it instead of other sorts of weapons like spears or swords for example.

But especially for mounted combat it was a great choice, as you were able to easily stab it forward and swing it around just the same while riding on horseback, or on ground-dragonback.

After Eisen finished the halberd-head and properly sharpened and then tempered it, the old man moved on to the long handle, which had to be used to counterbalance the heavy head while also making sure that it could be held onto properly.

And so, the old man finished Gran’s weapon rather quickly.