Spending My Retirement In A Game

"M’Lord, where will we begin searching for information?" Kiron asked curiously once the small group of four, plus the different bees hiding out all over the place, left the flower-stall behind again. From there, Caria was allowed to pick out a few flowers for free, and she chose some that she thought were prettiest. She was even allowed to ’Rescue’ the flowers that were being infected by the black seed that Eisen found, since the owner of the stall would have thrown them away in the end anyway, considering that they were already starting to slowly wilt away.

After a bit of thought, Eisen shrugged lightly before stopping at a place where they wouldn’t be in the way of anyone walking around. "I’m not too sure, actually. I have a feeling that it’s going to be relatively easy to find Xenia, finding the Bronze Dragon isn’t all that important right now, and I don’t have many leads on the magician that has the last of Kirisho’s shards, which is my priority right now. I’m thinking of just asking around if anyone knows someone that fits his description. There aren’t many people like him around." Eisen explained as he looked around, trying to figure out where the group needed to go next.

"I see. Then would it not be smartest to send out Melissa’s Scout Bees? As you said, the man you are looking for is quite unique, is he not? Surely, even the scouts should be able to find him." The Half-Dragon suggested as he smiled over at the Queen Bee, who quickly tilted her head to the side, before five queen Bees appeared out of what seemed to be nowhere. After Cial killed some of Melissa’s scouts, she ended up laying a few more eggs so that she could make up for it, although it took a little time for her to feel comfortable simply ’replacing’ two of her precious children.

"That might be a good idea, yes. Alright, Scouts, who we’re looking for is a tall and slim elven man with long white hair that has a blue streak running along it on the right side of his head." The old man told the scouts, before they immediately flew off into the distance, spreading out around the area.

"Alright, should we go look for him now?" Eisen suggested before continuing to walk around, simply asking random passerbys if they knew the Elf that Eisen was talking about.

Most people didn’t seem to know, or rather care, while those that did seem to at least know something felt suspicious of Eisen and simply didn’t want to tell him. There were even those that seemed a light bit frightened by Eisen, considering that he was wearing a very straight-laced face and had a large bee on his shoulder and a dragon behind him. Together with the charisma stat that was increased through his suit and his titles that made it easier to change a person’s opinion of him, that all seemed to somehow turn into a rather scary aura, so Eisen couldn’t really blame anyone for their reaction.

It was only when Eisen turned to a woman with a young boy with her that he got an answer, from exactly that young boy. "Huh? Mommy, isn’t that the Firework Lady’s friend?" The boy asked as he turned to his mother, immediately making Eisen’s neck cramp up in surprise, considering that he just heard something quite weird.

"Firework Lady? Do you mean a High-Elf woman called Xenia?" Eisen asked with a frown on his face, before the mother of the boy slowly nodded. "Yes, I think that may be one of the people you see around Miss Xenia quite a lot. She came to this town very recently and spent most of the time here trying to better everything through amazing magic. But the children really just care about the pretty firework that she created with one of her spells during the town’s last festival." The woman laughed quietly, creating some small creases in the corners of her eyes, showing that she was both very tired and already starting to age a slight bit.

"I see, I heard about that. I wish I could have been here to see it. But I’m just wondering, do you perhaps know where I might find Xenia? If she’s friends with the man I’m looking for, she’s the best clue, is she not?" The old man chuckled, trying to show his goodwill so that the woman would calm down. This was all actually quite bothersome. While Eisen was the type of person to smile and laugh a lot in the first place, he didn’t really feel like doing so at a time like this when he was thinking about such a topic as the amulet and Kirisho.

Because of that, considering Eisen’s overwhelming size compared to basically everyone he met so far, he was obviously quite a scary person when he didn’t smile already. Trying to counteract his stats and titles, Eisen as such tried to force himself to smile, at the very least while he needed to talk to people he didn’t know, or rather those who didn’t know him.

For a little while, the woman seemed to think about the question she was just asked, before looking up at Eisen and telling him what she knew. "Well, as far as I’m aware, she is the type of person to be constantly indulged in research, so you will most likely find her in the Mage’s Guild’s research section."

"Huh, I see. Thank you very much, young miss." Eisen said with a soft smile, lightly nodding her head at her, before quickly making his way toward the place that the woman then explained the town’s guilds to be.

"M’Lord, so this means that we will go looking for Miss Xenia first after all?" Kiron asked, trying to sum up the conversation that he just listened to from behind Eisen, who slowly nodded.

"Yes, I guess so. If that guy’s Xenia’s friend, then we’ll be able to see him. And who knows, maybe he’s actually not a bad person anymore? I’d prefer it if I could get the Amulet’s shard without mentally scarring someone else, after all." Eisen laughed lightly as he moved his fingers through his beard, really hoping this to be the case.

After a while of walking, the group finally made it to the Mage’s Guild, the 100% largest guild in the whole town. It was rather a huge tower, standing out amongst basically every other building in the whole area, and the doors were practically constantly open through all the people walking in and out of the building.

Slowly, Eisen made his way through the crowd and entered the Guild with his tamed monsters and Kiron walking in front of him so that he couldn’t lose sight of them, before looking around to see if he could find the way toward that research area the woman mentioned before.

Soon enough, Eisen managed to find a map to the building, and saw that the research area was on the third floor, which Eisen quickly wanted to get to. However, before he managed to climb the stairs to get there, he was stopped by an employee of the guild. The young man looked at Eisen with a frown and held his hand in front of him. "Sorry, Sir, could I see your Guild Tag?" He asked, but Eisen simply shook his head.

"Ah, excuse me. I wasn’t aware this area was only for guild members. I’m just looking for someone and wanted to confirm if she was here, sorry." Eisen apologized, and the man slowly nodded.

"I see. Could you tell me who you’re looking for? I’ve been here all day, so I’d know if they’re upstairs."

"Oh yes, that would be grand. Thank you, young man." Eisen chuckled lowly and smiled at the man, before continuing. "I’m looking for a High-Elf called Xenia with deep black hair. You probably know her if you work here."

Surprised, the man once more frowned lightly at Eisen, just this time not in suspicion, but rather in confusion. "Yes, of course I know Xenia. And she is upstairs, but she usually asks everyone to leave her alone while she’s conducting her research."

"Don’t worry about that. If she wants to see me after hearing who I am, then it’s fine, right? Could you maybe go and ask her for me? My name is Eisen. Just tell her that, and she’s sure to want to meet me." The old man explained, and with even more confusion, the man quickly nodded. But instead of stepping up the stairs, he simply turned around and waved his hands, before a small sphere made out of apparently pure mana appeared mid-air in a way that it was visible to onlookers, before that sphere quickly flew up the stairs.

Noticing that Eisen was looking at it in curiosity, the man chuckled softly and looked at him. "Ah, do you not know about such spells? It’s a simple form of mana manipulation which a few people use to transfer messages to one another over a short distance. Since I know the layout of this building, I can do it without needing to see it, but usually that wouldn’t be the case. Anyway-"

Before the man could even finish his sentence, a loud rumbling appeared from upstairs while multiple people seemed to show surprise, probably due to the person currently rushing down the stairs. "Eisen is here?!" A certain young woman exclaimed as she rushed downward toward the two men standing at the bottom of the stairs, not caring for anyone who was in the way. The moment that she laid eyes on Eisen and formed a giant smile in response, the old man knew something was off.

She wasn’t like this the last time they were talking. Xenia was rather rude and cold back then, right? And there was only one thing that she was interested in like this.

"Eisen! There you-" Xenia began yelling out as she was grasping a wooden staff in her hands and was trying to properly move around with her long robes, stopping when she reached the bottom floor, standing in front of Eisen. However, before she could continue to talk, Eisen quickly interrupted her so that this conversation couldn’t even go the way that Xenia was planning. At least not yet.

"Xenia, I’ll tell you about my transformation and element later. First, we need to talk." Eisen said quickly, immediately causing Xenia to snap out of it, at least to an extent.

"H-Huh..? I don’t know what you’re talking about... I was just excited to see you after all this time..!" She tried to explain to the old man, who simply sighed loudly and shook his head. "Sure you did. Well, nice to see you again, Xenia. Come on, as I said, we need to talk." Eisen explained, and Xenia hurriedly nodded before immediately rushing toward the guild’s entrance, motioning at the old man to follow. After thanking the baffled Guild Employee for his help, Eisen, Caria, Melissa and Kiron followed her outside and toward a nearby park, where they could seemingly talk in peace.

"Alright, now tell me about that weird magma element or whatever that was!"

"As I said, not yet. Just calm down for a bit, will you?" Eisen told the young woman as he sat down on a nearby bench, where Caria immediately jumped on his lap, turning to the old man while she was at it.

"Eisen? Who is that weird woman?" She asked, pointing toward Xenia who seemed to be just now noticing that someone else was there beside her and Eisen. "That’s not nice, Caria! She’s another one of the Originals, you know?" He chuckled, before turning back to Xenia.

"Anyway, Xenia. First, great to see you again, really. Seems like you made quite a name for yourself here. The others are on their way here for a few reasons, so we’ll probably all come together then. Just let me explain the situation that I’m in to you now, alright?"

"Great to see you again too, Eisen. And sure, go ahead. I’m quite curious to see what’s going on? You seemed to be freaking out back in the guild, after all." Xenia said in the tone that Eisen remembered her to have, leaving him to sigh quietly.

Trying to ignore that Xenia apparently mistook Eisen for a mirror, the old man quickly began to explain what happened to him so far, and what the future plans of the originals were, as well as the situation with Kirisho and the amulet, as well as the person that seemed to be Xenia’s companion.