Spending My Retirement In A Game

"Kirisho, I don’t regret what I did just there. It was quite sudden, and I obviously didn’t plan it, but in the end it worked. We are safe over there now, there’s no doubt about that. I would do it again if I had to, because in retrospect, this was really the only way to make sure that really nothing could happen anymore." Eisen explained immediately, "And I’m sorry to say this, but I don’t think it’s a reason to be reprimanded either. They are wounds that can easily heal, but what if we all simply die? Our souls would fully become part of this world, and in the process, we would be turned into literal slaves to Samuel. I think a few scratches are a good price to pay in order to make sure that doesn’t happen, right?"

Kirisho looked back at Eisen and then turned her head toward the ground, before shaking her head, "No, I understand what you are trying to say, but it still feels wrong that you had to injure yourself in order to achieve this."

"It’s a literal war we have to go through in order to protect not only the other world, but also this one, from complete chaos. Samuel is practically a comic-book supervillain, trying to take over the world to rule over it. As I said, a few cuts are a small price to pay in order to prevent that." The old man pointed out immediately, and once more, the mist spirit lightly nodded her head, "I see. Then I apologize for needlessly worrying about you, Eisen." She said, and was just about to turn back into mist and return to the amulet, but before she could do so, Eisen grabbed her arm to stop her.

"Kirisho, wait. I don’t want to repeat this whole thing over and over again. I’m aware that you’re hurt whenever you find out I’m doing something troublesome in a way that you can’t help me, but what else do you expect me to do at this point in time? All of us were nearly killed. My wounds will probably heal pretty quickly, and a little bit of pain is nothing compared to what we may feel at some point if I didn’t do this. Brody lost his unborn child, and that in one of the worst ways possible. That can never happen again anymore." Eisen pointed out bluntly, "Please, I don’t want you to pretend that you’re fine with it and then just leave again. Let’s properly speak about this, alright?"

"...Alright..." Kirisho said, slowly nodding her head in response to the old man’s suggestion. And so, she slowly sat down right next to Eisen, and the two of them started to speak to each other about this whole situation.

Meanwhile, Brody awkwardly turned around and walked through a gate that Sigurd created for him and made his way to a more open part of the dungeon, where a lot of the combatists that were coming along at the moment were practicing. Usually, at least right now, most of them were just asleep. But of course there were still a few exceptions to that rule.

"Yo, what’re you up to?" Brody asked as he approached the half dragon Kiron as he was swinging his Giant Greatsword around himself, and he turned over toward the demon-orc with his brows raised, "Ah, Sir Brody... I am merely preparing for when we finally head out onto the Island of War. It should be quite tough there, so I want to be in peak condition."

"Hm, that sounds like a good idea. But if you say you ’want to be in peak condition’, that means that right now you ain’t?" Brody asked. The crystal half-dragon slowly let down his sword a bit and placed the tip onto the ground, before he looked over at Brody again, "It is not that I am currently not feeling well. More so, I think I could possibly be better."

"Ah..." Brody sighed, "I getcha, but that’s not somethin’ you can discover within yourself in just a day, bud." He explained, "That kinda feeling comes from the fact that you see people stronger than you, and you see no reason why you shouldn’t be that strong. ’Specially considering the fact that you’re much weaker than you used to be."

Kiron looked over at Brody and then slowly nodded his head, "I see, you are going through something similar right now, are you not? You used to be able to turn over mountains with a single motion of your hand, but now, your strength has faded this much. You are still strong, but-"

"Oh, I’m not talking about that. I hear people say how strong I was, but I never experienced it myself. From my perspective, I’m much stronger and more awesome than I’ve ever been." Brody pointed out and lifted his arm up a bit, simply flexing with a broad grin on his face, before the Demon-Orc let his arm drop and slowly looked at the ground with a lightly melancholic, and weirdly nostalgic smile, "Well, I kinda do understand you though. I mean, my first ever fight against Eisen was embarrassing as hell, you can bet. He beat me with a snap of his finger."

"Hm?" Kiron slowly muttered out, "But did you not lose your strengths at the same time as each other? Surely you must have always been stronger than Grandfather after your experience was removed from you."

"Obviously?" Brody replied, "Why’re you bringing that up now?"

"But you were the one that brought up your first fight, Sir Brody." The half-dragon pointed out. Brody crossed his arms and stared back at him, "Yo, what’re you even..." He started, although he soon realized that Kiron wasn’t speaking nonsense, "...Yeah, I did, didn’t I? Urgh, is this what it feels like to randomly switch to ’old’ Brody? I thought Eisen was just going senile or something, but I guess it really just randomly happens sometimes..."

"It was probably prompted by the duels you and grandfather had yesterday, don’t you think? At the very least, grandfather mentioned that he remembered your first ’fight’ against each other like that, so it would make sense if it is the case, would it not?" Kiron suggested, and Brody slowly nodded his head, "Yeah, I guess so?" He replied while scratching the back of his head, "This really feels weird... Urgh..."

"Sir Brody, are you okay?" Kiron asked, and Brody slowly nodded his head, "Hm? Yeah, yeah, I’m totally fine, don’t worry about it... Rather than that... You wanna practice together a bit? Feel like movin’ around a bit right now."

Kiron story thought about it and then nodded his head, "Of course, I would be honored to, Sir Brody."

Slowly the half dragon took up his sword and and looked straight into the demon orc’s eyes, "I am ready whenever you are, Sir."

With that Brody picked out his own weapon from his Armory skill and looked into the half Dragon’s eyes. Brody sighed deeply and started think about how Kiron usually fought. It was usually in a simple and straightforward manner but still troublesome because of his talents in the field of combat.

"Alright I think it’s time then, let’s get started. When the others come here we won’t be able to use all the space anymore." Brody pointed out, and Kiron simply nodded his head as he watched Brody reach into the space in front of him up until the last moment, so that he could make sure he really chose the right weapon for this fight.

And to Kiron’s surprise, the thing that he chose was a simple sword, something that he wouldn’t think Brody would choose. Sure, he did fight with regular longswords a lot, but whenever he really wanted to get rid of his stress, he would usually choose some other weapon. One that, according to Brody, ’was the most fun at the moment’. Maybe it was because Kiron was also using a sword that Brody was trying to use a similar, albeit much smaller, weapon?

Either way, as far as Kiron was concerned, Brody’s choice was far beyond him, so he simply accepted it without much more thought than that. Brody took a deep breath and then held the weapon in front of him with both of his hands.

And at some point that both of them seemed to agree on perfectly, Kiron and Brody both started running toward each other with their weapons in their hands. But due to Kiron’s immense reach, thanks to his giant sword, he soon stopped and was able to swing his sword at Brody in an advantageous way.

But Brody seemed to care little as he simply jumped over the half-dragon’s blade. He pushed the tip of his own sword into the side of Kiron’s while flipping over it to push him up a bit. Kiron continuously kept his eyes on Kiron, until he was right above him. The sword had turned into nothing but a simple dot.

All of a sudden, the blade approached Kiron at an immense speed, although he was able to avoid it. To an extent, at least, as it reached speeds that Kiron didn’t expect in the slightest. Although soon, he was able to see why.

The blade that Brody was fighting with until now was sticking into the dirt, although it was just the blade itself. The handle was still held by Brody, and connected to it, was another blade. Just a slight bit bigger than the one that was now sticking into the ground. With a light smirk on his face, Brody approached the blade and pushed the tip of his sword into the hollow part sticking up.

"You’re a good person to test this one against. Eisen called it a ’reverse matryoshka’ concept, which I thought was pretty interesting. I haven’t had the chance to actually see the largest version of this yet... so let’s see if you can bring me there, bud." Brody said with a smirk on his face, as he pushed the obviously way-too-long and broad blade into the hollow one sticking into the ground, before it connected back to the handle with a clicking sound.

"Ah, yes. This seems more like Sir Brody."