Spending My Retirement In A Game

Would the trees of the forests themselves be turned into skyscrapers, or would they be felled to make space as was normal on earth? Really, Eisen couldn\'t help himself but be curious about it. He wanted to see this world grow more and more. But before he could explore the future together with this world, he had to figure out the world\'s past. Specifically, he had to find a particular town, that he knew he was going to meet some old friends, or maybe foes, in.

The place closest to him now was the hometown of the five great golems. Tank, Deedee, Supp, Ranger, and Croco. When they left after their rebirth, they left, telling Eisen that they never wanted to see him again. And of course, the old man wanted to honor that decision of theirs, but there was still something that bothered him about the whole ordeal. And maybe seeing the hometown where those five grew up, he would be able to find out what had happened to them, and why Eisen did what he did. However, while approaching, Eisen could already tell that there was an issue with that. And that was that, while there were certainly traces of a town nearby, it was in nothing but ruins at this point.

From the ruins, Eisen knew that it wasn\'t a town of giants, but of \'regular\' sized people instead. But now, they all lived together in the huge towns created by the giants, so there was no need for these places anymore, which is most likely why this place had been abandoned. For now, the group set up camp somewhere nearby. If those five were really around here, then Eisen didn\'t want to just stay within that ruined town. That would be beyond disrespectful.

"Are you sure this is fine?" Kirisho asked, standing beside the old man. Right now, Eisen was at his \'normal\' size to help set up the camp. The old man turned his head and looked at her, slowly nodding, "I do. I\'m not planning on extending my stay in this place. All I need is to go in there, find something that gives me a hint of nostalgia, and then come back here so that I can rest and try to remember something. I\'m only going to leave here when I either remember why I did what I did, or when I realize that I won\'t be able to find the answer here."

Kirisho lightly smiled at Eisen, moving a bit closer to him before placing her head on his shoulder, "I see. If that is the case, then I of course fully support you through and through. Just... try to avoid them, alright?"

"If they\'re here, yeah. For now, Melissa sent some of her reconnessence drones through the ruins. If they don\'t find any trace of someone having been there, then I at least know there\'s no need for me to worry about meeting them." Eisen explained, as he turned his head toward the mist spirit next to him. As he opened his mouth, the hair on his neck stood on its end, as something flew right past him, passing by inbetween him and Kirisho.

The object hit a nearby rock, causing it to form deep cracks throughout. It was a metal arrow, that looked more than just familiar to Eisen. He made it, after all. Eisen turned his head, looking into the direction of where the arrow came from, before seeing something approach again, although it was larger this time.

Soon, he realized who it was. Croco, on her broom, was flying toward Eisen at high speed, clearly with the intent to attack. But of course, he wouldn\'t just let that happen. Eisen\'s body grew in size immediately, as he also activated his true demonic transformation. By the time he reached his full size, Croco had come to a halt.

"We told you we never want to see you again! What are you doing here?!" She yelled out angrily, gathering mana in preparation of casting a spell at the old man. At the same time, another arrow, albeit one quite a bit larger this time, was shot at Eisen, which he simply stopped with his hand. The arrow did pierce quite deeply into his flesh, though.

"Please, calm down. I\'m not here to fight you. I was trying to avoid you as much as I could." Eisen told Croco, but she glared back at him, not believing a word he was saying, "As if! You say you\'re not here to fight, but you brought a small army with you?! Who do you think you can fool with that?"

"They\'re guards. I\'m in this country on official business, so I couldn\'t go without them." He explained, "Please, I\'m just here to recover some of my memories, I-"

"Don\'t you dare start thinking that you\'re allowed to set foot into our home!" Tank yelled out, as the others finally arrived as well. Croco, Tank, Deedee, Ranger, and Supp, were now back in front of Eisen, staring at the man in anger and disgust.

"You promised us that we would never have to see you again." Supp said, deeply glaring at Eisen, "I guess it was too much to expect for you to truly change."

"As I just said, I\'m just here to recover some of my memories. That is all. I never wanted for you to see me. I wanted to go in, take a look around, and then leave forever." Eisen told them. It was the only thing that he could say, after all. He didn\'t have any other excuse for breaking his promise right now.

Tank simply scoffed, "You don\'t deserve to go in there. You don\'t deserve to remember our home, the thing you took from us!"

"...I\'m not here to remember this town. I\'m here to remember you five, so that I at least know all that I did to you." Eisen tried to explain, but Tank still didn\'t want to hear it, "So what, huh? So that you can do it all again? So that you-"

"No." The old man said in a clear tone, interrupting Tank immediately, "I\'m trying to remember because I want to know... I have to know what sort of person I used to be. I did something unforgivable to you all, so why should I be allowed to live in blissful ignorance of all that I did, thinking that I was always the person that I believe myself to be right now?" He said, "And in the end, this is something that I\'m going to do. Now that we\'ve met, I might as well, or else we will have met for nothing, right?"

"One day. You get one day to take a look around the town. After that, you leave forever. And this time, we really mean it. We want to rebuild that town, to try and live the lives that you forced us to always wish for while doing what you ordered us to." Supp decided, in the end. And although the others weren\'t happy with this situation either, it seemed like they agreed to let Eisen roam around the town for a day, as long as it meant that he would never return to see them again.

Eisen turned around toward the armed group standing behind him now. They were ready to attack the five golems at any point they needed to, but Kiron had stopped them, so that Eisen could properly speak to them, "I will leave now. And I will do so alone." The old man said, as he took his first step toward the ruined town. A pit was already forming in his stomach, as the fear of what he was going to remember entered his mind. He knew that he didn\'t use to be a particularly good person in this world. But what he might find out here could determine for him whether or not the Eisen of this world was just \'not a good person\', or an outright \'bad person\'.