Spending My Retirement In A Game

"Omega..?" Eisen muttered to himself as he heard the young man yell this out. He definitely knew that from somewhere. Could it be that this man was another player?

If he was, Eisen should probably try and figure out a way to convey that he also is a player. There was a quite simple way to do that. Eisen squatted down in front of the blanket that the items the man was selling were lying on while Bree was looking around at another stall. "So, you’re an Omega?"

Happy that there finally was a potential customer, the man crossed his arms smugly and nodded. "Exactly! I’m one of those people that suddenly appeared out of nowhere! Do you not want to see what such an amazing and mysterious being has to offer?"

Eisen looked around himself to make sure there really were only the man and Caria around him. He may have said he was a player, but there might be some person from this world trying to take an advantage of such a situation, so Eisen wanted to confirm the situation. It was kind of risky, so he would have preferred not having to use this, but Eisen held his hand in front of his eyes, only leaving a thin slit open to see through, and activated his Truth Seeing Eyes skill to appraise the man.

The thing about appraising others was that it also seemed to show whether or not someone was a player, but since Eisen didn’t possess a regular Appraisal skill anymore, he could only use the skill that literally changed the way his eyes looked, and he didn’t just want to reveal the fact that he possessed it.

But luckily, the information window that popped up in front of the man really confirmed the situation.

[Player - Komer]

[Race - Human][Occupation - None][Level - 4]

Eisen quickly deactivated his skill and then extended his hand toward the omega player Komer to greet him. "Nice to meet you. I’m one of the originals, do you know what that is?"

Instinctively, Komer shook Eisen’s hand without even realizing what he said, and only in the middle of that greeting did he think about what this old man in front of him was talking about. "H-Huh? And Original...? So you’re also a pla-" Komer held his hand in front of his mouth immediately before he managed to finish this sentence. You were not supposed to mention players to the NPCs in the game, and there was a little girl next to the man who didn’t seem like another player. Eisen realized his worries as well, and began to chuckle lowly.

"Don’t worry, she’s a tamed monster. We can talk about it in front of her." Eisen explained, and this really seemed to be the case. At least there was never a penalty when talking about being a player in front of Caria or Jyuuk’s beasts before, so that seemed to be so that players choosing to be tamers could talk to other players freely. After all, tamed beasts had to be quite close to you most of the time.

"O-Oh, I see. Then you’re also a player? One of the five that were mentioned when I started playing?" Kemor tilted his head to the side and used his appraisal skill, his highest rank skill so far at rank 2, on Eisen. When he did so, Eisen felt slight shivers all over his body, the same feeling back when Belrim appraised him when he first got to Melroe. This really was an uncomfortable feeling, but Eisen couldn’t complain since he also technically appraised Komer just now.

But before Eisen could even answer, Komer opened his eyes wide in surprise. "Huh? I can’t see any information about you beside your name... Eisen, right?"

"Ah, that is quite natural. You used the Appraisal Skill, it seems. When trying to appraise someone with a much higher level than yours, you simply don’t get much information. And yes, my name is Eisen."

"Oh, really? Are you amazingly strong, then? Ah, I’m Komer, by the way. Nice to meet you." Komer stood up so that he and Eisen could talk more easily, looking the old man up and down. While Komer was still wearing the clothes that he got when he first started playing, Eisen already wore a quite high-quality outfit. To Komer, it seemed like he was a big spender, so the perfect person to try and sell some of these items to.

Eisen chuckled lowly and scratched his beard while shaking his head. "I’m nothing special, young man. I’m just strong enough to properly enjoy myself."

A wide grin grew on Komer’s face, as it seemed more and more like Eisen was the perfect person to sell these overpriced items to! If he wanted to enjoy himself, he would probably just leisurely walk around the world without worrying about what was going on around him. Komer didn’t really know what the originals did in order to be able to play the game earlier than even large investors like his father’s company, but considering this man’s apparent age, he was most certainly just the father or grandfather of some big executive of Prime Industries. After all, who would deliberately make themselves this old and just be treated like an old man in the game without actually being one?

"Ah, so you want to enjoy yourself? Then I hope you’re properly protected! You don’t seem to have a weapon on you, and this little girl over there doesn’t seem like she’s too strong either. Would you like to buy one of my weapons?" The young man asked, planning to double, or maybe even triple the price that he originally had in mind for his items depending on Eisen’s reaction.

However, Eisen was anything but the senile old man that Komer thought to be dealing with. Times and times again, Eisen had to deal with salesmen that wanted to take advantage of old men like that. But he didn’t blame Komer, after all he seemed to be quite young and inexperienced, so it would probably still be possible to turn the way he acted toward customers around with a proper influence.

In order to properly educate this youth, Eisen chose to play the role that Komer expected. "Hoho, a weapon? Maybe I may actually buy one of these. Could you show me what you have for sale? There seems to be quite a large selection, so how could I ever choose?"

Happily, Komer squatted back down and grabbed two different items, a bow and a dagger. Neither of them seemed to be in especially good condition, to be honest. The wood for the bow was horribly chosen, and far too hard and inflexible so that it would basically snap with a single pull of the string, which was heavily worn down and stretched out a good bit to make it pretty much useless. If you were actually able to shoot an arrow further than ten meters with this, it would probably not be able to even give the target much of a scratch.

And the dagger was even worse! The handle was made of completely untreated and rough wood, which would give you splinters all over your hand the moment you touched it, while the blade basically didn’t have an edge. You would struggle to cut through a banana with such a blade, not to speak of one of the monsters that could be found in the wild.

At first, Eisen hoped that Komer was simply trying to show Eisen what not to buy, but it was quite the opposite. "I would suggest these two! It is an excemplary combination! You can shoot your target with this magnificent bow, and if it should come too close, you can fight it with this dagger instead. But the combination is not the greatest thing about it! This bow is made of the wood of a holy birch tree in the elven forests, while the string was created through the hair of a Yeti! And this dagger is even more amazing, good sir, as it has been handcrafted by the master of all master blacksmiths hundreds of years ago, the godly craftsman! Yes, I am talking about nobody else but the Craftsman that reached max level through pure skill!"

"Er..." Eisen stared blankly at this young man in front of him. This was even worse than he expected. This wasn’t just some slight trickery, Komer was simply trying to scam him! Both of these items were at best Rank 0 with a below average quality. At first, Eisen wanted to play along, but this foolery simply hurt his pride as not only a craftsman, but also as a person! "Komer, you’re joking, right?"

"Haha, why would I be joking, good sir?! These items truly are just this amazing! And they’re going to be yours for a small price of one gold coin!"

Eisen sighed loudly and took the bow into his hand before snapping the bow in half instantly, not only shocking Komer, but also the few people around that stopped to watch what was going on after Komer basically started shouting through the whole marketplace. "Komer, this is not how you should conduct business. Don’t worry, I will replace this with an item you really should sell."

With a loud sigh, Eisen turned around to Bree and waved her over. As she came into the middle of the crowd, Eisen prompted her to turn around so that he could grab a few tools out of her backpack, which was really only his carving knife.

Eisen looked around until he saw a young man carrying quite a lot of wood over his shoudlers. The wood seemed to be from quite young trees that were just completely felled and brought here in one piece. Quickly, Eisen hurried over to the man while Komer was staring at him in confusion, and then he bought one of the young trees from him. They seemed to be maple-like trees with good strength and flexibility, so quite perfect for a bow.

"Bree, could you dry this quickly?" Eisen asked his Fey-Kin companion who nodded happily and quickly cast a spell on the wood. It was really quite useful to have these types of spells, although most of them couldn’t really be used for much.

After it was dried enough, Eisen turned to Bree and made his next request with a smile. "Bree, I need some string. Could you get some of the regular magic thread from the carriage? Not the one that I used to make your dress, but the one without the growth enchantment. And bring some of the solution I use to treat wood as well, please."

"Okay~!" And like that, Bree quickly hurried off as Eisen thanked her, before the old man quickly got to work.

He squatted down onto the ground next to the blanket that Komer set up for his items and began debarking the tree that was about six feet long, but of course only after activating his crafting space for Woodworking, as well as his Flame of the Earth transformation to infuse it into his knife as well.

The knife moved along the surface of the wood without any trouble, as if it was simply cutting through air, one stroke after another slowly removing the whole bark.

When this was done, Eisen began preparing the general shape of the bow. He carved a thin spot in the center where you would hold it that was surrounded on both sides by the two thickest parts of the bow, although there was only about a quarter-inch difference between these thicknesses. The further toward the ends of the bow, the thinner did Eisen carve it.

And just before Bree returned with the string and finishing-solution that he needed, Eisen made the bow itself a bit thinner and rounder all around so that it was more comfortable to grab. After that, Eisen only made a few small grooves to attach the string to at each end of the bow as well as his craftsman sigil right next to the center, and then continued to quickly sand its surface and applied the finishing-solution to its surface, then had the bow held by one of his mana doubles so that he didn’t need to lay it down on the ground somewhere.

Then, Eisen grabbed the thread that Bree brought and quickly grabbed its end, twisting it around itself a few times to create a thick, but still flexible, string. With transmutation, he slightly altered its flexibility a slight bit and made sure that the string couldn’t somehow come undone at any point.

Since Bree cast another spell on the bow’s wooden part to make it dry a bit faster again, Eisen could immediately continue by attaching the string to each end of the bow. After quickly testing its flexibility and how well it could be pulled, Eisen was done for the most part.

He stood up and looked at its information.

[Wooden Bow]

[Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2]

[Description] A wooden bow that has been masterly crafted by the Omni Crafstmaster Eisen. Its string is made out of Magic String, allowing the bow to more easily be infused with magic.

[Effect] +15 AGI, +5 END