Spending My Retirement In A Game

"So what, who cares about what you want?" Brody scoffed, his arms crossed, "At this point in time, you\'re nothing but trouble. And no matter how terrified you are of those things, you\'re the same in the end, right?"

The filth stayed silent, unable to deny what Brody was saying. Meanwhile, Eisen was running his hand through his beard, trying to just think about this a bit more. It was definitely true that it was dangerous to just leave the filth here in this world. It could grow stronger or reveal some kind of ability that they couldn\'t deal with, and if that was the case, everything could be ruined.

But at the same time, this was an opportunity that they couldn\'t just let up. This was a being that came from a literal whole other universe; a place that works with different rules. It was much more foreign to either of the worlds that Eisen has lived in than those worlds were to each other, but in the end, that was just something that mattered once that world was accessed.

The methods of accessing other worlds must be, at the very least, similar. And the Filth clearly understood the travel between the worlds to an unusual degree; maybe because it was a being of ideas and concepts, it simply understood the concept of this travel between worlds instinctively once it had done so.

With the help of the Filth, they could garner some sort of advantage over Samuel. The Filth could become a wildcard; one that Samuel had tried to use against them in the first place. Eisen doubted the holy empire simply found out about something like this without Samuel\'s help in one way or another.

If the Originals could learn about how the connection between two worlds worked, they could potentially learn of new ways to put a stop to Samuel\'s ploys altogether. They could prevent earth from being flooded with mana, a substance so incredibly foreign to that world.

Looking closely, for now, it didn\'t seem like there was any of that \'substance\' leaking out from the crystal cube. And on top of that, the Filth was clearly not use to feeling emotions, so it should be easy enough to manipulate it using Charisma-based abilities. They should talk to Evalia about that later.

"... You said earlier that you won\'t serve us. But only if you promise that you will, will we start thinking about letting you stay here," Eisen said bluntly, and the Filth\'s hands seemed to tighten.

"We..."

With a slight stare, Eisen began to let out some of his \'influence\', using his demon- and royalty-based charisma abilities to place severe pressure on them.

"... we agree... If it means that you will not force us to return, we will serve you..."

Eisen sighed, walking up to a nearby wall, where he quickly opened up a door to his item storage, "I\'m just making it clear, but the only thing you bought yourself with that is an opportunity.

That means we\'re just putting off the decision for now until we\'ve had the time to think about it a bit more," the old man said, glancing over to the other originals, who seemed to be satisfied with that decision as well for now.

The old man looked around, grabbing some random ready-made clothes that he carried with him just in case. They weren\'t anything special; simple straight trousers, a button-up shirt, and some proper shoes.

He brought them over to the cube, momentarily deactivating the repair-enchantment to open up a small hole that he dropped the clothes through, before closing it back up and activating the enchantment again.

"Put those on. You\'re starting to look too... human to walk around nude," Eisen said, and the Filth stared at the clothes for a few moments. Obviously it understood the concept to some degree, but it still seemed uncertain about why it should cover its new body. Though, considering the situation, it quickly did as told.

By now, you wouldn\'t really be able to distinguish between the Filth and a young human man, for the most part. Its body was made up of hundreds, if not thousands, of disfigured hands that fit into each other perfectly to create a person\'s form. Though, there were a few things that they were still struggling with, like hair and eyes.

So, Eisen slightly sighed and grabbed a form prototype, so one without any particular enchantments that was meant to just act as a test for the appearance for the item, for some sunglasses. They were those sort with the completely round glasses and almost perfectly black lenses.

Eisen doubted that the Filth actually saw out of those hollow holes that were supposed to have eyes in them in the first place, so it didn\'t matter that they were sunglasses. It would make it easier for the Filth to appear human to others.

"And keep all those hands together so you don\'t freak others out," Eisen said in a strict tone, and the Filth nodded its head.

"We understand... Will you let us out of this cage now?"

"What? No, not yet," Eisen replied, "I\'ll tell you when you can leave, but for now, we\'re heading back to the meeting hall so we can all have a conversation about this."

With that, Eisen quickly increased his size, picking up the cube while at the same time letting Xenia, Brody, and Jyuuk travel on his palm. The group made their way back to the meeting hall once everything had been handled. Xenia had placed a barrier around the scene of the summoning to make sure that nobody could enter that area for the time being.

But they couldn\'t stay there and risk being watched by Samuel.

Eisen put the others down on the meeting hall\'s balcony, carefully pushing the crystal cube through the doors, and then stepped through himself. Once the doors were closed and Eisen turned around, the Filth was starting to act weird.

"What\'s going on?" Eisen asked with a frown, and the Filth, whose whole body was shuddering, carefully replied.

"This space is different from what we felt before. Like there is something missing..."

The old man raised his brow, looking over at the others that were clearly thinking the same thing, "Were you able to sense the system\'s signal?"

"System... We know about the word and the importance, but we don\'t fully understand. Why are you blocking this \'System\' in this space?"

Eisen sighed, "We\'ll tell you if we feel like we need to. Either way, just calm down, there\'s no need to be worried about that... What a scaredy cat," the old man walked over to his chair and sat down, while one of the others sent a message to Evalia to ask her to come.

As they were waiting, Brody, who seemed quite bored, asked something that the others had been wondering for a while now as well, "So... What\'s with all the hands?"

"... We don\'t understand."

"Like, why are you completely made of a bunch of hands? Are you... the fear of hands or something?"

"We do not represent any particular fear or horror. We were an amalgamation of it all, given a particular shape through the ritual. Now, we are the incarnation of Filth, of that which is wrong and ugly and should not be," it explained, "Though, through the words of the ritual, more specifically, we were given the form of the Hand that rises from the Filth."

"Huh," Brody let out, "So I guess you could\'ve been anything if they had done the ritual differently, not just hands?"

Eisen let out a slight hum, "Well, some of them were trying to push through their faces instead of hands, so maybe there was some kind of subtle influence before that gave part of that world the form of faces instead of hands?"

"That sounds possible..." Xenia muttered, "Filth, do you know of any other contact that\'s been made with your world in the past?"

"There may have been attempts, but we do not remember any instance of a gate," it replied, and Eisen frowned deeply.

"Then how the hell did they know how to do that summoning?"