Spending My Retirement In A Game

Eisen's hand tightly held onto the chisel as he hit its end for the last time. This was quite literally the finishing touch. The last letter of the last name. It was the list of names of each of those that died. He wanted to make sure that this memorial would carry as much information about those who died as possible, so this wasn't 'just' a name.

The old man grabbed the magic stone from his apron's chest-pocket, quickly running it over the stone surface. The magic stone was pushed into the grooves, making the letters not only stand out more, but have a secondary effect of properly 'defining' the name of each individual that died during the catastrophe as something that could be read by the enchantment placed behind the wall.

The old man smiled lightly and took a step back. While he was proud of what he had created here, the reason why he had to do this made that pride completely irrelevant.

Eisen acknowledged the statue as 'complete', and after checking on the final rank and quality, as well as the effects of the statue itself, the old man swiped the system window aside and instead focused on trying out the enchantment's effect. He held his hand out toward the name, and in front of Eisen, a new 'system' window appeared.

Though in this case, it wasn't really a system window; it was something created by magic that was merely supposed to appear like a system window, as it was what people were used to. On this window, a few different things appeared.

On the bottom of the page was a simple character profile. Name, age, class or race, as well as a short text that was provided by the survivors. Most of the time, the dead were survived by people they loved and that loved them, so finding the information Eisen was looking for was pretty easy.

But sometimes, all their friends and family died as well, or they never had any here in this town to begin with. In those cases, there usually were some neighbors or collegues that manage to come up with a few words. And for the ones that had truly nobody, Eisen wrote a simple sentence, "They will be missed."

If at any time in the future, someone would either remember something, or existing family came by after hearing the news after all, then the information could be updated. He only gave the ability to update these sentences to the Irngrad, allowing him to add more people that he trusted not to abuse their power.

And then, there was the top of this character profile. There was a picture of each of them there, each one of them smiling softly. This way, if the survivors longed to see the face of the ones they lost again, this could be the easiest way to do so. Now that he knew that this worked properly, Eisen was satisfied.

Truthfully, he wanted to keep working on this for anoteher month, or even two or three if he had the chance, but there was really no need to anymore. The statues were already as detailed and nearly 'alive' at this point with the amount of detail that Eisen put into his work.

Any more than this would have just been him trying to overcomplicate things and himself find issues in places where there weren't any. At that point, it could even have the opposiet effect, instead decreasing the overall quality of the statues. But even if he knew that consciously, and usually never was the kind to fall too far into mindless perfectionism, this case was truly different.

If he had to truly make anything perfect in his life, then this was the spot that required it. If the statue ended up being anything but the best it could possibly be in this world, then he would regret it for the rest of his life.

Eisen took a few more steps backward, looking up at the statue made up of the people that had died. Behind him, thousands of people had gathered, hoping to catch the moment that the statue was finished. As soon as Eisen acknowledged it, mana started to flow through the statue.

Due to its sheer size, the special spells and enchantments it held required massive amounts of mana, that Eisen was able to access through his brother's help.

Using the ability that Silber learned from the Mountain-Gobbler, which had been keeping him alive for the past hundred thousand years as well, Eisen managed to create a system that gathered and used the natural mana that existed all around this mountain range to run everything instead.

There were still a few mana generators created using artificial souls that he had placed all around the statue into the correct spots for the enchantment's array that required more concentrated man. This way, the statue's effect was able to exist basically permanently and without interruption.

That effect itself was fairly simple as well; it would be the core of a massive protective and supportive barrier. Not only did it protect against general physical attacks, but also would give the city's people a boost to their general health and potentially even mentality.

It wasn't strong, or at least not as strong as itcould be, considering how massively far-reaching and stretched out the effect was, but it was more than just enough to protect the people in this city.

And right when Eisen got everything running, a calming, enpowering wave spread throughout the whole city, filling everyone with a sense of security, beginning to feel the intention behind the statue that were lifting up the sky above the people they left behind.

"This..." the Irngrad showed up beside Eisen. Over the past month, Eisen didn't really have much time to talk to people too much. He spoke with the Irngrad, some of the chieftains, and a few citizens, over the past few weeks, but for the most part, Eisen had just hyperfocused on finishing that statue. It was such a massive endevaor that Eisen really wasn't able to do much of anything else at all.

He really couldn't use too much time on this project, no matter how important he was, so he wanted to make sure that it would truly be as perfect as it could be. That was why, if Eisen wasn't sleeping, he was working. And if he wasn't working, he was sleeping.

The only times when he had the opportunity to talk to people was when he returned to work, or left from it to log out, just that specific period that he was using to get from point A to B, while also thinking about what he had to get done first. That was why, even then, Eisen was generally vastly preoccupied and couldn't properly talk to the people around him, giving nothing but short responses.

"This is truly amazing," the king continued. He was so baffled that he really didn't know what else he could even say. Of course, he had been watching the creation of the statue for the past month, incredibly eagerly while trying to support Eisen as much as physically possible.

But now that the statue was done, and all its effects were activated, the air that the statue gave off was different immediately. As though it changed into a whole other force; a guardian that had come to truly protect the city this time. Or rather, hundreds of thousands of guardians that worked together.

The ones that were important were the people; that was exactly what Eisen and the others were hoping to express with this memorial. This town had been so focused on the 'divine protection' of the 'God of the Mountain', which had just been a petrified giant all along. Superstition had filled the town, and they truly thought that Silber's mere presence in the town would keep them safe.

But now, that was not because of some force they didn't understand. Now, they could come to the statue whenever they wanted and look at the names that they of the people that built up and protected the city all along.

"I tried my absolute best. I... I am truly and wholly sorry for what happened in this city. For the rest of my life, I will do everything in my power to make sure that something like this never happens again. So that this statue can stay a 'one of a kind'."