Spending My Retirement In A Game

Benjamin stepped out of the capsule, stretching slightly before walking out into his livingroom. There, Andrew, Nataly, Haruo, and Jasmin were already waiting for him. The old man dropped down onto his armchair, as the five of them all stayed silent for a while. The one to break that silence first was Nataly.

"So... we're all agreeing that Samuel stooped to a new low with this, right?" she asked, and Andrew leaned back and scoffed, "Honestly? I don't even think so. The more I find out about the guy, the more this event doesn't seem all that shocking."

Jasmin let out a long, nervous sigh, "He's done a lot of really bad stuff, sure, but... his plan this time was to directly kill millions of people," she pointed out, "Honestly, he's... terrifying... how can any person do this kind of thing?"

The five stayed quiet once more. They had all met Samuel personally. He was the one that had gone to interview all of them that initial first time, and had been the main person they had been keeping in contact with ever since. And even after they had already started in the 'game', he kept being kind to them, keeping up the act perfectly, all up until the moment he was caught red-handed.

"I think we could talk about Samuel in general for a while longer, but seriously, let's be honest... would we say anything about him that we haven't already?" Andrew asked, "Rather, I'd like to know what exactly happened before you summoned us, Eisen."

The old man nodded his head. He gave everyone a run-down of the events leading up to everything, recounting it all as well as he could. Not only that, but Benjamin also explained what he had found out about the curse, and more importantly, about his brother.

He then wanted to move on to some thoughts he had about why there were such differences between people and monsters in regard to the conditions to godhood, but before he could get there, Jasmin rolled her wheelchair up next to Benjamin and placed her hand onto the old man's chest. He could feel a soft warmth touch his skin, that was different from Jasmin's physical contact.

She was pouring mana inside of him.

"What exactly happened then?" she asked, "Frankly... I'm just confused. The amount of mana that you must have used is ridiculous, but..."

"If the amount was the only condition for 'that', then you would have experienced something similar?" Haruo asked, looking at his lover with a serious expression. She slowly nodded her head, moving her hand away from Benjamin again, "...honestly, yeah. My guess is that your body is just less compatible with mana overall, and the massive amount was too much to handle.

Or it could have to do with you being a monster-halfling... monsters' bodies are sort of different in nature to those of people, hence why they're able to change so massively during rank-ups. Maybe that amount of mana triggered something that made your body unstable afterward. It looks like some rest healed it though, so it's a physical phenomenon, at least."

Benjamin was quiet for a while. He knew that he had to tell the others about this, but he didn't even really know where to start. Soon, he let out a deep breath and just came out with it.

"When I logged out after that... I saw a system window," the old man explained bluntly, and the others seemed to try and comprehend what he just told them.

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"'After' you logged out?" Nataly repeated, "What do you mean, after? That- what?" dumbfounded, she stared at Benjamin, who just continued on.

"When I first saw it, it was completely broken. Glitching, random symbols replacing the letters to the point where it was impossible to read... but it was easy enough to figure out that it was a skill acquisition message. And that message persisted. I wasn't able to get rid of the window, and then, even in the other world, it stayed there, the exact same as before. But then...

that skill leveled up. Whenever I used skills, any skills, it would seem to level up. The message itself became clearer, and the glitching faded away, but... the skill's name is still crossed out completely," Benjamin went on to explain the feelings that he got whenever the skill leveled up.

That the kids seemed to notice something as well; that his connection with them was wavering every time the skill leveled up, and of course, that using skills was not only harder, but that the activation came with some errors. Like when his body grew in size irregularly at first.

Once more, the room was filled with silence. It was getting close to the point where they were quiet as much as they spoke, but instead of just being speechless, they were all busily thinking about what this could mean. About what was actually going on.

"Do you think that if the skill keeps leveling up, you'll figure out the name?" Haruo finally suggested, and Benjamin sighed deeply, "I have no idea. I hope so, but I'm not fully counting on it."

"Can you do anything with the window at all?"

Benjamin looked at Andrew and nodded, "I can interact with it the same way as any other window, except that I can't get rid of it."

Nataly thought for a while, coming up with the only idea that seemed to make sense to her right now, "Could it be a virus? If it's messing with your skills, then it's harmful, right?"

Even after thinking for a while, Benjamin didn't know how to answer that. Generally you would say so, however, "I'm not sure it really feels like that... it... I don't know how to describe it, but it feels more... real?"

"Real?" Andrew repeated, "Do thinks not feel real to you most of the time?"

"No, that's not..." Benjamin replied, rubbing the bridge of his nose, before shaking his head, "I mean... maybe? Again, it's hard to describe... I guess, if you call the way we usually use skills an instinct, things are starting to feel more... deliberate? Instead of a focus on the skill itself, I feel more in tune with the effect of the skill.

Not that I didn't before... it's just the only way I can put that feeling into words."

After a while, Jasmin asked something that everyone had subconsciously been wondering this whole time, "If the system is here for you now... can you use skills?" she wondered, "What if that 'blank' skill is just a response to the system being here for you now? Like a... connection? A pathway from there to here."

Benjamin looked at his hand nervously, "It could be? I... honestly don't even know. I've sort of used abilities before, but that was really just the charisma stat in its most basic form... and my dwarven racial skill's heat resistance, I guess, but that's more a change to my body..."

"Is there a skill you think you could try out?" Andrew asked, and Benjamin thought about it. The old man closed his eyes, and concentratet on one of his skills. The one that he could use without much of an effort at this point. He opened his eyes again, and for a brief moment, saw pulses of colour flowing through the bodies of Jasmin, Haruo, and Nataly.

Since Andrew's mana had been replaced with internal energy, Benjamin wasn't able to see anything there. But either way; his truth-seeing eyes worked properly, as they should. It was different to what had happened before. Though, that was for just a moment.

The old man's eyes twitched and they felt like they were burning up. His head felt a similar pain to what he had felt when that system window first appeared here. Benjamin felt as though the air had been robbed from his lungs as he gasped for just a single breath. His sight went dark for a moment, before the system window floated to the front of his sight. Changing every second into another message.

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[XXXXXXX Skill has leveled up!]

[XXXXXXX Skill has ranked up!]

[XXXXXXX Skill is settling]

[XXXXXXX Skill's name is being adjusted]

[Searching for correct terminology]

[A fitting name has been found]

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Benjamin stared at these messages, trying to keep up with what was happening. And then, the last message appeared. It stayed there, unchanging. At least for now.

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[XXXXXXX Skill has been named System Resistance Skill]