Spending My Retirement In A Game

Eisen looked at the woman sitting across from him. She seemed taken aback by how straightforward he was being, on top of this whole ridiculous situation that they were all in. An old man, three kids, and a half-dragon were sitting around, relaxing inside of a log cabin that appeared out of literally nowhere. And now, said old man was asking about the 'God of the Mountain'?

It was ridiculous to say the least. There was no way this situation wasn't suspicious, or maybe even outright dangerous for her and the two men with her to be in. That must be what was going through their heads, Eisen knew that more than well enough. But it didn't matter to him; their anxieties wouldn't actually decide what was going to happen.

If this woman was sent out here in order to deal with the situation, then she must be capable of dealing with it, at least to some extent, "The God of the Mountain... Why do you want to know about the statue?" she finally asked, and Eisen raised a brow, "Well, from what I heard, you don't believe that it's a statue."

The woman squinted her eyes just so slightly, "Right. I mean, it would be more ridiculous to expect it to be just that simple, right? If anyone could have made that, they would have to be a literal god. Not even Eisen would be able to make something like that."

The old man, despite being a little hurt at that statement, couldn't really help but disagree. That was something that he himself thought as well; he wouldn't be able to make something like that. At least, not alone, he would need the help of at least a dozen people, and even then, they would have to tirelessly work for years if not decades to get something at this scale done.

But that being the case, it shouldn't be impossible overall. There were much crazier things in this world than that.

"You're sceptical, I can tell," the woman smiled. It seemed like she could tell that Eisen was really curious; he wanted to know what was going on here. So, instead of being fully weary of him, though that was still the case overall, she was trying to take a slightly different approach. She would try to convince, and if possible, even recruit him.

People that could not only take out a skilled group of combatants like the scout party without even breaking a sweat, on top of being able to create something like this hut within a matter of minutes, would be an absolutely amazing addition to their cause. There was no way she was going to let up this opportunity.

She threw one of her legs over the other, placing her hands onto her knee, "Do you know the story of how the God of the Mountain was found?"

Curiously, Eisen raised a brow and shook his head, placing the cup of hot chocolate in his hand onto the table, "I'm not sure about that. Is there something special behind how it was found?"

"It is not about how it was found, but rather, when. As you came to this city, you must have passed by a lot of mines. These have existed for tens of thousands of years, spanning across this mountain range and stretching deep into the ground. However, it all started with just a single mining village not too far from here.

Due to the nature of these mountains, however, and the many dangerous monsters hiding and burrowing through the strong walls, it wasn't possible for the villagers to settle directly by their mine at the time. So, what they did instead was to work in seasons. Much like... hunting," the woman explained, and Eisen listened on.

As she said, there were a ton of mines and mining towns scattered about that they came by on their way here. That in itself didn't seem to be the important part, though.

"Right, and so? Did these villagers have something to do with the creation of the Statue?"

The woman smirked, and shook her head, "No, they didn't. The miners would go to the mines, work for some weeks, and then make their way back to their village. They would then stay there for a short while, just to return to the mines and do the whole thing all over again. Now, one time, the group of miners crossed over the mountain paths to find something inexplicable.

The far-away valley that had become a nest to the powerful local monsters, was now suddenly replaced by a mountain the size of none other. And at its front stood the statue of a man, practically carrying this mountain on his back."

"What?" the old man let out near involuntarily. It was just so ridiculous. The claim that the God of the Mountain was alive was already ridiculous in and of itself, but now they're saying that the mountain itself wasn't here before? But the worst part was that Eisen could tell she was speaking the truth. Or at least, what she believed to be the truth. There wasn't even any doubt in her words.

So, that meant there were two possible solutions to this.

One, the God of the Mountain was carved out of the mountain by a large group over the course of many, many years, just like Eisen thought, and this woman was so brainwashed that even Eisen's Truth-seeing eyes couldn't veer past the veil of lies. Two, she was telling the truth. However, even within that truth, there were two possible paths.

It was either that there was someone capable of creating the world's tallest mountain as well as truly ridiculous statue over the course of a few weeks, or that the God of the Mountain truly was alive, and whoever that man was, brought this mountain with him for whatever reason.

Eisen ground his teeth, "And how do you know this? I doubt one of you was alive while this was the case," the old man asked, and the woman just smiled back at him, as though she was happy to see Eisen lose a bit of his composure, "Right, of course none of us were alive then.

That doesn't mean that we can't have this information passed down to us," she explained, "Basically, there are two main groups here. One, the villagers, who settled within the mountain to create this city. For the most part, even then, they believed that this was simply a miraculous statue. However, there were some that believed in the words of another.

Since the mine and the metals within it were something that the villagers couldn't lose, a small group, really just a handful, of individuals stayed behind to take care of the equipment and protect the mine while the others were gone. And those few individuals claimed to have seen what happened.

A man, even grander than any other giant, dragged a chunk of the world on his back, and soon, nearly collapsing under the weight of that world, passed on as his body turned to stone."

"Dragged a chunk of the world..? So he was carrying the mountain on his back?" Eisen asked, trying to clarify what she meant, "So then, what about the rest? For example, the arrow in the middle of the Giant's Blood Plaza. If this is what happened, then someone, another giant, must have attacked him while all this was happening."

The woman leaned back and smiled, "Of course he was attacked. You don't drag around a mountain without reason, especially if it's about to cost you your life."

"Right, but I'm asking about the size of the arrow. He must have been attacked by someone just as big as him; but we know that there's nobody like that.

If that statue is truly a man, then he was a unique existence," Eisen pointed out, but the woman just shrugged, "Why does it mean that the attacker was the same size, instead of someone that simply created a weapon fit to kill a true giant like him?"

The old man didn't really know if he should keep going along with this conversation. At the very least, it seemed a lot more possible that there was more to the statue, but Eisen still had no way of knowing if this was some weird trick used to gain power. People have been convinced of weirder and more impossible things, after all, for little to no reason at all.

"Alright, sure. You got me there," Eisen replied, staring deep into the woman's eyes, "If you really claim that all of this is the truth, then I'm sure you don't just say so without any proof, right?"

And the woman's smile continued, "Of course not. We have all the proof we need."