Slowly, Eisen woke back up inside of the Game and stood up from his chair, letting the five that were sitting on his lap down to the ground, before making his way out of the room with a smile on his face, simply looking into the distance toward the Islands. It seemed like the Skeleton-Troupe was getting ready to sail into the areas between the islands, but as the area they had to enter first was rather dangerous, they apparently wanted to wait for Jyuuk to wake up to get their Master"s opinion.
He probably would end up waking up relatively soon, at least Eisen hoped so, and until then, the old man wanted to just make sure that everything was prepared for the landing on the central island. Once they started moving again, it was only about four hours or so away, meaning that they would probably get there around noon, and Eisen wanted to have at the very least a very, very basic camp set-up by night. It would probably take a while, but once at the very least s.p.a.ce was created for the combatists and base-supporters to stay at during night or while coming back to report, it would be time for everyone to properly set out to different parts of the central island.
Once the first group found the central Island"s Town Core, they would notify the other groups, and then everyone would gather at that place in order to take the town over in any way possible. Then, they could start constructing a proper town with support from a Town Core, and the Town Guardian that Eisen would create for it. Now that he had all of the materials and already went through the process once before, he would probably be able to finish another one within a day or so, at the very least that"s what Eisen figured in his mind. He would actually have to try to say that for sure.
And until then, Eisen gathered those of his own group around him. He was pretty sure that his group was the largest one just judging from the head-count, with the exception of Jyuuk and his Monsters, but Eisen felt pretty bad about splitting the group up again, because everyone was either pretty integral to Eisen, or would be upset being split up from him.
His direct group was made up of his five newly constructed weapons, his Golems, Kiron, Sky, Bree, Eisen"s three monsters, and apparently even Fafnir and Sigurd wanted to come along, even if especially the latter had little to no combat experience.
Technically, Fafnir was recognized as something of a Dragon himself, just a pretty unique type, so he would most likely be quite useful in combat outside of the Dungeon s.p.a.ce as well.
And so, Eisen gathered all of them around him and began to figure out basic tactics. It somehow felt like he split the group up again after all, but considering that they would be together at all times for the most part, it wasn"t really like that. It was just that they acted independently of each other within a fight.
For one, the Golems would always act as a Unit on their own, which would be directly controlled by Eisen so that they could take care of a larger surface and always have someone standing guard as well.
Then, the other group had Bree as a supporter, Sky for specialized situations where a specific type of unit was needed or useful as well as just general low-number support. Kiron was able to cause immense damage with his Sword, while having amazing defense through his scales, so he would be the Vanguard of the group. Then, Caria was able to be supportive through constraintive actions, Melissa was able to bring a lot of quick, comparatively low-damage, forces to the table, while Sal would probably dance on Eisen"s head.
The old man himself would step in wherever it was necessary, and wanted to do his best to use his Demonic Transformations to either calm enemies down to make them lower their guard, or scare them into retreat.
On top of that, there was another person that seemed to want to accompany Eisen, even if the old man didn"t really expect that to be the case at all. It was Kirisho, who approached Eisen and his group while they were making plans.
"Could… We speak momentarily?" The Mist-Spirit asked Eisen, who simply nodded his head and excused himself, following Kirisho to a place that was slightly more isolated, where she turned to the old man, holding her own amulet, which she had been wearing around her neck for a while now, and Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard.
"So, can you tell me now what has been going on lately? It seemed like you"ve been avoiding me somehow." Eisen pointed out, and Kirisho slowly just nodded her head. "Yes… I have been avoiding you. Or anyone, truly. Ever since the curse placed on me has been removed, I have started to remember parts about my life that I had forgotten. There are many things that seem to have happened that I myself never would have expected of me. I foolishly thought I was innocent and pure, but I found out that I was rotten and… soiled…" Kirisho explained to Eisen, but he simply smiled and shook his head.
"I understand what you mean with remembering things you never expected, trust me with that. But I can tell you that it"s not that you become more rotten the more you remember, you become more pure, at least in my definition." Eisen pointed out, but Kirisho looked at him confused, not understanding what he meant, so the old man just explained it with a light smile.
"White isn"t the only color that can be pure. So can black. Or red. Or Purple. Or green. Any color can be pure. Until now, you were unpure because you were not the color you were supposed to be. Curses and memory-loss dyed you something fake. But the more you return to the person you once were, the more you wash off the colors you have been artificially painted in." Eisen told her, although he realized that it probably wasn"t all that much help, or even encouraging at all, and then just slightly chuckled.
"And just so that you know, just because you haven"t found your color yet, that doesn"t mean that you will end up finding yourself to be horrible, or bad." Eisen said with a smile, before he turned over to the side when he noticed the sunlight of dawn rising above the islands of G.o.ds. .h.i.tting his eye from the side. And it seemed like because the sun was reaching them through such divine land, the sunrise didn"t just appear in shades of red and blue and what was inbetween that, but it seemed basically like a whole rainbow that someone randomly mixed together all over the place.
"Just look over there. There"s many colors to see, but each and every one of them is beautiful." The old man said with a smile, and slowly, Kirisho turned toward the side as well, before grasping her amulet tightly. "Thank you." She said quietly, and then slowly turned to Eisen. "If you are alright with me, would it be alright if I joined you and the others in conquering the Islands?" She asked, seemingly nervously, and Eisen nodded his head.
"Of course, you will surely be amazing help." The old man admitted, and then slowly made his way back toward the others in his group again, with the new person that joined them behind him. For some reason, it felt to him like he was talking to himself there as well.
He was feeling like he was going mad or senile, or even worse, that all of those thoughts and subtle memories appearing in his head were actually his own. And slowly, Eisen was realizing that it wouldn"t actually be that bad if the latter of those things might be true. Once more, the old man looked around, noticing a certain person again, although she seemed to stopped trying not to be noticed.
If people were able to just ignore what happened yesterday, it didn"t matter what she acted like. And she apparently wasn"t even trying to hide the fact that she listened to Eisen and Kirisho as well just now, because she was leaning on one of the railings on one of the upper decks in front of the meeting room, just staring at the old man with a smirk.
Slowly, he began to sigh and smiled back at her, before turning around to the others. "Excuse me, there"s someone else I need to talk to for a moment. Can any of you fill Kirisho in on everything?" Eisen asked, before the old man stepped toward the Angel on the other side of the s.h.i.+p, who seemed to have noticed his intention. After all, she listened to him say it.
Rather nervously, considering what happened yesterday, she made her way over toward Eisen as well. "Anything you need from me?" She asked him, and Eisen just began moving his fingers through his beard.
"Yes, actually. For one, I would like to apologize for yesterday." The old man said with a smile on his face, and the woman looked at him surprised. "You… Want to apologize?" She asked, and Eisen nodded his head.
"Of course I do. I was rather angry, you see. It seems like my mind is trying to remember something, but someone is trying to prevent that. I"m not sure if that anger came from me, or the me that"s trying to be remembered, but I couldn"t control myself. So yes, I apologize for that." Eisen told her, and the Angel crossed her arms with a wry smile and began to scoff slightly, showing how truly different her actual personality was to what she was pretending it to be.
"Someone"s trying to prevent you from remembering something? The h.e.l.l"re you on about?" She asked, but Eisen just raised his eyebrows, before the Angel realized what he was talking about and smiled wrily, "…Right… Well, Apology accepted, I guess. Anything else?" The Angel inquired next, so Eisen once more nodded.
"Yes, something else. I would like to come to an understanding with you. One that"s mutually benefitial, at that."
"…I"m listening…" The Angel replied, and Eisen smirked and then crossed his arms as well. "Your G.o.d and I have the same goal. We want to figure out what"s going on here, and what the truth is. So, my suggestion is that I tell you all that I know, even what I know from the "Other Side", and you tell me what I want to know. You probably have a few more limits due to being a G.o.d"s Servant, but we can work around that, surely." Eisen suggested, and the Angel raised her eyebrows surprised, before looking at the old man suspiciously.
"I can"t tell you any divine knowledge, and that"s probably the only thing you wanna know… So this seems pretty one-sided, doesn"t it?" She asked, and Eisen shook his head.
"Oh no, not at all. You"re probably misunderstanding what I"m asking for here. I don"t want to know what the G.o.ds know. If that was possible, that would make things a lot easier. I want to know everything you can find out down here. When I ask you to find something out for me, you go and try to find out as much as you can." The old man said with a light smile, and the Angel began to smirk in response to that suggestion.
"Hmm… My Master is quite a curious one, so I highly doubt that he would mind me trying to find out what I can down here anyway. And me accidentally spilling the beans to someone other than him shouldn"t be an issue. He"s pretty leisurely, after all. And even if he has a problem with it, I should be able to calm him down with the knowledge from the other side… So I"d say you have a deal." The Angel said with a smirk as she extended her hand, and Eisen returned the gesture as well.
"Then I home we can work together, Angel." The old man said, but she simply shook her head in response to him.
"Please. Call me Raziel."