Spending My Retirement In A Game

Eisen handed the child in front of him the wooden horse, and smiled lightly. All the kids were now surrounding him and already started to look at their new toys excitedly. Some of them were even already playing with them together, having some of the wolves chase the horses, or re-enacting some kind of made-up battle to see whose toy was stronger. The kind of things that all kids did.

"Alright, everyone. Now, I need you all to do one more thing," the old man said with a broad smile on his face, excited to see what the kids would end up thinking just a minute from now. The kids looked at him curiously, and then watched as Eisen held up one of the toys himself, slowly flipping it around to reveal its belly.

"Take a look at this small crystal ball here," he said, and the kids all did as told, "Press your thumbs on them, and then take a deep breath, as deep as you can, and hold it until you can't anymore."

Quickly, some of the kids followed his instruction, though some of them were a little more hesitant. Though before long, they all did exactly what Eisen did, especially once they saw that he did the same, blowing up his cheeks as large as he could as he also held his breath.

Once he could tell that all of the kids were concentrating on this small exercise, he opened his mouth, exhaling all at once, "And now let out a loud yell with all that air!"

Immediately, the kids' voices blew out of their mouths, as they yelled out while gasping for air. This was a small trick that Eisen remembered not too long ago. When you did this, a tiny amount of mana was released from your limbs, as if your whole body was yelling out together with you.

It wasn't a substantial amount, just barely enough to give a slight spike in your aura that only sensitive people could pick up, but it was enough for the special circuit placed on the golem cores to read the mana of their new owners. Quickly, a few points of mana were taken from the children to activate the process properly.

Of course, since some of the kids didn't have a lot of mana, and this would be a bit troublesome if half their mana was taken at once, Eisen gave them some of Parc's mana-regenerating candies before he had them do this, so that they would quickly recover the amount they spent, without even noticing anything happened.

This also had the beneficial effect of slightly increasing that 'spike' of mana from that exercise, making it more likely to be picked up by the golem core. And sure enough, before they all knew it, the toys' eyes lit up dimly and were able to start the process of absorbing mana from the air around them instead of from their owners, completing the process this way.

The toys' limbs started stretching out as the golems awakened, quickly cuddling up to the hands of their new owners.

All of the kids instantly yelped out in excitement, watching as their new toys came to life, looking up at them with those small glass eyes. Eisen smiled at them, "And now, you just need to give your new partner a name. It can be anything you like."

Without even having to repeat himself, the kids got to work. He wasn't even able to finish speaking whenthe first kids had already picked out their names. They ranged from 'Pumpkin' over to 'Shadow Destroyer', and they were all perfect names, given from the kids to their new friends.

"Alright, just one more thing, kids! These toys will listen to anything you tell them, without fault, so be careful with what you say!" Eisen told them, though of course, he had made sure that these toys couldn't be used to attack others.

They did have a defense mode, where they would attack anything or anyone that was deemed an actual threat, on the basis of protecting their owner, but that was something that Eisen didn't have to explain in detail for now. But now came the final instruction for these toys until the old man would finally let all of these eager kids run off to have fun.

"There is a single thing you need to remember. It can be any word, you just need to really want them to do it. Say their name, and tell it to become big, and if you want it small again, tell it to become small," the old man smiled, and he was sure that the kids, who all grew up around giants even if they weren't giants themselves, would have an exact image of this in mind.

And quickly, the first kid exclaimed, "Grey, grow up!"

The moment that the kid said so, the small wolf toy in their hand jumped to the ground, its body quickly enlargening in the process, to the size of a real wolf, which was now cuddling up to its owner in its new form.

Without wasting a breath, the others did the same, screaming over each other, before the area was filled with a dozen wooden animals, all imbued with the power of the giants to change their size, albeit just at a fixed degree.

There was a bit of a cooldown for these transformations too while the golems gathered enough mana from the area around them, but that was something that Eisen could just pass on to the kids' parents.

It wasn't like they would really care too much about what Eisen had to say at this point either, especially considering that some of them were already running off, sprinting alongside their wooden wolves or carried around by their wooden horses.

Obviously, there were a few safety measures that Eisen told Parc and Rouge to add into the golem cores, which was why the design took them a little while. Things such as the 'Riding and Driving' skill, in case the kids wanted to ride on the animals.

Usually this was a skill the user needed, but in certain circumstances, it could be passed on to pieces of equipment as well, such as the reigns of a carriage, to allow anyone to ride it with certain skill. And since golems technically counted as equipment, this was a pretty obvious application of such loopholes.

There were a lot of other things that were added to make sure the kids would be safe no matter what they did with these toys, and Eisen made sure of that when he looked at the golem core design before letting Parc and Rouge finish up. There were a lot of things to consider here, after all.

For obvious reasons, this was something that Eisen made sure to reiterate to the concerned adults that were coming up to him after seeing their children play with these new 'toys'. Luckily, considering his position and identity, they were able to trust his words pretty quickly, and calmed down before long.

And just as Eisen thought, it was more than just a good idea to make a lot more of these toys, since after the first batch that had initially asked for the toys, many, many other kids and youngsters came over to him, asking if they could have one as well.

It was to the point where Eisen was pretty worried he would have to make more, but the amount of children that came to him for these small golems soon slowed down.

Certainly, the place was much more lively even at night, now that the kids all had something to do when they were done helping out around the settlement. At this point, a memory flowed into Eisen's mind. However... not one of this world.

One of his... Benjamin's old friends was a toymaker that he met in Sweden, in a small village up north in the country where it was hard to even walk at times, with the snow basically reaching up to your hips. At that time, Benjamin's friend was a bit older than Benjamin was now... in earth time, of course. He was a happy, jolly old man.

If he didn't know any better, Benjamin would have confused him for Santa Claus, and whenever Benjamin himself played Santa for his or the neighborhood's kids, he always acted like his old friend Gunnar would.

Gunnar didn't have any children of his own, never having had the desire to, or to even marry anyone, at that. He was always just content with making toys, even if it wasn't enough for him to make a living at the time.

Instead, he worked as a carpenter for nearby villages, but for miles around Gunnar's house, Eisen would be able to find small wooden figurines scattered around, finding their new homes in the arms of a tree or bush, if not in the hands of a child.

Eisen smiled lightly at the wooden horse he was holding, which he had used to demonstrate the process to the kids. Now that he thought about it, it did remind him a bit of those stout horses he had seen near Gunnar's home, which that old toymaker used for inspiration himself quite a few times.

As he delved deep into this memory, Eisen realized that he had practically been waiting for it to be overtaken by a memory from this world. But to his surprise, there wasn't anything coming on, though he did feel like Gunnar wasn't the only, or even close to the best toymaker that Eisen had met, especially after coming to this world.

But nonetheless, the memory of his old friend was unique, and strong, and true.

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