Spending My Retirement In A Game

Eisen flew through the air, making sure to keep an eye out on the surroundings in search for their last stop before heading to the giant country's capital. You would think that the town that a giant chieftain lived in would be easy to find, but these giants were a rare exception. 𝘧𝚛𝗲𝘦𝚠𝙚𝙗𝙣o𝙫𝗲𝚕.𝐜o𝓂

Long ago, they were called the Plains Giant Clan, but for the past few thousand years, they have lived by the name of 'Nomad Giants'. It was a much better fitting name, since they weren't necessarily restricted to the plains anymore. As their name suggests, they were a clan of giants that traveled near constantly, they didn't even have their own assigned territory. Rather, they worked in a cooperative relationship with all clans, except the cloud giants of course, and were allowed to temporarily settle wherever they wished, so long as they abided by the rules of the chieftain whose territory they were in.

They were also the smallest, but most diverse clan. They accepted anyone that wished to join them into their family, supporting them as if they had spent their whole lives together. And if that person wished to leave, they could do so, still being regarded as family no matter where they went. While Eisen was searching for information on where they could be found right now, he heard a lot of people call them naive or stupid, but Eisen actually quite admired the way they lived. It was a sort of freedom that was hard to come by when speaking of groups this large.

However, even if all of this already made them stick out amongst the others, the thing that truly set apart Nomad Giants was the simple fact that they didn't live as Giants. Unless they were in towns built specifically for giants, or if they were facing a beast that they couldn't fight otherwise, they spent all of their time shrunken down to the size of a regular person. Many giants, especially those of the more prideful clans, often took this to mean that they disregarded their giant blood, but that wasn't the case at all. Rather, they simply accepted their blood that wasn't that of a giant. Only a small fraction of giants living with the Nomad Clan were actually pure blooded giants; and another fraction of that was made up of those with the blood of the original Plains Giants. Of course, the chieftain was one of them.

"There they are," Eisen muttered, finally spotting their location. He quickly turned around and flew back over to Askr, who was waiting a good distance away, at the edge of the area where Eisen was told he could find the nomadic giants. He stopped in front of fafnir's dungeon entrance and dropped inside, quickly letting Askr know where he had to go.

The wooden golem started walking toward the nomadic giants, as Eisen looked around. Everyone was already preparing to meet with the next giants, preparing their weapons and armors, not for combat but for appearance of course, or making sure they were wearing more formal clothing instead of the things they usually wore. Eisen as well quickly changed into something else, though he doubted the Nomad Giants would really care no matter what they wore.

However, before long, they found themselves near the nomadic settlement. And while they were preparing to step out, two people approached. They were giants, or at least, they had enough giant blood in them to learn the skill to change their size, even if they didn't seem to be able to reach the full size.

"Hey, bud, you can't come into the village like that. Gotta shrink down," one of them explained quickly, as the other looked Askr up and down, "Is that like an armor? Or is that like... you know?"

"Dude, you can't ask something like that, you know how rude that is!"

"What, you're just as curious as me! He doesn't look anything like the others, right?" the two giants started bickering a bit, before taking notice of the door that opened up in Askr's chest all of a sudden. They took a confused step back, as Eisen quickly took a step out. Before dropping too far, he quickly increased his size to full, albeit only what he could do without transforming. He was actually still a bit taller than these two, surprisingly. He was a half-dwarf, so he expected his growth-ability to be a bit lower than that of others, but the more time he spent here in the giant country and the more halflings he met, the more that was disproven.

"He's not an Ascended Giant, no. Askr is a golem built by me," Eisen explained to the two young giants, who looked past him at the wooden golem, who slowly nodded his head, to confirm what Eisen just said.

"Wow, that's some craftsmanship right there... What are you, a Stone Giant? Fire?"

"I'm part of the Fire Clan, yes. My mother was a Dwarf, though," the old man quickly explained with a laugh, happy with their genuine curiosity, "Ooh, a dwarf and a fire giant? No wonder you're that skilled, isn't that what Eisen is as well?"

"Haha, right, but you can't really compare to him, can you? Must've been quite some pressure, sharing something like that with a Peaked being," the two friends laughed, and Eisen chuckled as he stroked his beard lightly, "Well, I share quite a bit more with him than that. Like... my parents, for example?"

The two giants laughed for a moment, before really realizing what it was that Eisen said. They thought he was joking along with the whole ancestry thing as well, but if that was the case, then he sure worded it quite weirdly, "What do you...?"

Eisen looked at the two of them, placing his hands behind his back and walking forward with a slight chuckle, Askr quickly following him, "No matter that. I'm guessing you two are something like guards?"

"Something like that. More like... scouts, hunters, that sorta thing," one of the giants pointed out, "I'm Tari, that's my brother, Hari." 𝘧𝔯e𝗲𝙬ℯ𝙗𝓷o𝘷e𝗹.𝐜𝑜𝒎

"Tari and Hari, huh? It's a pleasure to meet you," Eisen said, rather surprised to hear this. Sure, they did share some similarities, but they didn't particularly look like siblings, "I'm Eisen de Grandour. I'm here to visit your chieftain," he explained.

With a scoff, Hari looked at the old man, "Your parents really did set you up for failure with that name, huh?"

"They weren't the type to have a child just to try and create a second Eisen, right...?" Tari asked with a concerned expression. Eisen raised his brow, "That happens? No, no, that wasn't the case with me. My parents were truly and completely in love," that was, at least to his knowledge. From the few memories he had of his parents in this world together, it seemed to be the case at least.

"But... de Grandour? You're part of the fire clan chief's lineage?"

"That I am," Eisen explained, as the three of them stopped in front of the entrance to the settlement. The old man turned toward Askr, and without even having to say anything to him, the golem knelt on the ground, as a stairway created by Eisen formed, bridging the entrance of the dungeon and the ground. One by one, Eisen's soldiers and companions stepped out of the dungeon, and Tari and Hari quickly became on edge. They thought, at first, that Askr's chest was simply hollow, but there were far too many people in there for that to be the explanation.

"We are ready, Grandfather," Kiron quickly told Eisen, and the old man quickly shrunk down, "Perfect. Tell the others to set up camp, and once you are done, please let Sigurd know. This is the perfect place to let Fafnir run around a bit."

"Yes," the half-dragon replied quickly, passing on the message immediately. By now, Eisen had shrunken down, but Tari and Hari were still enlarged, as if they were trying to defend the settlement, "Hey now, calm it down, this is totally normal. Did you expect for a King to come here completely alone?"

"King?" Tari and Hari parroted out at the same time, as Eisen smiled at them. His stature grew once more, but this time, not through his giant-abilities, but because he was transforming into his True Demonic form, "Yes, Eisen de Grandour, son of the Fire Clan's first Chieftain, King of Asgard, and the first person to reach the peak in this world."