Spending My Retirement In A Game

"Hijack the quest system? What do you mean?" Xenia asked with a confused frown, and Eisen quickly called the other originals over to a room ajdacent to the meeting room that was also covered in part of the materials and patterns that were made to block out Samuel. It was small and uncomfortable to be in here with everyone, but it was better than simply saying everything out in the open.

"Alright, basically, the quest system is something that is placed over the innate ability to teach others. To quite literally transfer 'experience' from one to another," Eisen explained, "I believe that we somehow tapped into this system to drain ourselves of our own experience and use it to create bodies for players."

"Okay..." Jyuuk nodded, following along, "So... you think that we can somehow take advantage of this system? And what, steal others' experience?"

Eisen shook his head, "No, we won't 'steal' anything from others. I mean maybe, kind of," the old man said, "I'm sure that the abilities behind the quest system are the same thing that Samuel uses to sap experience off players to keep the system itself running. He has to be building up some kind of reservoire. What if we can somehow tap into that reservoir?"

"You want to hack the system?" Brody scoffed.

"Maybe not 'hack' exactly, but... maybe we can somehow access it. I'm growing less and less connected to the system, so maybe if I grow to control my innate abilities, I can tap into the flow of experience. Experience that has been gathered from millions of people at this point in time," Eisen explained, "And since our bodies are more receptive to experience now, I might be able to level up hundreds of times, or boost my skills to levels far beyond what they are now. And then, I can take that experience, and use that same ability to transfer it to all of you."

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The others immediately seemed to be just as curious about the possibility of this as Eisen was. If this was possible, they could regain their former strength, even if not completely. At the very least, they might be able to use the abilities they remembered to a degree that they couldn't before. However, there was still an issue with that.

"And how are we supposed to do that? Even if you can somehow control your abilities better, that doesn't mean you can somehow tap into this, right? There's no way Samuel would leave the gathered experience unprotected," Xenia pointed out, "Plus, who knows what it would do to you to take in that much experience all at once. I mean, there's a reason why we have to do quests every hundred levels."

"Right, plus, skills have more conditions to rank up than just experience," Evalia pointed out, "Are you sure it's safe to just... try and break through that?"

Jyuuk quickly jumped in, "Not to mention, we don't even know how skills behave without the system yet. Skills that aren't directly guided by the system could, I don't know... go out of control in some way if they jump up that high. You were struggling with your ability to change your size in the beginning, right? What if your magic suddenly runs wild and you down a village, or what if your demonic abilities go out of control and you... I don't know, transform into something that you can't undo?"

Eisen was quiet for a few moments. He understood the concerns, he really did, but this was too big an opportunity for him to just let go of, "Yes, of course, this idea comes with a ton of danger, but of all the things we've been doing, what has been 'safe' in the first place?"

"Alright, in that case... let's think about this differently. Why? Just becoming stronger doesn't change anything for us. We'll be just as powerless in front of Samuel in the end. Yes, he doesn't have the same ways to control us right now, but come on, we still have no idea how to actually face off against him. How to stop him. Do you think growing stronger will make that better? Won't it just make him freak out?" Xenia asked, and Eisen really didn't have anything to say against that. But Evalia had come up with a whole other idea.

"Then what if, instead of using the experience to grow stronger, we just... give it back to the players?" she suggested, and the other four all looked at her, not sure where she was going. She cleared her throat and explained her thought process, "Okay, listen... 'Experience' is, like... knowledge, right? The reason we lost our memories is because we gave up our experience. So experience carries knowledge and memories. What if we give our experience to everyone, and... use it to tell them the truth?"

"Tell them the truth, and immediately gain millions of witnesses in the inhumane crimes that Samuel has been committing. I like it," Brody nodded, a broad grin showing the entirety of his tusks.

Eisen agreed, "That's even better. We just need to make sure we give them the right knowledge when the time comes. Something unabiguous."

"We can still figure out exactly what to tell the players; we can't do this right now anyway," Xenia pointed out.

"But..." Jyuuk started, "What happened with Aaron? What made you figure this all out?"

Eisen almost froze up. He realized that he still had to catch the others up on a lot more than he had, "I'm sorry, I should have explained first. Samuel has been using quests to manipulate Aaron. Whenever he told others about the quests he received, the person or people he told would be possessed and injure him in increasingly cruel ways, but he would never die no matter how much the damage was. And whenever he failed the quests, the people around Aaron would be injured or killed. He's been getting these since he was a little child."

Immediately, the originals felt a mixture of relief, shock, and confusion, which all quickly led into the same realization that Eisen himself had gotten to.

"Oh, fuck, so he could be doing this to a ton of people? Are you fucking with me?" Brody asked, "What the hell is wrong with this guy? How does he even come up with these creepy ass ideas?"

"Probably not on his own. We had no connection to Aaron until very recently, so Samuel must have been doing this to a lot of people over the millennia. He must have a team working with him," Xenia pointed oout, and Eisen quickly agreed.

"That's what I was thinking as well. They're probably somewhere in heaven or hell, hiding out in a place away from everything else, maybe not even fully realizing what the hell they're doing."

Evalia looked up at the old man, "Does that mean that he's not our enemy?"

"Not directly, no. But if he can still be influenced by the quests, we either need a way to block him from getting those quests, or... remove him from his position of power where he can do this much damage," Eisen explained.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Wait, hold up," Brody stared at Eisen, "Didn't you say that he gets injured when he hurts others? What, did you get possessed and sucker punch him?"

The old man scoffed, "No, no, don't worry. I think he was trying to tell me so that this would happen, though; to punish himself for almost letting us all be killed and letting Silber die. But I found out something pretty neat. My domain blocks the system now."

"Your domain? Like, your demonic thing?"

"Yup," Eisen responded to Jyuuk, "Basically, the domain is an expansion of myself, and everything that is in my domain is mine. And somehow, the system resistance skill seems to expand to others that are within my domain."

"... Does that mean we didn't even have to build the meeting room like that?" Xenia asked, and Eisen slightly shrugged.

"Maybe so, but we still don't know how strongly the system is suppressed. Samuel could still find a way through this for the time being if he tries, so it's better safe than sorry. This meeting hall is now basically a safe haven within our kingdom where we can hold anything that we need to protect from the system."