Spending My Retirement In A Game

"We wish to make a deal!" it exclaimed, and the four originals that were gathered all stared at the lump of wriggling flesh.

"A deal?" Eisen asked. Clearly, the Filth wouldn\'t be able to fight back against these four; that was clear to everyone gathered here. So was that thing desperate now?

"What kinda deal?" Brody asked, and Jyuuk snapped his head toward the orc-demon halfling.

"Brody!"

"What? Aren\'t you curious? Why not hear it out? Eisen said that thing\'s from a whole separate world, right?"

"Well... I... would like to hear more about that world..." the beastman replied, and the two quickly looked over to Eisen and Xenia, who seemed a bit more hesitant. Since they actually had memories related to these other worlds now, they at the very least had a feeling about what could potentially go wrong if they weren\'t careful when dealing with something like this.

But in the end, Eisen figured there was no harm in, at the very least, hearing it out. Though, some safety-measures were needed.

He squatted down and pushed his hand into the ground, making his item storage appear there. From inside, he grabbed a large compressed mana crystal, quickly manipulating it to form a cube large enough for a person to stand inside.

With his ego-tool Bai, he took a few moments to carve an extremely simple pattern into the cube; it was practically just a few symbols that were meant to make the mana crystal act more protective. Mana crystal was already nigh indestructible by regular means, but who knew what this thing could do?

That was why the cube, once the carvings were activated, would work to retain its own shape as much as possible.

Getting the memo without having to be told to do anything, Jyuuk and Brody scooped up every little piece of the Filth\'s body and threw it inside of the cube. Eisen looked around with his truth-seeing eyes to make sure that there wasn\'t any part of it that was accidentally left behind, and then closed the cube up.

While they were doing so, Xenia was already working on another carving on the cube\'s surface, which would allow them to talk to the Filth inside of it. It simply transmitted sound from the inside to the outside. The shape-retaining carvings that Eisen placed on the cube would also block vibrations, so it the cube happened to be sound-proof.

Once every part of the Filth was inside, something that it accepted without fighting back, Eisen activated all the enchantments on the cube\'s surface, quickly making sure that it couldn\'t be altered anymore. And with the \'intercom\' enchantment, they quickly began their conversation.

"Alright. What do you want?" Eisen asked, as Brody stood beside him to keep an eye on the Filth\'s movements. Meanwhile, Xenia was erasing the summoning circle and collecting the trinkets, while Jyuuk took care of the dead bodies. Of course, they were still listening in, but Eisen was better at dealing with these matters than them.

The filth, whose body had quickly reformed, was looking more and more... humanoid. Its fingers were melding into each other and smoothing out, so its skin really just looked a bit lumpy, but that was disappearing more and more anyway. The filth slowly opened its mouth. Its voice was still rough, but it was much better than it was before.

"We want to continue our existence," it explained, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in understanding.

"You want us to not kill you, alright. I guess that\'s doable, but why would we let that happen?" the old man asked, and the Filth just stood there, calmly listening to what he was saying, "You\'re a being from a whole other world. Your very existence is a threat to us. We should just do whatever we can to get rid of you, and throw you back where you came from."

The moment Eisen pointed this out, the Filth\'s body degenerated for just a few moments. Its hands shook and its fingers stood up from its body, almost like goosebumps. Its voice was shakey as it replied.

"AnyThiNg but thAt... Do not mAkE us reTurN!" it practically yelled out, and Eisen looked at his friends a bit confused before turning back to the Filth.

"Are you... scared? Of your own world?" he asked, and the Filth seemed to consider its words carefully.

"Our world is one of... dread... a realm of concepts and ideas, rather than the physical and material, like this one.

That is why we came to quickly understand many parts of this world, as well as our own," it explained, almost shocking Eisen and the others with how eloquently it was speaking all of a sudden, "Our grasp on your language is still weak, but we believe you would call our realm a world of... Horrors. Of fear, and disgust, and dread."

It sounded ridiculous, but after seeing what those faces and hands did earlier to try and escape, he couldn\'t deny that it seemed possible. The Filth continued.

"But until just a moment ago... our world was one of stagnance. Of nothingness. And then, the passage was opened, and a spark of existence came to our realm. And with that momentary existence came a simple realization. We grew after being observed.

The more we are observed, the more we are felt and experience, the more we will grow."

"So you\'re scared of not growing anymore? Or that you\'ll stop existing once nobody is there to \'observe\' you anymore?" Brody asked, crossing his arms, but the Filth quickly explained.

"No... those in that other realm will not cease to exist anymore, but they will also not grow. They will be stagnant, but not cease. Here, they may cease, but they may also grow. There it is safer, but..."

Eisen frowned lightly. He didn\'t understand what the issue was. The Filth was about to be killed here, so why would it want to risk staying if it could be safer over there? Unless...

"You made a mistake."

The Filth stayed silent, and Eisen continued as the others seemed a bit confused.

"What do you mean?" Xenia asked, and the old man grinned, continuing to stare at the filth.

"You were the first to leave that realm, and gave yourself a physical form. But you made a mistake when you did. Since you didn\'t know about this place beforehand, you took as much as you could. All the benefitial parts. Mass, strength, language. But you didn\'t know where to stop.

And then, you learned fear. You learned what it means to be scared, and if that\'s what those things feed on... What would happen if you were thrown back there? Would you be able to return back to what you were before, or would you become a source of infinite fear for everything else in that realm? Would they continue to grow and feed and grow and feed?

Forever and ever and ever," Eisen suggested, "That\'s it, isn\'t it? If you were to return, now that you learned how to be scared, your own world is too terrifying for you."

Brody let out a slight laugh, "Seriously? Is that it?" .net

The Filth stayed silent for a few moments, but soon responded, "That is our expectation."

"Hm, got it," Eisen said, smiling lightly. It was actually pretty funny, so he was trying to hold back a laugh. Brody was doing that more than enough anyway.

"Do you understand now? If we go back we-"

"So what? Why\'s that our problem? You\'re one of those \'fears\' as well, right? Why would we leave you here, where you can become a threat? You\'ll keep growing stronger the more people are scared of you, right? In my opinion, we should just get rid of you right here."