Spending My Retirement In A Game

The chieftains continued their talks about what Eisen had just revealed to them, trying to figure out the best approach to calm the situation down. Of course, they couldn't just take a complete loss, and the frictions between the Giants' country and the central continent started for a reason, after all.

It was escalated by Samuel into a threat of war, but even without that, there were immense issues between them. The most central one being the matter of racism.

Giants were monsters. That is what the system acknowledged them as, despite the fact that in every other way, as a society and culture, they were people. At this point in time, many suggested that the reason why they were considered monsters was because that was the only way for them to support their massive bodies.

Monsters were physically stronger and often had certain unique abilities, which was definitely the case with Giants. This was something that has caused quite a lot of conflicts with other people, particularly ones that didn't encounter giants often.

A lot of people tended to be rather xenophobic when it came to an unknown people, especially when they felt threatened or couldn't truly imagine what they were like. And as the Giants' society still was quite different from the more human-centric societies in the central continent, it was easy for rumors of the giants to become not only exaggerated, but start a deep fear.

And fear is the seed of hatred in many cases.

Of course, there was no need to worry about coexistence between the two countries. The giants' country already had millions of non-giants living within it, and there were plenty of giants that assimilated into the central continent's culture, living by generally hiding the fact they were giants.

And, considering that the sort of fear-ridden culture was something that was specifically engineered by Samuel, as it would be easier to cause conflicts such as this, it was hard to turn it over in just a single day. However, at the end of the day, an exaggerated conflict could still be stopped.

Currently, all trade between the giants' country and the central continent had been halted as conflicts surged. One way to improve the relationships was to re-establish those connections, either directly with each other, or as Eisen, and as such Asgard as a whole, to act as an intermediary. Of course, this wasn't the only way to do so, but it was one of the best ways to make the actual country-scale conflicts to settle down at least for a while. And, Eisen had a plan to change cultural perception as well.

"Soon, the war between the Dragons will come to be," Eisen explained, "It's going to be tough, and it's going to throw the central continent into a chaos. The Artificials will grow immensely stronger, but at the same time, the everyday people will suffer more and more due to the collateral damages. So for now, there's two things we need to do," the old man pointed out.

"Prepare ourselves to not be intimidated by the artificials' strength?" the desert giant chieftain suggested, but Eisen shook his head, "No, that would basically be suggesting an arms-race, which is the opposite of what we need right now. No, the artificials are a threat because they consider you as monsters. They are even more black and white about things right now.

However, their opinions can be swayed much more easily. The existence of monsters and magic and all types of people beside humans are new to them. That's why we just need to show them that things aren't black and white, but that everything is a shade of gray. We need to show them that giants, as a whole, aren't an enemy."

The Bralfam slowly nodded his head, "We fight alongside them in the war against the Dragons."

"Right. Though, it's not quite a war 'against' the dragons, but one fought alongside dragons, against other dragons. As far as my understanding of the situation reaches thus far, the chromatic dragons have been influenced over the millennia into being more... destructive in their nature. They and the artificials on their side are the ones causing most of the mayhem. Frankly...

in the end, they will be the losing side, even if just because I and the other originals are on the side of the metallic dragons," Eisen explained, "Once the war between the dragons start, lend your aid to the central continent. I'm not saying that you have to join the battles, but help out the people.

Protect them, chase out the artificials on the side of the chromatic dragons, and most importantly, aid in the reconstructions after the war is over."

It didn't take long for the Irngrad to agree, "That should certainly be doable. Fighting against dragons... while that is not something we should force onto our warriors, protecting the people of the central continent is something we not only can do, but also should do, in the end. Being caught up in a war that they have no control over... they do not deserve that."

Eisen nodded, "I'm glad you think so."

And like that, the meeting continued for a while, figuring out what each clan might be able to do in order to help out. Of course, not all of them were able to offer much help, or wanted to do so. The cloud giants had no interest in meddling with the people of the central continent. To them, non-giants were lesser. They didn't care what happened to them, at the end of the day.

However, clans such as the nomad, fire, and stone clans were immediately ready to help.

The nomad giants were quite altruistic and were open to spread out over the central continent and help with the treatment of the injured, while the stone giants offered to be at the forefront of reconstruction together with the fire giants, who also seemed to want to help by supplying weapons, tools, or materials, as much as they could spare.

Soon, it seemed like the first part of the meeting would be over. The council meeting itself would spread out over the next few days, so that they could speak not only about the most imminent issues, but other matters as well. They didn't meet often, so they might as well get some of the regular talks out of the way. However, Eisen wasn't planning on coming here every day.

Now that the issue of the war was much less imminent, and hopefully nonexistent in the near future, Eisen was going to move on to the next topic.

He got the attention of the chieftains and then clasped his hands together, "I mentioned to you earlier that the curse of the giants was a result of my actions. A punishment for refusing to do whatever Samuel wanted. Now that the artificials have descended into this world, he can't just do things like that anymore, not that easily at least.

That's why we are actively working on a way to rid giant-kind of this curse. Or, at the very least, find a way to treat the curse to prevent it from being as lethal as it is, and allow the ones afflicted by it to move freely without its effect trapping them in their own bodies," Eisen explained, and the chieftains nodded their heads excitedly.

Every clan suffered from the curse just the same, so it was an issue that they all wanted to have resolved somehow.

"And when we have that figured out, I will be replacing the God of the Mountain with a pillar that holds up the mountaintop instead," Eisen said bluntly. He wasn't asking for permission; he was just telling them, the Irngrad in particular, what he was going to do. They didn't have much of a choice.

"What?" the Bralfam let out, "Why would you... Isn't the God of the Mountain a statue? What does it..."

The Irngrad closed his eyes, "So that's really what it was? We had found traces that could hint at it, but we thought there was something else about it that we simply hadn't come to understand yet..."

"Right. The God of the Mountain is a man afflicted by the curse. And he's still alive," the old man started, "This isn't up for discussion."

"...I'm not saying I refuse, but... why does it matter to you so much that we save this man? Why would you personally replace it... him, with a pillar?" The Irngrad asked, and Eisen leaned back in his seat, replying simply, "Because that man is my younger brother."

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