Eisen was just about to stand up so that he would be able to tell the man just how wrong he was about what he just exclaimed, but before he was actually able to do that, white mist streamed out of the amulet hanging around his neck.
It first filled the area where the chairs were standing up and then gathered right in the center, in front of the man. And from that mist, Kirisho was formed. She was standing in front of the man, seemingly wanting to take over the task that Eisen had been just about to go for himself.
She stood there with an ever so soft smile on her lips, just glaring at the man in anger. Rather than shocking, startling, or even scary, her expression was... creepy. That was the word that best described it. It made shivers run across your back, just because of how perfectly matched Kirisho's lips and eyes were for this right now.
The man was confused and stared at Kirisho before taking a step backward to evaluate the situation, but before anything else could really happen, Kirisho moved as close to the man as she could and with a clear voice spoke, "I may not know particularly much about craftsmanship, but I can assure you that there is not a single craftsman that can best this man." Kirisho said with a confident tone to her voice, and the man slowly stared back at her.
It seemed like he thought that this actually kind of confirmed his suspicions. For one, Eisen didn't stand up for himself in this, and what Kirisho was saying sounded like simple braggery. The only ones that had to rely on something like that were those that were unskilled or weak. When it came to those that truly knew what they were doing, their actions would speak louder than any words.
"Ah... Is that so? Then how about it? Let's go for a quick craftsmanship match, if he is such an amazing craftsman. I may not look it, but I myself am actually rather skilled." The man explained with a smug grin, as if he had won some kind of discussion right now, but the next moment, Kirisho just glared back at him.
"Excuse me, but I would have a little bit of a question for you for now." The mist-spirit pointed out, and the man slowly nodded his head, "Of course, what-"
"Could it be you are a simpleton?" She asked as her smile slowly disappeared from her face, and the man's expression immediately changed from a grin to a confused smile, "What did you..?"
"Could it be you are a simpleton? Or are you merely deaf? If so, that would be rather troublesome, as it is more than just obvious that you are already blind." Kirisho stated, "How can you call yourself skilled in what you do if you cannot even recognize this man's skill? The only explanation I could come up with was that you recently had some sort of accident related to your eyes and became blind. Having you be deaf on top of that would be a sad development, don't you think?"
Slowly, deep shivers and goosebumps appeared all over the man's body, "J-Just what-"
"This man here is the 'honored individual' you just spoke of. Eisen. The first of those that peaked. The greatest craftsman in this world." Kirisho explained as she pointed at Eisen behind her, who was just staring at her in surprise. Eisen had never seen Kirisho speak to anyone like that.
Sure, Eisen himself was also rather insulted at hearing this kind of thing from someone who obviously seemed to know a thing or two about craftsmanship himself, but hearing the usually so quiet and calm Kirisho react this way was really something that the old man didn't anticipate.
The man stared back at the mist spirit in front of him, and then slowly let his eyes drift over toward Eisen again. He couldn't really believe words like that. Because sure, this man seemed to be obviously physically strong, but it still just seemed slightly off. After all, Eisen really did have numerous scars on his arm that seemed like he wouldn't be able to really work with an arm in such a state. And technically that was correct. In the other world, he hadn't been able to work with his arm like that anymore.
But here in this world, these scars weren't actually 'real'. It was more like they were an aesthetic that was created for Eisen as he first joined the game. It did seem like the old Eisen also had scars similar to this, though, at least that's what Eisen could remember from the few instances where he could speak to that old self of his. That was something that weirdly enough never bothered Eisen too much until now. Maybe he should try and look into this as well.
Either way, adding the fact that Eisen had such scars onto the fact that he was really missing a finger, from an outsider's perspective it may seem like Eisen wasn't a craftsman. There were much more reasons to believe that Eisen was a craftsman of course, but if one tried to find reasons to believe that shouldn't be the case, it wouldn't really be that hard.
That's exactly why the man was simply confused. He slowly turned his head toward Asmond, "What exactly is that woman saying?"
"The truth, what else?" The dark-elf replied bluntly, and the man turned back toward Eisen with pure confusion, "No way, I mean, just... just look at him!"
"I am, you fool! All I can see is a man that dedicated his life to craftsmanship! He truly is that Eisen, the one that reached the peak!" Asmond exclaimed, seemingly also slowly getting a bit more agitated the more that the man was going on about how this had to be a lie.
A few more times he tried to say that this couldn't be true, and even that Eisen had to be lying and somehow tricking Asmond, but at that point, Kirisho already had enough of him.
She extended her hand forward toward the guard and made white mist stream out of it that then quickly stuck to the man's body, enveloping him completely. And the mist was so thick that you couldn't even see a speck of his skin or clothes.
The next anyone knew it, the man started casually walking toward the door, left the room, and closed it behind himself. Once he was gone, Kirisho simply kept staring at the door.
"Don't worry, it was nothing but a simple illusion. He was far too bothersome." Kirisho admitted with a light glare as she stood next to Eisen. It seemed like everyone here was rather surprised to see Kirisho like this. Well, Asmond was surprised to see her in the first place, since he didn't expect a Ghost to be a part of this group.
"Heh... This chick's mad." Hephaestus pointed out with a light smirk, "Yo, old man, you boning her or somethin'? Or why's she defending you like this?" The ego-item looked at Eisen, who simply stared back at Hephaestus, weirdly more shocked about this question than the fact that Kirisho was acting like this. He simply hadn't expected it.
Kirisho herself simply stood there and froze up the moment she heard Hephaestus' question, and seeing that nobody wanted to reply, Hephaestus continued, "Nice, sounds like a 'yes'. Good on you, geezer. Who'd expect that you can get such a-"
"Hephaestus. If you say one more word, I'm scrapping you, got it?" Eisen said with a light glare, but the ego-item just shrugged, "I'd love to see you try. You really sure you can even beat me? But I get it, if you don't wanna admit it, that's fine. I mean, it would be a bit embarrassing for her, since you're this ol-" Hephaestus continued to speak until he was interrupted by the fact that a pitch-black snake appeared around his body and held him down, supported by more magical chains. The next moment, Eisen held his hand toward the multitool attached to his apron and soon had a needle between his fingers.
He held the needle toward Sal, who simply tapped the needle's head and attached a bit of magical, mana-based threat to it. And then, Brody started pushing up Hephaestus' lower jaw while pushing down onto his head. Eisen pulled a mana-copy of the needle out of it and placed the regular one back into the multitool and made a few duplicates of that. Nine to be extact. Each needle that Eisen was controlling with each one of his fingers, nine because he was currently missing one, was connected to a thread each coming out of Sal's fingers, strengthened with magic as much as possible. The last finger was used by Sal to just flip Hephaestus off while all this was happening.
And then, Eisen proceeded to move the mana-needles through Hephaestus' lips, cheeks, and jaws so that he could literally sew the ego-item's mouth shut.
After this was done, everyone let go of Hephaestus as the ego-item stared back at them. The thing was that because it was someone else's mana with extremely specific and special properties, even this ego-item wasn't able to easily break them.
So, while he was trying to somehow signal Sal to get rid of his mana in the threads, Eisen looked back at Asmond while Kirisho was slightly hiding behind Xenia and Evalia.
"Now, that is a totally reasonable reaction..." Evalia muttered with a wry smile while looking at Hephaestus trying to get rid of the mana threads holding his mouth shut like this.
Meanwhile, Eisen just turned toward Asmond again, "Anyway, sorry about that."
"Likewise, I apologize for that young man being so rude toward you." Asmond said as well, but Eisen simply shook his head, "Don't worry about it. We should just somehow figure this out now. So, as said before, but we have taken this island over again, and it's part of our country now. This man, Denmir Dimhide, is now the Lord of that town. We are currently in the process of rebuilding it to how it was before, and would like you all to return to your former home." Eisen explained quickly. There was no reason not to say it straight how it was, after all.
The dark-elf, after hearing all this, opened his eyes wide and looked back at Eisen. Without any moment's hesitation, the elderly man nodded his head, "Of course! No question about it! I will speak to the people of this village about it immediately! I am sure there will be none that will refuse to take up this chance!"