Following the end of the first half, Ivory invited us to have a meal with him and the other generals at the banquet hall for the nobles and dignitaries. I, obviously, obliged. But perhaps I should have turned him down.
It felt weird being the centre of attention in the hall. Everyone stared at our group the entire time, like we were a novelty. It must have been strange, for an empire that made it a point not to deal with other countries, to see officials from an unnamed, miniscule country dining with them in the halls.
Honestly, it was so strange that they all had very strange and annoying thoughts about why the emperor would even allow this.
Such thoughts ranged from me promising him an army of monsters that would fight themselves for his amusement to me offering myself to him.
I held back the urge to shut down everyone in the room. Honestly, the best thing to do here would have been to turn off my telepathy, but you never knew what interesting information I could get.