Spending My Retirement In A Game

Jyuuk whispered to Eisen, keeping him updated on something that the small shadow cats that he had sent out had found in one of the bedrooms. The old man quickly glanced over to Xenia, who was currently surrounded by some aristocrats from the central continent.

The high elf quickly nodded back at him and excused herself, making her way out of the meeting hall so that she could go and properly investigate. She had a lot of spells that allowed her to get some deeper insight into certain things.

Clearly nothing was as simple as 'the one who has the poison is the poisoner'. People would try to entrap others and push the blame onto them. This was complex politics and plotting, with magic and skills and special abilities, and all the good stuff that made things so ridiculously hard to keep track of.

No country would send envoys that were stupid enough to leave behind obvious traces like Eisen and the others were finding around the place right now.

Nonetheless, it didn't really matter who they came from. The point wasn't to use that to hold it over the perpetrator's head; that could just lead to the opposite. In the end, the originals weren't even trying to figure out who did things, they were just trying to figure out everything that was being plotted so that they could prevent it.

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The envoys that didn't try anything would already know that it was useless to do something here, and the ones that were stupid enough to try would realize that every single attempt of theirs was quietly and easily thwarted.

That in itself would put some level of pressure on them, either stopping them from trying more stupid stuff, or making them panic to the point where they slipped up more and made their attempts more obvious and easier to interrupt.

And with that, the rest of the night, after the poisoned spinach puffs had been found, was spent getting rid of poisons, spells, curses, secret weapons, traps, or anything else that could be annoying, not just today but over the next couple of days in general. At some point, the banquet was finally coming to an end, and the envoys made their way back to their individual, and safe, rooms.

Once they were gone, the servants for the building worked together with some golems and special items to very quickly clear out the space and set it back up for the meeting that was going to start quite early tomorrow.

With a loud sigh, Eisen sat down at his seat, "What the hell is everyone thinking?"

"You can say that again," Brody groaned, holding his fist in front of his mouth to let out a long burp, "Those spinach puffs are still doing a number on me."

"I thought you developed an immunity to that poison pretty quickly," Jyuuk looked at the half-orc a bit concerned, and Brody quickly nodded.

"Poison immunity doesn't seem to be stop acid reflux. Fuck, do we not have something like bepto here?"

"I could try and come up with something," Eisen suggested, leaning back in his seat. Komer walked into the room curiously.

"You're going to make bepto here? That could sell pretty well," he pointed out, "But anyway, today went pretty well, right? It sounds like once the treaty is over, there'll be some pretty active trade starting up between the central continent and the giants' country."

Evalia sighed, dropping her head onto the table with a long sigh, "We'll have to get there first. Today was exhausting."

"Exhausting? What happened?" Komer asked, and Eisen quickly turned toward him.

"Some poison, some traps, some cursed items. Some of those guys were basically trying to go all-in before the meeting beings tomorrow," the old man explained. Komer flinched back slightly.

He had spent all evening just talking to the different envoys, trying make everything go by smoothly while connecting the envoys that he thought could benefit each other if they created some sort of trade agreement after the treaty was figured out.

"When the hell did that... Where was I while that was going on?"

"Chatting up that lady from Mongard," Brody scoffed.

"She's like two hundred years older than me," immediately shaking his head, Komer completely denied that, and Evalia looked over at him with a raised brow.

"So? I'm twenty thousand years older than Benji. We're working out pretty well."

Komer nervously looked over at her, "Th-That... that's different, cause you're not really mentally that much older than him, and I-I just- Okay listen, the whole age thing is fucking confusing as hell with all of you, so please just give me a break, okay?"

"Calm down, I'm just messing with you," with a slight laugh, Evalia raised her head back up fully and stretched a bit. Just then, someone else stepped into the room. Kiron, who was ready to report to Eisen.

He had insisted on not participating in the banquet, instead acting as a knight instead of as Eisen's grandson. Respecting his wishes, Eisen agreed, so right now, Kiron returned from checking up on some spots across the town that Jyuuk's shadow cats had deemed suspicious.

The half-dragon knight quickly stepped up to the table, "There was nothing of note in any of the locations, though there did seem to be traces of some of the envoys' servants scouting out the town. And not just their guards either, but their butlers and maids."

"Hm, alright. Jyuuk, make sure to track all the servants properly," Eisen looked at the beastman, who nodded without hesitation.

"Already on it. They were marked beforehand already, so this should be easy enough to do. Got a swarm of beetles that I'll split up and have each one track a specific one," Jyuuk took out his bestiary and flipped to one of the pages. The swarm painted on it quickly detached from the page, climbing over Jyuuk's arms, torso, and legs down onto the ground.

They made their way out through the door, blending in with the colours of the walls and ground as they scurried along.

"So... what now? Can we just relax a bit until the meeting starts?" Xenia asked, looking around at everyone. Nobody seemed to have anything else they particularly needed to discuss, so the high elf stood up from her seat. Jyuuk quickly got up as well.

"Rest for a while, everyone. Tomorrow is going to be a rough day," the high elf let out a long, deep sigh as Jyuuk and her made their way out of the meeting hall, waving as everyone briefly as they left. Evalia figured it was time for her to head out for a bit as well.

"I've got a thing with Benji in a bit, so I'll be logged out. But we'll just be in the garden, so just come out if you need me."

"Enjoy yourselves," Eisen replied, and just before Evalia stepped out, he looked at her, "But not too much! I don't want to be a great-grandfather on earth just yet."

With a slight groan, Evalia left the meeting room. Before long, both Kiron and Komer made their way outside as well. The kids were already sleeping as well, so the only ones that were here now were Eisen and Brody.

"So how'd you like the food? Beyond the parts that were poisoned, obviously," Eisen asked, and Brody shrugged.

"Eh, it's aight. Just not as filling as I'd like. It's kind of hard to get me full for some reason," he pointed out, "It's a bit weird, I'm doin' all the things that everyone tells orcs to do when they get gluttony, but it doesn't seem to be working. I don't know if it's my stats or my internal energy, but I just don't feel full, like... ever."

Eisen raised a brow, "Really? That doesn't sound particularly good. Are you weakened?"

"Nah, luckily not. The gluttony ability makes an orc stronger the more they've eaten. There is a point where it'd weaken me, but I got past that point with just a regular meal. And on top of that... my boost's already more than the top limit for other orcs. No clue where it's gonna be at when I finally get my fill," Brody scoffed, "Ya think you can help me out?"

Eisen thought about it for a moment, "Is it about volume or calories?"

"... Honestly, I've got no fuckin' clue. As much of both as possible. A ton of really fatty shit is what I've been going for."

"I'll figure something out. We'll get you filled up, don't worry."