Chapter 55 - Chapter 55 - Reading Thoughts

I had always been curious about how other people thought. My family had always said I was strange and special. I would say my friends did as well, but I really didn't have any friends as an adult. I just couldn't relate or care enough to make friends. However, I had been curious to see the difference between how I thought and how others thought. Since I was about to experience it, I smiled as I watched the boy step through the tent flaps to meet with the new commander."I can't believe I have to report to this old relic," the boy thought as he gazed up at Lord Gamall. "At least he is better than Baronet Daufi. That man was so stupid. I'm not surprised that even a kobold was able to assassinate him. Pathetic. I mean, how humiliating."The boy's thoughts were interrupted as Lord Gamall cleared his throat, obviously waiting for the boy to report instead of letting his mind wander. The boy quickly said, "Oh, sorry sir. I am still emotionally devastated by the loss of Baronet Daufi. He was such an inspiration to me."Then the boy added a mental qualifier to that statement. "Baronet Daufi was an inspiration because it made me realize that if such an incompetent idiot can command soldiers, then I should have no problem becoming a general in the future." Of course he didn't say that aloud. Although the boy was certain that Lord Gamall would agree with him.I was slightly annoyed that I couldn't read both their minds at the same time. In fact, I actually couldn't see or hear the person the boy was talking to. The only way I knew that Lord Gamall had cleared his throat was because it registered on the boy's thoughts. It was sort of like listening to a stream of consciousness while someone was talking on the telephone. I had to infer sometimes what the other person was saying. It was quite annoying.I had no idea what Lord Gamall said next because his words apparently went in one ear and came out the other without leaving any impression. I rolled my eyes, having a flashback to when I was teaching. I would specifically say something, like do this or don't do that. Then the students would immediately do what I told them not to do. Then they would act surprised, as if they had no clue what I was talking about.I did hear the boy's thoughts though, "Yeah, yeah. Hurry it up old man. I want to go to sleep. You're only saying these nice things about the idiot to be polite. You know that if his brother the marquis finds out you have been bad-mouthing him, he would be upset. Of course, the marquis also knows that Daufi was dumber than a kobold and greedier than a gnome."My eyes widened when the boy thought that kobolds were stupid. While I could agree with his description of gnomes, calling kobolds dumb was crossing a line. Still, he did disparage gnomes, so I could consider things even for the moment. I went back to concentrating on his thoughts.The boy realized Lord Gamall had asked him something he needed to respond to. "Yes my lord, I checked with officers, as you requested. They said that there was very little damage caused. While a few tents were damaged, they are being repaired as we speak. Also, none of the food or water was lost.""Not that we have a lot of supplies to begin with," the boy thought derisively. "Baronet Daufi really was a moron. Even I know that we should have brought more supplies than we did. I mean, what was the rush? Most of the experienced soldiers are with the marquis. Couldn't we have waited until they returned? I still can't believe he left his incompetent brother in charge of the castle while he was gone."The boy's train of thoughts were again interrupted when he realized he was being asked something else, "I was told that there was no coordination between the assassin and the kobolds inside the tunnels. They made no move to take advantage of the disarray of our forces to regain the tunnels they lost earlier.""See. That's why kobolds are the butt of so many jokes. I mean, come on. Which idiot in charge over there would not try to take advantage of the time immediately after the baronet's death to recapture the tunnel entrance? Really? Only a total imbecile would disrupt enemy forces by not taking advantage of that time to regain control of the tunnels they lost earlier."I almost lost my mental connection to the little piece of gnome waste after he thought that, but I took a deep breath and concentrated on what the future fertilizer was saying to the old man. "Yes sir. The sneaky little piece of garbage was a competent assassin, but obviously had no idea what he was doing. The officers said that if the assassin had even a few brain cells, he could easily have disrupted our operation during the confusion after Baronet Daufi's death."That stung a little. While it was true, maybe I should have let my fellow kobolds know that I was able to cause a disruption that they could take advantage of, I… Okay, I had to admit, the little twirp had a point. I really should have let my tribe know what I was doing so they could take advantage of the situation. At the very least, they could have set more traps."Oh my gosh," the boy thought in response to something Lord Gamall must have said. "Really? The ignorant kobold didn't even bother to check the baronet's body? Oh my goodness. How stupid could he be?"I was really starting to hate the kid. I know that by the time I retired, I had gotten over any love of children that I might once have possessed, but this little child was starting to remind me why I retired in the first place. I grit my teeth together and flexed my claws, just imagining what I would do when I got my hands on him. Then I remembered he was a kid, and the fact that I had the ability to use Mind Alteration on him. I could force him to respect my authority!"Yes sir," the boy responded to something the old man said while thinking about how his cot was certainly not going to be as comfortable as his bed back in the castle and that he was hungry. Apparently, whatever Lord Gamall was saying wasn't too important since the boy started to daydream about the daughter of another knight who was a friend of his father."Dude! That's so inappropriate," I thought, doing a quick mental retreat. The boy's thoughts had taken an unexpected direction that I wasn't ready to listen to. "Wow! I mean, wow. Sheesh, I know I had thoughts like that when I was his age, but I thought I was different."I sat there, blinking, trying to forget the thoughts that had flashed through the boy's mind. Was that even physically possible? I wanted to compare his thoughts to what I knew about human anatomy to see if it was even possible to do such a thing, but I quickly shook my head and wished I could scrub the image out of my mind.Then I regretted pulling out, I mean, pulling my thoughts out of his mind. I had lost my connection to the boy's thoughts and wasn't able to discover any new information. Therefore, I decided that in the future, if something like that happened again, I would listen to whatever depraved thoughts the person might have, no matter how unsavory they might be.I was very annoyed. They had insulted my attempts to sabotage the encampment, but hadn't given me any suggestions on how I could have done it better. Not having anything better to do, I flew toward where I remembered a supply tent was located. Once I reached there, I perched on top of a nearby tent and wondered if I should cast the Detect Magic spell to see if the area was alarmed.Finally, I decided not to worry about it. If it was alarmed, I wouldn't be able to do much and would have to flee. If it wasn't alarmed, I would be wasting my time. Because of this, I flew to the supply tent and cut a small hole in the top before peeking inside. Neither of the two guards noticed. After a minute, I flew inside and tried to open the barrel of water.I had to close my eyes and take a few deep breaths when I realized I was too weak to open the top of the barrel of water. That brought back an unpleasant thought. One of my few girlfriends had asked me to open a jar of pickles for her. However, I had been too weak to untwist the lid. I even tried to tap the jar lid open but only ended up breaking the jar and needing to go to the hospital for stitches.While I tried various barrels, I snacked on the food supplies the soldiers had brought. Most of it was hard bread or dried meat, but to me, they were amazing delicacies. I was actually eating real bacon and jerky instead of dried out worms and who knows what. It was also at this point I realized I wasn't strong enough to tip over the barrels of water and had nothing to poison them with.By the time I got one of the barrels open, I realized how badly I had to go to the bathroom. Not only did I need to pee, but I also needed to poop. Also, I was pretty sure that my poop would not be solid. Dang, but whatever I was eating was definitely not agreeing with my stomach.After doing a little dance for a minute while I thought, I finally just hopped up onto the barrel and did what I needed to do to relieve myself. I even smirked at the thought of someone eventually finding my floating offering in the now brown water. "That will teach you to invade our territory," I thought as I smiled at the image in my mind.I then stuffed as much of the real food as I could carry into my pocket dimension and my pouches, and left the worm food for the humans. I even stomped and did a little dance on the "beef" jerky I tossed out of my bags. That was one thing I was going to change when I became the leader, better food.Once I had everything I could carry and had finished my dance, I decided to anoint the remaining food with my blessings. I actually had to drink from the Bottle of Water multiple times before I could anoint every piece of food that wasn't stuffed into my mouth. Anything I couldn't bless was thrown on the ground and danced upon. Realizing that I probably needed to hurry, I then flew back up to the top of the tent through the hole. After that, I immediately took off and headed back to the tunnels while wondering what I would do next.