I might have been in a real world with real people, but that didn’t stop the “game” from behaving like a game. It only took a few minutes for an entire camp to be set up after choosing to settle our first tile. About a dozen tents were set up with some baskets spread around the place to serve as storage, mainly for food. Everybody got to work the instant I settled the tile. Thankfully, they looked happy about it if not excited. I still felt guilty knowing that they were forced to obey all of the orders I gave through the game, but seeing them work with such high spirits helped me feel better about it.

Regardless, what should have taken probably an hour or so was done within minutes. They even had a few different fires started using wood that, frankly, I had no idea where it came from. There wasn’t a single tree in any direction that I looked.

When I saw somebody walk over to a basket to pull some sticks out from it for another fire, I went over to the basket and looked inside. It looked full still. So full that there was no way to put anything else in it.

I pulled one of the sticks out, closed the basket, and opened it again a few seconds later. The basket was full again and the wood I took was replaced.

“Magic?” I asked Enna since she followed me everywhere I went.

“In a way,” Enna answered. “You won’t need to worry about basic supplies like wood for fires. Or later on, once we can build more advanced buildings, you won’t need to worry about making sure there are enough hammers and nails for everybody. There will always be enough basic supplies for tasks like that once you unlock them in the first place.”

“And I’m guessing that unlocking them is tied to technology. Research something like blacksmithing and our blacksmiths will always have hammers without worrying about where they come from.”

“Yes!”

Naturally, as somebody who played countless video games in my free time, my mind immediately went to abusing that. “Can it be abused? We have an infinite number of sticks here. What’s stopping us from making basic weapons with them? Or building spike traps? Basic walls?”

Enna shook her head. “From my understanding, anything you try to make out of such materials to exploit the system will simply not work. A wall will fall apart if it even lets you make progress on one. Weapons and armor will be ineffective. They can only be used for basic purposes and nothing else. Even if you could find a way to exploit the system that hasn’t been tried by countless leaders over the past… seventy plus games, the system can be modified on the spot and any exploits would be reverted.”

“I’m curious now. Has it ever happened before?”

“Yes. I once saw a recording of… I believe it was the fourth game? The leader of The Tree Father, Ull’s faction, discovered an exploit that allowed him to build a vast fleet of ships overnight. He set sail the next morning to take over the neighboring factions with a fleet that was impossible to compete against. The fleet was destroyed by Monitor in an instant. Those who crewed the ships were teleported back to where they were before.”

“New names. Ull and Monitor. What can you tell me about them?”

“Well, The Tree Father, Ull, is a member of the Divine Pantheon. I have no idea if his faction is present in this match, but his faction is known for ferocious warriors who originated within the forests but came to conquer the seas. All they care about is the glory of war and pillaging.”

“Wannabe Vikings. Got it. And Monitor?”

“Monitor is an artificial being created to neutrally… well, monitor the game. Monitor makes sure that everything operates as planned and that no rules are broken. It was created to be a neutral judge specifically for these games.”

“The referee. Got it. Do we have any idea what other factions will be here?”

“No, aside from God’s faction. God has wanted Earth for millennia. Lucy—a-ah! I—I mean, I-I-I mean, ou-our Dark Lord, Luc—”

“—y.”

Enna’s eyes took on the appearance of somebody who just died inside. “I’m going to be executed when I return to Hell…”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because I can, and I’m a man of my word.”

“I don’t know how you can speak with so much confidence about things you don’t even understand…”

“Men don’t need to understand things. All they need to do is hold true to their beliefs and everything will work out.”

“I feel like I’m the one who doesn’t understand now…”

“You don’t need to. All you have to do is believe in me.”

“I—I do, even if it doesn’t make any sense to.”

“Good girl. Now, do we know how many other factions will be involved?” When I didn’t get a response, I looked at her again and saw bright eyes staring at me with red coloring her cheeks. “Something wrong?”

“A-ah! No! Sorry! A-ah, um, what—what was the question?”

“How many other factions are there?”

“I—I believe eight is the minimum and twenty is the maximum. It depends on how many members of the Divine Pantheon wanted to fight for the prize worlds. Most keep their interest hidden until they are revealed within the game so that others cannot prepare strategies against them… but everybody is aware of God and Lu—Hell, being involved this game. They have had a rivalry over Earth since sentient life first emerged on it, or so the stories go. Nobody was surprised when both publicly announced their interest in participating in this match. Even if they didn’t announce it, the rest of the Divine Pantheon would have assumed their participation anyways.”

“I feel like every answer you give me makes me think of five more questions to ask, but that’s enough for now. Thanks. I’ll save the rest of my questions for later.”

“I’ll be glad to answer them whenever you are ready to ask them! What are you going to do now, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I’m going to check what buildings are available. I always settle my first city, queue up buildings or units, and then figure out what technology to unlock first when I play these games.”

Enna nodded and let me get to it without further distractions.

“Menu.”

Going by how the total income was higher than what the tiles gave us, I assumed we must have gotten a starting building to boost our stats some more.

I clicked on [Settlements].

“That’s right, I’ve got to think of a name for this place,” I said.

“I’m sure that whatever name you come up with will be great!” Enna said. I appreciated how positive she could be.

“The problem is that I usually name cities in games after American cities. I feel like some sort of traitor for saying this, but that feels like it wouldn’t be appropriate this time around. This is a real place with real people. I should give the name more respect than stealing from an existing city.”

“Ah. Well, you could always wait until a good name comes to you.”

“I figured it out.”

“A-already?!”

“New Liberty. I would have named it Liberty on its own, but I won’t be able to think of anything but that one game if I call it Liberty City. So, New Liberty it is.”

I watched the name change on the screen in front of me.

“That’s better. Also, there’s only a population of one?” I looked around. There was definitely more than just a single person around. “Looks like a lot more than one to me.” It was probably closer to eighty demons around the place when counting the former settlers and the spearmen units.

“That’s something you shouldn’t take too literally,” Enna answered. “Population refers more to how many workers you have… or rather, how many groups of workers you have. A population of one might actually be thirty people, which it is in this case since the settler unit was composed of thirty demons. When the population grows to two, we might receive twenty-four more demons. Or maybe we’ll receive thirty-two. But as far as the system is concerned, we will only gain one more unit of population to work a building. Later on, when we get into higher technologies and have a true city, a single unit of population might actually represent thousands of demons. But even so, one unit of population will only be able to work in one building no matter how many of us there actually are.”

“Makes sense. If it only grew by a single person at a time then that would be ridiculous. If it never changed, larger cities would become impossible to fill and look like ghost towns. So, don’t worry about the exact number of people around the place. Only care about the population counter.”

“Right!”

“Alright. Thanks. By the way, what do you think of the name?”

“Hmm. New Liberty… I think I like it.”

“It was either that or New Freedom, but I think New Liberty sounds more like a city.”

“New Liberty.” Enna nodded. “I like it.”

“Good.”

Back to the system, I opened up New Liberty’s specific menu.

“I’m assuming that ‘Defenses’ works the same way as the game I apparently practiced in,” I said. “That’s the camp’s health. If it drops to zero, the camp gets destroyed or taken over. Garrisoned units receive a bonus to their health depending on how high it is.”

“Right!” Enna answered.

I thanked her for the confirmation and selected the building queue.

I almost laughed a little when I saw that the only two units under “Available Units” were both clearly labeled unavailable, but I understood what the system meant. They were available as units that I had unlocked, not that I could build at the exact moment.

That aside, going for the Workers’ Tents was probably my smartest option. I felt like our food was already in a pretty good place and boosting our labor up would make building everything else faster.

Since I could queue them up, and there just so happened to be the perfect amount of queue slots for the constructions available, I queued them up in the order that I felt would benefit us the best.

There were only a couple more things I wanted to check before moving on to technology. That required me expanding the constructed buildings section.

Confirming the boost in our income, there was only one more thing I wanted to check out.

It was obvious what the living tents were supposed to be. Those were all the tents around us. What I didn’t know was where this summoning stone was apparently at. Even if it wasn’t important, I was hoping that I would actually get to see all of our buildings instead of just being told that they exist without them having any sort of visual impact. Too many games did that. I liked to actually see my cities grow and change with new buildings instead of looking the same no matter what was built.

Turned out that all I had to do was walk around to the other side of the tent I was standing next to and I could see it.

Right in the middle of a circle of tents was a large, red slab on the ground with some sort of runes etched into it, but that was the least obvious part of it. What was really obvious was the swirling vortex of red energy in the air above it.

“I take it that’s where our new population will come from?” I asked.

Enna nodded and said, “Right! New volunteers will come through there whenever we acquire enough food to grow the population.”

“Alright, thanks.”

With that, it was time to check out the technology tree.

And I had no idea just how expansive it was going to be.