We got lucky.

We were screwed if we weren’t able to get lucky. I doubted there would be any coming back from not being able to get the minor faction on our side. They were going to be turn hostile and hunt us down if we couldn’t find any creatures for them to hunt themselves.

And fortunately, we found hunting grounds for them.

A creature tile was found to the southeast of our hunters, directly adjacent to it and adjacent to another tile feature as well.

The tile feature was actually responsible for our luck. I should have reminded myself of all the regions’ tile features sooner. I looked the rest of them over a few times in my free time, but I had to admit that they didn’t exactly stick with me.

There was a difference between being able to remember each feature when playing a game at a computer without much stress and doing it all in a single fourteen-hour session or so, and stretching it out over little bits of time over ten days with a mountain of stress thrown on top of me.

I had no idea if the feature was actually responsible or not for the creature tile appearing right next to it, but it was a theory I had. A theory that made me want to use the hunter’s tracking ability around the rest of that feature’s tiles to check for even more creature tiles.

That aside, it was a new day. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough influence to claim both the tile next to the creature tile and the creature tile itself, but we were at least able to claim the adjacent tile to it.

Now, I could either claim that lava lake tile to the south of the creature tile and then claim the creature tile the next day, or I could just wait and pay twice the cost in influence to claim the creature tile by itself the next day. Either way, I’d have to wait one more day in order to secure it.

We probably weren’t going to grab the volcano tile before reaching twenty total tiles and upping the tile influence cost, so I figured it would be better to try and limit the amount of tiles we were claiming. Claiming another lava lake tile wouldn’t really do that much for us anyways.

With that settled, I moved the hunter unit onto the creature tile. I figured there was no harm in moving them there so that they could hunt the tile and get some resources for us. The creature tile didn’t need to be in our territory for us to hunt it which was nice. That would also keep hunters relevant throughout the game as far as I was aware. Especially in the later periods of the game where claiming new territory might get too expensive to do casually. Hunters would still be able to travel out of our territory, plant themselves on top of a creature tile, and hunt it to bring resources back to us. They also needed to actually hunt it to find out what the creatures were since, at the moment, all we knew was that there were creatures there.

So, once the hunters were in position, I had them use their [Hunt] action.

A window popped up as soon as it was used.

I had no idea how these cattle would compare against other species of creatures to be exploited on the map, but they seemed good to start with.

They also made me really hungry for some steak.

Unfortunately, my dreams of steak were interrupted. Fortunately, they were interrupted by somebody who looked even better than steak.

“A-ah! You—you are already awake!” Enna said, standing at the entrance to my tent. “I’m sorry! I am used to waking you up!”

“Nothing to apologize for,” I said. “Just got finished with the game for the day. Our hunters are in position to hunt the creatures, and we’ll be able to claim the tile tomorrow. Then all we have to do is hand it over to the other faction, and they’ll join us.”

I still had that gut feeling something was going to go wrong, but I tried not to worry too much about it. I knew it was going to be there until everything worked out even if there was no cause for concern.

“Ah… I’m glad,” Enna said. “I wanted to believe you that everything would work out, but… I found it hard to truly believe in from the bottom of my heart. But now, it seems like things actually will work out!”

I couldn’t blame her for not completely trusting me before. After all, I could barely even believe in myself. “And if this plan doesn’t work out, we’ll find another one that does. Now, want to join me on a run? I could go for a morning run. Preferably down by the beach.”

“Sure! Will we help with the building afterward?”

“You know it. They should have finished the Crafters’ Tent, so I guess they’re working on the Gathering Camp now.”

“Right!”

“Then yeah. We’ll go on a run and then help out up there. We can all stop by the hot springs before coming back for the day, too.”

Enna looked especially excited when I mentioned visiting the hot springs.