If there was one thing that I liked about only having the demons around, it was that they understood mornings were for peace and quiet. Well, to some degree. They liked to wake up, keep to themselves, and get to work.

As I learned on the morning of the twelfth day, when we officially got reinforced with our first wave of Volcano Hounds… peaceful mornings would no longer be a thing.

I jumped out of bed when I heard what sounded like a couple of snarling hounds ripping each other apart right outside my tent. It legitimately sounded as if there was a murder going on.

I could also hear Enna saying, “Please! Ca-calm down! He’s still trying to sleep!”

But whatever, or whoever, she was saying that to, very clearly didn’t care and only wanted to continue making noise.

Thankfully, my headaches from my withdrawal weren’t nearly as bad as they were those first few days.

Leaving my tent made it clear what was going on.

Wrestling on the ground right in front of my tent were two women, both Volcano Hounds, barely dressed with anything but black metal over their privates as they bit into each other. The one on top was familiar, too.

Kaila.

She had the arms of the other woman beneath her pinned down as she bit into her neck with long, sharp teeth. I was amazed that there was no blood getting drawn. They must have had more durable skin than humans because I was sure I would probably be bleeding out if I was bit that hard.

“A-ah! Clay!” Enna said. “I—I’m sorry! I tried stopping them!”

“It’s fine,” I said while rubbing my head. I still had somewhat of a headache even if the worst of them were gone. “More importantly, what’s going o—”

“Leader! Clay!” Kaila shouted from around the other girl’s neck once she noticed me, letting go of her to jump up and pounce me.

I wasn’t ready to have the strong body of a hound-turned-woman slamming into me first thing in the morning. Needless to say, she knocked me onto my ass. I probably would have hit my head against the ground if I didn’t have my hand already up there to place between it and the ground.

“Careful there,” I groaned.

“What? Careful? Why?” Kaila asked. “It’s play! Can handle play, can’t you?”

I opened my eyes and looked at the girl on top of me.

Even though her “play” was pretty rough, I had to admit that I liked the sight since she was on all fours on top of me with barely any clothing on. Her hips wagged behind her, following the motion of her tail, and she looked down at me with an adorable face and large, fluffy ears atop her head.

Though, the part where her huge, furry forearms that ended with large, pawed hands with even larger, deadly claws that were right next to my head did kind of kill some of that excitement. Now, I wasn’t entirely against things like sadism and masochism, but I didn’t want to get accidentally disemboweled during her “play.”

“I’m a human, and us humans are pretty fragile,” I said. “But if you ever want to play fetch, I can handle that much.”

“Fetch?” Kaila asked with a tilted head. “What’s that?”

“It’s when I throw a stick or toy or something and you go chase it.”

“Sounds boring. Play fighting better.”

Kaila grinned at me, showing off her fangs that looked every bit as sharp as her claws.

“I don’t think our bodies are too compatible for something like that.”

She pouted and sighed. “No fun. Let me go hunt. Assign us to hunting. Come on!”

Well, it wasn’t too big of a deal, and we had a new unit of population which meant that we could assign some Volcano Hounds to the hunting grounds, so I went and did that.

Kaila’s ears twitched as soon as I did. “Finally! Hunt!” She, the other Volcano Hound she was wrestling with, a few others nearby all went running to the north without saying anything else.

“They’re going to take some getting adjusted to,” I said.

“Are—are you alright?” Enna asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just wasn’t expecting that level of energy first thing in the morning. Did everything work right with the portal and more Volcano Hounds arriving?”

Enna nodded and pushed her glasses up. “Everything is working, thankfully! The new Volcano Hounds sounded really excited to come and fight for us, too! I don’t think they would even mind dying in battle since they have a world to return to, and the way they play… well, it looks just as violent as actual fighting does.”

“Good. I’d rather send excited warriors to the front lines who can return to their homes afterward than demons who are forced to do it and won’t have anywhere to return to.”

“It really is a relief. They should make the perfect hunters and warriors. I… only have one concern.”

“And what would that be?”

“Well… as you saw, they are very energetic. Our population has already shifted to having a majority of Volcano Hounds, and even more will arrive. I fear for the sleep of you and the rest of the demons if they are running around ‘playing’ all over the place. I feel as if they don’t even truly understand what is at risk with this game.”

“Maybe that’s for the better. Either way, it shouldn’t be too long before we’ve all got houses with better soundproofing to keep the noises out. We’ll get good sleep again eventually.”

“I suppose so. Anyways! Are you up for the day?”

“Might as well be. Do I get a good morning kiss?”

Surely enough, Enna turned bright red and began stuttering without actually saying anything as she failed to even look at me properly.

With that, it was time to claim some new tiles using our influence. We still had a volcano to grab. I also needed to figure out where I’d like to claim for our next settlement.

Only, as soon as we dealt with our population problem, I learned that we had a whole new problem to deal with. One that would potentially be far more dangerous to us.

What looked like another faction just claimed the tiles directly north of Mount Hound. There was only a single tile between their territory and ours.

Our situation either just drastically improved or became even worse than before.