We made a decent amount of progress with our research since I last looked at it.

The plan was: Tanning, Leatherworking, Basic Tools, Mining, Foraging, Trapping, Animal Husbandry, Agriculture, and Working Animals.

In terms of research cost, that was: 20, 25, 20, 25, 10, 20, 20, 15, 25.

When I first queued up that research list, we were making about nineteen points of science a day. We were up to forty-seven on the seventeenth day.

All of the technologies came to a total cost of 180. We made 160 since we queued it up.

Everything except for Working Animals was done.

That meant we had a lot of new crafting options to go through, but I wasn’t going to worry about that until we had our Volcanic Predators finished. We needed to get them done. They were going to be the only real force standing between us and defeat against the Viking Elves.

Some of them were already done, too. We had three at New Liberty and one at Mount Hound. That was only half of the queue so far, too.

Rather than wait for a full stack to be finished, I gave the order to send the three who were already done over to Mount Hound to meet up with the unit over there. I felt confident in New Liberty being safe from any threats for the time being, so I needed to concentrate our defenses around Mount Hound and Hylrmenel. Most would be around Mount Hound, meaning that they could easily come back to New Liberty in an emergency anyways due to their movement bonus in volcanic regions.

That aside, after spending some time talking with the others outside, our unit to the north made it over to that new minor settlement base which meant I could officially open up communications with them.

All of the usual crowd gathered around outside at the Council Pavilion.

“So, anybody want to place bets on who we’re about to meet?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood a bit since we had no idea what to expect. If they were anything like the Volcano Hounds, they might just be leaning more toward hostility if they wanted us to do something that we couldn’t.

Enna spoke up first. “Considering that they spawned among the Peaceful Wilds tiles… perhaps they will be friendly?”

Thad proposed his theory next. “Or they’re so dangerous that they’re the reason why it’s ‘peaceful.’ Everything else is too afraid to disobey them.”

I placed a hand on Thad’s shoulder and asked, “Since when are you such a downer?”

“Since running out of booze.”

“We’ll get some more eventually. Don’t worry.”

“Eventually isn’t now.” He grumbled.

I never expected to hear him grumble and whine like a child, but there he was. Running out of booze was probably a good thing if he reacted so negatively to everything without it. We needed to get him into good, healthy shape without having to depend on any substance to stay happy.

“Whoever they are,” Zira said, “I doubt that you would not be able to befriend them with your current track record. Well, either that or mock and threaten them within a minute of meeting them.”

“Or!” Kaila shouted. “Maybe they’ll taste good! And we can hunt them! And eat them! Ah… I wonder how the Alpha tastes…” Kaila turned to look at me with a bit of drool running down her chin from her lips.

I was tempted to offer her a taste of my “meat,” but there was a time and a place for that. Being together with everybody where the whole universe could apparently watch wasn’t it.

Instead, I turned my attention to the map and decided to make contact with the new minor faction.

A window popped up just like before that showed us their camp. It was similar to every other camp seen thus far due to how early in the game it was still, but it was situated atop some of the lushest, softest looking grass I had ever seen. Not to mention that there was an abundance of small creatures within sight of the camp, some of which appeared to be from Earth such as rabbits and squirrels while others looked like they were from alien worlds. But no matter how different they were, they all appeared to be existing in harmony just fine with one another.

Yet, there were no people within sight. Nobody was in front of the window like Kaila was when I contacted her faction.

Or so I thought.

It was hard to see at first… but I saw what looked like the horns of a goat trying to stick up within sight of the window.

The horns then ran off for a moment before returning with a box held over them that was placed down on the ground, allowing the owner of the horns to stand atop it and finally bring her face into our sight.

“H-hello!” the girl on the other side of the window said. She reminded me of a small animal seeing as how her facial features were small, innocent, and cute. Then there were her elongated, fluffy ears and the spiral horns like that of a goat she had.

There was also her height. She must have been incredibly short if she couldn’t even show us her face without standing on a box.

But that was all that was… small about her. I couldn’t see the rest of her body, but… the top of her breasts were also within the frame, and… they… well, if she was short, and they looked that huge, I was concerned about how she managed to stay upright. Then again, maybe being short would work better with obscenely large breasts than being tall? The center of gravity is lower to the ground that way? I didn’t know. All I knew was that she looked like the kind of girl who people online on social media would complain about having an unrealistic body and setting unrealistic expectations for women. She was short, looked like she was part animal similar to how Kaila was, and had breasts that even put Enna’s to shame. Well, they were probably around the same size, but they were at least proportionate on Enna whereas they looked absurdly oversized on this new girl.

Before I could respond to the girl, I heard somebody chuckle to my right.

Thad.

And when I looked at him, I saw exactly where he was looking: the new girl’s chest. He had a big, stupid smile on his face, too. He was obviously very happy about what he saw, and I couldn’t blame him.

We looked at each other and nodded.

Meanwhile, Zira and Enna sighed.

As for Kaila…

“So much meat! Delicious looking prey!” Kaila shouted, causing the girl on the other side to panic fall off her box.

We were probably going to have to take Kaila away for the rest of the discussion.