Thad stepped away for a moment with Enna to make sure that his hair looked good. Apparently, Enna was pretty good at that sort of thing since she made sure he looked nicer than I had ever seen him before. He looked like a totally different guy by the time that he was back with neatly combed hair and clothes that looked straight and wrinkle free. I didn’t know how she managed to make such an impact in such a short time, but she did and it was incredible.

It almost made me want to depend on her to help me look good, too. I could probably go for a haircut and I barely put any effort into looking nice. Seeing as how I was the leader of a faction fighting for survival and all that… I probably should have put more effort into my appearance. While I believed that a leader should be allowed to look however they wanted, because freedom, I also had to acknowledge that people generally appreciated when they had a leader who looked clean and taken care of.

But if I was going to have Enna help me with my looks, I needed to find something I could do for her in exchange.

That aside, there was still the more pressing issue of dealing with the new minor faction we discovered now that Thad was back and looking proper. He made sure that we paused any further talks until he was back. Considering how helpful he had been to me, I didn’t mind giving him that.

“So, what’s your name?” I asked the horned shortstack on the other side of the window.

She jumped as soon as I talked to her again. “A-ah! My name—my name! It’s… Lene!”

“How many letters is that?”

“F-four?”

“Perfect.”

Lene tiled her head with a rather adorable expression of confusion clear on her face.

“It’s nice to meet you, Lene. As for me, my name is Clay. I’m the leader of our independent faction here.”

“I—I’m not entirely sure what that means… but it’s nice to meet you! I hope…”

“It is, don’t worry. So, Lene, what can you tell me about your people?”

“Ah… we’re the Minogida of the Plains! We, umm… I… don’t know what else to tell you.”

Asking somebody about their culture all of a sudden and expecting a good answer was probably a stupid thing to do, especially when leaving it vague. Most people I knew would probably freeze and struggle to think of any specific noteworthy thing to mention when everything related to the question was just a daily part of their lives. So, that meant I needed to be more specific.

And what better way to bond than over food?

“What sort of food do your people like?” I asked.

“Oh! Food!” Lene looked like she was about to drool. “We love… vegetables! And fruits! And seeds and nuts! And mushrooms! And plants and herbs!”

I noticed that, with every single one of her answers, she never said anything related to meat or any other animal product. That… made it incredibly difficult to maintain a smile. “How about meat?”

Lene’s eyes went wide with fear. “Y-y-you eat meat?! You’re—you’re carnivores?! Why—why else would you even ask that?!”

“I—I’m not!” Thad shouted out, leaning in front of me. “I’ve never eaten meat a day in my life!” I had a feeling that was an extreme lie.

Back to Lene, now that Thad was in the focus… she looked like she was about to cry. “You—you all look so scary…”

Thad went pale with an expression of shock as he staggered backward, letting me take the lead again.

I wasn’t sure how to deal with a vegan. There were many diverse people of all cultures who I had no problem getting along with, but vegans… I respected their choice to live their lives however they wanted. I could at least do that much. I just… could never understand why they would want to live such a lifestyle. Sure, there were the ethical concerns of it, but the taste of meat rose above any and all potential ethical concerns as far as I was concerned.

But even so, I believed in their right to live however they wanted as long as they allowed others to do the same.

“We’re not going to eat you if that’s what you’re concerned about,” I said. “We eat animals, not people.”

“People are no different than animals!” Lene replied.

Yeah. I really had no idea how to deal with her. “The important thing is that we want to be your friends. We don’t want to kill nor eat you.”

“I do!” Kaila spoke up. “Look at all her meat… she looks so tasty…”

With tears in Lene’s eyes, she shut down the communication channel, leaving the rest of us to stare at Kaila.

“What?” Kaila asked. “She looked good! Especially all that meat!” She moved her hands in front of her own chest to demonstrate what she was talking about. “Could feed a whole pack with those!” Next, she looked at Enna. “You too!”

Once Enna realized that most of us went to look at her chest without even meaning to, she turned red and held her arms over her chest as if to try and hide it.

“They’re even bigger when she’s not wearing such tight clothes,” Zira said with a smug smirk, looking away from the rest of us as Enna tried even harder to hide her chest.

Admittedly, that made me want to see Enna without her clothes even more than I already did.

But I couldn’t let myself get too distracted by that thought. Instead, I looked at Kaila and said, “Don’t threaten or imply that you want to eat anybody again. Understand?”

Kaila’s ears lowered against her head as she sighed. “But what if they look really good?”

“No.”

“Alright…”

“Good girl.”

Kaila’s ears shot straight up as her tail began to rapidly wag, looking more full of excitement than ever before as she looked up at me with eyes full of wonder and awe.

Part of me wanted to take advantage of that, but I needed to return my attention to the minor faction.

Unfortunately, upon trying to reinitiate contact with them… we got rejected.

They were too afraid to contact us. Probably because they were afraid of us wanting to eat them. After what Kaila said, that wasn’t an entirely unreasonable fear, either.

Trying to make the two minor factions get along wasn’t going to be easy.