The meeting with the minor faction didn’t exactly go as planned, and I couldn’t blame anybody for it. We had no idea that we were going to meet a group of people so terrified by carnivores and the idea of eating meat.

But I still wanted to get them on our side even if I could never relate to their anti-meat stance in a million years. After all, being American was about being accepting and tolerant of everybody regardless of their differences. Even if I could never understand them, what mattered was that I still accepted them. Understanding was not a requirement for accepting. Plenty of people live lifestyles that I would never understand, but I still accepted them as my fellow Americans living their lives however they wished, as was their right. That meant being American included… accepting… ve—…vegans.

A vision appeared within my mind.

A vision of me turning down a steak to instead eat… a salad, in the name of cultural harmony and peace.

“I feel sick,” I said, holding my right hand over my stomach.

“What—what’s wrong?” Enna asked, standing in front of me now as she looked me over. She even lifted a hand up to hold the back of it against my forehead.

“I imagined eating a salad.”

She pulled her hand away. “A… salad? That is why you feel sick?”

“Not just a salad. Eating a salad. It’s one thing to have to acknowledge the existence of salads and the fact that some people genuinely enjoy them. Horrifying, but understandable. But eating a salad? That is more than enough to make the stomach of any man churn with disgust.”

“I… I see. That is—well, is there… anything I can do to help you feel better?”

“Make salads and veganism illegal. That’s a joke, by the way. No matter how much I may disagree with the existence of those two things, it is still their right to exist. Actually, there is something you can do for me.”

Enna perked up with a smile. “Yes! What is it?”

“We’ve got some meat from the cattle coming in now, right?”

“We do!”

“Then could you go grill me a steak over the fire? You do know how to grill, right?”

“I—err… I… admittedly… have never… cooked a day in my life.”

“You what?”

Enna looked away while poking the tips of her pointer fingers together. “My parents always fed me growing up, and then… once I moved out… I only ever ate delivery or food that could be warmed up in a counter blaster.”

“A… counter blaster?”

Enna looked at me again and tilted her head. “Do you not have counter blasters where you are from?”

“Explain them to me.”

“Counter blasters are miniature ovens of sort that sit atop one’s counter, and their interior is lined with runes that, when activated, blast whatever you place in it with heat!”

“Ah. So, a microwave. We have something like that, but we call them microwaves. They cook with radiation instead of heat. Well, it’s more complicated than that and not exactly how it works, but it does the same thing.”

“I see. Well… the point is that I only ever eat food that requires, at most, heating up in a counter blaster.”

Kaila, who was watching us the entire conversation and always turning her head to look at whoever was talking, raised a finger up to her chin and asked, “Why not eat it raw?”

“I could,” I answered, “but I prefer it with a nice sear on the outside. Leave the inside raw while giving the outside a nice crust. Improves the texture, the taste, and keeps the meat nice and warm rather than eating something cold. Improves the smell, too. And the smell is an important part of the taste. The better something smells, the better it tastes, and raw meat doesn’t exactly have a great smell to it.”

Kaila looked confused by everything I just said. Or perhaps suspicious. Either way, she didn’t look like she accepted what I had to say.

“Grilled steak,” Thad said. “That’s what I need. It’s the only thing that’s going to make this day any good now.”

“You know how to grill?” I asked.

“Of course I do! Didn’t get to do it too much before, but I do know how to do it. Just give me some meat and a fire and I’ll get you hooked up.”

“Want to teach them how to grill then? Show them just how good real meat is. Or if you want to wait a bit, I can help out once I’m done with the system.”

Thad shook his head. “It’s fine. Do what you have to do and I’ll get the meat going. Have it done by the time you’re done so that you can relax and enjoy it with the rest of us.”

I nodded and let him lead the others away. Only Zira decided to hang around with me rather than go learn about the glories of grilling meat.

“If you hate salad so much, and love meat, why not add meat to the salad?” Zira asked.

“It’s possible,” I answered. “It at least makes the salad tolerable. But I don’t think our new friends are going to appreciate ‘defiling’ a salad with the presence of meat.”

“Fair. So, what is it that you have to do still?”

“I want to see what happens with the new region the northern unit is heading to. If my suspicions are correct, that’s where the Viking Elves’ capital is going to be.”

“Say that it’s there and undefended. Or it is defended but not well enough to hold us back. What are we going to do?”

“What happens if I conquer it?”

“Should you conquer their capital and keep it, you will be able to summon more population units of their race. Aside from that, it will be no different than conquering any other city. Though, it will be worth more points in the end if you still own it.”

“How do points work?”

“Nobody knows how many points they have until the game is over, and that is only if we reach the maximum time limit which is also unknown. In the case of reaching the time limit due to nobody completing any of the other win objectives before then, whoever has the most points wins.”

“Understandable. What are the other objectives?”

“All of the usual. Diplomatic. Science. Cultural. Economic. Conquest. Extermination. Religious. Quest. You should know the drill.”

“Yeah, I get it. I should start thinking about what kind of victory we want to go for.”

“With how our science is, perhaps that will be a valid route. Though, unless you find an even better region for science and dedicate it to modifications that boost science even higher, we will likely reach a point where we are more or less even with everybody else.”

“The cost for each technology is really going to jump up in the later tiers, isn’t it?”

“It will. We may have an excellent science income right now, but it will only be average once we reach the next tier. The costs are typically designed around letting everybody get all of the technologies of the first two tiers. Afterward is when factions will need to start specializing and thinking about their long-term plans. Though, it does even out again in the final tiers, typically.”

“So. Everybody more or less has the same stuff early on. Then we’re all more specialized and unique from one another in the midgame. But by the time we get to the endgame, we’re back to basically having the same things, but I’m going to assume that some will do better than others in specific fields.”

“Right. In the middle tiers, one faction may have overwhelming naval forces while another has an incredible cavalry. Some might develop long-range siege weaponry while another invests in heavy armor and strong walls. In the last tiers, everybody may have a navy and air force, but one will have specialized in ruling the ocean while the other specialized in ruling the air. You may have access to ninety percent of the same buildings and units, but the remaining ten percent will be taken by individual factions choosing to specialize in their chosen field.”

“So, it’s like how everybody might have access to an F-15, but only one faction will likely invest the resources into getting an F-35.”

“Something like that.” I could tell that Zira had no idea what exactly I was talking about, so she must have had enough faith in me to assume that my comparison was close enough.

“Alright. Enough of that. Let’s check out what we’re working with.”

I opened up the world map to see if our unit made it to the border yet. Surely enough, they did, and with it came a brand-new region that hosted exactly what I suspected it would.

The capital of the Viking Elves.

The new region was not only home to their capital, which really needed to be a better color since it barely stood out and was likely going to be invisible to anybody who suffered from color blindness, but they had almost complete control over it. It also looked like they had access to the ocean, but there was no beach around it.

As it turned out upon closer inspection, the woodland tiles were around a lake rather than an ocean.

That was the lake tile directly north of their capital tile. I was curious what their starting stats looked like, so I also checked out the one to the southwest of it.

Seeing as how the other feature they started with had a Living Tree, I could understand why they started nice. A good boost to science, some influence, and there was no telling what that feature might lead to considering that it mentioned studying it.

Speaking of which, I had another question for Zira. “Features can’t really be tapped the same way that regular tiles can be, right?”

“Right,” Zira answered. “You need to study them and then unlock specialized buildings for them, and that only starts being possible in the next tier of technology. That means their Living Tree feature is little more than flavor text at the moment.”

“That’s a relief. Is every single feature going to be possible to study?”

“Yes. Practically every single one should unlock a special technology used to either build a tile modification, building, or even unlock a new unit. Some features will also have rare resources that may lead to an entire chain of unique technologies.”

“We’re going to be doing a lot of science then. So, even something like our Volcanic Soil modifier could be researched?”

“And doing so will likely unlock a technology related to improving our food production.”

“Makes sense. Then something like Breeding Waters would do the same, and Living Tree could potentially unlock something that makes Living Wood even more useful?”

“Exactly.”

“In that case, taking their southern settlement is even more important.”

“I agree. However, prioritizing their northern settlement may be even smarter. It has already claimed so many tiles, and all of those tiles could go to us to boost our faction. Not to mention that we would gain access to their race for summoning purposes, gaining an option to produce more ranged units. If we take the capital first, that will make taking the other settlement even easier. If we take the southern settlement first, that will give them time to build up their defenses at their capital.”

“Honestly, if they don’t have any nearby units, we could potentially take their capital tomorrow.”

“That would require a great deal of luck that I fear we won’t have.”

“You’re right.”

Zira looked surprised from how easily I admitted that.

“Honestly, I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have sent our unit across the border yet. I should have waited until tomorrow so that they would have enough movement points left to come back over in case they get in trouble. So, for now, I’ll queue up an order for them to come back over as soon as they can rather than wait and see. I don’t want to risk losing them. It’ll only be a few more days before we have a decent army to support them with anyways.”

“Good plan. Admittedly, I am also worried about them being so close to their capital without any movement points left. It is entirely possible that the capital has a garrison we can’t see.”

“I appreciate the theorizing, but I also don’t want to worry about them even more.”

“I am sure you were already worried about that possibility in the first place.”

“Well, you’re not wrong.”

I sighed and closed the world map.

At least, for the time being, we were in the lead. We took one of their settlements and had a decent army growing. We also knew where their capital was.

The only real concern was if they already had a sizable force to defend against us with. We only had melee units and they specialized in ranged units. The size of our army wouldn’t matter if they could wipe us out before we even had a chance to reach them. Our Volcano Hounds were going to have to just run straight into a hail of arrows and hope that they reached them before getting wiped out. Even if they did, it was going to be impossible without losing at least some of them on the way.

I didn’t like that.

But we had no other real choice.

And our lack of ranged potential really made me want to claim their capital for our own.

So, maybe going after their capital first was the better idea. And even if we did claim their capital but then fail to claim the southern settlement for whatever reason, they would barely have any room to expand due to being surrounded by our territory.

I needed to put some serious thought into how we were going to proceed.

But because there was nothing I could do in the moment, and because I could smell steak in the distance, I decided to focus on that instead.

“Let’s go get some steak, Zira,” I said.

It was rare for Zira to smile, but she absolutely smiled when I brought up getting some steak with her. “Gladly.”