DE Vol. 1 pt. 69 (nice)

The situation with being over our settlement soft cap was dealt with far sooner than I thought it would be. Since we hadn’t spent influence in the past few days due to me wanting to see the outcome of the war before spending any more, we had a bit of a stockpile, and we actually had… significantly more than needed for what I wanted to do.

First, though, I had to abandon the new settlement we captured from the Viking Elves.

Thankfully, for once, that was as easily done as it was said. I always hated how complicated it was in most 4X games. Settlements had to either go through a process of self-sabotage or razing, deliberately get lost to an enemy, starved out, have all of their population moved to a different settlement—it was a pain. Games rarely ever just allowed me to open up a settlement and click a single button that would let me abandon it.

But the game we found ourselves in let me do just that.

Of course, a prompt popped up asking me if I was sure, so it was technically two buttons instead of one that I had to click. Once I did click both of them, though, the settlement that we captured from the Viking Elves disappeared and all of the territory it had to its name became up for grabs.

It took almost all of our stockpiled influence, but we were able to grab up enough tiles to reach the Living Forest tiles, and then we brought all four of those into Mount Hound’s borders as well. All the tiles we claimed gave Mount Hound a significant boost to its food and labor, and it also boosted our overall science and influence income even more. Given that each Living Forest tile provided two influence and two science, that was eight more influence and science just from those. We were already doing incredible for ourselves when it came to influence from what I could gather, and we already had enough science before those tiles to research almost all of the remaining technologies in the first era within a single day.

And thanks to dropping our total settlement count back down to three, we no longer suffered that massive penalty from being over the cap, allowing the income of each settlement to rise back up to what it was before.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough influence left to also claim those Toxic Forest tiles, and I had no doubt that the Viking Elves were going to try and claim those before we could. Not to mention that due to the latest tile claims, Mount Hound was almost up to thirty tiles in total. It was almost as big as New Liberty in terms of total territory. Meanwhile, Hylrmenel was seriously lacking in that regard. Its total territory size was less than half of both our other settlements and, while it had great food production given its small size, it had a pathetically small labor income. We needed to start claiming more tiles for Hylrmenel that could boost up its labor. The problem was just that there weren’t really any tiles nearby that could do that. Sure, there were tiles that would give it a tiny boost, but I would rather save our influence to get tiles that would provide a bigger impact before going for the ones that would give us smaller impacts.

Fortunately, there was hope.

Hylrmenel’s northern border extended to the edge of the region it was in. That meant all we had to do was discover whatever the region above it was and, if we got lucky, we might find a region with tiles to give its labor a good boost.

And we had plenty of units to explore with who were going to get pretty bored if I just let them sit around doing nothing. Though, some of them had to sit around doing nothing for the sake of defense. That was why I split up our forces into two groups: scouts and defenders. The defenders consisted of about 90% of our total forces and were equally distributed between Mount Hound and Hylrmenel. I wasn’t worried about stationing anybody at New Liberty since there were no immediate threats neighboring it like the other two settlements had. Besides, in the time it would take for anybody to reach and attack New Liberty, the defenders at Mount Hound could easily be sent over to it.

As for the scout group, they were split between two individual units. One went north to discover the region bordering Hylrmenel while the other went east of Mount Hound to discover whatever was over there.

I ended up not being satisfied with just that, though. I wanted more still since I knew we had the forced peace duration to protect us from the Viking Elves. So, in the end, I ended up splitting some of our defensive force up into another two individual units. One was sent south of Mount Hound and the other had to make the long trip to the west to discover what was on the other side of that snowy region.

While protected by the forced peace duration, I wanted to discover as many regions as possible. I needed to know if there were any other factions on our continent, I needed to know the size of our continent and if it even really was one or if it was just an island in the middle of the ocean, and I wanted to discover what we’d have to work with so I could make plans for future expansion.

And on top of all that…

I had to figure out what to do about Kaila.

Kaila returned, another Volcano Hound taking her place in the unit she was attached to, and was not happy about not getting to see any action. She was basically just grumbling and whining ever since she returned. Her and the others got all hyped up for a battle against the Viking Elves, and then… it never happened—at least, it never happened for those who were sent north to threaten the Viking Elves’ capital. Her unit was part of that front, so that meant no combat for her.

And no combat for Kaila meant Kaila was grumpy.

I had no idea how I was supposed to deal with her. All she was in the mood for was a fight, but we had nobody to fight. She was also incredibly stubborn and nothing I tried to distract her with worked.

I only had one hope left.

And that hope was Zira and the task I gave her.

Unfortunately, her game wasn’t ready yet since she had to come up with an entire system and everything. I didn’t expect it to be done for at least a few more days still even though she was working on it pretty much around the clock since she had nothing else to do. Enna, Thad, and some of the other Demons also helped out with testing what was basically a very early “alpha” of the game as she worked on it, too.

Then again, I had no idea just how long a tabletop gaming system took to develop in the first place. Maybe I was severely underestimating just how long it would take before a feature-complete game was ready to distract Kaila and the other Volcano Hounds with.

Only time would tell.

Now, I would have offered to help out with it… but I knew nothing about that sort of stuff outside of memes. Plus, while I had no problem with the others dedicating time to working on that game, I would have felt bad doing so myself.

It was pretty hypocritical toward myself. I had no problem with others working on something “fun” like that, but I would have felt like I myself was being lazy by offering to help with it when there were other things to be done.

And even then…

“I really am stupid,” I said before biting into some jerky while on my lunch break.

Kaila might have been pouty still, but that didn’t stop her from hanging around me. “Why?” she asked. “Other than not letting me fight.”

Her whining somehow managed to go from a bit annoying to slightly endearing over the last couple of days. “Because for somebody who values freedom as much as I do, I’m a slave to outdated ideals regarding labor.”

Kaila tilted her head to the side and asked, “What?”

I couldn’t blame her for having no idea what I was talking about given that she didn’t come from a society where people’s worth was determined by how much they contributed to the economy. “Everything here gets built in the same amount of time no matter how quickly we work on something. Whether everybody works around the clock or lazes around doing nothing most of the time, something that takes two days to build will always get done in two days. Honestly, if you really value using your labor wisely, it’s stupid to spend time focusing on building anything here. It’ll all get done regardless of our effort put into it.”

“Understand that much.”

“Meanwhile, Zira and the others are working on a project I assigned to them,” most of the Volcano Hounds still had no idea about it since we were keeping it a bit of a surprise from them, “and they’re actually making something. Their labor is actually being put to good use and creating something independent of this world’s system. They’re doing work that has actual meaning other than to look busy, which is basically all I’ve been doing with my time since getting here.”

“Why doesn’t Alpha help them instead then?”

“Because there’s a twisted part of my brain rotted by my society’s expectations that is telling me it’s a waste of time to invest my time and energy into what they’re working on. That same part of my brain is telling me that I’m useless unless I’m doing ‘real’ work. Helping out with construction around the place counts as ‘real’ work. But ironically enough, they’re the ones doing real work. My work is just done to feel like work—to look like work. It’s being busy for the sake of being busy. It’s pointless. And even though I preach that others shouldn’t have to feel this way and that they should do whatever they want to be happy with their lives… here I am. I’m a hypocrite who holds myself to unfair standards above the ones that I hold everybody else to. If somebody else working on construction tells me that they want to take a day off, I’d tell them they don’t even need to ask me for one. They should just take it. But if I were to take a day off… I’d feel like a piece of shit all day.”

“Then find something better to do?”

“That’s the simple solution, isn’t it? But I don’t know what else there is to do, honestly. Everybody else already has everything covered, and all the jobs there are to do around here are basically in the same situation as building. No matter how many hands work on something, and no matter how efficient those hands might be, things take the exact amount of time that they’re supposed to take. I feel like I need to make something that will actually serve a purpose around here.”

“What can Alpha make?”

“Not much. I mean, my old man taught me some woodworking, but there’s nothing I can make with the limited tools and materials on hand, not to mention that there’s nothing we need that I could make in the first place. I want to contribute in a more meaningful way than I am right now, and there is a way for me to be doing that, but I know I won’t be satisfied working on that project even though I believe it’s important.”

“All Alpha needs to do is lead.”

“That’s not enough. A leader should be somebody who contributes to society in their own way whenever they’re not leading. If I have to choose between a politician who does nothing but politics or a politician who makes shoes for their community for a president, I’m going to choose the shoemaker every time. And if I have to choose between a shoemaker who contributes to the community or somebody who just does busywork that has no value… I’m going to pick the shoemaker again.”

Kaila still looked confused, and I still couldn’t blame her. I was mainly talking to myself and just venting my feelings and frustrations out there rather than try to properly explain things to her.

Really, if I wanted to struggle against the system that I believed was wrong in the first place, then the best thing to do was… nothing. I had no interest in supporting a system that made people believe that they were worthless if they weren’t contributing, yet I refused to actually act in a way that would counter it.

What was I supposed to do? Do nothing out of spite? Be lazy despite not wanting to be? Doing nothing would have just made me feel worse, yet forcing myself to find a way to contribute would mean giving in to the system that made me feel worthless if I couldn’t provide material value in some way.

I didn’t want anybody to hold themselves to the same standards that I held myself to, but there was a real risk of that happening given how they were looking up to me more and more.

“Why doesn’t Alpha give rubs?” Kaila asked.

“Rubs?” I asked in response.

“Feels nice when you rub shoulders and back. And belly.”

“Oh. Massages. I don’t think I’m good enough at giving massages to make it my whole thing.”

“Might not be best rubs, but nobody else is giving rubs all the time.”

“Well… you are right about that. There’s a demand and no real supply.”

“Then rub! Instead of pointless work, help others feel better with rubs.”

I didn’t even consider something like that being an option. But, now that Kaila suggested it… I felt stupid for not thinking of it myself far sooner. Even if I wasn’t the best at giving massages, there was nobody else dedicated to giving them. And with a growing population, there were easily enough people for me to spend a working day’s worth of time giving massages.

It was also something I enjoyed doing. Not only did I enjoy doing it, but it would be useful to the community and help everybody relax. And on top of that, it would let me get closer to everybody one-on-one, too.

It… was basically the perfect suggestion.

“I really overthink things, don’t I?” I asked.

Kaila smiled, her tail swishing around behind her. “Alpha does think too much too often. Have to learn to empty head. No thoughts, only rubs.”

“No thoughts, only rubs. Got it. Any more words of wisdom from Kaila the Philosopher?”

“Let me hunt. Wanna hunt. Wanna kill.”

“There’s nobody to hunt nor kill.”

And just like that, Kaila went back to grumbling and whining.