Logan is actually excited to read the new books as well. Having made copies of them he has the exact blueprint unlocked including the words inside meaning he doesn't even need to read over anyone's shoulder. They're mostly just cheesy romance novels. There are a few action stories with a literal white knight saving small communities. Some of the action books feature one of the other races as the main villain, but there are a few that feature other humans as the main villain. This would seem to indicate that they were written before the other races arrived or at the very least before everything started to really go south for humanity. Then there are a few that seem to have been written towards the end after people realized what was happening. Some books feature a hero who will rise up to lead humanity to a safe haven where they can live in peace. Others speak of a lost human city surrounded by mountains on all sides completely hidden from the other races. "At least they understood the value of keeping hope alive." he muses to himself.

There were a few historical texts as well. One of which talked about a failed attempt to unify the human nations under a single banner. None of the kings wanted to share power though. Eventually the citizenry took it upon themselves to unite. Most of the royal families went with it, not that they really had a choice seeing as their guards and soldiers had sided with the citizenry. Others clung to their own authority even resorting to bribing their own soldiers to stay loyal to them. That actually worked to, at least until the treasury ran out and they tried to raise taxes to compensate. Logan can't help but wonder how things would have turned out if the first attempted unification had been successful, or if a few of the royals hadn't clung so desperately to the old ways. Then again, they were still divided by distance so uniting really only meant that they agreed to stop attacking each other and not stand idly by while one of them was attacked by one of the other races. He can't help but wonder what this world's human population was at its peak to have been subdued so completely by such a, from his perspective, small invading force. He feels like he was missing something. He will just need to wait for more information, assuming he can actually find more.

While it was interesting thinking about everything that lead to this moment it was all academic until he found some information he could actually use. So instead, he returned his attention to his boarders. After successive attacks the orcs have begun to send out scouting parties to try and find the source of these rats. That was much sooner than he had hoped but perhaps all is not lost. He had already been having them take extremely indirect routes to the orc camp. So, he just had to make sure they never took the direct path between the orc camp and the sanctuary. That too was risky though as with the scouting parties out there was a chance they would be spotted before they got to the camp. With such an indirect route though it was unlikely they would be able to tell which direction they originally came from. He was confident in his ability to repel any attack but that was no excuse for getting careless.

With nothing else to do at the moment he was debating whether to expand or duplicate another spawner. Both had their pros and cons. On the one hand expanding gave him more territory, but it also gave the humans more safe land to use. On the other hand, duplicating a spawner would increase both his defensive and offensive capabilities. Which would in turn increase his ability to protect the humans. Looking over his spawners though he suddenly noticed his chicken spawner was only level 8. How had that escaped his notice. He was certain that every spawner was at level 9 already. After chuckling silently at his own absentmindedness, he quickly buys the level 9 upgrade which gets him a uhh ... well the spawner calls it an ancient Giga chicken, though like with the raptors, or 'ancient chickens' as the spawner calls them, he can't see any chicken features at all. It looks like a raptor on steroids at nearly 8 meters long and weighing nearly 1000 kg. Large enough that if it walked on all fours the humans could comfortably ride it. To be fair he has no doubt that Marbel could design a saddle that would allow a rider to sit comfortably anyway, but as awesome as having dino riders would be he has a different plan for them. These will be his new front-line units. The slag slimes are great but after the initial surprise attack they only end up holding the enemy in place for a time and he usually has to send something else to deal with them. He still plans to use the slag slimes, just in a more defensive roll.

With that taken care of he decided to relax and watch the tournament which was now an official sport apparently. There was even talk of creating an official tournament season. The main reason being that with so many parties now competing it was taking several months to complete each season. Sure, they could increase the number of matches to more than once a week. He still might suggest that but for now he is content to wait and see what they decide. Each party even seemed to have their own dedicated fans. At first Logan wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not. That may have been from remembering the near riots that sometimes erupted after major sporting events back on earth, but should he take that chance. He thought about it and decided that since people were behaving themselves, he could relax and let them have their fun. Especially since if he were honest with himself, he would have to admit the four amigos were his favorite group even though they only made it into the top four once so far.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Just as he was starting to relax, he felt that familiar tingling of unwanted guests. He briefly wonders why the scout teams hadn't warned him they were coming. The reason for that soon becomes clear though as he locates them inside the underground cavern area. The dwarves apparently found their way here underground meaning if a direct path between Logan and the dwarf camp didn't exist before it does now. Thinking fast he shuts the stone doors and sends the slag slimes that are still in the underground are to greet them. He hasn't forgot about the runes they use but he is hoping that if the slag slimes concentrate their heat into a small enough area, it will be able to overwhelm the runes. He's no fool though so he quickly sends down a bunch of fire mantises. He wanted to send lava wolves, but the passages are to narrow. They could fit but they would lose any advantage they might have had in regard to agility. Some of the dwarves seem to have brought pickaxes with them, leading him to believe that a direct path hadn't existed previously. Those dwarves were busy chipping away at one of the doors. It came as quite a shock to them when the door suddenly opened, and they were met with a wall of fire far hotter than it had any right to be. This caused the dwarves to panic for a moment thinking they had accidentally dug into a lava lake. Only for a moment though because they soon noticed the fire wasn't chasing them. Yet another reason he wants to start using the slag slimes more defensively is that while they are great at 'holding the line' as it were they can't really give chase. They kept up the heat though as a majority of the fire mantises got around behind them using two of the doors that the dwarves hadn't realized were there. instead of engaging them directly though they simply stood in the now open doorway and shot flames into the corridor. The cumulative effect of which was turning the corridor into an oven. The heat buildup was such that the stone eventually started melting. A few of the mantises even died from the heat but it was working. Logan could feel the sudden mana gain as the dwarves' runes began to be overwhelmed. He almost felt sorry for them although not sorry enough to give them a fair fight if he could avoid it. Ironically with their runes active they would have been able to get away if they had run towards any one of the walls of fire instead of trying to get as far away as possible. As it is the heat soon turns them into dwarf soup.

Looking at the aftermath he can see that it was a relatively small group of a few hundred. Whether that's from them not having much more or if that group was sent ahead to dig out a passageway he doesn't know. It's also possible they were specifically targeting him, figuring the humans will be an easy target once his core is destroyed. Likely assuming, correctly, that the bulk of his forces are on the surface. Either way he decides the safest course of action is to assume that they were just the beginning of what is coming. What they didn't account for was the kill box he had created. Hopefully if there were any dwarves just out of range of his senses the screams of their comrades as they were being burned alive made them think twice about attacking. He didn't intend to create a kill box when he was first designing the sub-basement area or the hallway leading to the open cavern area, but he's also not going to complain about how easy the victory was. He's just glad all of the miners were watching the tournament matches. They'll need to be a lot more careful when mining from now on. As for the dwarves it appears that they officially know he is here now, and unlike with the elves it's not just one small camp. Whether they will tell the other races or not is another matter. He can't rule out the elves having sent word back to a major elvish settlement already. If they have the other elves haven't acted on that knowledge yet. No, right now his big concern is the other three finding out and reuniting with the elves and dwarves to defeat a common enemy, namely him.

Using the mana he gained from the encounter he quickly buys three norther expansions. That brings him another step closer to the edge of the town. The next few weeks are fairly quiet. He guesses the dwarves are waiting to hear back from the forces they sent but has no way to confirm that. They wouldn't be the only ones waiting to hear back from a scouting mission either, the recon team is due back any time now. While he is curious what they will bring back, he is mainly concerned with their safety and making sure they actually make it back. He is also a little worried that they might decide to stay.

He hasn't exactly just been waiting though. He likes the set up the way it is now, but he is a little worried about them sending enough to overwhelm him or digging through the walls themselves. After all there is a limit to how dense he can make the stone. To combat this, he sent most of his mantises down into the sub-basement area and began carving out a few large rooms. The new larger rooms will serve multiple purposes. First it will provide branching paths making it less obvious were to go. Second it will provide a place for all the mantises to stay when they aren't needed for defense, so they aren't in the way of the minors. Third he can use the stone removed to reinforce the doors and walls as much as possible. It also occurs to him that he can use the tunnels to hit the dwarves from above and below at the same time. Although if he wants to rescue more slaves, he will need to send people and that means the tunnels will need to be explored and mapped out.