The human warriors and mages are getting ready to head out without him even needing to say anything. It might be a bit overkill, but he doesn't blame any of them for not wanting to be left out of the rescue mission. Besides such an overwhelming force ensures fewer casualties on their side, which he is certainly ok with. As they head out with their lesser wolf companion, he can feel his mana generation taking a hit. With his mana generation so severely diminished he isn't even sure if he'll be able to save up enough for even one expansion before they return.

Looking over his territory, since there isn't much else he actually can do at the moment, he allows his attention to settle on the library for the first time in a while. He still has mixed feelings about it remembering how long it took to claim and how at the time it took up nearly his entire expansion. He's pretty sure he's too big to worry about something like that happening again, but he still remembers the feeling of having nothing new to potentially be surprised by when expanding. It almost made him not want to expand if he's being completely honest. Brushing those feelings aside he examines the library as it stands now. It has been completely cleaned of all debris which somehow makes it look even bigger. There is still only the one bookshelf with anything on it, but his residents do still come by to pick out a book to read from time to time, especially the new arrivals. Well, the ones who can read anyway. Once the babies are old enough, he plans to ensure they all know how to read. He also wants to acquire more books, but that is way down on his list of priorities.

Turning his attention to the newly converted boarding houses he sees that he still has plenty of beds for everyone. He'd like for everyone to have their own house and that is high on his list of priorities but is still a long-term goal. For the first time it dawns on him that nobody is sleeping in the underground area anymore. This means that he can finally use it the way he'd originally intended to. Originally the underground area was going to be mainly for storing things that he got off of invaders. Sure, he had the storage area under the town hall, but he wanted to save that for the humans to use. What he intended to store was more like bits of armor, weapons, and various other things that weren't immediately useful. To That end he has Cid go and ask Yangus to make some armor stands and weapon racks. "Might as well keep things organized" he thinks to himself. Of course, he would allow the humans to use his personal storage area as well. Especially Carver whose only source of metal right now is bits of armor and broken weapons from invaders.

During the following two weeks he was able to save up enough mana to expand, mostly due to him having already been almost halfway there when the rescue team left. What he got was part of the foundation of several buildings some of which he believes were more mansions meant for a single person, he will of course be building something more useful in their place. He's not sure what yet but he doubts that he'll need another boarding house. Perhaps he'll try a multistory duplex.

Thoughts on what to actually build can wait until he at least has the entire foundation. For now, recon team alpha has just made it back with some very interesting news. It seems they found the remains of a human city much larger than the one the sanctuary is in now. They got close enough to see it, but it was still a few days travel to actually reach the city. They were also worried about any long-forgotten traps that may have been set by the fleeing humans or new traps set by the other races in case humans ever returned. According to them it was likely abandoned over a hundred years ago when what was left of humanity gathered together for one last stand. Logan knew that there might be valuable information in that city, but it was still quite a distance for the recon team to travel. He isn't sure why they would abandon such a large city to build a little town, but he is sure they have their reasons. One of the reasons, he guessed was that the population simply wasn't large enough to support such a vast city any longer.

A few days after alpha team made it back beta team along with everyone accompanying them arrive. They didn't really have any news. What they did have was nine more residents for the growing community. Four of the wanted to become warriors, three of them became mages, and two decided to just help out wherever they could. Of the mages he got an air mage, a life mage, and most surprisingly of all his first force mage. Unfortunately, being the first force mage meant that he had nobody to show him the ropes. He was literally having to figure everything out himself, thankfully they still had that introduction to magic book that contained a few simple spells. Force magic was the hardest for Logan to wrap his mind around. It basically involved shaping your own mana into invisible hands that you could then use to manipulate the world around you. To an outside observer it would appear the objects are moving of their own accord.

Logan certainly enjoyed having his mana generators back, he didn't mean to sound so callous. He really did care for them, but since the warriors and mages took up the vast majority of his human community, he was stuck growing at a snail's pace without them. Not that his progress was exactly speeding along as it is. He'd already been here right at a year and a half and still didn't have the entire town. In fact, it was looking like it might take another year or more to claim the town at this rate. He hoped he was wrong but unless he got another large bump in population it wasn't likely.

He gave both recon teams about three days to relax and recover. The alpha team got an extra two days out of the deal since they'd already been relaxing but given how far they went and how long they were gone it seemed only fair that they be given a few extra days to relax. Once Logan was sure they'd gotten enough rest he sent both teams out again. Team alpha went south to see if the elves had rebuilt and if not to see what lay beyond that camp. They were of course instructed to spend a few minutes poking around the elf camp for anything useful both going out and coming back. Team beta was sent southeast, there wasn't anything their last time he checked but he still wanted to keep an eye on that general area. Really, he needed to check on the situation north of him, but he would really rather they just assume he didn't exist. After all they didn't have a single human to rescue so to him it wasn't worth potentially being seen, not yet anyway.

With that done all that's left is to wait. As he settled in to wait for their return, he entertained a few thoughts that had been gnawing at the back of his mind for a while now. First off was the complete lack of seasonal changes. Being a dungeon core, he couldn't exactly feel what the temperature was but the leaves on the trees never changed. At least not the orange trees, them being the only trees he could see. Second and even more disturbing by far was the complete lack of weather. No rain, snow, lightning storms, droughts, or anything else. Thinking about it he reasons that technically he's been in a drought this entire time since it hasn't once rained. Talking with Cid about it did manage to clear up some of the confusion. Unfortunately, it also added a few more questions. It seems that his domain was basically a closed system. This meant that each square meter he bought would always maintain a temperature and humidity level that was exactly average for that area. Neither Cid nor Joel know exactly how it works since This is the only dungeon either of them have been in. It's also just guesswork on their part, but according to them the weather outside Logan's domain does change frequently enough for their guesswork on this matter to be more than a little plausible. According to them it was part of the reason many humans wanted to remain underground at first. Seeing the rain bounce off something they could neither feel nor see was disturbing. It wasn't until a few rainstorms later they realized it was his border. What really didn't help was that they discovered the sanctuary in the middle of the dry season when it hardly ever rained.

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He also managed to buy four more upgrades while he waited. This gets him more of those mansions with one of the two servant's quarters for each of the mansions. quarters he will be turning into a proper house, easy enough to do with just the foundation left. He also gets more foundations that nobody is sure what used to be there. Makes since if the oldest among them were mere children when they were forced to flee. He also got a circular foundation. Until now he had assumed that only straight edges were possible given the technology in this world since that was all he had seen. Then again, he supposes it could have been shaped by magic. The thing that really got his attention though, something that got him excited to the point of almost being giddy, was farmland. He didn't get any new seeds that were viable, but he did get apple trees that are either dead or dying just north of what he assumes was the farmhouse. He can't blame his residents for not recognizing them in their current state, considering they likely haven't bore fruit in many years. He asked Cid to have the one in charge of the plants come and start getting this area ready to be used for its intended purpose. At the same time, he started slowly feeding mana into one of the healthier trees hoping to get it to bear fruit at least once so he could get some seeds. The only reason they're still standing Logan realizes is because they don't look like they'd give very good quality wood. It took a few weeks of slowly drip-feeding mana into the tree to get it to produce the most pitiful looking apple Logan had ever seen, luckily, he had started right after getting the second of the four expansions. Despite how the apple looked it was enough to get him some seeds. These were of course immediately planted, and mana was poured into them to encourage growth just as he had done with the orange tree.

The recon teams returned within a day of each other despite having been gone for four weeks. Beta team reported finding nothing. Alpha team on the other hand reported that while searching the remains of the elven camp they found evidence that a large group had moved southwest from there. Taking the initiative, they followed the trail to another elvish camp about five days southwest of the other elvish camp. They don't know how long the camp had been there or if the other elvish camp just moved to hide from the kobold. It seems unlikely the kobold wouldn't have been able to follow the trail, but they probably just assumed the elves were fleeing which they technically were. Assuming that it's even the same camp anyway. It seems about the same size as the other camp with ruffly a hundred elves and around twenty human slaves.

Understandably the humans wanted to launch a rescue mission right away, but Logan with the help of Cid manages to calm everyone down enough to at least form a plan. If they do this, they need to ensure that no elves survive to tell others what has happened. To that end it's decided that the mages should go in first with their most powerful combination attacks. If they can manage that without getting seen that should take out most of the elves in the first attack and if they are seen it should still do massive damage. Especially if they can catch the enemy mages off guard. He still feels like they need more though, after all elves are not as dim witted as most of the other races. His control over his creatures has grown along with each expansion. He still can't give specific orders, but he can now give general orders that are more complex than just 'retrieve this' for them to follow outside his domain. With this new ability he was able to send a pack of about fifty dire wolves with the rescue party. He gave the wolves a mental image of what elves look like and told them to kill them. He stressed however that their main purpose was to protect the humans. As for the humans he tells them to surround the camp before attacking to ensure no elves make it out.

Now that they are gone, he's back to the relatively slow trickle of mana. Admittedly it's still way more than he would be getting without any humans. It does mean he can really do anything until they get back though. He still plans to introduce ranged weapons as soon as he can figure out how to actually make them. Sadly, he only has a basic understanding of what they even look like and no idea how to actual use them, much less make one. He has played around with a few designs, and so far, they are all either too flexible or too ridged.

The following few weeks pass by super slowly, Luckily, taking the more direct route from the sanctuary to the new elven camp should cut about six or seven days off the round trip. He did manage to save up enough mana for a single expansion in all that time. He does want to know what sort of buildings the foundations he's getting use to belong to but nobody in the sanctuary knows either. He has asked that nobody spoil what's beyond his border because he likes being surprised, but the farm indicates to him that he may be nearing the edge. He doesn't want to just make wild assumptions but the amount of fertilizer he believes would be used is why he thinks it would be on the outskirts of the town.

Eventually the rescue team returns, and it seems they hadn't lost any human members although they did loss most of the wolves and lesser wolf companions. Based on their report things didn't go according to plan in the best possible way. The dire wolves apparently charged the elves on site. The elves for their part thinking it was just a random dire wolf attack gathered all their forces to one side of the camp to repel it. This allowed the fire and air mages who were in the process of sneaking around the camp to send a fire tornado right down the elves' defensive line. As the elves turned to deal with the new threat a second fire tornado came in from the other side of their now disorganized defensive line. During all of this the wolves were still attacking. At some point a few elves started to flee only to find their escape route cut off by human warriors and their lesser wolf companions. After that it became complete chaos with spells flying every direction. Some of the humans were injured, in fact some were severely injured. Thanks to a combination of the healers doing their thing and wolves putting themselves in the way of the spell, literally sacrificing themselves, no humans actually died though. The best part was that they were caught so completely off guard that they never had a chance to grab any of their magic grenades and only the watchmen had potions on them. This meant that along with the 23 slaves they also got sacks full of elvish equipment and potions.

Upon talking to the survivors Cid, and by extension Logan, learned that the elves began torturing anyone who even mentioned the possibility of a free human community. Not that they believed there was such a thing, they just didn't want the humans having hope. It seems some of the slaves began to fantasize about a secret human army tricking the kobold and elves to fight so that they could swoop in and free the slaves. They were all surprised to learn that was exactly what happened.

As for how they would contribute, it came as a surprise to absolutely no one that most of them chose the warrior path. Still, they did get two more life mages, two water mages and an earth mage. Others decided to help with the farming, while others went to help Yangus and still others went to help Carver. One man even went to train under Adam. With the new addition the population of the settlement now exceeded 200 with the vast majority being combat oriented in some way or another. It was still a far cry from the standing army of 200 melee soldiers he dreamed of, but he was slowly getting there. He knows he'll have to deal with the other races eventually, and even take on the elves and kobold in earnest at some point. For now, he's content to just pick apart their camps to acquire more residents when he can. He may not be a brilliant military strategist, but Logan does understand that while just hunkering down is a bad long-term strategy over extending is the fastest way to lose everything.