On the one hand he hoped the Kobold camp wasn't too far away but on the other hand he knew that if they were close a scouting party or something similar would have spotted him by now. All he could really do was wait for the report from the Recon team. Despite his worry it actually felt good to actively be doing something instead of just reacting to things as they happen. Sure, he still needs to be able to respond if something does happen, but he now has two spawners in addition to what he had last time something major happened.
Yangus was now done with the boarding house. There were always little adjustments and minor improvements that could be made as his skill increased but it was time for him to move on to other things. Those other things being the houses to the south. He wasn't sure anyone would use them while they were that close to the sanctuary's boarder, but they needed to get built anyway so they could be used at some point. There was also the single ruined mansion in the northeast of the sanctuary's territory, but that he felt would be on the border much longer than some of the houses. With that he made up his mind to start on the houses directly below the boarding house since they were most likely to get used sooner rather than later.
Logan watched Yangus work and wanted to give him some help. Everyone healthy enough to do the kind of work required of being Yangus's apprentice instead wanted to be a warrior. He could order someone to do it, but he refused to do that as he didn't want them to feel like they just traded one master for another.
Further down Siobhan had to call in another warrior to help train the four amigos as they refused to be on opposite teams even while training. She had tried to point out that they had been on opposite teams for a while when they first started training. "That doesn't count" they said almost in unison "we weren't actually dueling then". Still the fact remained that they had to be fought two on one despite their small stature. Their teamwork was near perfect, and it was only their size that held them back. In a few more years Logan could see the four amigos breeding fear into the hearts of all non-humans.
The mages were also making great strides. The new arrivals taught the original mages some new tricks and in return the originals taught the new arrivals to cast their spells more quickly making them more confident in combat. Combo spell have also been getting created and improved upon at an accelerated pace with the help of the two combo spell pioneers. He already decided if the attacking army numbered less than 50 he would let the humans do most of the work, although he would still help with poisons, fear spells, and other such stuff.
After a few more days of watching his various human residents grow and progress the recon team finally returned. According to them there was a kobold camp about 4 days west of here, but they said that security appears to have been tightened due to several slaves being taken. For some reason the kobold are convinced that a group attacked the camp and stole their slaves. Hm, so it seems even now they're pride won't let them conceive of the possibility that their slaves simply escaped. Logan is already thinking of the best way to turn that to their advantage as the recon team continues their report. Apparently, that brought more slaves from the Kobold city even further west to make up for the missing slaves. Well, the kobold city further west is certainly a long-term goal and is probably the heart of the kobold sanctuary, but for now he will certainly enjoy liberating more slaves. "How many kobold will we be facing?" asks Cid at Logans prompting. Leaving no doubt in anyone's mind what the sanctuary intended to do. "From what we could see there were about ten warriors and four mages with the rest being simple craftsmen and such." "Do you know what kind of mages" Cid asks. "We couldn't really tell. We know that there is at least one fire mage because he kept teasing the other humans with his magic."
After careful deliberation Logan decides to send out 15 warriors, 4 fire mages, an air mage, and the more experienced of the two life mages. He has them dress in elven armor and use elven weapons. He also instructs each of them to take along an extra weapon so that the other humans can aid in their own rescue. He is worried that such a large group of heavily armed humans will draw attention if their spotted, so he implores them to keep out of sight going there and coming back. As they leave his perception all he can do is wait.
Early the next morning he buys the expansion to the north. He wanted to expand south since the mansions are no longer viable as boarding houses, but he still has that weird issue about not being able to own just part of a building. Sadly, aside from the extra territory he doesn't get anything noteworthy. Time seems to drag on as he waits for news from the rescue mission. Enough time in fact that he gets two more northern expansions. Still, he gets nothing. He is however able to confirm that two of the mansions are completely intact as he now has the entire buildings. Per usual he sends in the rats to deal with any creepy crawly invaders. True part of his troops are made of what a lot of people would consider creepy crawlies. Roaches, at least in his mind, were on a whole other level of creepy crawly though.
Finally, the rescue mission returned about ten and a half days after they left. seeing as the camp was only eight days away Logan was eager to hear what happened. It turns out the battle had been more intense than they expected. He had planned on them expecting someone to try and steal their slaves, that's why he sent the extra warriors and the life mage. It's also why he had them take the elven weapons, so they would think it was the elves doing. Still this little gamble did cost him a few warriors and the reason it took them so long to get back is that they couldn't leave their bodies. "After all these fine warriors gave their lives that others may know freedom as they have known it" remarks Joel who had insisted on leading the group personally this time. "These men deserve proper human burials" he continues, and no one dares object. Yangus spends most of the next day intricately carving several wooden headstones while several of the people from the group they rescued volunteer to dig the graves saying it's the least they can do. The one good thing is that despite the losses it was a huge net gain which meant plenty of volunteers. He hated reducing human lives to a math equation but that was the cold reality of the current situation. The day after that was the funeral and then a memorial service and while Logan technically had enough mana thanks to the new arrivals to do a few different things it just didn't feel right at the moment.
The next day he starts off by slapping an upgrade on the wolf spawner and what comes out is ... odd ... in more ways than one. It's a two headed wolf weighing around 200kg and appears to have ice magic affinity. He isn't sure how they got an affinity that doesn't technically exist, but he guesses it's from having both water and air affinities which somehow merged, the way his air and water mages are able to create ice magic through the use of combo spells. He told it to go introduce itself to the humans since they had already 'adopted' several of the smaller wolves and even a few of the normal sized wolves. Then he told it to guard the front entrance to the boarding house against any non-humans.
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Thanks to all the new people he could now expand every two days instead of three. Well, technically every 44 hours but he saw no need to be that precise. He marveled at how easy expanding had become as he expanded south. What he ends up with is a set of partial houses, well foundations but he's pretty sure they use to be houses. Further cementing in his mind that this was a residential area. Once he has the foundations that will make 14 houses inside his territory so far and who knows how far the pattern repeats. Well, the humans probably know but he'd rather be surprised.
Sensing that it would probably take a while for the kobold to send more reinforcements to the camp he decides to have the recon team check in on the former elven camp to the south. They are to report the number of guards and if there are any slaves being kept there. He tells them to only engage if they can do so without letting any elves escape, and without dying themselves. He also tells them to take along a few kobold weapons to plant afterwards, which is why they need to make sure no elves escape. As the recon team sets off, he knows that they will be gone for at least two weeks.
As life Starts to return to more of a routine, he begins to take stock of the new arrivals. Something he should have done a while ago. There doesn't seem to be any with an interest in learning magic. Well, that's disappointing. The good news is there are a few people who are interested in woodworking and even one who is interested in smithing. Nobody seems interested in leatherworking. Several of them do wish to be warriors though. The humans in the sanctuary are starting to field a pretty substantial army. Maybe not by earth standards but he was going more off of what he has faced off against so far.
You would think that the woodworking and smithing jobs would be getting done much faster now that Yangus and Carver both have apprentices, and he has no doubt that there will be an overall increase in productivity eventually, but for right now both jobs have ground to a near standstill as they try to get their apprentices' skills up high enough to at least not be a hinderance to their work. Yangus just assigns his apprentices the task of making chairs to improve their skill. Carver on the other hand older and probably having been an apprentice himself once, maybe even taught a few apprentices before, walks his apprentice through how everything works and how to properly heat metal before. He then has his apprentice watch as he makes a simple knife. before asking him to try it. Logan can't really fault either method after all Yangus is just teaching them the way he learned. Either way he figures it will be at least a week before they can resume making actual progress towards what they were doing before receiving the apprentices. Yangus's apprentices are progressing faster than expected due to them actually having someone there to show them what they're doing wrong and correct their technique unlike when Yangus himself was learning.
On a side note, several more ladies are showing obvious signs of being future moms. This revelation lightens the mood dramatically and everyone starts discussing what this means for the future of the sanctuary. They cheerfully discuss what life will be like for the babies, and about how they will never know what it was like to be enslaved or have to fight just to survive. Logan appreciates their faith in him even if he doesn't agree this will all end in a single generation. He has to admit though at his current rate he will own most if not all of the city within a few years. The rest of the people soon agree that the first few actual houses should go to family units.
Buying the next expansion further cements the idea of him owning the entire city in a few years as he just realized that he now gets more square meters of surface area per expansion than he had total after that first month. This particular upgrade didn't manage to net him anything fun, just another piece of those foundations. He was tired of not being able to see beyond the bounds of his territory but that was just another reason for him to keep expanding. That way less and less of the world would be outside his perception. So, he did. over the remainder of those next two weeks, he expanded six more times. What he ended up with was the rest of the foundation he had been working on getting plus another complete set of foundations with a street running in between those two rows of houses. Not exactly a cul-de-sac but combined with the road directly south of the prebuilt wall it's clear to see not only that this was indeed intended for residential use, but also where the front door of each house was intended to be.
The recon team finally arrives early the next morning with some rather disturbing news. It seems they've tripled the number of guards which is bad. Not just for the planned rescue but also for the slaves stationed their whose job it is to 'entertain' the elves there. This isn't good but at least there isn't an entire army stationed there. Still, he isn't sure they could fight their way through that many elves even if he sent everyone., which he isn't willing to do. He does have a plan though. After a bit of time to rest and eat a warm meal he sends the six-man recon team back out, this time with two fire mages. The idea is for the fire mages to go to opposite ends of the camp and light up a few houses before retreating. They need to create a distraction by making it seem like the camp is under attack without getting seen. The Recon team's job will be to sneak in during the distraction and free the slaves. He wanted to kill everyone and blame it on the kobold but sometimes you got to take what you can get. They are supposed to fight with and then leave behind a few kobold weapons if they counter any resistance, so the ruse might still work.
He would much rather be leading the charge but since that isn't possible, he distracts himself by looking at how far the newest members of the community have progressed. Most of the would-be warriors have graduated to blunted weapons. He finds it promising that there is a beginner, intermediate, and advanced class all going at the same time. There aren't many left in the beginner class though and he is starting to question if they're cut out to be warriors. Still, he isn't about to crush their dreams of being a warrior if that is what they really want to do. The apprentices seem to have made great strides and are now actively helping get things done taking some of the burden off of Yangus and Carver respectively and allowing them to focus on things that actually require their skill. Housing was now getting built much faster with Yangus no longer having to go get and shape the wood himself, He does still need to point out when they made a mistake in shaping the wood but that is to be expected. They are still learning after all.
The rest of the sanctuary is running like clockwork with nothing requiring his attention. This is great though it does leave him with nothing to do. He thinks about building another wall around what he has now, but he no longer feels the need to do that. Beside which he expands so fast at the moment any wall would be obsolete before it even got finished. He also has enough troops thanks to all his spawners that they essentially act as a living wall anyway. That's not even mentioning the humans who are now more than capable in participating in the defense should an enemy push his defenses back to the starting area. He had thought about putting a hidden set of stairs down at the edge of his territory but has since scrapped that idea. For one he doesn't want a bunch of stairs everywhere and for two he doesn't know how the elves are able to see his traps and so can't be sure they or others won't be able to find the stairs. He does eventually end up spending the rest of the day carving more rooms and tunnels in the second-floor basement. Not because he needed to but rather out of boredom.
Stepping back for a moment he buys another expansion which nets him part of some more foundations but not much else. Suddenly he wonders if he is in for another long wait before getting another spawner like what happened before getting his boar spawner. He just hopes he doesn't have to wait even longer.
It's still going to be a while before the rescue mission makes it back so in the meantime, he tries his best to think of way to help. He decides the best way to help is by expanding south so they don't have as far to travel on the way back and so over the next several days he buys four more expansions. This nets him more of the already familiar pattern of houses and another street. On top of that he also decides to upgrade some of his older spawners that he had been neglecting in favor of the new ones. He is reluctant to buy another upgrade for the rat spawner seeing as it still has the most upgrades by far. Instead, he starts by upgrading the mantis spawner which spawns a yellow mantis. Looking closer he sees that it's an air mantis and it seems to be able to send solid blades of air towards an enemy. He also upgrades the wasp and snake spawner which just seems to increase the rate of assassin wasp and big snake spawning respectively.