While he waited anxiously for the humans to hopefully make it back, he decided to upgrade the spawners a few times just in case. It had been a while since he put more than a token effort into upgrading the spawners. besides with a large portion of them now gone he still feels the urge to expand but no longer to the same extent that he felt it before. As for his upgrades he starts with getting his slime spawner caught up with everything else. This grants him another ball slime but unlike the first one this one is green instead of orange. Studying it closely he realizes that instead of being acidic this new slime applies a potent poison to anything it touches and the longer it remains in contact the more poison is absorbed by the victim. The problem is though, with that many people being gone his mana generation is also gone so it takes him another 3 days to save up enough for another upgrade. This time however he decides to upgrade his wolf spawner. This grants him a 500kg three headed dog with a strong fire affinity and unparalleled heat resistance. He remembered a similar dog in a cartoon that his nephew used to enjoy watching back on earth, but he can't remember what the dog's name was. He tried to remember but unfortunately, he never really paid attention. It was just kind of background noise to him since he was always trying to encourage his nephew to do stuff other than watch the same cartoon over and over. Soon enough he decides to just put the whole thing out of his mind. Thinking about the people he'll never see again isn't exactly doing his mental health any favors. After a while he has saved up enough for another spawner upgrade and this time decides on upgrading the boar spawner and is ... confused. What he gets after upgrading the spawner is a ... well ... runt basically. At just 50kg it is the smallest pig he is able to spawn. It isn't until he looks closer that he realizes why it appeared so late in the spawners upgrade line. Basically, while not being physically imposing itself it boosts all nearby boar within a radius of ten meters making it incredibly powerful. Unfortunately, the buffs aren't stackable at least according to the info panel he's reading.
Feeling like that should be more than enough to deal with whatever may come for now he returns to dealing with what he believes to be his greatest weakness. His territories small size 'relatively speaking'. The obvious solution to that being to expand rapidly, or as rapidly as he is able. Also, by expanding he hopes to gain yet more spawners. He still wants to at least control the entire town. Perhaps one day even multiple towns but that is years away yet even with his exponential growth. Right now, the total area he covers is just barely over half of one tenth of a square kilometer. Still, he isn't discouraged because he remembers where he started from and that he only had an area of nine square meters when he started. His territory is three dimensional of course but looking at it from a top down two dimensional perspective helps him keep things organized.
After waiting for another three days, he buys the next southern expansion. This provides additional housing by not only getting him the other half of the houses he already had half of. By moving the edge of his border, he was also making other houses more desirable since they are no longer as close to the edge. Shortly after buying the expansion the rescue party returned. The kobold had left a sizable contingent at their base but luckily the lesser wolf companions made up for the difference in numbers. The fact that the kobold, despite being strong magic users, were physically the weakest of the races aside from goblins certainly didn't hurt the rescue teams efforts. They did lose a few people, but they gained a whole lot more.
Predictably most wanted to be mages or warriors. He ended up with seven more mages in total, two water, two shadow, two light, and a life mage. A further six decided to be warriors, which, if you include the ones who died in the rescue attempt, increased the total number of warriors by two. Surprisingly though, there was still a not insignificant number who either couldn't or didn't want to fight but who still wanted to be helpful wherever and however they could. Most were content to just haul items from wherever they were to where they were needed. A couple of people decided to work on developing a proper butcher skill. The cooks had been getting decent at butchering but that took time, and a dedicated butcher could do the job so much better. One person even decided to apprentice under Allyson. She was not exactly thrilled with the idea of sharing her space with someone, but she was smart enough to realize that she would need to pass on what she learned eventually. She did also like having someone to talk alchemy with even if most of what she said went over the poor guy's head for now. Yet another person apprenticed under Carver, while the rest went to learn how to cook.
He allowed everyone a few days to recover, before sending the recon team out again. This time they were sent to the northeast. If orcs were to the northwest, then, he reasoned, goblins would most likely be to the northeast. Still Knowing was better than guessing. While waiting for the recon team to return he goes through four more expansions. The expansion got him a side street running east to west all the way across his southern border, as well as half of some more future residential housing. Aside from that it made existing houses suddenly available to be lived in since they were now outside of the area near the edge of his boarder the humans referred to as the danger zone.
Along with the expansions he also managed to upgrade the slime spawner again. This doesn't get him any new slimes but does double the spawn rate of all slimes. Looking at the slag slimes he sees this more as a double-edged sword. Still, he's already made up his mind to get the rest of his spawners to at least level seven. Shortly after getting the spawner upgrade the Recon team returns with several new people. Apparently, they had escaped from a kobold camp about a month back. Since then, they had been mostly hiding. They wanted to rescue more slaves but lacked both manpower and resources. What they did manage to do though was gain a lot of intel about the area they were in. There was a goblin camp about five days journey north of where they were found, as well as another one further northeast, and a kobold camp east of where they were found. That being the one they escaped from. All of that told Logan that his northern border was fairly secure for now. Since neither goblins nor orcs kept humans within their camps there was no need to antagonize either group just yet. As for the other kobold camp he'd have to send a recon team to check out the defenses. Normally he would wait until he had dealt with the first kobold camp, but the new arrivals informed him that the recent losses have put a series dent in the population of kobold in this area. The loss of slaves hasn't gone unnoticed either. An unintended consequence of his actions is that the kobold are now getting desperate to acquire new human slaves by any means.
As for the twelve new residents, some of them want to continue doing what they have been doing. That being going around gathering information. Meanwhile others want to join the growing human army and strike back at the kobold. He Has to think about it for a while. Having two recon teams would double the amount of information he has coming in, or it could allow him to keep an extra close watch on one target. On the flip side, having two recon teams out doubles the risk that one of them will be spotted by someone from one of the other races who just happens to be wandering through. One thing is certain though, before they can be sent out, they should be trained properly.
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After a few days of rest where they shared some of what they had learned as well as gave the new guys a brief overview of the surrounding camp locations that we knew of. The more experienced recon team, which Logan decided to refer to as recon team alpha, was sent out to check on the southeast. It was about time he got a clearer picture of what exactly was around him. This would also give him an idea, rough though it may be, of how spread out the camps of the various races would be going forward. While they were gone the new recon team, which he dubbed beta team, was going around the perimeter of the town just familiarizing themselves with their new home area. The scouts didn't really need the extra eyes, but they understood that the only way to become familiar with an area was to experience being in and navigating through that area.
He also managed to get five more upgrades over the following two weeks getting him even more houses. Along with what Cid is pretty sure use to be a tavern of some kind. Recon team alpha still hadn't returned, which he chose to believe was a sign that they hadn't found anything. They were experts at remaining hidden after all. Instead of worrying he spent some time upgrading various spawners. To start with he upgraded the gopher spawner. This gave him a nightmare gopher. It was the size of a dire gopher but with a fear effect much more powerful than the fear gophers, and able to affect a much wider area. Next, he upgraded the chicken spawner, which apparently just granted a general spawn rate increase across the board. After that it was time to upgrade the snake spawner. This one gave him what appeared to be a cross between the big snake and the vampire snake.
He managed to get a two more expansions before the recon team made it back. These expansions getting him another long street running through his southern territory and more of the large tavern foundation. The recon team reported finding signs that a battle had taken place. They believe it to be from when the elves and kobold were attacking each other. What they don't find is evidence of a camp or any signs that a camp was recently destroyed. He isn't sure what to make of this. On the one hand it could mean that the population of the other races isn't as high as he feared it would be, but on the other hand it could simply be that the elves and kobold chose to not settle near the other races.
He did send recon team alpha out again, this time to the southwest. After giving them a week to relax, during which time he buys five more expansions. Getting him the rest of the tavern's foundation, which had a strange stair step design were every seven meters it got two meters wider. Along with more residential buildings. This time though he also sent out recon team beta for their first official recon mission. They were given explicit instructions to observe the kobold camp, but to remain out of sight and not engage. It should have been long enough for the kobold camp to recover from the last attack. What he was curious about was how many slaves he'd be able to rescue during his next attack. Eventually he hoped to have reports coming in every day, but he wasn't sure if there were even enough humans left in total to support that many recon teams and have a large standing human army.
While he waited, he wanted to expand. The problem with that being that he wanted to expand east for a number of reasons. One was to bring his territory closer to the kobold camp. Another was that his territory now felt a little uneven being just shy of exactly twice as long north south as it was east west. The main reason though was that he just wanted to grow. He still wanted the entire town and so he'd have to expand east eventually anyway. That being said however, him being effectively twice as long north-south meant that expanding east or west costs twice the mana expanding north or south did. This meant that it would now take over five days to save up enough mana to expand. Not that 1107 square meters in area each expansion wasn't worth it.
Since he couldn't really do anything else at the moment, he decided to do a mental walk through of his territory. Yangus now had an entire crew which meant that he could focus on the bigger picture and delegate people to construct individual buildings. He could but he still enjoyed working with his hands too much to ever not be building something. Allyson was actually having fun, despite her introverted nature she thoroughly enjoyed being able to talk alchemy with someone who actually wanted to hear about it. Carver apparently subscribed to the learn, do, teach philosophy because his more experienced apprentice is the one actually teaching the less experienced one. Maribel had begun turning the spider silk provided by the sanctuary's arachnid creations into silk robes, undergarments, bed sheets, and any number of other things that would have fetched a hefty price back on earth. Normally the silk would need to be spun into useable strands first, but larger spiders meant larger strands of spider silk which eliminated what Maribel said was the most time-consuming part of the process.
Over the next few nights, he watched the mock battles. These battles, which now take place in the relatively open field just east of the town hall are still oddly entertaining to watch. It was kind of hard to tell since they were always fighting each other, but he is certain their skills had all improved significantly. He's pretty sure the mages could wipe the battlefield clean by themselves if they weren't holding back. He still isn't going to send them off to face superior numbers. The fact that they probably could though, does give him some peace of mind. The next day he watches the new recruits train. They're actually using the training hall now that Yangus and Adam have finished restoring it.
Eventually, he does manage to save up enough for the eastern expansion. This grants him nothing at all. Disappointing, but then it was only just three meters. Even if it resulted in gaining a significant area as far as square meters, extending out three meters doesn't actually extend his vision much at all. Especially compared to his current size. He is certain that he will gain a lot once he makes it to the other side of the street which is now on the edge of his territory. Assuming it follows the same pattern as the other streets it will be five meters wide so the next expanse should get him to the other side. The bath house is still the most popular building by far though.
Instead of another expansion he decides to focus on getting the last of his spawners that have yet to achieve it to level 7. Starting with the Wasp spawner, upgrading it gets him a wasp with a special kind of toxin that can significantly reduce a targets reaction time. The difference between this and poison is that with poison the reduction in reaction time is only a side effect, while this new toxin slows reaction times to a much greater extent. The last spawner to get the upgrade was the mantis spawner, which he had to admit he'd been ignoring for a while now. Upgrading it got him an earth mantis. No surprise there as he already had a fire, water, and air mantis. He does briefly wonder if he'll get light and shadow mantises as well. Now that everything is at level 7 or above, he decides to focus on expanding for a while. He really doesn't want to spawn anything intelligent. His other creations fighting to the death to protect him is unfortunately necessary, however he isn't comfortable with intelligent thinking beings throwing themselves on the sword 'figuratively speaking' for him. He also doesn't want to make the humans uncomfortable or give the other races more of a reason to hate humans.
Recon team beta returns before he is able to save up enough mana for an eastern expansion. They report seeing around 50 kobold although they couldn't get an exact count. According to them there is only nine human slaves at the new campsite that they could see. It would seem that the rumors are true and human slaves are starting to be in short supply. At least among the kobold. This is both good and bad. It's bad because not only are there less people to rescue in that camp but also because it means harder work and longer hours for the remaining human slaves. It's good because if he keeps going kobold society as a whole might just implode in on itself. The truth is human slaves throughout kobold territories have long since been responsible for doing the dirty jobs that are unfortunately necessary to keep a society running. To the point where most kobolds have no idea how to do them, not that their pride would allow them to do such tasks if they did know. He decided, after some careful thought, that he would just continue as usual. He did feel terrible about what the remaining human slaves would need to endure, but he was focused on the big picture.