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It was a strange feeling. I was so happy to have seen my wife again, but now I was missing her even more.

Working on the dungeon would have to be the perfect distraction. But for the moment I was a little bit out of ideas and the anticipation of what the evolution rooms were going to spit out was on my mind. As well as the fact that I was now aware that I was a target.

So I decided to build a research room and set two kobolds to work in it as researchers while I focused for a bit on building some defenses.

First, what did I have to worry about coming at me? More dragons, or something else. Consulting the manual I realized most threats to this world would be targeting its people. Things coming at me would be rare and almost entirely consist of physical threats.

So with my extra space, I set up a team of six kobold warriors armed with scalpel spears and knives. Past that… Well, how would Alelan defend the place?

Iris was rather fond of some spicy sauce called Tabasco. Getting some of that in someone's eyes would be painful. But a liquid would require a direct hit. Maybe if I could get whatever made it spicy in a powder form? That sounded like a job for research team number one.

What else would my love do? Well going after the families of as yet unknown threats wasn't possible. Poisons, like the hot spice in the eye plan, might or might now work on some of the things that came from other worlds. But a reserve of meat soaked in the insect poison Iris had under her sink could be kept ready to be tossed out for the more beast like invaders.

A series of long heavy spikes a ring around the ceiling around my core was easy enough to set up and have ready to drop. As well as some sharp wire like spikes angled downward around the pillar and the surrounding wall leading up to the core room to make it difficult for anything to climb up. Some cooking oil smeared on the walls and the pillar would help to make things more difficult as well.

The research room showed a message saying I had another ten hours to finish the Tabasco research so I added another few research rooms. Room two got the unused television from the basement with a nonfunctional replica to take its place.

I would have liked to put the old woman's gun in room three, but she carried it into the dungeon each day and had taken to cleaning it every weekend. I just couldn't slip it away long enough and I wasn't going to do anything treacherous like replace it with a nonworking replica when she might end up needing it.

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So for the third room, I had a more interesting idea. The house across the street had set out several tables that day covered in a bunch of stuff with a sign out saying garage sale. One of those items was something with a rack of buttons like the keyboard of Iris's computer. But with the moving image screen attached to it.

It also had a listed price on a piece of paper stuck to it that was low enough to cover with a single one hundred dollar bill. All I had to do was get to it that night after the neighbor's sale was over and there were no witnesses.

And if it had something called Wifi, the old woman had already given me the secret words to use it when Molly has asked for it.

That night, Kelvin, Envoy, and two kobold gatherers made their way out of the house to gather up underneath the next door neighbor Hector's car. From there they made their way across the street up to the door of the salespeople's garage.

I was going to have to hope that the money Kelvin would be leaving for them would cover the damage to the lock. At first, Kelvin tried to pick at it with some nails and grooming tools, but when that failed he produced a securely bound dragon swarmling. He removed the rubber band from its snout and flicked its head until it began angrily breathing out its destructive breath to disintegrate the lock.

No, I did not know he had it. And yes, the two of us were going to have a long talk. Right after the relatively short time spent yelling and swearing.

He is so lucky I was in such a good mood that I was willing to forgive him for keeping a parasitic organism that specifically targeted the body I was in.

Once inside they got the small computer and found out it folded over to half its normal size, on purpose even. Then they got a little wild to the point of gathering up a large pile of things in the middle of the garage and quietly bickering over what to take with them. Even setting aside the computer they had originally been sent for at one point.

They finally settled on a mix of electronic items and infant sized clothing that was the perfect size for them. Kelvin even got dressed into a set of overalls right there on the spot.

They made it halfway across the street before the owl came out of the darkness and took down Envoy.

It smashed the kobold to the ground with bone crushing force before trying to get back into the air with him. Its great wings battering the other three kobolds before they could even react.

Fortunately, the little lizard people were pretty heavily built with thick bones and dense muscles. Plus Kevin was behind it and free of its wildly beating wings allowing him to leap onto the things back.

Rather than fly away the bird was forced to begin running forward trying to shake Kelvin loose from its back as the other two kobolds pulled the scalpels from where they had been sheathed at their sides and gave chase.

The owl managed to shake Kelvin halfway off before he managed to find a spot on its back where he could dig in his teeth as the other two caught up and began stabbing it repeatedly into its sides.

Between the blood loss and being outnumbered, it finally fell.

Kelvin rose to his feet and set one of them on the owl’s back as he posed with his fists on his hips.

To see Hector on his early morning job looking back at him. Man looked at kobold. Kobolt looked at man.

Kobolt saluted man and began dragging the half dead owl into the hedgerow on the side of Iris's plot of land as his minions helped a semi-conscious Envoy to his feet. Between the two of the unwounded ones, they managed to drag off both Envoy and their loot.

Hector stared for a while then ran into his house.

The Kobolds went from the hedgerow through a tunnel I had been unaware of into the ones I had been.

[ Great horned owl has been added to your summoning list ]