One of the maids woke me up with an urgent knocking on the door. When I opened the door, she staggered back while holding her hands over her mouth and nose. I was confused for a second, but any worries about her reaction were forgotten when I realized there could be only one reason why she would be banging on my door to wake me up.

The invaders had arrived. In fact, they had arrived well before they were expected. Hopping down off the bed, I hurriedly strapped on a few food and water bags and headed out the door. I barely noticed that I had once again grown as I started shoveling dried “beef” into my mouth.

As soon as I stepped out the door, I turned to the maid and asked, “What do we know so far about the invaders?”

“We don’t know a lot yet,” she said, with her hands covering her nose and mouth while her eyes were obviously starting to water. Apparently, she was about to cry because she was afraid of what was going to happen. “However, from what we have learned, some human soldiers are sending either slaves or peasants ahead of them to find, deactivate, or trip our traps.”

That sounded evil. I knew people could be cruel, but using people as expendable cannon fodder proved to me that I needed to be the one in charge. Whatever kingdom was sending these soldiers would pay. Between mouthfuls of food, I asked, “Do we know they are mercenaries or are they kingdom soldiers?”

“I don’t know. I came to alert you as soon as we received this information,” she said, walking slowly beside me.

Glancing at her, I could tell by her expression that she was worried and anxious to get to our destination. In fact, it was as if she was trying to stay as far ahead of me as possible. Of course, I knew it was just because she wanted to reach our destination faster. Because of this, I dropped all but one of the pouches of water and started flying behind her instead. Since I wasn’t weighted down and was flying, we started to make good time as she led me through the tunnels.

We soon reached a tunnel that started leading toward the surface. Even though we were passing through quickly, I tried to memorize the route we were taking. As far as I knew, there were only a few entrances to the kobold tribe’s territory. One of them was Chuck Norris Bridge that led to various passages. Another tunnel led to the red dragon’s chambers which were next to a lava pool. This had to be the last entrance to the kobold city.

A lot of people would assume that with just three entrances, the kobold residents of the city would be safe, especially with the number of traps they liked to set. However, this wasn’t quite correct. Earthquakes were common in the area. Old tunnels could collapse and new ones might be created.

Also, there were other races that lived underground. Dark dwarves, dark elves, and even dark gnomes could be found. Each of these races, as well as many others, could dig new tunnels that might connect to the kobold tunnels. That was one reason why the outermost tunnels in the city were patrolled.

More and more, I was certain the green kobolds had planned both attacks. Obviously, the Groenneitr Tribe was testing our defenses. Now that I thought about it, I figured out why the attacks didn’t happen at the same time. For one thing, on the off hand that one of the groups succeeded in getting our treasures, the green kobolds most likely wanted to set up an ambush to steal all the plundered gold from the invaders on their way out.

However, the Groenneitr Tribe probably didn’t have enough members to make two ambush sites. Even our tribe might not feel safe splitting into two parties. After all, we kobolds were smart enough to ensure that we always have overwhelming numerical superiority. The Groenneitr Tribe probably staggered the attacks of their hired guns because they wanted to have overwhelming numbers when they ambushed the hired guns should they prove successful in looting our tribe’s gold.

Soon, I could hear angry shouts and screams of pain in the distance. The sounds echoed through the tunnels, growing louder as we drew closer. However, the noises stayed muffled and strange. It took me a moment to realize we had gone down a side tunnel instead of the main entrance.

I figured this out when I noticed my fellow kobolds shooting arrows through arrow slits in the walls. The wall between tunnels was thick enough so that the invaders couldn’t easily break them down. Nodding to myself, I realized that there were side tunnels on both sides of the main tunnel. Just like in this tunnel, kobolds were firing arrows through the arrow slits at the invaders, whittling away at their numbers.

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That was probably why there were only a few traps in the tunnel I had gone down. The main tunnel was the one that was heavily trapped. While invaders stumbled into those traps, the kobolds would ambush them from both sides. It was almost impossible to defend against the traps and ambushes unless the attacker was a high level spellcaster.

Curious to see the invaders, I peeked through one of the arrow slits. Once I saw the intruders on the other side, I regretted my decision. They were obviously not there of their own accord. My maid had said that soldiers might be using slaves or peasants. I quickly decided that they weren’t slaves. This was because slaves were expensive, and slaves who are in the prime of their life would be even more expensive.

Had it been old men and women, I might have had different thoughts. However, there were a number of young men dying in the traps. They were poorly dressed, even more poorly dressed than a peasant. While it could have been peasants who had been kidnapped, I doubted it.

Strong, young peasants provided food and taxes. Also, it would antagonize them, perhaps even prompting a revolt. This also explained why they didn’t bring animals such as sheep, pigs, or cows. While these animals weren’t expensive, they were the lifeblood of many peasants. Taking away their livestock would almost be as bad as taking their children. After all, these animals were the source of their food, milk, and wool.

More than likely, these men, for they were mostly men, were prisoners. While they might have been incarcerated for petty crimes, using criminals as cannon fodder could be explained away in case anyone complained. As I watched, one of these men stepped onto a stone that cracked and crumbled under his foot. I winced when I saw the man’s foot drop into a hole with poisonous spikes.

Unlike all the other kobolds in the side tunnel, I only observed. Most of the rest of the kobolds were busy either shooting arrows or bringing arrows to the archers. The remaining kobolds were pulling ropes as soon as a “spotter” told them one of the invaders was near a trap.

Each time I moved to a different arrow slit, I noticed a different type of trap. I noticed log falls, blade traps, dart traps, and acid traps. I even saw kobolds bring gourds filled with scorpions and bees and throw them through some of the larger arrow slits. One time, I could even feel the heat through the tunnel walls when one of the kobolds threw a gourd of oil that had a flaming fuse through one of the arrow slits.

I shuddered a little, suddenly looking at the kobolds around me with a little more respect. While I was a kobold myself, I had still retained a condescending attitude toward the kobold race. In every fantasy game I played, kobolds were the joke race. They were the monsters that beginner heroes would mow their way through as they gained experience. Because of this, I had looked at the other kobolds with an air of superiority, as if I was patronizing my baby sister.

Instead, I saw tiny kobolds using their ingenuity and dedication to preparing traps becoming a force I wouldn’t want to go up against. While I knew there were a lot of traps, I hadn’t really ever thought about the effects of the traps. Over a dozen prisoners had died in the traps in just the few minutes since I had arrived.

At the rate the traps were chipping away at the invaders, I knew that the soldiers would soon run out of prisoners. The traps were just too effective. In fact, before long, I predicted that when the last prisoner fell, the soldiers would start using spells such as Animated Dead or Summon Beast. I couldn’t see them using trained soldiers except as a last resort. They were probably hoping that they could plow through the traps at the entrance and then invade the rest of the city.

Unfortunately for them, this wasn’t the case. Most cities had strong defensive walls with some traps. However, once you broke through the perimeter, you could do anything you wanted. This city was different. While there might not be as many traps in the inner city, they still existed. In fact, there were quite a lot of them.

Obviously, whoever had fed them information not only wanted to weaken the human kingdom but weaken us as well. Otherwise, they would have warned the humans about the multitude of traps invaders would face. If the soldiers had expected the whole city to be trapped, they wouldn’t have used the prisoners in the manner in which they did. I got the feeling that whoever was in charge of the soldiers was inexperienced.

For some reason, the invaders failing at trying to get past the defending kobolds reminded me about the first time I tried to get intimate with my first girlfriend. That had been a total debacle. I still felt the impulse to cringe just thinking about that memory. Since I was already peering through one of the arrow slits with my head near the wall, I went ahead and thunked my forehead against the rock to distract me from such thoughts.

I could still hear her words ringing in my mind, “Is it in yet?” I felt so small after that. Well, at least in this life I could learn the Enlarge spell if my little kobold buddy disappointed me as much as I disappointed my girlfriend that night. However, despite all that, she did give me a cool nickname, the “minuteman.” I didn’t even know she knew about how amazing the minutemen were during the Revolutionary War.