You are Summoned

Chapter 265. Expanded Empire.

“That was easy enough,” I muttered to myself and worried that the system was going to throw some wrench into the works. Thinking about it for a moment, it did sort of make sense. Not every contestant would be a summoner with powerful minions it could send out to attack. The village defenses had been prepared to deal with the combat forces of the other factions.

My kobolds, without my minions, would have struggled to defeat any of the other factions in my challenge. Most challengers would have to leave the headquarters and deal with each threat directly until their faction grew stronger. Their direct participation would also affect the growth of their faction as their headquarters sat idle during the time they were away.

By virtue of my class, I had a bit of an advantage that I was going to exploit to the fullest. I could stay here and manage my empire while my minions went out and discovered friendly factions or dealt with any that proved hostile. I had been victorious and now it was time to decide the humans’ fate.

For conquering your foe, the early termination penalty for breaking the truce has been rescinded. Please choose one of the following options for your defeated foe.

Eradication. Your forces will exterminate the human settlement completely, netting you a moderate number of resources and gear.

Truce. You will impose a truce between your peoples for a set amount of time. During that time, neither faction may participate in hostile activities toward the other. Enhanced penalties will remain in effect for anyone breaking this truce.

Subjugation. Your faction will take over the human village and you will run it directly. The morale of the humans would be permanently hostile, and you would need to station a sizeable force of warriors here to prevent a future revolt. This option will continuously extract a large percentage of the human economy and convert it into resources for your faction, but the human economy will be stagnant, and their settlement will grow at a significantly reduced pace.

Confederation. You will accept the humans into your faction. They will remain autonomous but will be required to trade and provide mutual defense at your request. Their morale will start as hostile, but depending on your demands, may change over time.

They were almost the same options as I had been given after defeating the elves. The only thing missing was the option to let the humans take over and for me so I could leave the challenge. That must have been something the system offered only once, early in the challenge, for those that wished to leave.

I had already chosen confederation with the elves and decided to do the same with the humans. Like I had done before, I excluded them from any type of defensive alliance until they had rebuilt their strength. The system confirmed my choices, giving a bit more detail this time around.

You have confederated with the Human Village of Millstone. Their morale is currently Hostile. Over time, this attitude will change based on the demands you make and how the human faction is treated overall. Should their morale fall low enough, a revolt may occur.

You have chosen to establish a trade pact with the Human Village of Millstone. Trade caravans will occasionally leave from your cavern and the human village, bringing trade goods. Remember, trade routes must be protected, or losses will occur, affecting both resources and morale.

Over time, continued trade between the various peoples will improve their attitude toward your faction, as well as provide valuable resources and gear your kobolds cannot craft for themselves. Improve your marketplace to add additional trade caravans and to improve the effectiveness of the existing trade routes.

That reminded me that I had a trade caravan ready to go and doing nothing since I’d last upgraded the marketplace. I assigned them to the human village, as well as assigning a squad of warriors to patrol the route. It was a much longer journey than the one between the elves and gnomes and was probably riskier.

I may need to assign an additional patrol when I had more forces available. It might not be needed once the humans recovered and began to help with the patrols. For now, the villagers in Millstone had rebuilding to do and a village to repopulate. Just like with the kobolds, the system had a simple mechanic in place to replace losses.

In the human village, a team of villagers was already working to rebuild the town hall. After that, I figured they’d repair the gap in the palisade that my drone had torn through. A trio of humans did start walking from the village with the typical packs over their shoulders to indicate they were a trading caravan. My kobold warriors who had been with the attacking force were now assigned to guard the trade route, and followed the human traders, giving them protection as they brought goods to my markets.

Maybe when all our factions started to rank up, we’d have proper caravans with wagons and whatnot. For now, it was just three of four people hoofing it slowly along the trail. On my map, I could keep track of their progress, and a green dotted line showed the trade routes that were active. My kobold traders, all four of them, began the long trek to the human village.

Time passed as trade continued and my minions explored the rest of the plains. As I suspected, the human village was the only other faction living there, but they did run into occasional hostile creatures that were easily dealt with. All were too far from my kobold village to waste the time of workers to try and harvest the resources, but I noticed something odd when we left without harvesting the remains of our foes.

About an hour after my minions had abandoned the latest remains, the human village, much closer due to their location on the plains, sent out a harvesting team. The system must have determined that after a certain time, if no action was taken, the resources were up for grabs. I was fine with that, as it might help the humans to rebuild their village more quickly.

The main foes that my minions seemed to run into on the plains were the bird creatures. I was also pretty sure there was some kind of respawn mechanic for the creatures in this zone as I’d noticed more than one wolf sniffing around the outskirts of my mountain. They weren’t aggressive yet, but likely would become so as their numbers rebuilt.

I was fine with a reprieve from wolf attacks for a while, as I needed to expand and build up my forces. My minions were needed to finish exploring my small world, and the kobold warriors weren’t up to the task just yet. While not up to the task of eradicating wolves at this time, my kobold forces were starting to improve as the now-upgraded crafters station and the marketplace began to pay dividends.

Instead of sharpened sticks, my kobold warriors were now armed with spears like humans wielded. The spears now had long, straight shafts with stone tips. In addition, each warrior had a crude leather jerkin to help protect them. I had yet to see them in action on their own, but at least they were starting to look the part.

My kobold village continued to improve, and before long, my headquarters upgraded to rank three and I went on a building spree, adding a new farm, a new housing complex, and upgrading everything else. My population expanded and the trade caravans now had five-man teams and I was pleased to see they were now pulling a small cart loaded with goods.

At the headquarters, I could now more easily give direct orders to not only my minions, but also the kobold warriors out in the field. Work teams and caravans were on their own, but maybe future upgrades would give me more control. For now, I could just set their tasks and let them work at their own pace.

Marketplace upgrades gave me more steady resource income, and another trade caravan. To my surprise, I was able to place the trade caravan on the route with the human village. The distance must have been long enough between the two places to justify a second team.

The barracks and crafting station upgrades granted me two new squads of troops and upgraded the equipment on my existing troops even further. The warriors’ spears now had sharp, steel tips and they wore proper leather armor. In addition, each had a steel dagger and one kobold in each squad had a crossbow.

My defenses over the rear entrance to our cavern had also improved, and thanks to trade with my rock gnome buddies, I had a proper stone wall with a heavy portcullis protecting the entrance. I also unlocked the option to add a new defensive structure in my territory. Unsure where I wanted it, I held off on placement until a more urgent need was seen.

All the structures in my cavern were starting to look like something people would want to live and work in. I was excited to see what rank four would do for us. My headquarters upgrade also unlocked a new option for my map interface, a tab called War Coordination that was currently greyed out.

I had a feeling that this arena challenge was going to include more fighting, and I hoped my focus on trade wasn’t going to hamper my chances to finish strongly in the rankings. The rewards were bound to be better at the tier two arena challenge, and I wanted in on the good loot.

All I could do now was prepare and grow as rapidly as I was able to. In addition to expansion at home, my minions had completed their exploration of the plains and were ready to head into the last, and unknown section of the map.

The plains slowly gave way to a desert-like environment, but my minions didn’t need food or drink, so they should have no problem exploring it. I figured that a final faction was out there, and I wanted to make contact and deal with them, either through peace or war, before this first phase of the challenge was completed.