I was just your average burnout. Now I’m a kobold in a dungeon where everything wants to eat me—and frankly, I get it. I look delicious.

Reincarnated as the weakest possible monster in the worst possible place, I start with nothing but panic, backward knees, and a skill called Civilization Mimicry—which is sealed. Because of course it is.

But survival isn't the story.

This is the story of what comes after.

Of finding meaning in the scraps. Of building law from ashes. Of kindling memory in a place designed to erase.

Because even if the world sees kobolds as nothing, I’ve seen what we used to be.

And I’m going to bring it back.

Firelight by firelight. Burial by burial. One fragile tradition at a time.

Because if the world wants kobolds to be nothing?

Then I’ll teach it what nothing becomes when it learns to dream.

I wasn't supposed to be in this part of the story.


I was a moss-hauler. Wall patcher. The kind of kobold they trained because they needed bodies between smarter ones. My spear had never touched blood. My orders had never been shouted by anyone higher than Hoarder.


But the horn blew. And the air shifted. And the fire stopped being warm. 


I didn't run because I was brave. I ran because the Sovereign had once said, "When the line forms, stand in it." So I did.


Trenches. Eastern slope. Mid-row. Not front, not flank. I told myself I'd survive there.


Then the Hero's squad crested the ridge. And every part of me that still believed in survival cracked. They didn't roar. Didn't grandstand. Just moved. Like they were cleaning something up. Like we were the leftover stain they'd been sent to erase.


Chapter 42 - We Held the Line. Then the Line Broke