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 would like to formally apologize to every overconfident idiot I've ever rolled my eyes at. Turns out there's a special kind of humiliation in realizing you were exactly twelve seconds away from poking something cursed and exploding.


The forest hadn't even tried to hide it.


One moment, we were trudging through thick underbrush, Cinders mumbling about frogs again and Relay humming some off-tune marching song. The next, the half-elf at the front of our group froze mid-step and raised her hand.


It wasn't the smell that got me first—it was the silence. That awful kind of stillness where even the bugs have left. Like the air itself was holding its breath.


The body lay half-curled against a mossy rock near the streambed.


At first glance, I thought it had been burned. At second glance, I realized it hadn't. Not really.


Chapter 59 - We Came, We Saw, We Left Before It Got Worse