KaraCabage

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.

Building a Kingdom as a Kobold

Let it be known that I never asked for the forest to become more alive.

It was already too alive. It had breathing mushrooms, glaring frogs, and plants with opinions. But no, apparently that wasn't enough. Now the trees were watching us.

Not metaphorically. Literally. I looked up, and there were patterns carved high into the trunks—spirals, notches, geometric lines like a language that forgot how to be readable. They hadn't been there a few hours ago.

I stared at one particularly jagged symbol about fifteen kobolds above my head.

"I don't like that it's blinking," I said.

"It's not blinking," Tinker replied automatically.

The mark pulsed faintly. Not like light. More like heat behind the eyes.

Tinker stared up at it. "...Correction noted."

I Am Not Emotionally Prepared for Ambush Etiquette