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.

The ground trembled under my feet. Not enough to spill a bowl, but enough that every kobold in earshot froze where they stood. All that festival noise—bickering, laughter, the last of Bitterstack's singing—shrank to a pin-drop silence. I saw one of the Gen-2s stuck halfway through sweeping, holding a broom like it was a spear, eyes darting between me, the sky, and the yard stones.


Nobody said it, but everyone was thinking the same thing.


System message, dead center above the square, bright enough to wash out the dusk:


[ALERT: Substructure Disruption Detected – Source: Eastern Ridge] 


Bitterstack muttered something sharp under her breath, and even Cinders didn't ask what it meant. Relay, halfway through her victory lap, tripped over her own feet and started frantically checking her runner tokens—"East post, north, south, central line—come on, work—"


Chapter 89 - When the Ground Moves, Nobody Dances