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.

We'd kicked up a safe zone outside the mimic-scarred village. Flattened some carts, built a rough shade wall, and let the locals breathe. They still clutched candles like talismans. No one trusted fire to behave.


Cinders was somewhere behind me, holding three pots steady on one flame thread. She wasn't saying anything, but her stirring rhythm had gotten sharp. The kind of motion you make when you want to fix something with your hands because your head can't.


A crawler wagon arrived at sundown. Guild stamp. Triple-inscribed wheels. Carved box-shape like it was designed to offend curves. The air around it buzzed faintly — not dangerous, just institutional. The sort of hum that made you feel like paperwork was looming nearby.


Chapter 75 - The Guild Sent Help, and It Brought a Clipboard