***Nenny The Feeble***

Ever since he had been born from Essence, Nenny struggled to keep up with his peers. He had never liked the title others had given him—The Feeble. However, the only way to gain a better name was through his own—feeble—strength.

Today was thus the happiest day of his life—Nenny had no doubt about it. The kobolds who tended to bully him had been massacred by the leader's order—it wasn't a coincidence that all of them belonged to the Malgoc's faction. Nenny, on the other hand, had been acknowledged by the kobold he respected the most—the Chief Shaman Velgo. After witnessing this, his peers wouldn't have a choice but to show him some consideration as well.

Filled with hope for a bright future, Nenny gave his all to accomplish the mission given him by the Chief. With ten other kobolds, he started to search for the living being that Velgo had sensed.

While his sense of smell wasn't as good as the Shaman's, it was ahead of most of the other kobolds. Before he knew it, those who were accompanying him on the mission started to follow his lead. Before, he had been looked down on for his lack of power, and no one paid any attention to his other talents. Not anymore.

After ascending a dozen floors, the group at last found what they were looking for. It was just above the place that the Chief assigned to him as his Zone. Here, some of the rooms held the strong scent of animals.

For the most part, only two species were to be found. First, the magnificent creatures to which kobolds felt a deep affinity. Second, the hateful spawns that reminded them of their worst enemies and were nothing but food.

"Woof-woof!" The sacred animals sang their beautiful song.

"Meow, hiss!" The scourges screeched their wicked laments.

Some of the meowing cattle tried to run away, but most hid in a corner, trembling. Most of the beautiful creatures were friendly to the kobolds and didn't try to attack or escape.

"Let's take our new friends to the base after butchering the food." One of his comrades proposed.

After thinking for a moment, Nenny shook his head. "That’s no good. Don't you know that our Chief likes to eat his prey while it's still alive?"

"Oh, right! Thanks for reminding me, team leader. You are so wise! If we did as I said, then we would have gotten punished because of me!"

"Hehe. . ." Nenny felt bashful, unused to others being nice and respectful to him.

"Hiss!" Suddenly, one of the spawns used that moment while the kobolds were distracted to escape the room.

"Where are you going, you tasty snack?!" Feeling a burst of confidence, Nenny took the initiative to chase the vile critter.

"You guys bring our findings to the Chief while I catch this one." He told the others before leaving.

The evil thing was surprisingly quick, to the point of escaping Nenny’s line of sight in a couple of seconds. Still, it couldn't make its revolting scent disappear as quickly, so there was no way Nenny would lose its trail.

"I will give you as a present to Chief Velgo!" As he shouted in anger, the kobold hurried after the animal that ran up a set of stairs.

Nenny The Feeble didn't think there was any danger waiting for him further ahead, not even for a moment. The Dungeon was their Nest. Their new Home. What could go wrong?

***Lex Lurker***

Maybe the smartest move on my part in this situation would have been to hide until the disturbance passed by. I really didn't want to get in trouble for no reason. But there were some situations when a man's conscience was at stake. How could I turn away from danger after hearing a cry for help? And not just any cry, either. It was a very distinctive sound—a meow.

Some of the most beautiful memories of my life were related to those wonderful fluffy cuties—cats. If I didn't save this one from whatever threatened it, then my escaped pet would be really disappointed with me—I only hoped that not up from Heaven.

Even though my heart beat like crazy from the anticipation of danger, I left the illusory safety of the emergency room and moved towards the place where I was needed.

"Meow!" The urgent cry called to me.

The situation I witnessed when I arrived at the entrance to the stairway that led downward was rather peculiar. A young, pure white cat was trying to enter through a transparent glass door, but without any success. This was not surprising, considering that I was the one who locked it not long ago. . . What? I had always been a really cautious person.

While the poor thing scratched the glass without any success, a wondrous creature caught up to the cat. It was hard to describe the creature’s appearance in words. Still, the closest comparison would be an overgrown bipedal chihuahua in the attire of an African tribesman. Yeah, sounds about right.

"Wouffa bowwfu, grrowly woof!" Said the monster that was probably one of the kobolds the System had warned me about.

Weren’t kobolds supposed to be reptilian? I recalled the little gaming knowledge I had. Why does it look like a dog?

I couldn't understand a word, obviously, though rather than just mindless barking, it resembled some sort of primitive language. The monster seemed to be both angry at being forced to chase the cat and delighted at cornering it, at last. The way it raised its primitive stone spear left me in no doubt about its intention to make some cat-kebab.

Even though I was only a couple of feet away from the glass door, neither of the two seemed to have noticed me for the time being. That didn't mean that I planned to stay a bystander as the pussy was getting pierced through right before my eyes—I couldn’t allow such perversion. Not on my watch, doggo!

All the usual signs of the adrenaline rush welcomed me—be it accelerated heartbeat, rapid breathing, or heightened senses. I wasn't sure about my current sensitivity to pain, and I hoped that I wouldn't be forced to find out. It was just a bipedal dog, and I was armed with a taser—a weapon designed to be effective even against a six-foot bodybuilder. This furry fellow was a foot-and-a-half smaller than that.

I opened the door, allowing the cat to slip inside the reception hall as soon as there was enough space, just before the kobold could skewer it. The spear missed and, instead, hit the glass wall beside the door where the pussy had been a moment before. Thankfully the glass was barely damaged by the attack.

The monster pulled his weapon and was about to prepare for another strike, but at this moment, his eyes met mine. My dear sir, you are much too forward, we haven’t even been introduced yet, I thought impishly as I raised my right hand to shyly hide my face behind the yellow plastic toy gun that was now pointed right at my opponent.

*Bang!*

Oops, my bad. Even if it looked like a rich kid’s toy, it actually was a taser! And I, being ruthless to the enemies of catkind, felt no sorrow for the pitiful doggie as I pulled the trigger at point-blank range.

The two darts were supposed to easily penetrate the dark grey fur that barely protected its muzzle. That didn't seem to be the case, however, because even though the kobold froze for a moment when it received its dose of electricity through the cables, it recovered almost instantly when the darts fell down after failing to penetrate the skin.

The unexpected uselessness of my trump card made me notice that above the monster's head floated two health-bar-like things—one a bronze-like brown and the other one green. The first one had been decreased by one-third after my attack, while the second was still almost full.

The kobold didn't give me the time to ponder the meaning behind my finding. With a bark full of resentment, it thrust its weapon again, aiming for my neck. How can something that looks so harmless be so ruthless?

Thanks to the difference in our size, I managed to avoid fatal injury just by tilting my body back instinctively. Instead of piercing my neck and finishing me off for good, it grazed my left shoulder, leaving behind a shallow wound.

It hurt, but not as much as I expected. It proved that, yes, the adrenaline in my blood had made me way less sensitive to pain. That was the good news. The bad news was that I still could die eventually from blood loss and the fight was far from over.

To avoid the worst-case scenario of being skewered and made into human shish-kebab, I threw away the now spent taser. Then, I used my emptied right hand to grab hold of the spear. At the same time, I slashed at the kobold's head with my machete.

Initially, I hadn't planned to kill the almost adorable doggie, but believe me when I say that it went full psycho-murderer on me first.

The kobold couldn't take its spear away from me, and my revenge attack perfectly hit its furry neck. That should have been the end of it, all things considered, but the new world wasn't fair. The kitchen machete that was sharp enough to slice vegetables and bones alike just bounced off from the delicate-looking piece of dog meat. My left hand felt numb, as if I just struck a wall, and the blade itself cracked slightly at the point of impact. On the bright side, the bronze-colored bar above the dog’s head had gotten one-third smaller, though the green one still barely changed.

The monster seemed to realize that I wasn't a pushover, and decided to stop pretending to be a civilized doggie-being that uses tools just like humans. It let go of the spear and bounced up at me with its maw wide open.

A stinky odor assaulted me even before I could raise the right arm to save my neck for the second time. Its fangs pierced the flesh of my forearm, but at the same time, the monster presented me with an opportunity to finish the battle.

The monster had made a critical mistake—it let go of its spear. I released the grip on my machete and then used my left hand to take hold of the kobold's primitive weapon. While the doggie still had its teeth deep into my forearm, I drove the speartip into its vulnerable side.

Its clothes couldn't be considered actual armor, so they didn't protect the doggie in the slightest. But just like the last time, I couldn't easily pierce through its fur or whatever protective barrier it still had. This time, though, it lost almost all of the bronze bar.

As my attempt to kill it in one go hadn’t worked, I instinctively decided to get myself free from the clutch of its jaws. Using my body's weight, I shoved the crazed kobold against the transparent wall behind it.

Apparently, the reinforced glass was sturdy enough to bear the impact without cracking. The kobold, on the other hand, was less lucky.

It was stronger than it looked, but still, its weight league was way below mine, even in spite of my malnutrition. As it was more or less slammed against the wall by me, the monster made a squeal and let go of my hand. There was no longer any bronze-colored thing above its head—only the green bar remained, which had lost about 20% of its total capacity.

While ignoring the pain in my right forearm and left shoulder, I thrust the spear, aiming for the monster's belly—I wasn't as stupid as the doggie who had aimed for the neck, which can be very hard to hit.

As it had yet to recover from the impact, the monster had no choice but to get skewered like a good boy. This time I didn't feel much resistance as the spear entered its body, which proved that the bronze bar was directly related to the unreasonable sturdiness the kobold had demonstrated up until this moment.

What I assumed to be the health-bar changed color from green to yellow when half of it remained, then to red when less than twenty percent was left. The monster continued to rapidly lose its remaining health with each second.

In the last moments of its life, the kobold, who was pinned to the wall by his own spear, glared at me with hate. Its. . .no, his grey eyes were full of resentment towards me, the one who viciously took his life.

As his health-bar disappeared, the kobold folded over the spear like a puppet that had its strings cut. It was then that a whole bunch of holographic messages flooded my sight.

This wasn't the time nor the place to read what the System wanted to tell me. My whole body was exhausted from the short but very intense fight, my breathing rough and deep. The two wounds left by the doggie started to hurt with renewed intensity as the adrenaline rush started to recede. Exhausted, I roughly sat down on the stairs and tried to catch my breath and calm down.

As I gave another look at the fresh corpse, a realization dawned on me. I had killed another living being. It wasn't an insect or even a mindless animal, no. Even if the kobold was a monster, everything pointed at the fact that he was sentient.

This disturbing fact made me release the content of my stomach, but it wasn't as bad as you would expect. It was some time since I had my dinner, after all. Also, it helped me to calm down. Instead of checking the new notifications, I opened my status.

Health: 67%

Physical Fatigue: 72%

Mental Fatigue: 21%

Status Effects: Malnutrition, Weakness, Weak Bleeding, Weak Infection, Light Injury, ???

Honestly, it was better than I had expected. Apparently, I was still far from death, though the two new status effects bothered me. Additionally, the pain made me feel a rather urgent need to find some anesthetics and disinfect my wounds. Luckily I was already at the hospital, so it shouldn't be much of a problem.

I forced myself to stand up and approached the dead monster. I needed to leave this place just in case his allies came here, and I also considered hiding his body somewhere where it wouldn't be easily found. Plus, despite being simple in design, his spear had proved itself to be more effective than the machete and the taser, so I wanted to take it with me.

The state of the body made me change my plans, though. Both the corpse and its items—including its clothes and spear—started to disintegrate into semi-transparent white bulbs of light. The process was happening right before my eyes, and by my estimation, it wouldn't take more than a couple of minutes for everything to disappear. . .

"Meow!" A sound called to me from the other side of the door.

Apparently, the cat hadn’t abandoned its savior and, instead, had watched the battle from the safety of the reinforced glass.

"Meow-meow!" The fluffy kitty moved its white paws as if trying to tell me to hurry up.

It didn't need to tell me twice. I collected my scattered items—the taser and the cracked machete—and, after giving the disappearing body one last glance, walked over to the cat.

"Were you worried about me, little fellow?" I asked with a smile and tried to stroke its pure white fur. Rather expectedly, the cat avoided my bloodied hand.

Next, I retraced my steps to the closest room where I remembered seeing a first aid box. First, I washed my wounds with cool water for a few minutes, then disinfected them with hydrogen peroxide.

"Ouch!" It hurt way more than when I received the wounds in the middle of battle.

In the end, I bandaged both of my wounds, hoping that it would help me recover faster.

I wasn't very knowledgeable about dealing with injuries, so maybe my actions weren't that effective, but a fast check of my status proved my efforts weren't for naught.

Health: 68%

Physical Fatigue: 42%

Mental Fatigue: 19%

Status Effects: Malnutrition, Weakness, Light Injury, ???

The bleeding and the infection effects were gone, and I had already recovered a whole 1% of my Health. Now was my chance to find out if the System really accelerated the healing process.

As I did all of this, the cat continued to follow me, observing my actions from a short distance.

Suspicious. . . This fluffy fellow seems to be rather smart. I can sense wisdom in its eyes and the way in which it watches me. Maybe as a result of the world's change, animals got smarter?

I wanted to check the notifications I got after killing the kobold and, as a result, completing the Novice Quest that promised some tasty rewards, but first, I decided to make sure of my safety.

I returned to the stairs where our battle had taken place just recently. As I expected, the kobold's body was nowhere to be seen, most likely having completely turned into the white light. Thankfully, there were no signs of his comrades around. But I didn't like to rely on luck, so. . .

Instead of worrying about being found out and facing an unknown number of enemies, I chose to make sure that no one could enter without a significant effort.

Simply put, I barricaded the entrance to the reception hall. Who knew if they had a key or another way to open it normally? It was their Dungeon, after all. Enduring the pain and the tiredness, I carried everything light enough for me to lift, mostly chairs and shelves. I placed them near the door, blocking it completely. In this way, it would be extremely hard to enter this place, and any invasion wouldn't go unnoticed as long as I was close enough.

After contemplating for a moment, I decided to hide on a higher floor instead of waiting here for the intruders. In this way, while I wouldn't know beforehand that they were coming, it would be way harder for them to find me.

So I ascended up to the floor where my hospital room was, not forgetting to close each door on my way, additionally blocking it with a chair or two.

For my temporary base, I chose the biggest patient room with the sturdiest door, which I locked with the key I found.

I lay on the bed and relaxed a little. The cat sat on the table nearby, watching me impassively.

Anticipating a big change, I opened my notifications. There were a whole bunch of them, but the first line was just as expected. . .

You have slain a [Shadowbark Kobold - Bronze, Level 4]!