“Alright, head count!” Kim said, stepping through the gate way and into the waiting room on the other side.

“Ugh.” Someone groaned. “After the Kobold Caverns? Really?” Another person laughed.

“I know, I know.” Kim said. “Standard procedure! Line up.”

Even as she spoke, she was taking off the heavy armor she wore, hanging it from the wall as the team lined up. With a groan, she stretched, turning to count the line of people who had signed up. Most were familiar at this point, people she had ran with for weeks at the least. Some of them even had real potential. She smiled as she looked over her motley band.

“Kim! I think I did it. I think I’m going to rank up today!”

“That’s great, Vince. Tell the bronze rank monsters I sent ya when you send them to hell.” Kim clapped a hand on his shoulder.

“Do you run any Bronze rank gates? I’d love to run with your team again!”

She gave him a weary look, complete with a bitter smile, and the woman next to Vince elbowed him.

“Ow— what was that for?”

“Dude, shes…” The woman looked between Vince and her.

“It’s alright. Iron is my peak, Vince. I can’t go higher.” Kim smiled. “But that’s alright. I can guide others forward. Like you! Remember me when you’re in the Pantheon.” There were chuckles in the room at that, and with everyone lined up and half out of armor and the room stinking of sweat, she began her count, referencing a list on her phone.

She looked around the room half way down the line.

“Rain?” She asked, looking around. “Has anyone seen the new guy?” She asked, receiving confused looks and head shakes. “Oh, shit.”

The platforms that hung from the walls were ineloquent. Wooden stakes were pressed into the wall, so close they pressed against eachother, forming winding ramps. Where I stood at the top, they were barely as wide across as I was, the Kobold’s being much smaller than an adult human, but as I stepped down the ramp, they doubled in size, allowing me to step to the right and work my way down the stairs.

They shifted and bent as I stepped down the ramp.

There was no guard rail.

I stayed close to the wall, low and quiet as I crept through the dark in the volumnious cavern, following the ramp as it alternated between several feet long and just a few, allowing the repetition of staircase like structures to descend down the wall. Several stories later, I found myself at the bottom, in the shadow of the wall, far from the burning, magical lights, and kept myself pressed to the wall as I crept forward.

A door burst open to the left of me, another wooden gate, this one unbarred, and a Kobold stepped inside the cavern, holding crates. It looked around curiously, before glancing up and making eye contact with me.

My knife stabbed into its skull in an instant, descending onto its head and through without resistance, and its body stiffened as it dropped the crates. They clattered to the ground as I pulled the knife free, having instantly pierced its brain.

The knife was slick with blood.

I searched through the crates it dropped. They held alien cuts of meat, though thankfully nothing that looked remotely human. Bringing food from somewhere, then. I continued forward, finally bothering to direct the diffuse Qi provided by the three kills through my body, down the paths used by this cultivation path, and into my Dantian. It couldn’t all rush there right away— it would be a few minutes before I absorbed the kills.

I continued down the cave.

There were no more surprise openings.

Two Kobolds conferred at the bottom of the makeshift ramp leading up to the iron mining operation, and the sounds were louder now that I was close.

The Kobolds on the ramps above were thin. Thin like the bedraggled Kobolds of the caves. They also wore more ragged clothing, scraps of it. It looked almost like a slave mining operation, like the well fed ones were citizens and these were prisoners of war. It would make sense. Maybe the ones in the caverns below were simply runaways or cast outs.

It didn’t matter to me. They all gave the same amount of Qi.

One of the two conferring walked away with a cart, heading towards the furnaces, and I continued creeping towards the one remaining.

He looked up when I was still 15 paces away. I forgot to dismiss the technique in my eyes, the Qi from my Dantian still trickling up to fuel it. The glow from my eyes, silver light dimly illuminating the room, revealed me. Among the bright light of the farm, it made no difference, but here, close to the Kobold, he could see me.

I sprinted for him, raising the knife in midair.

It made no difference. He screeched even as I fell onto him. My knee crunched when it landed on his chest, pinning the monster to the ground as my knife entered the side of its face, and then it was quiet. Too quiet. The picking above me stopped. The river ran, but Kobolds stopped their murmuring conversations in the cavern.

I moved as quickly as I could without sprinting, away from the body and into the rows of buildings containing mud pens and storage warehouses, something that only became evident as I approached them. I fell into the shadow of a building just in time for a Kobold to walk by me, approaching the body of the one I killed. I slipped into the walls of the little frame of a building, staring out of the doorless opening that connected it to the streets of the monster city.

The Kobold stopped over the corpse of the Kobold I killed, then immediately rose to its feet and released a screeching shout.

Dozens of Kobolds echoed it until the entire cavern was filled with screaming. Kobolds ran back and forth, feet pounding in the street outside of me.

I watched as they dragged loaded carts to the one visible cavern exit, blocking it off. They were probably blocking all of the exits. My routes away were sealing themselves one by one.

On the other hand, it meant none of them would be getting away.

I dug around in the warehouse— quietly. There were foot falls outside, but they were far away.

I could kill dozens of these Kobolds. Probably not all at once, though, and not without stopping. Definitely not without getting injured. So instead I was waiting in a warehouse.

I would pick them off one at a time.