《Kobold Expansion》Chapter 25: Everyday a little death
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Edmund bit his lip. Things have taken a turn for the worst. He reached into his bag and grabbed the sacred artifact of his family. The Edgegod’s knife. It had a blade so fine that it could cut through anything like butter. It was pure white with a jewel encrusted handle. He knew that assassination was on the table when his father entrusted him with this valuable arifact, but he didn’t think that it would come to this. He turned the blade over in his hands. It was only a short walk to Anon’s tent and a thrust of a knife. He knew he could do it. He was a knight captain. He could steel his nerves and eat dirt if he wanted to, but something about this didn’t feel very knight like. It was logical given the circumstances, but he didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to be the Theocracy's pawn. He’d assassinate anyone for his own reasons, but doing it for the Theocracy was not within his morals.
Edmund sighed. Not like he can fight the Theocracy. When he inherits his father's seat and gets much richer he will buy an army and overtake the theocracy, but currently. He is a grunt about to kill the person who saved his mother.
He kneels next to Anon’s sleeping body and readies the knife.
“I’m sorry Anon.”
He plunges the knife into Anon’s chest.
“I’m sorry Anon.” I wake up from those words only to see a white dagger being stabbed into my chest. I clutch onto Edmund’s arm. I can feel the knife stabbing into my heart. Each beat of my heart slices the knife into new flesh. He lets go of the knife. His eyes look sad. This is the first time that I’ve seen any emotion on his face. I increase my grip on his arm. “Why!?” Why did he do this? He offers me no explanation. He steels his face and stands up. Turning his back on me he leaves my tent. I lay there. The pain in my chest is becoming unbearable. Almost as unbearable as the hate in me. He betrayed me. His family betrayed me. I did not see it coming. How could they do this to me? What possessed them to betray my trust? Betrayal never comes from your enemies. My head is swimming and Eris’s words don’t answer anything for me. It’s just a part of dealing with humans. She’s right. I tried to ally with humans who hate my kind. I was a fool. I let them visit me and gave them freedom in my lands. If I am to allow people to be free then there will be more attempts on my life. It is the trade off to freedom. He killed me. Is killing me. Humans are killing me. They want to kill me. They will always want to kill me. They are free to do so. Freedom and humans are not compatible. I was to be the savior of the downtrodden. I wanted to have a peaceful revolution through small changes in society. I laugh, blood spills out from around my wound. Time has started to slow. I am so naive. How could I be the main character? Main characters don’t get assassinated in their beds. These delusions come to me randomly. There were thirty kids in the anime club. This must be one of their stories. That’s fine. I don’t care. This world isn’t real. I have no attachment to it. I’m keeping my eyes open by sheer force of will. Once I close them then there will be no more of this world. Nothing will bother me again.
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“No!” This is my world. My kobolds. They are what ties me to this world. When I die they will die soon. I know who will kill them. The damned humans will come and slaughter my people. I can not allow that to happen! Please, some god come to me. Grant me power, grant me another life. I need to save my people!
When no god comes to me in my final moments I close my eyes. I’m just bargaining with invisible forces right now. They won’t come to my aid. They won’t come to anyone's aid. They aren’t real.
Evolve.
Eris’s voice rings in the back of my skull. From the part where my spine connects to my head. I hear her whisper. Evolve
I pull up my evolution options. Dragon or Human. I feel my body fall to the ground. My eyes close, but even in my final moments I am logical and calm. When I evolved into a dragonborn the shell healed me, I had fallen from an impossible height and woken up perfectly fine. I pro-con each choice. A dragon is strong and powerful. Humans are weak, treacherous, hateful, absurd and cowardly. There is enough malice in a single human’s hand to destroy an entire army. I feel myself falling through the grown. I choose to evolve into a beast powerful enough to defend my country and to destroy others.
[New skill: Breath attack(Medium)]
I open my eyes to this popup and the sound of explosions. I roll over onto my four feet. The cave seems so much smaller now. There is a great rush of armed kobolds to the entrance of the cave. They are preparing to hold back an attack of people in white armor. The knight’s heads are covered by armored veils. These are not the baron’s men. I stumble on all fours over to the entrance. The kobolds make way for me. The knights are still in the tunnel. Making their way past the many traps the kobolds have set for them. Every few steps the knights take another explosion goes off in the cave. Bob must have invented landmines while I was out. I lay my head down at the entrance. Breath attack comes to me like a skill. No chant, just it wheeling up inside me. I open my mouth and release a pillar of fire down the entrance. Screams followed by the sounds of flesh flopping to the floor like a sack of potatoes. The fire clears and I can already see more of the odd knights lining up at the entrance. They have more humans outside of my cave. I look at the small hole in the ceiling of my mountain. I’m too large to fit through it. Instead I break through it. Flying fast and shattering through the top of the mountain. Bringing flying rock with me like an erupting volcano. I look down at the entrance to my cave. Goblins are attacking the knights in the rear while the knights are trying to focus on clearing out the mountain. There are only two platoons. In total forty men. A reasonable amount of people to genocide a group of kobolds, but not a reasonable amount of people to kill a dragonborn. The baron must be working with them. They fly a white standard with a golden cross on it. The sign of the Theocracy. The baron ratted me out to the Theocracy.
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I fly low, carpet bombing them with breath attacks. Their levels pop up in my view as each one falls. Each one of the forty men is around level five.
[Level up! x200]
I repeat this until there are none standing. I land on the ground. The goblins rush to me, when they reach me they bow. “Kill the survivors. Do what you want with the bodies. Bring their weapons and armor into the cave.” I command. The goblins pick themselves up and begin their work.
I do a reconnaissance fly over. There are no more armies in my forest. From the air I can see the baron’s city. I can even see his house. I pull my large claws into the soft parts of my hands. My knuckles go white, but I calm away my anger. Brining it to a simmer. With no current threats spotted I land. I inspect myself.
Name Anon
Level: 200/400
Race Kobold, Kobold Shamen, Dragonborn, Kobold Elementalist, Dragon
Skills: English[Common](Majoy), Draconic (Medium), Gold in league, Trap Detection (Medium), Night Vision(Medium), Bite (Minor), Poison Immunity (minior), Crafting(Minor), Digging(Medium), Healing magic(Minor),Aquamancer(Minor),Pryomancer(Minor), Marksmanship(Medium), Earth bender(Minor), Airmancer(minor), Elemental Master(Minor), Mind magic resistance(Medium), Breath Attack(Major) titles : Chosen, Quick Learner, Master Pyromancer. Pyromaniac
Are forty humans really worth that much experience? Without them having no evolutions the levels just go straight to me? No wonders monsters kill them. I also take note that I am only a dragon. Not a green dragon or a fire dragon. Just a plain dragon. I can already begin to guess what some of my next evolution options would be.
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