Building a Kingdom as a Kobold
Chapter 60: I Thought We Were Visiting, Not Moving In

Chapter 60: I Thought We Were Visiting, Not Moving In

So. Funny thing.

Apparently we weren’t guests anymore.

"We would be honored if the Sovereign of Ashring remained here as a long-term observer," the half-elf leader said, voice as smooth as enchanted bark oil.

Translation: You live here now.

Somewhere in the background, I heard the distant sound of a trap resetting itself. Spiritually. That was my last plan triggering and dying.

I blinked. I had come here expecting to drop off some awkward diplomatic phrases, maybe borrow some fire tricks, and sneak back home before anyone made me hold hands in a ritual. Instead, I was now looking at a politely glowing flame-basket and a small team of leaf-draped architects designing our residence. Not a tent. A residence.

The system chimed.

[New Status: Extended Co-Dwelling Initiated]

[Location Added: Semi-Autonomous Flame-Aligned Guest Zone]

[Daily Routine: Integrated]

[Please Pretend You Wanted This]

I didn’t. I absolutely did not. But the system and I are in a toxic co-parenting relationship with the universe, so here we are.

I wanted to cry. Or bite something.

"They mean well," Sylrien offered quietly beside me, sensing my building horror. "The flame node reacted to your shard. Your presence is stabilizing the local mythline. It would be... disruptive if you left."

"Oh," I said, voice cracking, "you want me here for arcane structural reasons. That’s so much better."

Ten minutes later I was dragging my tail back to the squad’s shared branch-hut and preparing for the worst.

"Alright," I announced, shoving the woven flap aside. "Good news: they love us. Bad news: we live here now."

Cinders, halfway through unpacking a stew kit, froze. "I didn’t bring enough spices for permanent residency."

Tinker dropped a leaf-bound schematic. "Wait, really? Like—we’re locals?"

Glare, who had not technically moved since breakfast, simply raised his snout and whispered, "I knew it."

Flick had already vanished. I wasn’t worried. The last time I worried, he came back with a lizard made of moss and a headache-shaped rock he named Gerald.

Relay paused mid-sentence as he updated his fifth journal. "Should I start a weekly bulletin? Like a... ’Greetings from the Kobold Quarter’ type of thing?"

"No one wants that," I said. "But you’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you."

He smiled. I sighed.

An hour later we were paraded—sorry, escorted—through the village again. But this time it felt different. Less like visitors, more like part of the infrastructure. Literal tree-paths widened to let us through. Fire gutters dimmed as we passed and then relit, like the entire place had synced itself to our rhythm.

It was terrifying.

"It’s not supposed to feel like home," I muttered under my breath. "That’s cheating."

I don’t trust it. Too soft. Too welcoming. It’s the architectural equivalent of a trap disguised as a hug.

One of the younger elven crafters handed me a rolled vine-scroll blueprint for a small flame-transfer alcove and said, without irony, "You’ll want this for your corner of the node hall."

"My what now?"

He bowed and left.

The flame node shimmered again as we passed the central altar, and this time I saw it. Tucked beneath the offering bowl, barely visible unless you’d been resurrected by a myth-glyph-slinging child genius who vanished into time—

A spiral. Not decorative. Etched, then overwritten, then rewritten.

A signature.

Scribbles.

Of course it’s him. He could disappear into a myth-event and still leave graffiti.

The breath caught in my throat, and for a single moment, the flame dimmed and went very still. Like it was listening.

The system blinked.

[Echo Detected: Glyph Resonance Matching Kobold Cultural Layer]

[Thread Fragment Located: Source—Myth-Breach Event]

[Do You Wish to Isolate Thread?]

My claws curled slightly. My breath returned.

I wasn’t ready to answer that.

Not yet.

By the time I returned to the squad, it looked like we’d been there for three weeks and invented bureaucracy.

Relay had constructed a very professional-looking "duty board" from sticks and moss. Cinders was holding a cooking lecture with exactly one terrified elf apprentice and five judgmental spoons. Tinker was trying to copy tree-runed flamework onto a flat rock and yelling "Conductivity!" at it like that would help.

Flick was nowhere to be seen, which was a problem because the last time Flick was missing, we ended up with an unauthorized mascot and a cave tunnel full of weird mushrooms.

Glare was sitting on top of our guest hut, brooding with such intensity that I felt like background music should start playing every time someone looked at him.

"Have I been gone ten minutes or ten seasons," I asked.

"Time is relative," Relay said cheerfully. "Also, I’m the quartermaster now!"

"No, you’re not."

He had a badge. I chose not to fight that battle today.

The flame guide reappeared while I was still trying to mentally recover. They tilted their head politely and asked if I was ready for my "integration overview."

I didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded suspiciously like homework.

"Sure," I said, "as long as there’s no paperwork, team chants, or mandatory hugging."

There was a long pause. Then: "Just the first two."

I squinted. "That’s a joke, right?"

They didn’t blink.

The walk through the flame lattice network was supposed to be calming.

It was not calming.

It was a thousand tiny systems working perfectly together and none of them required screaming or fires or vaguely holding your breath until something started glowing.

The firelines adjusted ambient warmth as we passed. The open flame dishes flickered with shifting hues that corresponded to work rotations. A cluster of elf children changed the color of a branch-knot light with a coordinated clapping pattern.

"This is sorcery," I whispered.

"It’s infrastructure," the flame guide said, smiling.

"Same thing."

I hate how smug that smile was. That’s the smile of someone whose compost piles are alphabetized.

The system pinged me like a smug librarian.

[New Civic Observation: Communal Flame Mesh – Level 1 Efficiency Detected]

[Comparative Analysis: Ashring Systems Currently Rank "Flammable"]

[Would You Like to Cry Now or Later?]

I whispered "Now" and mentally hit confirm.

Later that afternoon, I found Flick trying to barter with a bird.

"I offered it a shiny rock," he explained when I pulled him away. "It declined. Rude."

"You’re banned from diplomacy for one week," I said.

"Fair."

Cinders yelled at us from across the glade. "They’re using pine ash to flavor stew. I am personally offended."

I nodded. "Tell them. Loudly."

She was already gone.

That night, I sat under one of the root arches and watched the flame core breathe.

It was gentle. Coordinated. Laced with memory I didn’t yet understand.

I hated how much I liked it.

There comes a point in every expedition where you sit down, stare into sacred fire, and start mentally pricing out what it would cost to smuggle an entire heating grid out of a forest without anyone noticing.

Somewhere in my shard, a warm pulse echoed.

Not a warning. Not a threat.

Just a reminder.

I wasn’t here to be impressed.

I was here to steal everything that worked and bring it home.