Building a Kingdom as a Kobold
Chapter 61: So Apparently Everyone Here Has a Job and I’m Just Vibes

Chapter 61: So Apparently Everyone Here Has a Job and I’m Just Vibes

I woke up to silence.

Which, for anyone keeping track, is bad when you’re traveling with five kobolds under the age of sanity.

I sat up slowly. The hut smelled like dried herbs, soft embers, and exactly none of my companions. That meant they’d either spontaneously matured and joined the community... or more likely, they’d been adopted by it while I was sleeping.

Or eaten by it. Hard to tell with elves.

I staggered out into daylight expecting chaos.

What I got instead was functioning routine.

Relay jogged past holding a bundle of parchment-like leaf mail, three satchels, and what looked like a timekeeping stone. "Morning! I’m doing courier relay optimization!" he shouted.

"No one asked you to optimize anything."

"They did! Sort of! I asked, and they didn’t say no!"

Cinders emerged from a side grove in full apron-armor, flanked by two elven culinary students. "They’re still using ground root for broth. I’m here to fix their flavor crimes."

Tinker was busy gesturing wildly at a wooden anvil that seemed to reshape itself based on tool pressure. "IT’S ORGANIC. THE FORGE BREATHES."

He was in love. I saw it in his eyes. The man imprinted on a woodworking furnace.

Somewhere overhead, a high-pitched scream arced through the canopy.

"Flick?" I asked aloud.

"Got mistaken for a squirrel and tossed out of the tree again," said one of the elven guides, completely unfazed.

I found Glare meditating in front of a carved fire bowl.

He opened one eye, stared dramatically at a wisp of smoke, and whispered, "Balance is an illusion we invent to justify stillness."

I stared at him.

"I haven’t eaten in five hours," he added.

There it is.

The system finally decided to contribute.

[New Local Routine Detected: Flame-Synced Civic Schedule]

[You Are... Not Synced]

[Would You Like to Fake It Until You Make It?]

[Yes] [Also Yes] [Option 3: Pretend This Is A Recon Mission]

I hit Option 3 and mentally saluted myself.

That’s right. I’m not lost. I’m infiltrating.

Of course, this entire thought spiral got immediately shattered when a very calm elf walked up, bowed, and said, "The Archive requests your presence. It believes your shard may benefit from deeper record alignment."

"The Archive?" I asked.

"Our living flame record. The bark holds heat echoes of myth-stable memories."

"I’m sorry," I said, "are you telling me your books are on fire and that’s intentional?"

I ask because we usually call that "an emergency."

"Yes."

System pinged, smug as a kobold with too many pockets.

[Memory Bark Interface Available – Heat-Etched Cultural Layering Detected]

[Risk Level: Mostly Nonfatal]

My favorite system setting, right after "What’s the worst that could happen?"

[Estimated Knowledge Gain: Moderate to Existential]

[This Counts As Studying]

"I swear if this turns into homework," I muttered, but followed anyway.

Because if there’s one thing more terrifying than being left out of elven myth-tech, it’s falling behind on the cultural arms race.

The Archive was not what I expected.

It wasn’t a hall or library or even a temple. It was a tree.

A tree with bark like coiled glass, roots sunk into a shimmering basin of flame-water, and thin etchings spiraling up its trunk like someone had decided "Let’s put every myth we’ve ever recorded here" and then went "But what if we made it pretentious?"

Ten out of ten on the architecture scale. Zero on emotional boundaries.

A flame scribe greeted me with a very solemn bow and offered me a bowl of tea that smelled like melted moss and self-importance. I accepted it because I am polite. I immediately regretted it because it tasted like someone had strained wisdom through bark shavings.

The system pinged gently.

[Welcome to Archive Node: Living Memory Flame Tree]

[Resonance Thread Detected: Kobold Cultural Layer – Variant Spiral Class]

[Engagement Type: Passive Observational Sync]

[Do Not Lick the Bark]

[Seriously]

I wasn’t going to lick the bark.

Probably.

I mean I wasn’t going to. I was thinking about it, but I wasn’t going to.

"You may rest here," the flame scribe said, gesturing toward a bed of woven root mats and humming coals. "It will assist in interpretive alignment."

I sat. The floor hummed under me. My shard started to buzz faintly.

"This is fine," I muttered.

"This is communion," the scribe said.

"Nope, definitely buzzing," I said.

They smiled. "You are processing ancestral resonance."

I narrowed my eyes. "Is ancestral resonance supposed to sound like I’m getting a static ping from an ancient kobold podcast?"

The scribe paused. "...Yes."

Elsewhere in the village, I could hear the distant sounds of squad-based disaster.

Relay’s voice: "Yes, I can carry that! Also that! Also—wait, is that on fire?"

Cinders: "I said pine ash was optional. OPTIONAL."

Flick: "It moved first! That tree was looking at me funny!"

Glare, faintly from a rooftop: "The winds carry secrets."

Tinker: "Stop calling it a ’hot rock’! It’s a dynamic geothermal conductor and I love it!"

I put my face in my hands.

"This is cultural assimilation," I said aloud. "I am deeply uncomfortable."

The Archive pulsed again. A faint spiral of heat flared along a nearby etching.

My shard responded—just slightly—with a tremor in its flame-thread.

Not dangerous. Not overwhelming. Just... noticed.

Like the record itself had glanced at me and gone, "Oh. You’re back."

The system whispered one more line.

[Passive Thread Link: Registered]

[Archive Flame Memory Updating...]

[Tag Applied: Sovereign Observer – Unsorted Culture Layer]

[Congratulations. You Are Now A Footnote.]

Fantastic. My legacy is now one sentence and an asterisk.

The system keeps saying "Sovereign path," but I’m pretty sure it means "exhaustion simulator."

I got up, shook the static out of my fur, and excused myself from the gently vibrating myth tree.

Outside, the air was crisp. Clean. Not deadly.

Which was suspicious.

I turned toward the training fields. Somewhere out there, my squad was either reinventing martial arts or getting arrested for culinary heresy. Possibly both.

Time to supervise.

And by supervise, I mean redirect disaster into only mild catastrophe.

You know.

Like a leader.