Building a Kingdom as a Kobold-Chapter 50: The Dungeon Is Bigger, Dumber, And I Hate It

We left Ashring at what I generously decided to call sunrise. There is no sun in the dungeon. There is only oppressive ambient dread.

The squad was excited. I was not.

Relay skipped ahead like a kobold possessed. "First expedition day! We're going to make history!"

"We're going to make a very stupid obituary," I muttered.

Quicktongue waved from the trench gate without even looking up from her reports. Bitterstack just shouted "Good luck!" in the tone of someone absolutely certain I'd need it.

Embergleam's parting words had been, "Do not let any of them lick anything glowing."

I had already failed at life.

The path dissolved into semi-functional dirt five minutes out.

Relay narrated. Loudly.

"We are now officially twelve steps from Ashring!" he called. "Twelve! Thirteen! Fourteen!"

"Shut up," I whispered into my claws.

Flick vanished somewhere by the third turn.

Cinders had already started cooking while walking. "We will dine properly or not at all."

Tinker tripped, recovered, tripped again, and declared, "The ground is unstable. Mark that down."

The system pinged with the same cheerful malice I've come to expect.

[Dungeon Exploration Mode Activated]

[New Biome: Semi-Stable Moss Caverns]

[Warning: Local Fauna May Consider You Edible]

[Optional: Maintain Party Sanity (Low Success Rate)]

I sighed hard enough to shift the air.

The first biome was glowing fungus. Neon blue and sickly green.

Relay gasped like a tourist. "Bioluminescent flora! Rare!"

Tinker poked everything in sight. "This could have extraordinary applications."

Cinders sniffed disdainfully. "Nothing edible."

Glare stood dramatically atop a suspiciously squishy rock. "The dungeon welcomes us. The dungeon mocks us."

Nobody responded.

A pulsating mushroom tried to grab my foot.

"If any of you explode, I am leaving you."

"Does only partially exploding count?" Relay asked hopefully.

I walked faster.

The terrain got worse.

We entered cracked ground with flowing magma under thin glassy stone. Floating rock fragments lazily drifted through the air like smug stone ducks.

Tinker pulled out his golem scanner and immediately declared "Unknown readings! Possibly myth residue! Possibly not! Science!"

Relay sketched wildly. "I will call this biome 'Angry Rock Soup.'"

Flick dropped from the ceiling like a horror. "I was never gone."

"You were gone for an hour."

"Advanced stealth."

I stared at him. "We should have left you."

"You tried. The dungeon wouldn't let me go."

I started walking faster again.

Then we found them.

Massive ruined golems, half-submerged and crumbling, arms raised as if frozen mid-scream toward some unreachable ceiling.

Tinker gasped. "Beautiful."

Relay scribbled furiously. "Ancient Echo Age constructs? Pre-collapse tech? Metaphorical tragedy sculptures?"

I stared flatly. "They're rocks."

Glare whispered, "Someday, we too will crumble."

Cinders banged her spoon on her pot. "If any of you crumble before dinner, I am not feeding your ghosts."

The system pinged smugly again.

[Travel Tip: Companions increase your survival odds.]

[You brought THESE companions?]

[...Good luck.]

I let my head hit the nearest rock. It did not help.

The cavern narrowed. The walls dripped slime. The floor occasionally burped ominously.

So, you know. Normal dungeon travel.

Flick had vanished again. A soft bell jingle echoed somewhere above us.

Relay was sketching dangerous glowing plants while muttering, "For science!"

Cinders was aggressively trying to make stew from rocks and disappointment.

Tinker waved his half-working golem detector in circles. "Myth signature at twenty meters. Or twenty centimeters. Or possibly twenty miles."

Glare stood dramatically in a patch of fog. "The mists swallow our path."

I stopped, threw up my arms, and yelled into the void. "Fine! We'll just keep walking until something kills us, then!"

The system pinged. Cheerful. Useless.

[Party Leadership Detected]

[Strategy Confirmed: Keep Walking Until Something Happens]

[Estimated Success Rate: Slightly Above Zero]

I sighed. "I'll take those odds."

We rounded a corner straight into something bad.

At first glance: clearing.

At second glance: suspiciously still clearing.

At third glance: the "clearing" shifted, quivered, and revealed itself to be a sleeping mound of gelatinous semi-predator nightmare goo.

Flick popped up from behind it. "I found a friend!"

"That is not a friend!" I yelled.

The mound twitched.

We froze.

Relay scribbled. "Possible sub-species of Dungeon Amoeba. Highly unstable."

Tinker adjusted his goggles. "I want to touch it."

"No!" I snapped.

Cinders advanced, spoon held like a war banner. "I've fought worse ingredients."

The mound surged awake.

"RUN!"

Chaos exploded.

Flick somehow ended up riding the monster like a deranged rodeo champion. Relay tripped, recovered, tripped again. Tinker flailed wildly while his scanner pinged [???] over and over. Cinders smacked the creature repeatedly with her spoon yelling, "Get tenderized!"

I had already drawn Sovereign's First Flame.

"Cover your tails!" I snarled. I stabbed the ground. Flames roared, splitting a molten line between us and the slime.

The mound shrieked, retreated into the shadows.

Flick jumped off mid-motion, rolled, and threw both arms up. "Nailed it." freёweɓnovel.com

I stared.

I stared harder.

I started laughing. Not nice laughter. The exhausted, slightly unhinged, "of course that worked" laughter.

"Sure. Why not. I give up. Let's keep going."

The squad looked stunned.

"Really?" Relay blinked. "We're not dead?"

"Not yet."

The system helpfully agreed.

[Event: Random Encounter Survived]

[Squad Survival: Statistically Improbable]

[Advice: Do Not Attempt Again]

I chuckled. "No promises."

We staggered into a narrow stone overhang and collapsed. Safe. Maybe.

The squad immediately failed at basic camp setup. Tent poles fell. Rations spilled. Flick got tangled in the rope and proudly claimed he was "testing emergency restraint protocols."

I let them fumble. I sat apart, stared into my tiny shard of flame, and finally breathed.

Somehow, against logic, against probability, against every law of sanity...

We had made it through Day One.

The system pinged once more.

[Day 1 Complete]

[Squad Morale: Too High To Be Logical]

[Recommended Action: Sleep Before They Break Something Else]

I lay down. The glow of the flame shard flickered warm and sharp in the dark.

"Tomorrow's going to be worse, isn't it?" I whispered.

The shard didn't answer.

I closed my eyes anyway.