The sound of goblins and kobolds bustling around the camp woke me up and I wiped my eyes to get rid of some of my sleepiness. As I was doing this I felt a weird weight on me that I wasn’t used to when I remembered that I had fallen asleep cuddled with Val which caused my heart to ache a little. Hearing her say that she felt safe around me had realised that my feelings for her had grown past a simple crush.

Unfortunately I didn’t feel right telling her how I felt as while I was helping her transition I held a power over her that might make her feel obligated to return my feelings. Even if that didn’t happen if she turned me down then our friendship would become awkward and I was scared to ruin what we had going. I slowly got up so as to not wake her up and went to get breakfast but no matter how much I tried to ignore it my mind kept on returning to her.

Eventually I ran out of things to try to distract myself with so I decided to get to work on building up the dungeon but I needed to evolve my E rank monsters so that I could keep on using them. It didn’t take me long to find out how to evolve my monsters and on paper it was rather easy. I would need to use ten thousand points per tier of monster to open an evolution trial.

These were simulations where I would have to complete a specific task related to the monster I am attempting to evolve. I wouldn’t die if I failed but I would have to pay the cost again and I would lose all of my progress so it would be best to succeed on my first try. While I was going through the mental monster encyclopaedia I also found out that slimes had multiple routes they could take when evolving.

One of these included a line that would let them keep their elemental magic and even make it stronger while also giving them stronger defences so I added them to the list of monsters I wanted to evolve. The Oozes might work for their job but I wanted to have a variant that kept their magical powers. I still planned on using Oozes; they just weren’t versatile enough to fill all of the roles I need them to fill. 

Luckily I only had to go through one trial to evolve all the patterns in the monster family otherwise it would get incredibly expensive very quickly considering I had eighteen e rank patterns in total, half of which were the various slime patterns. With this in mind I spent a minute thinking about which trial I wanted to take first, eventually just choosing the kobolds on a whim immediately thinking system open evolution trial for Kobolds.

I had already made up my mind so as soon as I saw the screen pop up in front of me I sent a mental confirmation to the system as everything around me went dark and I lost consciousness.

I awoke to find myself in a pile of my sleeping brothers and sisters as I did every morning except something was different, for some reason a weird blue screen was floating in front of me. It had a bunch of symbols covering it that I didn’t recognise but could somehow still understand the meaning of, not that that helped dispel my confusion.

The only thing I could glean from the weird screen was that if I somehow defeated the wyvern that controlled us that we would reach the next stage of our evolution. But how were we supposed to do that? We were just lowly kobolds and our master could kill hundreds of us with a single breath of fire. Even if every one of my brothers and sisters joined me to rise up, which I sincerely doubt would ever happen, I doubt we would be able to leave a scratch on master’s hide.

That wasn’t to say that I didn’t want to do as the weird screen says, I long for the day where I didn’t have to worry about getting roasted for just tripping on a rock or getting eaten because our wyvern overload felt a bit peckish and couldn’t wait for someone to bring him some food. I also didn’t know what a day was, I was familiar with the passage of time to know that it was a measurement of time but I had never experienced a day.

In the end I couldn’t just sit here like an idiot forever so I decided that no amount of promises was worth dying for and the best course of action was to just ignore it. With my decision made for now I got up and quickly got to work, today I was to go down the mine so that our master’s hoard of gold could grow ever larger.

It was gruelling work but it was far away from our master so I was less likely to die than the poor wretches that had to attend to his every whim. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone last longer than a week. As I got up my movement woke up the rest of the sleeping pile and they slowly got up and went to do their jobs. I kept an eye on them as I slowly walked to where we stored the food but no one acted weirdly so I guessed that I was the only one to get the weird message.

Breakfast was some giant scorpions we had come across yesterday while mining. We had needed twenty warriors to bring them all down but the spoils were enough to feed all of us for a day and it was a nice treat to be able to eat some meat instead of the mushrooms our farmers grew. I quickly scoffed down my portion of meat and grabbed a pickaxe before making my way down the mine, getting to the last uncovered vein of gold after about ten minutes of walking.

The day then passed quickly as it usually does, swinging a pickaxe being incredibly boring meant that I just zoned out until I noticed the others starting the trek back up. I looked down to my pile of ore to see that I had a good armful, it should be enough to satisfy our master. Picking it up I joined the line of miners going back up, eventually getting to the hoard where our master lay, watching us to make sure that our daily offerings were enough.

As I waited in line for my turn I noticed one of my brood sisters in front of me shaking like a pebble. I was confused at first until I managed to crane my neck far enough to see that all the gold she carried fit in one of her tiny hands, causing a pit in my stomach. I had seen plenty of my siblings walk to their death before without feeling anything but for some reason I felt a need in me to go over to her and give some of my gold.

I would have if I wasn’t terrified that stepping out of line would do nothing except make me join her in the afterlife so I just stood in line hoping that our master would spare her. I knew that my hope was unfounded as I had never seen the giant wyvern ever shown mercy in the few years that I have lived. Twenty minutes later I was proven right as when my sister placed the poultry pile of ore down and turned to leave the terrifying wyvern’s head rose as he roared

‘What is this? Do you think such an insignificant offering is enough for me?’ This caused my sister to stop in her tracks and turn back around, her shaking now growing tenfold as she stuttered out a plea ‘Please spare me oh magnificent one, the vein is starting to shrink and I didn’t manage to get there early enough to find a good area to mine. That is all I gathered all day, I have nothing more to give.’

‘I do not care for your pathetic excuses, if you had put in more effort then you would have gathered more gold.’ The tyrannical wyvern roared back causing my sister to start crying as she backed up in an effort to get as far away from her impending doom as she could. Unfortunately it would never be enough as the wyvern continued ‘Since you cannot be bothered to put in the same amount of effort as your siblings I have no need for you.’

At this the wyvern opened his massive maw before jumping at the pleading kobold and closing it around her. He just swallowed without even chewing and immediately went back to laying on top of his hoard as if nothing happened. After a few seconds everyone else went back to depositing their daily offering but something inside of me had changed. Before today every time I had seen this I had felt nothing, a total indifference to my fellow kobolds.

Now though a mixture of new emotions were creating a storm in my body. One of them was terrified at the prospect that one day it might be me who got unlucky and couldn’t mine enough to live another day and end up like my late sister. There were a few others that I couldn’t quite understand but the main one was fury, fury at seeing one of my kin die at this bastard's hands.

Fury at seeing the bastard spit on our effort to live another day. Why should we toil for it without anything in return? For safety? How is being eaten just because we had one slightly unproductive day safe! We were the ones that had to deal with the giant scorpions without any help from our oh so magnanimous protector. What about because it is better than us in every way? How is what I just watched worthy of worship!

More thoughts like that ran through my head as I left my offering on the pile and ended up back on my sleeping pile without even realising that. I went to sleep that night dreaming of revolution and what life would be like if we were free to live as we wished. The next morning I awoke to find the weird screen still there the same as ever but the timer had gone down to 6 days, telling me what a day was.

This time instead of ignoring it I accepted its words which changed something as it immediately disappeared. At the same time I felt strange information go through my brain that I didn’t know where it came from but I instantly used it to conjure a new screen.

Looking over this new screen I somehow understood that it was showing me what I was capable of doing. Everything looked as I expected it to until I reached my skills, apparently I could cast spells. Not only that, but I could use fire magic, something that, supposedly, only our master is capable of doing. I looked around and realised that I was still in the sleeping chambers and I couldn’t risk anyone finding out about this before I was ready to start recruiting fellow revolutionaries.

With this in mind I made my way towards breakfast but before I got there I went into one of our old rooms that no one used anymore to practise my new abilities. First I tried to cast a simple fire spell and at first I was worried that I had no idea what to do but once again information flooded into my head as a small, flickering flame appeared just above my fingertip.

Elation flooded my body and for a second I forgot where I was as I let out a quiet giggle, I now had made the first step to freedom. I quickly calmed myself down as I went about seeing exactly what I could do, I only had a small amount of time before I would have to go down to the mines so that I could gather enough ore to live another day.

The first thing I did was pour as much mana as I could into the flame and it instantly grew until it was as big as my head. I wasn’t done yet though as I then channelled [Empowered Spell] into the flame and it doubled in size again. Unfortunately I realised too late that I had lost control of the spell and had to throw it to the other side of the room.

A huge explosion went off as I watched the whole room be engulfed in flame in slow motion as I realised that my hubris had just killed me. A part of my subconscious instinctively made my hands raise up and my eyes closed as I felt mana leave me, not that I was paying attention anymore. A few seconds later I realised I was still alive as I slowly opened my eyes to see my body covered by a weird red shield.

I looked over my body and I had definitely been hurt by the spell, especially since my HP had gone down by almost 50 points, but I was still alive somehow. This realisation caused another fit of giggles to course through me until I was able to get a hold of myself, someone had definitely heard that and would be coming to find out what was going on.

I couldn’t let this happen so I quickly got the soot out of my scales and made my way to breakfast. Today we were back to the bland mushrooms that were only good for filling my belly and nothing more. I quickly scoffed it down since there was nothing to savour and made my way down the mines.

Unlike yesterday, instead of losing myself in boredom I thought of how exactly I was going to convince enough people to join me in this revolution while keeping an eye on how much ore I had managed to excavate. As soon as I felt like I had gathered enough to satisfy the wyvern bastard I made an excuse about being ill before making a quick escape back up to the main cavern.

Thanks to what I had learned earlier that day I was energised more than normal so I had managed to gather enough ore with about an hour to spare. I didn’t know if it would be enough for what I needed but I would just have to make it enough. With this in mind I left the ore in the room I had exploded that morning before making my way to the barracks where the soldiers stayed on alert in case we were attacked.

The kobold at the front instantly stood on alert as I came up to them but I quickly told them that nothing needed their attention, I was just there to see one of my brood brothers. This made them calm down but still looked at me with suspicion, we usually never had enough time to do anything other than what we were told to do by our overlord.

Once I was in I quickly found one of my brood brothers that had been enlisted into the guard sparring with another warrior. Once they had finished I walked over to him and tapped on his shoulder to get his attention ‘Hey, I need to talk to you in private. Follow me.’ I then quickly found a room that wasn’t being used, closed the door and immediately dropped the façade.

‘Did you see what happened yesterday?’ I asked, all I got in return was a shake of his head so I continued explaining the situation. ‘One of our sisters that worked in the mine with me didn’t manage to get enough ore so our overlord ate her. Seeing it made me realise that I can’t do this anymore, we have to do something before we end up becoming dinner ourselves.’

At this my brother looked shocked as he looked around to double check that no one was in the room, ‘What do you mean? We can’t do anything, if we try we will just end up getting crushed under his claws.’

‘Maybe, but I think it is worth the risk.’ I replied, trying to look as confident as I could even though I was also doubting myself. ‘I think we are more powerful than we have been told. I recently found out that I have magical abilities.’ At this I snapped my fingers and a flame appeared between us. ‘We can do this.’

As I said this something changed in my brother’s eyes as he stared entranced at the small flame ‘You have power over fire? That is supposed to be impossible for anything less than draconic.’ He gulped as he thought over everything. ‘Look, I won’t tell anyone what you are planning but I need to think about this before I give you my answer.’