Deep in the heart of the caverns, tucked away in an inconspicuous little corner, Tars smoothed out a piece of insect chitin and a small scrap of hide against a dry patch on the cave wall. He then reorganized a length of twine woven from vines. After days of painstaking labor, he was finally on the verge of owning his first piece of clothing. If he could just piece these fragments together, he could finally escape a state of near-total nudity.

  However, the materials would likely only suffice for a pair of shorts.

  He knew this wasn't merely about aesthetics; it would be incredibly useful during hunts. Just imagining himself running freely through the harsh environment while wearing shorts brought a warm surge of contentment to his heart. He had never expected to be so easily satisfied—nor had he ever imagined that a pair of shorts could move him to the brink of tears.

  Steadying his emotions, he pulled out his "sleep manual," though he preferred to call it the "Black Book." He had been suffering from insomnia lately and had happened to stumble upon this tome. Every time he opened it and pored over a few pages, he felt a wave of dizziness. But if he repeated the process a few times, it guaranteed a good night's rest.

  To this day, he hadn't managed to turn past the third page. This wasn't because the book had medicinal properties; sometimes he had to flip through the first two pages seven or eight times just to fall asleep, and lately, it had taken ten or more. He hadn't reached the third page because the book seemed to be stuck. Despite its thickness, the subsequent pages wouldn't budge no matter how hard he tried. Of course, this didn't bother him much—he couldn't understand the text or the diagrams anyway.

  He scratched at the messy hair behind his ear, caught a mischievous little louse, and popped it into his mouth. "It's been itching like crazy lately; I knew there were bugs..." he muttered under his breath.

  With his fur falling out and the appearance of lice, he felt he was finally becoming a truly qualified kobold.

  This brief interlude interrupted his reading. He adjusted his posture to get more comfortable, brushed away two annoying little pebbles from beneath him, and refocused his attention. The second page of the book featured a single pattern that occupied the entire page. If he stared at it long enough, the design seemed to come alive, shimmering and vibrating before his eyes.

  This time, he completely lost count of how many times he had looked at it. Eventually, the dizziness reached its peak. He closed the book, stopped resisting, and tucked it under his head. The thick volume made for a perfect pillow.

  A moment later, a rhythmic series of long and short snores echoed through the empty cavern.

  He dreamed.

  He found himself in a restaurant that felt strangely familiar. The delicacies on the menu made his mouth water, and his eyes darted up, down, left, and right, unable to take it all in at once.

  "Serve the food! Serve it! Hurry up!" he shouted, sitting at a table. His simple urging gradually turned into a furious roar, as if the rage of the entire world was surging into his heart.

  His appearance began to shift—first his skin wrinkled, then thin brown fur sprouted; his nose lengthened, and his stature began to shrink. All kobolds look like this; nothing strange about it, he thought.

  The simple, old restaurant table transformed into a solemn, heavy mahogany dining table adorned with elegant, curved patterns. He slammed his fist against the surface, producing a dull thud-thud.

  Finally, the food arrived. Two plates.

  The dishes were set before him, but he couldn't quite see what was on them. He lowered his head, craned his neck, and tried his absolute best, squinting like a dog. On the left plate lay a black book; on the right plate lay a pair of shorts stitched from insect chitin and scraps of leather.

  He jolted awake.

  Gasping for air, he sat up and looked around blankly, then raised his eyebrows and slumped back to the ground with a heavy thud.

  Grumble! His stomach growled right on cue, as if afraid it would feel lonely. Another bad night's sleep, he thought.

  Propping himself up with his arms, he glanced sideways at the items neatly arranged in a wall niche. They looked like an exhibition, a row of gleaming medals. In the early days of his insomnia, whenever he woke from a forced nap, he would often forget he was a kobold. Sometimes he would fall into strange philosophical traps. For instance: had he become a kobold now, or was he still himself? Was he truly living in this bizarre world, or was it all just one long dream?

  Only when his stomach growled would he nod firmly. He was still himself.

  He looked at the objects on the wall and decided to postpone his plan. He needed to find one more shell or scrap of hide to bring his work to perfection. With enough quality materials, he could almost craft it as a suit of armor.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Grumble—

  Rubbing his belly, he stood up and grabbed a long staff tipped with a fixed beast fang. On his short legs, he carefully navigated the twisting paths out of his hidden lair. As he walked, he adjusted the tattered grass skirt around his waist; this old friend would have to accompany him a little longer. He privately cursed his habit of wanting to make everything perfect in one go—it was exhausting.

  Kobolds didn't have clocks; they measured time with their stomachs and other peculiar habits. For example, they would gather for a tribal hunt after feeling hungry three times. In this region, most kobolds were hunters—provided they didn't act alone. The transition between hunter and prey was entirely natural; a lone kobold was, at best, a walking, shedding, foul-smelling hunk of meat.

  Tars looked at his skeletal arms. Even among the diminutive kobolds, he was the scrawniest of the lot, like a malnourished child. After participating in two tribal hunts, he had never gone back. A kobold as weak as he was was viewed as useless and was often used as mere bait.

  In tribal hunts, bait served two purposes: standard luring of prey, or emergency distraction. If an unexpected subterranean beast intruded mid-hunt, a "bait" was needed to lead the interloper away to ensure the hunt's success. Theoretically, if the bait survived, they were supposed to receive a larger share of the spoils.

  But that was only in theory. Kobolds were not kind or loving creatures. Sometimes they even cheered at the death of the bait because it meant fewer shares of food to distribute. Besides, Kobolds were never stingy with their fists when it came to weaker kin. So, from then on, he stayed far away and solved his food problems through sheer persistence.

  The small and weak had their own way of surviving. Fortunately, life had improved significantly of late.

  He quietly approached an exit that few Kobolds frequented. This territory was a labyrinth of caves and pits, with intersecting tunnels of staggering scale—otherwise, he could never have maintained a quiet nest. What the Kobolds called "going out to hunt" was merely traveling from this cluster of small caves to a larger, more open underground space. That was the Kobold hunting grounds—a massive subterranean world where tall, spindle-shaped mushrooms stood like giant trees in the distance.

  Naturally, Tars didn't dare go there; that was only for tribal hunts. Like a thief, he slipped out quietly with his staff. To be honest, he didn't even know how many exits there were, and he was certain the other Kobolds didn't know either. Those brutes' brains were more animal than human; they couldn't even speak in long sentences, and describing a simple event was a struggle for them. The only human trait they possessed was the ability to hold a grudge.

  After walking a distance, he looked back. Seeing no sign of the three loathsome figures he hated, he breathed a sigh of relief. Feeling the mud beneath his feet, his short legs hurried along as he tried to remain silent. He only dared to make a living in this immediate vicinity.

  Every direction, every sound—big or small—made the hair on the back of his neck fall out from tension. He had to judge whether to stay still and wait or flee as fast as possible. Tars had his dog-eyes to thank; they could see well enough in the dark that he wasn't completely blind.

  He carefully made his way to a small ravine. This was his secret granary. He picked up a withered leaf, went into the ravine, and used the beast fang on his staff to cut his palm, lightly smearing the blood onto the leaf. He then aimed for a shallow pit and, based on experience, placed the leaf in a prime spot—ideally between two adjacent pits. Then, he began the patient wait.

  These strange shallow pits contained one to three arm-thick white larvae. They were plump, juicy, and extremely delicious. Raw, the meat was thick and hard to swallow, but if tossed into a hot spring for a quick boil, it became firm and chewy. Unfortunately, the fat grubs didn't provide any crafting materials.

  As far as he knew, these fat white larvae had begun appearing all over the Kobold hunting grounds. Many Kobolds were sneaking out to catch them instead of participating in tribal hunts. The fat grubs were slowly changing the Kobold hunting habits. The primary reason they had become the top food choice was the lack of danger; no one had ever seen the adult insect that laid them. There were only the shallow pits left behind, which hardly qualified as nests.

  Clutching his staff, he lay flat on the ground, eyes fixed on the pit. The difficulty in catching these grubs was patience; one had to lure the insect out of its hole. The pits were filled with a white substance. When startled, the grubs would frantically spit. Their saliva quickly fused with the white substance into a large mass that turned incredibly tough. With his spindly limbs, he could beat on it until he was exhausted and still not break it open.

  He had paused his clothing project partly because he was eyeing this material. It was a natural armor material—malleable yet hard. The only problem was the smell. Once smeared with the grub's saliva, it emitted a peculiar, lingering fragrance that made one's appetite soar. Not only could he barely stand it himself, but wearing it might attract wandering subterranean beasts.

  After a long wait came the beautiful moment of harvest. He happily shouldered his staff, his footsteps feeling light. Two fat grubs were skewered on the end. If he rationed them, they would last a long time.

  Even though this place wasn't far from the Kobold cave clusters and hadn't even reached the main hunting grounds, he never lingered. In his memory, that ravine hadn't even existed a while ago, let alone the grubs inside it. He felt a deep-seated resistance to the place, so he worked hard to be a properly cowardly Kobold.

  Tars took care the whole way back and returned safely to his nest—though "safety" was a relative term here. During his walk through the cave clusters, he guessed that many of the tribe members were out, as the journey was very smooth and he didn't encounter a single annoying person. Perhaps the grubs were so easy to catch that no one wanted to loiter in the caves or play highwayman anymore.

  First, he untied the cord at his chest and removed the Sleep Manual from his back. A sturdy, flat, thick book that was waterproof... what else could it be? Naturally, it was a fine plate.

  He was simply too hungry—exhausted and starving, he decided to eat this meal raw and worry about the flavor next time.

  He set to work, slicing the meat with delight and eating with even greater relish.

  He began to hum a cheerful little tune under his breath, acting for all the world as if he weren't just a kobold sitting in a jagged hole in the wall, using a book as a dinner plate. He was currently savoring one of the perks of being a kobold: a "qualified" kobold instinctively ignores the slimy texture and acrid tang of raw insect meat. With the very first bite, he felt an immediate, soothing relief spread through his stomach.