Confident? Perhaps.

  As he thought about it, he realized he truly was stronger than when they had first met. He was safer now, his heart grounded by a growing foundation: first, his Fetid Skin had been field-tested against a fifth-level apprentice; then there was the Abyssal Bedroom space that offered a perfect retreat and was currently stockpiled with fruit, insect meat, and dragon blood; and finally, he possessed a Demon Die he had never truly used—a final gamble to be cast in a life-or-death crisis.

  Hearing the elf say it, he suddenly realized he had indeed come quite a far way. Compared to their last meeting, he had mastered more spells and wielded them with far greater proficiency.

  Yet, his long-standing timidity—or rather, his caution—was not something he could easily discard. He viewed it as a virtue, a collection of precious survival experiences forged during his time as a weak, helpless kobold bullied by his own kin, treading as if on thin ice.

  "My friends call me Tars. You may do the same. I apologize for not introducing myself properly last time," Tars said graciously.

  "Friends? Does that include those kobolds?" the elf teased with a smile.

  It seemed that in the eyes of a wizard, befriending a pack of kobolds was a baffling concept.

  "No, no, do not be so narrow-minded. Friendship is precious; do not restrict its scope," he said, and with a flick of his hand, he produced a spellbook. "Even this—a spell—is my friend. It is something I treasure. Learning and casting a spell is a form of communication. As a wizard, do not let your thoughts be shackled. Even the grass and trees here could be our friends."

  Clap, clap, clap! The elf actually began to applaud.

  The little kobold lifted his chin with a touch of pride.

  "A fine perspective. I think you are suited for studying Mind Spells; those fellows are all quite eccentric," the wizard apprentice said with a smile. "You may call me Kanaya. As for my full name, I didn't even manage to memorize the whole thing until I was five."

  Hearing Kanaya speak, Tars immediately thought of the various legends regarding long-lived races. Curiosity urged him to pry—he was dying to know exactly how old the elf before him was—but he managed to bite his tongue.

  "I wish to invite you—though you are free to refuse, as playing the kobold here may be important to you, so do not fear being rude to me—" Kanaya began.

  "I accept your invitation," Tars interjected.

  As he spoke, he glanced at the tunnel behind Kanaya. The half-man stood there, though when he had arrived was a mystery. He gave a slight nod of acknowledgment to Tars and then slowly faded away. Simultaneously, the half-man's voice reached him through a secret transmission, urging him to accept the elf's offer.

  "You haven't even heard what I want you to do," the elf said.

  "Then, what are you inviting me to do? And what is the reward?" Tars asked solemnly.

  The elf didn't answer immediately. Instead, she looked him up and down once more. Then, she turned and started walking toward a distant tunnel.

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  "I'm inviting you to explore that city with me, though there is no reward," she said as she walked. "Follow if you wish. The city is beginning to manifest, and that little insectoid must be nearby. I originally planned to find some kobolds to use as fodder and bring you along since you speak their language; I would have paid you appropriately. But since you consider them 'friends,' I won't send them to their deaths. I'll just spend some mana stones to hire those obnoxious lizardman mercenaries."

  Tars froze for a moment. It turned out that he wasn't the one with the value—it was his language skills. He broke into a trot to catch up with her.

  "What's the going rate for a hundred kobolds? Can they be traded for books of magical knowledge?" he tried to ask.

  "You can get some mana stones for them," the elf replied without looking back.

  Tars didn't follow up. He sighed inwardly; kobolds really weren't worth much at all.

  The two of them wound through the tunnels, maintaining a brisk pace. Tars's mood remained bright. He felt he was finally achieving his old dreams—venturing into the deep caves he had longed to explore back when he was cautiously scavenging for scraps. Back then, he had wondered where these interconnected paths led, wishing for the strength to follow them to their ends.

  By the time he had refreshed his defensive spells twice, his head was spinning from the complexity of the route. Up ahead, a glow appeared. As they drew closer, he saw a dying campfire.

  "Keep up. If you fall behind, you're on your own."

  She pulled an object from her robe and tossed it into the embers. The flickering flames suddenly roared to the height of a man. She led Tars in a direct charge through the fire. He instinctively squeezed his eyes shut as a wave of dizziness washed over him—a sensation he recognized from crossing through his own spatial door.

  When he opened his eyes, the world had opened up.

  They were in a colossal, sprawling underground chamber. Nearby, there was a small camp guarded by lizardmen, with people moving in and out.

  But what truly stole his breath was the bottomless pit in the distance. The scale of the chasm was immense, easily rivaling a kobold hunting ground that would take days to cross. His eyes couldn't even find the far edge. They stood on the rim of the abyss, and floating directly above the center was an ethereal, ghostly city. The faint light radiating from the city was the only thing that allowed him to grasp the staggering magnitude of the pit. Countless tunnel entrances ringed their location, and he assumed the distant, blurry walls were lined with rows of identical openings. Perhaps one of them led straight back to the Red-Horn Tribe of the Kobold King.

  A familiar figure sat by a nearby campfire. Tars had suspected it might be him the moment they crossed the flames: the wizard apprentice whose roasting skills were nothing short of divine.

  "We meet again," the man said, poking at the fire.

  As Tars had noticed during their first encounter, this man rarely looked away from the flames, whether speaking or eating, as if the fire were a gentle lover.

  "The fire is his friend. To use your words, you've settled a confusion I've had for years," the elf said, sitting down by the fire.

  "Thank you for the hospitality last time. The flavor was absolutely delicious," Tars praised as he took a seat.

  In the distance, people entered the lizardman-guarded camp, while others, like the three of them, chose to rest in secluded spots. To his surprise, these people all appeared to be wizard apprentices. The "backyard" of his little kobold paradise had turned into this. He even saw several apprentices flanked by guards clad in armor and carrying swords.

  "That detestable fellow really knows how to earn mana stones, bringing his business to a place like this..." the elf muttered, glancing toward the lizardman camp.

  "Don't grumble, Kanaya. We should all be grateful to him, even if he is revolting. He's a natural freak, not a magical modification—oh, I wasn't talking about you," the Fire Guy said.

  Tars chuckled and shrugged, signaling he didn't mind.

  "He's the one who forced the growth and breeding of so many lizardmen in every sector to consume those insects," Fire Guy continued. "Otherwise, it would be even harder for us to find that little insectoid."

  As Tars listened, the realization hit him like a physical blow.

  He hadn't stopped starving because of luck. It was because of the little insectoid—the countless "aunts" and "cousins" of that little crybaby bug. Those elder insectoids, in an effort to hide the little one, had joined forces to cast a secret art that simultaneously seeded every corner of the tunnels with those dim-witted fat meat-maggots.

  The only reason he hadn't starved to death back then was that these wizard apprentices were hunting an insectoid.