Building a Kingdom as a Kobold-Chapter 83: There’s Smoke Over That Village. Let’s Go Find Out Why

Chapter 83: There’s Smoke Over That Village. Let’s Go Find Out Why

The trail bent left through a notch of half-dead pine and kept going down. I didn’t like it. Too quiet, too worn. Nothing recent had passed through—no carts, no patrol marks, no runner tags on the bark.

We were still a half-day from the village when Glare caught up.

"You slowed," he said.

"I was thinking."

"Did it help?"

"No."

He grunted and fell into step beside me. We didn’t talk for a while after that. The trees thinned the closer we got. I could see smoke ahead—low, not urgent. Cooking fire, maybe. Or not.

The village had pinged the Guild three days ago with a flagged assistance request. Nothing unusual in the wording—light beast activity, supply line disruptions, possible leftover ruin effects—but the syntax caught my eye.

That wasn’t enough to scream crisis. But it wasn’t nothing. So I packed my gear, tapped Glare on the shoulder, and we left.

He hadn’t asked where we were going. Just nodded and brought extra water.

Since the rune, I’d kept moving. Not for glory. Not for some sense of rising urgency. Just because it felt worse to stop. Every time I slowed down, the spiral came back in my head. Every time I tried to sleep near stone, I heard mimic claws on old floorboards that weren’t there anymore.

So I moved. Talked to one village. Then another. Then helped a guild runner unclog a road that had collapsed from wet soil and lazy carpentry. It wasn’t myth-worthy. But it was something.

Glare had been making rounds too.

"Should be another two turns," he said, glancing ahead. "The village is nestled low, past that outcrop."

We came around the bend.

I stopped.

The smoke wasn’t low.

It was rising fast—thick, grey, not from hearths or cook pits.

And there was shouting.

Not frantic. Not screams.

Commanded.

I dropped the pack and ran.

Glare followed without comment.

The first thing I saw when we broke the trees was a kid with a broken spear trying to jab at something big and fast, all fur and claws.

Glare surged ahead. I pulled a length of cord from my side satchel, looped it over a broken support beam, and vaulted to flank the creature. It turned. I jammed a collapsed grain fork into the side of its leg and kicked until it stopped moving.

The kid stared. I handed him the spear back. He looked at it like it had never belonged to him.

"Back inside," I said. "Help the others. Don’t run unless someone tells you to."

He nodded and bolted.

More beasts—two, maybe three—were circling the far end of the village. Smaller than the first one, but faster. Snapping at fire markers, leaping through gaps.

Someone was trying to keep them out.

They weren’t winning.

I skirted the edge of a collapsed grain shed and waved Glare toward the left side. He lit a spell with his palm—sharp burn flash, a dark ring cast quick and dirty—and corralled one of the smaller beasts into a choke zone near a half-broken wall.

I found a chunk of old roofing tile and embedded it into the back of a second creature’s neck when it tried to jump the barricade.

That was when I saw them.

Not monsters.

People.

Familiar shapes, maybe too familiar.

One moved like Quicktongue. Not the same weapon, not the same look, but the pacing matched. Short feints, long circle arcs, disruption focus. The second reminded me of Splitjaw—brute tempo, shoulder rushes, foot anchor strikes.

But it wasn’t them.

I watched them move. They copied the style. But they missed the weight.

Quicktongue always leaves an exit point. This one boxed itself in.

Splitjaw never starts low. This one opened from a crouch.

Imitations.

Not illusions. Not specters.

Imitations.

One turned toward me. Didn’t say anything. Didn’t blink.

Just ran.

I pulled a fire baton from my pack and slammed it into the dirt, breaking the cap. A plume of heat flared out, driving the figure back.

It staggered. Not from pain.

From hesitation.

I charged.

We clashed near the east garden gate—half-trampled rows of root vegetables underfoot. It moved fast. Blocked with a hooked blade, went for my side. I caught its forearm and redirected the strike with the flat of my own blade, then kicked its shin and twisted.

The fake went down.

Didn’t cry out. Didn’t bleed red.

Just hissed low and tried to bite.

I ended it with a clean pierce.

It stopped moving.

Just... a corpse now.

I didn’t linger.

"Glare!" I called. "Two more! South fence!"

He answered with a flashburst, then another. The ring flared brighter. The field was holding.

But not for long.

We pulled back toward the center.

And that’s when the beam cracked over my head. I barely got my arm up. It glanced off, clipped my shoulder. I went down hard.

The next one would’ve finished it.

But it didn’t come.

Steel rang. A second impact. Someone stepped over me.

I looked up.

It was him.

No words. Just a short nod, and then he turned to face the line. Sword out, posture quiet, weight forward.

The Hero had arrived.

I pulled myself up. Shoulder screamed. I moved anyway.

He covered the flank. I cut a fire arc through the ground, buying Glare space to stabilize a third ring.

We didn’t speak.

We just worked.

The Hero didn’t need commands.

He moved like someone who’d already fought this fight a hundred times in his head and was just filling in the blanks. His sword swept low, clipped a lunging beast, pivoted on his heel, and dragged the blade up in one fluid motion—ending the next threat before it could grow teeth.

Glare and I kept pace.

The remaining monsters were smarter—or just more cautious. They circled wider now, probing for gaps. And the imitations—whoever or whatever shaped them—stayed at the edge of the field, flickering through the smoke like unfinished thoughts.

One of them darted through the ashcloud, went for Glare’s back. I shouted. He turned a heartbeat too late.

The Hero intercepted.

His shoulder caught the fake mid-lunge, and the two of them tumbled through the loose gravel between huts. He didn’t hesitate. Rolled, pinned the figure under him, and drove his blade clean into its sternum.

The Hero jumped back, sword already dragging into a backcut that severed its spine.

He looked at me.

"They’re not illusions."

"I know."

"But they’re not people, either."

"I know that too."

Then I pointed. "Three more—north corridor."

We split again.

I charged the closest—one moving like Embergleam, but heavier. Less grace. I swept low, faked a retreat, drew it past a burned awning.

Glare flared another burst behind it, blinding flash. I came in from the side, elbowed its jaw, hooked its leg. The thing fell hard, and I pinned it long enough to slam a forged seal ring over its skull.

No reaction.

I didn’t give it time.

Pressed the seal, forced it to lock. One more gone.

Around us, the village trembled.

Huts smoldered. Two storehouses had collapsed under the pressure of stray strikes and ruptured glyph lines. Fire crews—barely organized—kept throwing water into the wrong places.

"Break lines!" I shouted. "Don’t chase! Secure the ring!"

The Hero grabbed a nearby spear from a dropped stand and hurled it clean through the torso of one fake-kobold approaching a retreating group of villagers. Perfect shot. No hesitation.

Glare hit the field node with both palms. The stabilizers flared. One containment ring finally locked in—flame up to waist height, enough to halt movement through the center.

I regrouped near the main well. It was cracked. But water still ran.

The Hero met me there.

"They’re thinning."

I nodded. "Or they’re testing."

A low shriek echoed across the southern slope.

Then silence.

Then...

Footsteps.

Not from the trees. From below.

We turned at the same time.

The ground near the old training patch buckled—like something underneath the earth decided to remember how to climb.

A fake with ash-colored scales rose from the pit. Taller than me. Taller than the Hero. Its arms were shaped wrong—bent like tools, not limbs. Its back held an unfinished spiral made of warped blackstone.

I blinked.

It wasn’t just mimicking us.

It was trying to merge us.

Ashring form. Hero posture. All clashing.

Glare moved first. Fired a twin burst to blind. The Hero flanked right. I sprinted left, angled for the back line.

My palm flared.

The thing shrieked again—this time with intent.

It moved fast. Swung its tool-arm into Glare’s ribs. He grunted, rolled, caught himself on a stone bench and triggered a fallback ward.

The Hero sliced its left leg, but the blade didn’t sink deep. Too much false density.

I grabbed the arm. Yanked back.

Felt it strain.

Felt it bend.

Then the Hero’s blade swept from behind me, down, into the chestplate ridge.

It cracked.

Just a hairline.

But enough.

I let go.

He twisted the sword. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom

The construct began to hum—low frequency, close to mimic pitch.

"Nope," I muttered.

I dropped the mark onto its chest and stepped back.

Then I lit it.

The glyph flared.

Didn’t burn.

It disassembled.

A slow shiver. Each piece folding inward. Each sound turning inward. It didn’t die. It unraveled.

Glare stood. Blood on his mouth. But standing.

"Village secured," he said.

"Not yet," the Hero replied. "There’ll be more."

"Later," I said. "Not now."

The Hero looked at me, unreadable.

I looked past him. Saw the villagers start gathering.

Saw a kid holding an old pot like a weapon.

Saw someone clutching their chest where a fake had struck—breathing, alive.

Saw no more smoke.

Just steam, rising soft from the broken wells and doused fields.

"We handle the now," I said.

They nodded.

And that was that.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢