System Alert

  Rank up. HP and Mana Increased

  Rank Acquired: Floor 2 Boss.

  Dungeon Skill Acquired: Floor Teleportation.

  It’s amazing how clinical triumph can feel when delivered by a disembodied text box. There was no confetti, no rousing chorus, no pat on the back for a battle well fought. Just a sterile announcement that I was now better, whatever that meant, while Big Chief’s corpse smoldered on the ground.

  I stood slowly, each movement deliberate, as though rushing might shatter something invisible holding me together. My bones clicked faintly in the quiet. Around me, the kobolds hadn’t moved, their eyes wide and unblinking, fixed somewhere between me and what was left of their leader.

  The throne loomed ahead, jagged and oversized, its silhouette cutting into the heavy air of the chamber. I walked toward it without thinking. My steps felt hollow, as if each one echoed in a place I couldn’t see.

  When I reached the throne, I sat.

  The stone pressed against my bones, solid and unyielding, yet not cold. It carried the weight of something older, as though it had been waiting far longer than I had been alive—or undead.

  Big Chief’s body lay crumpled near the center of the room, the remains of something immense, undone. I stared at it for a long time.

  Around me, the silence shifted.

  “Bone King take throne!”

  Grib’s voice broke the stillness, a jarring clash of noise and emotion. He was beaming—beaming—and holding his slime companion aloft as though it were the standard of some great and terrible army.

  The kobolds startled, their heads jerking toward him.

  Grib didn’t care.

  He was already pacing back and forth, a wiry figure radiating undead enthusiasm, his spear clutched in one hand, the slime jiggling enthusiastically in the other. “You see? Big Chief gone! Bone King strongest! You lucky to join us!”

  He emphasized the last word with a sharp stab of his spear into the air.

  Scaly hands gripped spears and clubs tighter as the kobolds exchanged uneasy glances. They were afraid of me. Every last one of them.

  There was something… I don’t even know how to describe it. Unsettling, satisfying, horrifying, powerful. Some mixture of a million different emotions.

  And I hated every second of it.

  Grib didn’t notice—or didn’t care. He strode into their ranks, his voice rising with each word. “You part of Bone King’s army now! Best army in dungeon! No, in world!”

  He thrust the slime at one kobold, who recoiled slightly before recovering, their eyes darting nervously toward the throne.

  “Look!” Grib turned to me, his expression so fervent it almost felt painful to watch. “Bone King is chief now! We win!”

  At first, none of the kobolds moved. They stood frozen, their gazes flickering between Grib and me, their bodies coiled tight with the kind of tension that spoke of fear.

  Then, slowly, one stepped forward.

  Krix.

  He moved like someone wading through deep water, each step hesitant and unsteady, his eyes wide and locked on Big Chief’s remains. His claws trembled faintly as he pointed at the charred body, his voice breaking when he finally spoke.

  “Bone King is Big Chief now,” he said, his words trembling and sharp, as though the act of saying them cut something deep.

  The room shifted again.

  The kobolds murmured to one another, their voices low and quick, like the scrape of dry leaves against stone. Grib, of course, was already declaring victory, his movements a whirlwind of triumphant gestures. The slime jiggled in his hand, a grotesque little mascot for a battle it couldn’t possibly understand.

  Krix stood where he was, staring at me. His eyes were wide, dark with something I couldn’t quite name. Fear. Awe. Resentment. Maybe all three. I met his gaze but said nothing.

  Behind him, Grib was still talking, his words filling the air with a chaotic energy that made everything feel smaller, less grounded. “We strongest! No one stop us! Bone King—Bone King leads us to victory! You see? You all see!”

  The kobolds were caught in the kind of silence that didn’t ask questions. It crouched. Listened. Dared someone to speak first. Their murmurs rose like smoke, uncertain and aimless, ready to vanish the second someone breathed too loud.

  But Krix didn’t speak. Didn’t blink. Didn’t run.

  He just stared at me, eyes sharp, unsure if I was the kind of ruler you kneeled to or the kind you ran from. The tension stretched, thin as wire. Then, quietly and deliberately, he sank to one knee.

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  The room held its breath. The murmurs stilled. And one by one, the others followed.

  Grib whooped, his voice echoing off the chamber walls, and raised the slime high above his head. “Bone King rules!”

  I didn’t react. Just stared past Grib’s cheers, past the kneeling kobolds, back to what was left of Big Chief. The edges of his body were still glowing faintly, like the fire hadn’t quite finished making its point.

  The kobolds stayed where they were—heads bowed, spines stiff, the posture of creatures too afraid to guess wrong.

  Grib’s voice faded into the background. He was still declaring victory like he was narrating a parade I hadn’t agreed to. Something about crushing adventurers. Something about destiny. I wasn’t listening.

  They weren’t kneeling out of loyalty. Not yet.

  Maybe I’d earned their fear. I’d used the power this world gave me, power I didn’t ask for. But it didn’t sit right. Big Chief had ruled with fear. With weight. With threat. That wasn’t me.

  It couldn’t be.

  If I was going to be their king—if that’s what this even was—it wouldn’t be because they thought I could kill them.

  It would be because I didn’t.

  I raised a hand. “Grib,” I said, motioning toward the floor, “get them up.”

  Grib, bless his undead heart, turned to the group and began barking orders with all the grace of a goblin auctioneer. “Up! Bone King says get up! Standing time now! Up, up, up!”

  The kobolds rose slowly, not with purpose, but with the caution of creatures who had learned that standing too fast could get you hurt. Their eyes stayed on me, sharp and uncertain, like they were waiting to see what kind of king I was going to be—cruel, distant, or just another mistake. Grib hovered nearby, barely containing himself, the slime in his arms jiggling like it had already decided this was a parade.

  I stared at them: at their battered weapons, their scarred hides, and their wary postures. They looked like survivors of a war they’d been losing for a very long time. They needed more than orders. They needed something to believe in.

  Unfortunately, the only thing I could think of was how desperately I didn’t want to do this.

  But then, the words came. Fragments of half-remembered speeches from history class, late-night documentaries, and a vague sense of what leaders were supposed to sound like.

  “We choose to defend this dungeon,” I began, my voice louder than I expected, “not because it is easy, but because it is… hard.”

  Grib gasped audibly, holding his slime higher, as if to emphasize the enormity of the declaration.

  One of the kobolds tilted its head in confusion, but the others were starting to pay closer attention.

  “We shall fight the adventurers on the beaches,” I continued, feeling momentum build—before pausing and glancing at Grib. “Wait, do we have beaches?”

  Grib shook his head vigorously. “No beaches, Boss. Just traps and rocks.”

  “Fine. We shall fight them in the corridors, then,” I said. “We shall fight them in the slightly damp corners. We shall fight them where the ceiling drips in that weird, unsettling way that makes you think about cave worms.”

  The kobolds murmured, a few of them nodding in cautious agreement.

  Grib was beaming. “Bone King knows all the places! Good places to fight!”

  “Ask not what your dungeon can do for you,” I said, pointing a skeletal finger at the group, “but what you can do for your dungeon.”

  One of the kobolds blinked. Whispered something to his neighbor—soft, cautious, like testing the water with a toe.

  Another straightened a little, not all at once, just enough to suggest that something in the words had landed.

  The murmurs didn’t break into action. But they shifted. Tilted. As if the room had leaned forward, just slightly, to listen.

  “And what you can do,” I continued, the words finding their own momentum, “is prepare. Adventurers are coming. Stronger and angrier than before. They’ll bring their swords, their spells, their smug faces, and they’ll come for all of us. For this dungeon. For your home.”

  That word—home—hit them differently. The shift was subtle, but I could see it. Shoulders lifted. Eyes narrowed. Clawed hands tightened around weapons.

  “But when they do,” I said, standing now, letting the throne’s jagged edges frame me like a shadow, “they won’t find us cowering. They won’t find us broken. They’ll find us ready. Together, we will make this dungeon stronger than it’s ever been. Together, we will make them regret ever stepping foot in here.”

  Grib howled with delight, his slime quivering in apparent agreement. The kobolds exchanged glances, their uncertainty slowly giving way to something sharper. A few began to nod. One bared their teeth in a silent snarl.

  “And if we fail,” I said, letting the silence stretch before I finished, “at least we’ll make it very inconvenient for them.”

  The room hung quiet for a breath. Then, Krix stepped forward.

  “We… prepare,” he said slowly, his claws trembling but his voice steady. His eyes, wide with fear moments ago, now burned with resolve. He looked back at the others, his gaze fierce. “We make strong. For Bone King.”

  The kobold ranks murmured again, but this time, it was different. Not an anxious rustling caught between instinct and fear, but something firmer. Something edging toward actual resolve.

  A ripple passed through them—claws tightened around weapons, spines straightened, and for the first time, they didn’t look at me like like I was going to incinerate them or that I needed to die.

  It was, dare I say, progress.

  And then there was Grib. Grib, who had officially lost his tiny green mind.

  He took off at a dead sprint, waving his slime like a war banner, his voice climbing higher with each loop around the chamber. “Bone King inspires! Bone King leads! Bone King unstoppable!”

  The slime wobbled in what I could only assume was agreement.

  I sighed (or, at least, made a hollow, rattling attempt at one) and leaned back against the jagged stone of the throne, my bones creaking in protest.

  “Unstoppable,” I muttered under my breath. The word felt dry and brittle.

  But… the kobolds were moving. Talking. Planning.

  Grib was barking orders with the confidence of a tiny, undead Napoleon, his slime jiggling ominously as though it, too, had a strategy. Weapons were being checked. Traps discussed. Even Krix was giving out instructions in a way that didn’t immediately suggest a nervous breakdown.

  And for the first time since waking up dead, I had the unsettling realization that they believed it.

  Maybe I did too.

  The room shifted into something new—a force in motion, rather than just a collection of things waiting to happen. The kobolds scattered, their murmurs rising into a focused hum, and as Grib waved his slime like a divine mandate, I let my head tilt back against the throne, staring up at the uneven ceiling.

  And, of course, right on cue—the system flickered into view, as sharp and indifferent as ever.

  “Congratulations, second floor boss! Your task: Defend the dungeon. Adventurer incursion in 48 hours.”