ALL NOVEL Chapter 60 – Six Steps to Success
I ended up wandering aimlessly for a while, unsure what to do. I didn’t really have a plan. Yes, I wanted to become a god, but even in my last life, I wanted to be a god. I also wanted to be a musician, a writer, a mad scientist, a handyman, and so many other things. That might also explain why I had been more of a jack-of-all-trades rather than a master at any one particular thing.
I had been a talented amateur artist but wasn’t likely to succeed professionally. I even made thousands of dollars out of that hobby. I did the same with writing. While I didn’t make thousands off my handyman skills, those skills did save me thousands when I had to remodel my house. I ended up doing an okay job at most things I tried. However, despite the different hobbies I tried, I was never able to find anything that could replace the tedious, mind-numbing jobs I had to do.
One of those jobs had been teaching. It had destroyed my faith in humanity. Well, that and politics and bureaucracy. It felt like I was always surrounded by hypocritical idiots who thought they were smart, while everyone else was stupid. Also, there were businesses and their commercials. Oh, my goodness, the people who made the commercials obviously thought people were stupid. They blatantly manipulated the truth. I was so tired of humanity. Then again, maybe that was why I had reincarnated as something other than human.
Still, in this life I actually had a chance at gaining real power. Yes, I could probably have achieved a lot more in my last life if I had applied myself from the beginning and was able to focus. However, I didn’t. In this life I would. I would be a god among the kobolds. After all, if I couldn’t accomplish something amazing with a system, with being a spellcaster, and with having a draconic bloodline, I might as well go ahead and reincarnate again. As I wandered around, I started making a mental list of what I wanted to accomplish.
- Become more draconic.
- Become a high level spellcaster.
- Be the leader of a kobold tribe.
- Make the tribe extremely powerful.
- Establish a kobold empire.
- Become a real god.
I finally settled on six steps. In fact, the first few were ones that I could easily achieve if I continued working on my second goal. Wizards were known for being powerhouses. Because of this, as long as I achieved my second goal, that guaranteed that I could achieve every one of my goals except maybe the last one. In fact, there were plenty of stories about spellcasters becoming gods, so I actually had some real hope there.
Nodding to myself, I felt pleased with myself for making the list. However, that still didn’t help me at the moment. I knew that if I just went to rest and waited for my Shape Magic feature to reset, it might become a habit. I couldn’t use an excuse to wait to achieve my dreams. I had procrastinated enough in my last life. I had even wanted to buy that shirt that said, “Procrastinators of the world unite, tomorrow.” However, I never did.
Since I didn’t want to continue putting things off, I impulsively headed toward the main tunnel. I couldn’t do a lot in the side tunnels, but I was fairly certain I could survive a direct confrontation with the soldiers in the main entrance tunnel. After all, most of the soldiers in the main tunnel were probably at the lower levels. There was even the possibility that I might be able to take out many of them quickly with my twilight breath.
Soon, I encountered a line of kobolds who were apparently stationed as a defensive line in case the invaders tried to blitzkrieg through the tunnels. While I might have zerged a lot in the games I played, I knew that wasn’t likely to happen in a heavily trapped tunnel. I also appropriated various items, such as a few bags of poisoned caltrops and an antidote in case I poisoned myself. I also asked them to move forward enough to watch me so that they could take advantage of any openings I created.
I was starting to curse myself in my mind since I had learned the Remove Disease spell instead of Lesser Restoration spell. I really needed to start thinking ahead of time and planning more. At least I knew the Shield of Faith and the Aid spell, which were better than nothing. I quickly cast them and quietly gave thanks to the other kobolds who were making up for my shortcomings by being prepared. They were even nice enough to give me some alchemical fire which was always in short supply.
When I reached the main entrance tunnel, I started sneaking forward. I was a little worried a rogue might have slipped past the traps or might even be trying to disable the traps as a forward scout. Luckily, the soldiers still hadn’t made it to where they had reached the first day.
Picking up a large shield, I walked forward. I wanted to say that it was easy. However, the shield was very heavy and rarely made it more than an inch off the ground. In fact, most of the time I ended up just pushing it ahead of me. Fortunately, because of its size, I was able to hide completely behind it.
Unfortunately, the first arrow to hit the shield almost knocked me over. “Dang,” I muttered as a few more arrows hit the shield. Gritting my teeth, I took a deep breath and took a quick peek around the shield to see where the invading soldiers were in the tunnel ahead.
I almost made a yellow 7puddle when I noticed how close I had been able to advance before they noticed me. A few soldiers holding large shields to their sides to block the arrowslits were in front. Behind them were others who were working at permanently closing the arrowslits that had been blocked and behind them were a few archers. The only thing keeping the soldiers from swarming me was the fact that they were probably still worried about traps and an ambush.
In fact, one of the soldiers was saying something about that. “Be careful guys. There is no way there is only one kobold. Even if they weren’t cowards, there is no way any kobold would be stupid enough to advance on us all by himself. That means they want us to rush forward into an ambush or a trap.”
Seeing that the archers were ready to shoot again, I hid behind the shield again while I quietly fumed that they were calling me stupid. Surprisingly, no arrows were shot at me. “Fudge,” I said, realizing that they were going to wait until I stuck my head out from behind the shield to shoot at me.
That also ruined my plans since I knew that as soon as I peeked my head out to fire off my twilight breath I would be shot at by the archers. I realized then that I should have given more thought to my plan. I thought quickly for an answer as I muttered to myself, “For someone so smart, how do I keep doing so many stupid things?”
Luckily, the alchemical fire was perfect for the situation. All I had to do was toss the bottles containing the alchemical fire around the shield. The sticky, adhesive fluid would ignite when exposed to air. Then when the soldiers were distracted trying to put out the fire, I could peek around the shield again and use my twilight breath.
My plans almost failed when I tried to reach into one of the bags to reach the bottle of alchemical fire. When I took one of my hands off the shield, it was so heavy that it almost tipped over. Gritting my teeth, I used my puny muscles to rebalance the shield on the ground. Once I was successful, I followed through on my plan and threw the bottle. While the alchemical fire wasn’t particularly damaging, it would have to be put out immediately since the damage could continue until the fire was put out.
Screams immediately followed my throw. Apparently, all those years of playing sports worked out for me. Heart pounding, I stuck my head out, ready to retreat again if I noticed anyone looking at me. Luckily, almost everyone was distracted. One of the soldiers rushed forward with his shields but was immediately tripped by someone sticking a poisoned spear into his leg through an arrowslit. The others were busy trying to put out the alchemical fire.
Realizing that was my chance, I breathed out an attack with my twilight breath. The screams of pain were suddenly silenced, although soldiers further down the hall started screaming in anger. Unexpectedly, the soldiers were even lower leveled than I had imagined. None of the soldiers in the range of my breath attack survived. To add insult to injury, their bodies continued to burn from the alchemical fire.
While I was tempted to push forward and try the same thing again, I knew that wasn’t a good idea. If the charging soldier hadn’t been taken care of by a kobold using an unblocked arrowslit, I might have been in trouble. As it was, all of the arrowslits past the soldiers had been blocked. If I advanced too far, I would be without support and could easily be overrun. However, I couldn’t really see an easy way to unblock the arrowslits. There were a lot of heavy rocks holding shields in place over the arrowslits. Sighing, I tried to figure out my next step. Should I press forward with my attacks or try to start unblocking the arrowslits?