Building a Kingdom as a Kobold-Chapter 63: I Know I Can Do It (1)

Tinker didn’t mean to become a specialist. He just couldn’t help himself.

The schematic was meant to be a gift—or maybe a challenge. A half-elf engineer had handed it to him after his last chaotic invention "mostly worked" in a way that baffled everyone involved.

She said it was an unfinished project. Something her team had given up on years ago.

"Field-forge unit," she explained. "Mobile, adjustable, clean-burning. Good theory, but unstable execution. Flame cycles collapse after a few minutes."

Tinker looked at the scroll for three seconds, then said, "I want to try."

This is how kobolds die, I thought. Not in battle. Not in flame. But under a pile of "it might work if I just..."

But that’s how it started.

By evening, he had taken over the far end of our guest shelter with tools, flame regulators, spare runeplates, and a half-melted component from Ashring’s golem pits. He’d forgotten to eat, forgotten to sleep, and was mumbling in a mix of kobold shorthand and technical flame theory.

I watched him work, seated across the room with a blanket and an emergency fruit ration.

Cinders passed by once and asked, "Is this a real project or one of his mood swings?"

"It’s both," I said.

She nodded like that made perfect sense.

In Ashring, that’s called emotional diagnosis. If it doesn’t explode yet, it’s a project. If it explodes again, it’s a personality trait.

The system pinged softly just after midnight.

[New Schematic Registered: Field Flameforge (Incomplete)]

[Assigned User: Tinker]

[Compatibility Estimate: 33%]

[Note: He’s Already Skipping Steps. Confidence Detected.]

I didn’t know what he was planning to do with it. I don’t think he knew either.

But I saw the way he treated the scroll—not like a problem to solve, but a conversation waiting to be finished. He kept whispering to the page like it might answer back.

"This was built too clean," he muttered. "Too perfect. You can’t drop something like this into real terrain. It has to bend a little."

He tapped a section of the heat-channel node, then sketched an alternative using soot and a bent spoon.

"Needs flex," he said to himself. "Needs to understand the ground it sits on."

I didn’t say anything. Just listened.

Because I knew that tone.

It was the same one I used the first time I realized a bonfire could become a symbol.

He stayed up long after the lights dimmed.

And when I drifted off, I could still hear the soft scratch of tools against stone, the faint rumble of a flame regulator being recalibrated, and the quiet sound of a kobold teaching fire how to listen.

By the next morning, Tinker had already failed four more times.

The first prototype overheated and cracked its frame.

The second melted through its own vent plate.

We didn’t talk about Failure Number Three. It screamed once, then fell apart like it remembered it had self-esteem issues.

The fourth exploded.

Not dramatically—just a slow hiss and a puff of smoke, followed by Tinker staring blankly at the ashes and muttering something about "pressure differentials" and "flame obstinance."

I stayed quiet. Let him fail. It wasn’t my place to step in. Not for this.

But I did sit near him when he slumped against the wall and wiped ash off his face with a scorched sleeve.

"It’s not that the design is bad," he said finally. "It’s that it doesn’t understand the world it’s being built for."

Same, I thought. Same.

He tried again.

This time, slower.

He didn’t try to force the elven structure to match kobold tools. Instead, he redrew the core layout. Simplified it. Reinforced the outer frame with mosscrete dust and flexible rune-braid binding. It took him half a day just to get the base aligned.

Even then, it buckled under uneven heat.

He didn’t scream. Didn’t quit.

Just breathed out slowly, rolled up his sleeves, and started again.

I watched from the corner, arms crossed. I’d seen plenty of people give up when something didn’t work the first three times. Or even the tenth. That was normal.

Hope is a weird thing. It looks a lot like ash-streaked fur and too many sleepless nights. But it burns steadier than most fires I know.

By the second evening, the workshop was a disaster.

Burnt sketches, cracked crystal cores, wires that pulsed without purpose. But in the middle of it all was something that almost looked like it belonged.

The new frame was smaller, squatter. Built low to the ground. The flame channel was rerouted through a pressure dome made from an old goblin firebox. It had exactly one dial and two vents—one adjustable, one always open.

And when Tinker lit it...

It burned.

Not just lit up—stabilized.

The vent let out a soft hum as the flame inside spun clean and low. The metal base shifted slightly to match the slope of the floor. The temperature control adjusted itself based on the fuel density.

It worked. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com

Not for long—only about twenty minutes—but that was twenty minutes longer than anything else.

He looked at me with wide, stunned eyes.

"I think it understands now."

I approached the unit, crouched beside it, and pressed my hand to the casing.

It was warm. Not dangerously hot. Just working.

The system pinged.

[Prototype Registered: Modified Field Forge – Kobold Variant]

[Success Threshold: Surpassed]

[Stability Rating: 61%]

[Feedback: Could Use Handles]

[Also: Maybe Don’t Name It "Forgey"]

Tinker nodded solemnly. "It’s not a real invention until the system insults it."

I looked at him.

"You’re not done, are you."

He shook his head. "Not even close."

"Good," I said, standing up. "Because now you’ve proven it’s possible. That means the next time it breaks, we fix it faster."

His shoulders straightened.

"Tomorrow," he said, "I test it with real materials."

I nodded. "Tomorrow you fail better."

He blinked, then smiled.

Outside, the elven torchlights flickered gently. The flame in the forge box burned steady.

And for the first time since leaving Ashring, I saw a kobold build something that didn’t feel temporary.

It felt like a start.

Ashring was hundreds of tunnels away. But for twenty minutes, it was right there in the hum of a flame that knew how to stay.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺