I got caught in my own webs in the dark several times, to Pest’s amusement and glee, before finally reaching the place. It was the same tree where I caught—like one catches HIV—that curse (and Pest really was a curse, whether he really WAS a curse or wasn’t).

Nothing was left of the kobold’s carcass, and the only trace of his presence there were his things, which I had carefully preserved with more webbing from weather and curious animals. Now I tore and chewed through this web until kobold’s meagre possessions were in my reach. ​​

A spear with a bone tip that fit nicely in my hand. A crude knife made from a jagged piece of metal wrapped with rags to form a handle. A pouch where kobold held his berries, now empty thanks to our joined efforts. A rope coiled several times to form a belt that held a loincloth. What the loincloth was for I had little idea, because as far as I looked, my body had no visible equipment in sight despite being stated as a male in my character sheet.

I put all these things on. Even if I had genitalia of a lizard, even the crudest monsters out there knew to wear at least something over their dicks. The belt served well for holding my pouch and my knife. I had to hold a spear in my hand, which was cumbersome, but I decided I could drop it at any moment, and until then it could prove itself useful. At the very least, it offered a nice reach advantage.

‘Are you sure you don’t wanna go meet your own kind? They are gonna piss their lizard skirts from joy of seeing you with your wings. You’d be like some, uh, saint or something,’ Pest said. His voice, as sudden as usual, still didn’t make me flinch, like it never did after the first time. When one is prepared for the possibility, there’s no room for being surprised.

“I wonder since when did you start giving good advice, Pest,” I muttered under my breath. It felt better to talk aloud, and there was no one I had to hide from around… “Since you insist so much on me going there, how about you stop eating my EXP if I do?”

Pest didn’t answer for a moment. ‘Stop eating your EXP? It’s the good fucking thing you have going on in there. Don’t go if you don’t want! Sooner or later someone is fucking going to put you six feet under.’

“Six feet under?” I frowned, befuddled. “Half of your words are just gibberish, do you know it?”

‘Ha-ha-ha! It’s not my fault you are so damn ignorant you can’t understand simple words even when they are literally inside your empty, dumb head, dumbo. I meant to say that you are going to be dead, you get it? Dead! Biting the dust, pushing up daisies, sleeping with the worms, taking a dirt nap, kicking the bucket!’

I didn’t head half of these before, and suddenly, it made me feel even more aggrieved towards the bastards who called themselves gods. Hell was no place for educated discussions—most conversations there were held in screams and/or growls. But after I built my palace, I could’ve invited some of the better-preserved, smarter souls to keep me company, to teach me stuff I forgot or never knew…

Oh, the things I could do. Of course, I planned to bring some busty girls and whatever passes as alcoholic beverages in that damned place, but good company was next on my list and they screwed it and now some Pest was laughing at me because I didn’t know—or forgot—some damned expression.

“What’s stupid is the shit that you spew from your mouth. Who the fuck buries their dead under someone’s legs?” I threw through a snarl and stomped through the webs and away. The futility of my attempt to escape wasn’t lost on me, but I kept walking.

‘Legs? Aha-ha-ha-ha! Alright, I should give you that, Hell-boy, you are a funny bastard. Legs. Feet, like legs. He-he-he…’

“Just shut up!”

He only laughed louder. Pest’s annoying giggling kept ringing over my head as I walked through the forest. It distracted me from the scents and quiet noises of the night, from looking around to search for prey and predators, but there were none. When normally all sorts of creatures would come out to crawl under the cover of darkness, now everyone was dead.

Their blood had been a fine refreshment on my tongue.

When Pest finally stopped drilling the insides of my skull with his giggles, I could finally exhale with relief, but it was a short-living one. Though, with Pest, any relief would be too short.

‘Hey, I know this place! You are going towards the village after all, aren’t you? Well, this is just fucking amazing! Maybe I can make a decent host out of you after all.’

‘You caught me,’ I spoke mentally now, because we were close enough that wandering kobold sentries might hear me. Maybe even see me, if they were stealthy enough… But after walking a little while longer no one had caught me, and soon I could see the first glimpses of kobolds’ communal fire through the trees and the gates in the village’s crude wooden wall. Two kobolds, equipped about as well as I was, stood next to the gates. One was slouching on his spear, his eyes closed. Sleeping.

I folded my wings carefully behind me, hiding them behind my back, and stood a little straighter. Then, without hiding myself, I left the cover of trees and walked towards the gate.