Arthur Vance stood before the three prostrated Kobolds, the wind howling through the alien ravine. The sheer absurdity of the situation threatened to break his focus. He was a human torso seamlessly fused to the incredibly powerful, digitigrade legs of a reptilian monster. And these starving creatures were bowing to him.

  Or, rather, they were bowing to his legs.

  He took a step forward, the heavy rust-red scales of his calves scraping against the loose gravel. The lead Kobold flinched, its graying snout practically buried in the dirt. It released another high-pitched, rattling whine, a sound laced with abject terror and desperate submission.

  Arthur's newly enhanced Senses picked apart the scene with clinical detachment. The lead Kobold's left arm was trembling under its own meager weight. Its spear, a jagged piece of rusted iron lashed to a crooked branch, was held with a grip that spoke of profound weakness.

  "Up," Arthur commanded. His voice was a harsh rasp, completely unrecognizable to himself.

  The Kobolds didn't move. They didn't understand the word, but the tone of command was universal.

  Arthur tapped his driftwood crutch against the rock face behind him—a sharp crack that made the three creatures jump. He gestured upward with his free hand, palm open. "Stand up."

  Hesitantly, the lead Kobold rose, its golden, slitted eyes fixed firmly on Arthur's chest, refusing to meet his gaze. It was barely four feet tall, even fully standing. Up close, the malnutrition was even more staggering. The creature’s scales were practically translucent, revealing the gaunt, bird-like skeleton underneath.

  Arthur looked past the three guards and scanned the settlement nestled against the cliff base. It was less a village and more a desperate camp of refugees. Roughly forty Kobolds were scattered among the dilapidated, hide-covered tents. The air held the stagnant, metallic scent of slow starvation and untreated illness.

  Several small, curled shapes lay motionless near the dead fire pit. Pups.

  The surgeon in him instantly categorized the threat. It wasn't an invading army or a plague. It was a caloric deficit. If these creatures were to be his resource—his shield in this terrifying world, or perhaps his next source of biological material—they needed to survive the week.

  A pale blue screen shimmered into existence at the edge of his vision.

  [Notice: Local population detected. Status: Critical Famine.]

  [Would you like to analyze: Kobold (Lesser)?]

  [ Y / N ]

  Arthur blinked, dismissing the prompt. He didn't need a System to tell him what starvation looked like. What he needed was data on his surroundings.

  He pointed the tip of his crutch at the lead Kobold, then swept it in a wide arc toward the surrounding forest. "Food. Where is it?" he asked, slowing his words. He pantomimed eating, bringing his hand to his mouth and chewing exaggeratedly.

  The lead Kobold watched his movements with dull comprehension. It let out a frustrated chitter, a sound like grinding pebbles, and pointed a shaky, clawed finger toward the thick, dark treeline on the opposite side of the ravine.

  Arthur followed the gesture. The forest was dense, dominated by towering, violet-barked trees that choked out the shattered moonlight. The underbrush was a tangled mess of thorny vines.

  The Kobold chittered again, miming the motion of throwing a spear, then violently shook its head, pointing back to its own emaciated ribs.

  We hunt there. We fail, Arthur translated the gesture easily enough.

  They were predators, built for ambush and pack hunting, but they were too weak to bring down whatever prey lived in those woods. And if they couldn't hunt, they couldn't eat. It was a vicious, downward spiral.

  Arthur looked back at his own massive, rust-red legs. He remembered the fresh blood on the corpse he had scavenged in the cave. The Kobold he had taken these from had been prime, powerful, and recently killed. It hadn't starved; it had been crushed.

  "You aren't the top of the food chain here," Arthur murmured, turning his gaze back to the dark treeline. "And neither am I. Yet."

  He gestured for the three guards to follow him and began to walk toward the dead fire pit in the center of the camp. His gait was still incredibly awkward. The digitigrade structure forced a strange, bouncing momentum that his human core struggled to counterbalance. He used the driftwood crutch heavily, determined not to fall flat on his face in front of his new 'subjects'.

  As he entered the camp, the rest of the Kobolds shrank back, their golden eyes wide with fear. Mothers pulled their lethargic pups behind them. An old, deeply scarred Kobold missing half an ear hissed weakly from the entrance of a patched-together tent.

  Arthur stopped in the center of the camp, leaning heavily on his crutch. He ignored the fearful stares and focused his enhanced Intelligence on the environment.

  The camp was a tactical disaster. It was built against a sheer cliff face, which offered protection from the rear, but it was completely exposed to the open ravine on three sides. There were no palisades, no trenches, no defensive perimeters of any kind. If a predator attacked—like the goblins from the cave, or whatever had crushed the rust-red Kobold—this entire settlement would be wiped out in minutes.

  He needed to establish a perimeter, but that required labor. Labor required calories.

  Arthur’s gaze fell on a pile of refuse near the edge of the camp. It was a bone pile—the remnants of past, successful hunts.

  He walked over to the pile, his scaly footfalls heavy in the silent camp. He crouched, his powerful legs bunching effortlessly beneath him. He didn't even feel the strain in his knees that his human body would have screamed about.

  He sifted through the bones with a steady hand. They were mostly small, fractured ribs and shattered femurs that looked vaguely mammalian, likely from large rodents or small deer-like creatures. But mixed within the pile were lengths of tough, dried sinew and the shattered remnants of what looked like heavy, fibrous tubers.

  They weren't strictly carnivores. They could process plant matter if they had to.

  Arthur stood up, his mind rapidly constructing a plan based on the scattered resources. He couldn't perform surgery on starvation, but he could engineer a solution.

  He turned back to the lead Kobold, who was still hovering a few paces behind him, spear lowered.

  Arthur pointed to the bone pile, specifically to a large, hollowed-out skull that looked vaguely like a wild boar's. Then, he pointed to the thick, thorny vines that choked the treeline across the ravine. Finally, he pointed to the narrow path leading down from the camp toward a small, trickling stream he could hear in the distance.

  He held up his hands, interlacing his fingers tightly.

  "A trap," Arthur said, the word heavy and deliberate. "We aren't going to hunt. We are going to build."

  Communication was the first hurdle. Arthur didn't have time to learn whatever guttural, chittering language the Kobolds spoke, and they certainly didn't speak English. So, he resorted to the universal language of engineering.

  Using the tip of his driftwood crutch, Arthur cleared a patch of dirt near the dead fire pit. The three guard Kobolds—and a few of the braver onlookers—edged closer, their golden eyes tracking his movements with cautious curiosity.

  Arthur drew a crude map in the soil. He marked the camp, the cliff face, the dense treeline, and the winding path down to the stream. Then, he drew a stick figure of a four-legged animal walking down the path.

  He tapped the stick figure, then tapped his stomach. Food. The lead Kobold let out a low, affirmative click in the back of its throat. It understood.

  Next, Arthur began to sketch the mechanics. With his Intelligence stat boosted to 15, his mind processed spatial geometry and physics with a crisp, effortless clarity that he hadn't possessed even during his peak years in medical school. He drew a sapling bent under tension, a snare loop made of vines, and a trigger mechanism utilizing a notched stick and a counterweight.

  It was a classic, high-tension spring snare, designed not just to catch an animal, but to violently hoist it off the ground, snapping its neck or at least rendering it helpless to fight back. Starving creatures couldn't afford a protracted melee with struggling prey.

  Arthur looked up, locking eyes with the lead Kobold. He pointed to the thick, thorny vines hanging from the distant treeline, then to the drawing of the snare loop.

  "Fetch," Arthur commanded, pointing to the woods.

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  The lead Kobold hesitated, looking from the dirt drawing to the dark woods. Fear warred with hunger in its slitted eyes. Arthur didn't wait for it to make up its mind. He stood, his massive, rust-red legs flexing with latent power, and let out a sharp, domineering hiss that he felt vibrate deep in his newly altered chest cavity.

  The alpha posturing worked. The lead Kobold flinched, barked a series of sharp chitters at the other two guards, and the three of them immediately scuttled toward the forest edge.

  For the next two hours, the camp was mobilized under Arthur's silent, dictatorial gestures. He couldn't do the heavy lifting with his upper body—his human arms were still weak, his core aching from the surgical trauma—but his mind was a weapon.

  He had the remaining adult Kobolds gather heavy stones from the cliff base. He had the younger ones collect long, sturdy branches. When the guards returned dragging massive lengths of the tough, fibrous vines, Arthur put them all to work.

  He showed them how to strip the thorns using flat rocks, how to braid the vines together to triple their tensile strength, and how to carve a simple trigger notch into a piece of dense hardwood using sharp bone fragments from the refuse pile.

  As they worked, a pale blue prompt flickered at the edge of his vision.

  [Skill Unlocked: Basic Leadership (Lv. 1)]

  [Effect: Subordinates following direct orders gain a 5% increase in stamina regeneration and a 5% boost to morale.]

  Arthur blinked away the text. Magic or not, he could physically see the difference. The lethargy that had blanketed the camp was momentarily suppressed. The Kobolds were still starving, their ribs jutting painfully, but they were moving with a desperate, synchronized purpose. They had a leader. They had a plan.

  As the shattered rings of the moon rose higher in the purple sky, Arthur led a small hunting party of five Kobolds down the narrow, muddy path toward the stream. The sound of running water grew louder, masking the crunch of their footsteps.

  The site Arthur chose was a natural choke point—a narrow gap between two large, mossy boulders where the mud was churned deep with fresh, cloven animal tracks.

  Setting the trap required the raw physical power that the Kobolds currently lacked. Arthur hobbled over to a thick, flexible sapling growing near the path. He handed his crutch to the lead Kobold.

  Taking a deep breath, Arthur planted his scaly, digitigrade feet firmly into the mud. He gripped the trunk of the sapling with his human hands and pulled.

  His upper body strained, his human muscles screaming in protest, but his Kobold legs anchored him with terrifying absolute force. He used his lower body as a fulcrum, bending the thick sapling downward until the wood groaned in protest.

  The lead Kobold, eyes wide with awe at the display of sheer kinetic strength, quickly fastened the braided vine snare to the bent treetop and locked the trigger notch in place exactly as Arthur had drawn it in the dirt.

  Arthur slowly released his grip. The sapling shuddered, held in violent tension by the small, carved piece of wood and the braided vine loop laid carefully over the muddy tracks.

  It was a masterpiece of lethal potential energy.

  "Now," Arthur whispered, taking his crutch back. He motioned for the Kobolds to follow him up into the rocky overhang above the path. "We wait."

  They didn't have to wait long.

  Less than an hour later, the thick brush on the opposite side of the stream rustled. Arthur’s enhanced Senses instantly picked up a new smell—musk, wet fur, and hot blood.

  A creature lumbered out of the darkness. It looked like a boar, but its flesh was covered in overlapping plates of dark, chitinous armor, and its tusks were serrated like saw blades. It was the size of a large dog, built for bulldozing through the underbrush.

  An Iron-Bristle Boar.

  The Kobolds beside Arthur tensed, their stomachs growling softly, but they didn't dare move.

  The boar snorted, dipping its heavy head to drink from the stream. After a long minute, it turned, lumbering directly toward the narrow path between the boulders. It stepped squarely into the center of the braided vine loop.

  Its front hoof caught the trigger line.

  SNAP.

  The sound of the carved notch giving way was like a gunshot. The bent sapling whipped upward with terrifying velocity. The braided vine snapped taut around the boar's front leg and thick neck.

  The heavy, armored creature was violently jerked off its feet. It let out a deafening, squealing roar as it was hoisted four feet into the air, thrashing madly. The sapling bowed under its weight, shaking violently, but Arthur’s braided vines held fast.

  The trap hadn't snapped its neck—the creature's armor was too thick—but it was suspended, choking, and completely vulnerable.

  Arthur didn't hesitate. He didn't wait for the beast to tear the trap down.

  "With me," Arthur hissed.

  He slid down the rocky incline, his powerful chimera legs absorbing the impact effortlessly. He gripped his driftwood crutch like a club in his left hand, while his right hand instinctively reached for the air, his mind calling upon the System.

  [Initializing Surgeon’s Domain.]

  A flash of blue light illuminated the dark path. The sterile silver box materialized mid-air, and Arthur’s hand closed around the glowing, unnatural metal of the System’s scalpel.

  He wasn't a warrior. He didn't know how to wield a sword or a spear. But as he approached the thrashing, armored beast, his eyes didn't see a monster. He saw anatomy. He saw the gaps in the chitinous plating. He saw the pulsing, unprotected jugular vein exposed by the tight snare.

  He was a surgeon. And it was time to operate.

  Arthur stepped into the mud beneath the thrashing beast. The Iron-Bristle Boar squealed loudly; its heavy, chitinous plates scraped together like grinding stones as it tried to free its trapped leg. The sapling groaned under the stress, but Arthur’s braided vines held firm.

  He didn't swing his makeshift crutch. He didn't roar a battle cry. Instead, he approached the suspended creature with the cold, measured steps of a man entering an operating theater.

  The three Kobold guards hung back near the rock face. Their spears trembled in their weak grips. Their golden eyes were wide as they watched the strange, hybrid creature confront a beast that would normally slaughter their entire hunting party.

  Arthur raised his right hand. The System’s scalpel glowed with a faint, sterile blue light in the gloom of the ravine. His enhanced Intelligence and Senses worked in perfect synchronization: he saw the frantic pumping of the boar's heart against its ribcage, the tension lines of its thick neck muscles, and the precise, thumb-width gap between the armor plates just below its jawline.

  The snare had pulled the boar's head sharply upward, exposing that exact vulnerability.

  Arthur lunged. His rust-red Kobold legs fired like coiled springs, launching him upward with explosive force. He didn't slash wildly; he pushed the glowing scalpel into the exposed gap with surgical precision. The unnaturally sharp blade bypassed the tough hide entirely, sliding effortlessly into the carotid artery and severing it completely.

  He twisted his wrist to widen the incision, then pulled the blade free as gravity brought him back down to the mud.

  The boar let out a final, gurgling wheeze. A torrent of dark, hot blood erupted from the clean cut, raining down onto the muddy path. The massive beast spasmed once, twice, and then went completely limp. Its heavy body swayed gently from the bent sapling.

  [Notice: Iron-Bristle Boar (Lv. 3) killed.]

  [Experience gained. Level Up!]

  [Host is now Level 2. 5 Stat Points awarded.]

  Arthur ignored the floating blue text for the moment. He wiped the glowing scalpel on his ruined pants, letting out a long, slow breath. The kill was efficient, clinical, and completely devoid of the chaotic struggle the Kobolds were accustomed to.

  He turned to look at the three guards. They were staring at the bleeding corpse, completely paralyzed by the sudden bounty of meat and the terrifying ease with which Arthur had secured it.

  "Drop it," Arthur commanded, pointing to the taut vine.

  The lead Kobold snapped out of its daze. It scrambled forward, bringing its rusted spear up to saw frantically at the braided rope. With a heavy thud, the armored boar crashed into the mud.

  Arthur didn't dismiss the Surgeon’s Domain. He kept the scalpel materialized. This wasn't just a hunt; it was an anatomy lesson and a butchering session rolled into one.

  He knelt beside the carcass. The thick plates of armor were useless to a starving tribe, so he used the System's tool to cleanly separate the chitin from the dense muscle beneath. The blade hissed as it cauterized the edges of the meat, sealing in the fluids and preventing the blood from spoiling the cuts in the damp air.

  He worked with terrifying speed. In under ten minutes, the boar was systematically dismantled: the heavy haunches were separated, the internal organs were sorted for immediate consumption, and the tough, fibrous heart was set aside.

  [Notice: Viable biological material harvested: Iron-Bristle Chitin.]

  [Notice: Viable biological material harvested: Iron-Bristle Heart.]

  Arthur paused, eyeing the dark, fist-sized heart resting on the mud. The System clearly categorized certain monster parts differently than standard meat. He mentally flagged the organ for later; right now, caloric intake was the priority.

  He looked up at the three Kobolds. Drool was pooling at the edges of their snouts. The metallic scent of fresh meat was driving them into a frenzy, yet they remained frozen, waiting for his permission.

  Arthur picked up a large, raw slab of liver on the tip of his scalpel. He tossed it to the lead Kobold. The creature caught it mid-air, tearing into the warm flesh with a desperate, sobbing series of crunches. He tossed two more pieces to the other guards.

  "Eat," Arthur said softly, watching the color slowly return to their pale scales. "Then, we feed the rest. And tomorrow, we build a wall."

  The journey back up the muddy incline was slow, but the atmosphere had entirely shifted. The three Kobold guards were no longer trembling; the raw liver had provided an immediate, violent spike of caloric energy. They hoisted the heavy, butchered haunches of the boar onto their bony shoulders, their slitted eyes practically glowing with renewed predatory vigor.

  Arthur followed closely behind. He carried the Iron-Bristle Heart wrapped securely in a broad, waxy leaf, while his other hand gripped a stack of the heavy chitinous plates. His massive reptilian legs handled the steep, uneven terrain effortlessly, but his human torso still ached with every step. He was a creature divided: half apex predator, half fragile human recovering from major surgery.

  The scent of fresh, butchered meat preceded them into the camp.

  As Arthur stepped out of the treeline and into the clearing beneath the cliff face, the entire tribe froze. Forty emaciated Kobolds turned their heads in unison. Mothers clutched their lethargic pups; the older, scarred hunters pushed themselves up on shaking limbs. The sheer volume of food the guards were carrying was something this splintered tribe hadn't seen in months.

  A low, collective whine of desperate hunger rippled through the camp. Several of the younger Kobolds took a stumbling step forward, their instincts overriding their fear of the strange, hybrid leader.

  Arthur struck the butt of his driftwood crutch against a stone. The sharp crack echoed off the ravine walls, instantly halting the advance.

  He didn't want a feeding frenzy. He was a doctor, and he knew the lethal dangers of refeeding syndrome: giving a starving body too much solid protein at once could cause massive metabolic shock and cardiac arrest. He needed to manage this intake perfectly.

  Arthur pointed his crutch at the dead fire pit in the center of the camp. He looked at the lead guard and barked a single, sharp command. "Fire."

  The lead guard understood the tone. He dropped his heavy burden of meat, scrambled toward a nearby pile of dry moss, and began striking two smooth river stones together with frantic energy. Within minutes, a small, smoky blaze crackled to life in the pit.

  Arthur approached the fire, dropping the chitin plates to the side. He gestured for the guards to bring the massive, hollowed-out skull he had noticed earlier in the bone pile. They dragged it over, placing it securely over the flames.

  Using his glowing System scalpel, Arthur carved a portion of the boar's fat and a large slab of the tough shoulder meat into tiny, easily digestible cubes. He tossed the meat into the skull, followed by several handfuls of water scooped from a nearby rain puddle.

  He was making a nutrient-dense broth. It was the safest way to wake up their dormant digestive tracts without killing them.

  The camp watched in absolute, stunned silence as the water began to boil. The rich, fatty scent of the cooking meat filled the air, completely overpowering the stagnant smell of sickness.

  Arthur stepped back, his scaly legs anchoring him firmly in the dirt. He pointed to the mothers holding the listless pups. He gestured toward the boiling skull.

  "Them first," Arthur commanded.

  The lead guard chattered an order, and the mothers hesitantly crept forward. They dipped hollowed pieces of wood into the skull, lifting the warm, fatty broth to the snouts of their dying offspring. The effect was almost immediate. The pups swallowed weakly at first, then began to lap at the wooden bowls with frantic, desperate energy.

  Over the next two hours, Arthur oversaw the systematic feeding of the entire tribe. He acted as an absolute dictator of calories: he portioned the broth to the weakest, handed small strips of seared meat to the hunters, and ensured that every single member of the camp received an exact, measured share.

  As the last piece of meat was distributed, the tension in the camp finally broke. The Kobolds didn't retreat to their tents; they sat in a wide, loose circle around the fire pit, their golden eyes fixed entirely on Arthur. There was no more fear in their gazes. There was only absolute, unwavering reverence.

  [Notice: Local population stabilized.]

  [Faction Discovered: The Mud-Tooth Tribe.]

  [Reputation: Exalted (Leader).]

  [Territory claimed: The Ravine Outpost.]

  Arthur dismissed the blue text with a thought. He had his foundation. He had a loyal, rapidly recovering workforce. Now, he needed to ensure he was strong enough to protect them from whatever else lurked in the violet woods.

  He sat down on a flat boulder near the fire, crossing his massive rust-red legs. He pulled up his Status Screen, eyeing the 5 Unallocated Stat Points he had earned from the boar.

  His human torso was still the weak link. His Kobold legs could launch him into the air, but his human arms lacked the kinetic strength to fully capitalize on that momentum. He needed upper-body power to wield his tools and handle the heavy biological materials he would be harvesting.

  He tapped the screen.

  Allocate 3 points to Strength.

  Allocate 2 points to Defense.

  A wave of dense, heavy heat washed over his chest and arms. The lean muscles of his human torso swelled slightly, hardening under his skin. The persistent ache from the surgical trauma faded to a dull throb, replaced by a coiled, powerful tension in his shoulders. His Strength was now 11; his Defense was 8. He was slowly bridging the gap between his fragile human origins and his monstrous lower half.

  Arthur closed the screen and picked up the large, waxy leaf resting beside him. He unfolded it, revealing the Iron-Bristle Heart. It was still warm, the thick, fibrous muscle completely different from a human organ. Beside it sat the stack of dark, chitinous armor plates he had stripped from the beast.

  He traced a finger over the serrated edge of a chitin plate. The System had flagged both as viable biological material.

  He couldn't replace his own heart yet; that surgery was too complex, the risk of rejection too high for his current level. But the chitin offered a different path.

  Arthur looked down at his bare, vulnerable human chest, illuminated by the flickering firelight. If he was going to lead a tribe of monsters, he needed armor that couldn't be stripped away.

  He reached into the air, his mind calling upon the System's magic once more.

  [Initializing Surgeon’s Domain.]

  The silver box materialized on the boulder beside him. Arthur picked up the glowing scalpel, his newly enhanced strength giving his grip a terrifying, absolute steadiness. He pressed the blade against his own collarbone, preparing to make the first incision for a sub-dermal chitin graft.

  "Let's see how much pain a Level 2 Surgeon can take," Arthur whispered into the dark.