Reincarnated As A Chameleon And Eating Everything To Evolve

'What the h*ll does this mean…??'

Matthew opened his eyes wide while keeping his mouth tightly shut and his body still. What he saw right in front of his eyes was something that shocked him beyond belief. All the humans there were safely protected from the deadly steam explosion behind the almost transparent dome-shaped barrier.

Matthew thought that he had a chance in making the humans pay a little for what they did by taking the second prince's life as a downpayment, but seeing the situation in front of him, he now realizes that it was only wishful thinking and his revenge is still far away, away from his reach.

Thinking how naive his thoughts earlier about having the chance to kill the second prince, made Matthew rethink about his resolve earlier which turned out to be still far away from thinking carefully. 

'Of course, the prince had a method to save his own life, he was a prince d*mn it! What kind of prince would go to the battlefield without having solid protection from danger? Even the general used that weird pill that made his aura stronger, a magic flashbang, and a barrier that almost trapped me for I don't know how long if not for the first kobold kid. It only made sense if the prince got a portable barrier with him that he could carry anywhere.'

'And considering the fact that the water lion was their spell, they must have known what would happen already even before they cast the spell to go against the fiery wolf-headed snake.'

'I need to stop underestimating the humans and realize that they are at least as smart as me- No. From all the recent happenings, they are smarter than me. I need to always keep that in mind whenever dealing with everything from now on.'

Matthew stopped thinking for a second, took a deep breath, before continuing,

'I promised myself to be more careful and to use my head more before doing anything, but really, how am I supposed to do this… There's no formula or numbers to count, there are too many variables scattered everywhere. Some were obviously visible while others were hidden in plain sight. And oftentimes I only realize 2 out of the 10 variables when considering my plans.'

'If this was a math question then it would be the most poorly designed unfinished question that tells the people solving it to make up their own numbers and to complete the unfinished question on their own while if they failed to answer that question will result in being kicked out of school, or in my case, getting kicked out from life…'

'How am I supposed to answer a question like that…?'

Matthew's train of thoughts was suddenly cut off when he hears voices from the direction of the,

"As I've guessed, the hot steam is gone. Men, quickly cast wind magic and disperse all this remaining steam, we can't see anything right now."

Matthew then turned to look in the direction of the humans and found that the dome-shaped barrier had already disappeared and the human mages were already preparing their staff to cast a spell to clear the surroundings of the remaining steam which means that,

'I need to quickly get out of here!'

Matthew then turned his tail and hurriedly ran away from his current place which is only about 25 meters away from the human mages and the second prince.

When Matthew started kicking the ground to run, the second prince seemed to have sensed something and looked in Matthew's direction, but due to the steam still obstructing his views, he couldn't see anything when he turned his head and returned back to look at his men which is currently saying their chants before writing the symbols to create a wind current that will bring most of the remaining steam away from their surroundings.

Matthew returned back to his last spot that he used to observe the battle earlier and waited for the kids to arrive. 

The spell that the humans used to disperse the steam away seemed to be an ordinary one as Matthew couldn't see any drastic changes to his surroundings or any eye-catching spell like the circles that summoned the massive creatures earlier.

Matthew just saw the steam start slowly moving in a certain direction and finally, the remaining steam had cleared up and Matthew was able to clearly see the whole area again.

And now that his view was not obstructed anymore, he finally sees that behind the 20 mages and the second prince, the human army had reorganized themselves in neat formations and even though the whole army was covered by the woods, Matthew could easily guess that there were at least hundreds of them behind the cover of the trees.

Thinking what would've happened to him if he failed to see the almost transparent barrier earlier and if he had been closer to the human mages and the second prince when they took down the barrier, Matthew clenched the old kobold's staff in his hand while thinking that he had just made yet another blunder by doing his self-introspection near the humans, without his aura available and with a body full of wounds. 

'How many times have I been in situations like this…? Relying on pure luck without even noticing it myself, how many dangerous situations had I been in before? How many times did my a** was saved by pure luck?'

Matthew suddenly stopped thinking when he saw a line of humans coming out of the forest. They walked on foot instead of riding horses and instead of carrying swords, Matthew could see they were using bows and arrows instead.

Matthew wondered what they were trying to do when the second prince suddenly raised his right hand and the archers started nocking their arrows into their bowstrings and aimed them towards a certain direction.

The second prince then brought down his hand and the archers released their grip on the bowstrings and tens, a hundred arrows were shot.

Matthew looked in the direction of where the arrows were going and realized that the rain of arrows was flying towards the middle of the village, right towards where Mutt's body should have been if he still had a body left after sacrificing his life to cast the spell.

'Why?'

But as if the rain of arrows wasn't enough, another line of people came out of the forest, but this time it was way fewer than the archers. They wore the same robe as the mages that's still with the second prince and they also carried the same wooden staff in their hands.

This time, instead of raising his hand, the prince raised his steel staff and started chanting, all the other mages also started their chants before they started writing symbols on the air in front of them again with their staff.

When the humans had finally stopped moving their staffs, Matthew could visibly see the same blue particles that he saw when the blue circle formed earlier, but instead of creating a huge circle, the blue particles gathered and created sharp icicles that hovered in the air. And with 36 mages including the second prince casting the same spell, more than 100 icicles were formed in the air and they're all aimed towards the same place as the arrows earlier.

'Why?'

With the second prince releasing the first 7 icicles towards the middle of the village, the other hundred icicles followed after with their pointy sharp end all pointing at a spot near the single house at the center of the kobold village.

'Why?'

The icicles flew and hit the ground, stabbing themselves into the ground. Some even hit the arrows that were already on the ground and broke the arrow apart. With the barrage of attacks from the humans, the ground around the middle of the village is now filled with both arrows and sharp icicles on every inch of it.

Matthew stayed silent as he saw the humans still hadn't finished their attacks towards the village as they started sending foot soldiers to go inside the village and check every nook and cranny of the village in search for any surviving kobolds which they obviously couldn't find after all the things that happened in the village. But they kept on searching and only stopped after they swept through the whole village, even flipping the debris on the ground to check for survivors.

'Why why why why why why…'

'THEY'RE ALL ALREADY DEAD SO WHY WON'T THEY STOP?'

"Wait here guys, I will check the situation first."

The first kobold kid and the twins had finally arrived at the village after catching up to Matthew who had run in a hurry by going towards the direction of the thick black smoke that they saw earlier from the clearing in the forest. They wanted to quickly go towards the village, but the area around the village was suddenly filled with steam and the first kobold kid was afraid that it was the doings of the humans who wanted to ambush them by obstructing their views.

'If they could even make a trap that could completely imprison brother Matthew inside without even him realizing it, making this steam trap is clearly also possible for them.' The first kobold kid thought to himself.

So he warned the twins to not move closer towards the village and he led them towards a thick bush to hide themselves.

"But first brother, is it really okay if we stay here? What if the humans set up the trap and brother Matthew and the others needed our help?"

"Of course, they would be alright, sister, it's brother Matthew we're talking about, he would surely figure things out. And you don't need to worry too much for the others, remember the black smoke we saw earlier? That black smoke indicates that there's a fire in the village. I know it may not sound good that our village is burning, but a fire would actually benefit grandpa and he would be able to cast more powerful spells with more fire around him. The best thing we could do now is to keep ourselves safe and check on them when this steam has dispersed and we're able to see more clearly."

Hearing the first kobold kid's logical explanation, the twins nodded their heads and believed him fully just like they usually do and continued to hide themselves until finally the steam was completely gone and they're able to move closer to see their village and the outcome of the battle.

But as they moved closer and closer, the first kobold kid noticed that he couldn't hear the sounds of battle nor any voices of his kin. He could only hear the faint voices of the humans shouting unintelligible words to his ears from time to time.

The first kobold kid had a really bad feeling from it, but he kept moving towards the village slowly to avoid getting any attention just in case if there's any humans nearby.

But when they finally saw the similar-looking wolf head that was covered with scales, they lowered down their guards and started running towards the unique-looking kobold.

"Brother Matthew!" 

The twins shouted while they ran towards Matthew.

"SHH!!" The first kobold kid hushed them while running along with them.

The twins ran straight and hugged Matthew from both sides, causing Matthew to feel pain from the many wounds on his body.

The first kobold kid stopped right in front of Matthew and didn't hug him as the twins did, but he looked at Matthew and asked,

"Brother Matthew, how is it? Did we win already? What happened?"

While stroking the twins' heads, Matthew's sharp and cold eyes looked at the first kobold kid and said, 

"Let's go, we're leaving."

"Leaving? Why? What about the others? They will need our help to once again rebuild the village. Grandpa would be angry if we didn't go back and help them!" The first kobold kid said to Matthew.

"They're all gone," Matthew said with a flat tone.