id: 479
name: Sniv
author: RolandTTG
date: 1st August 2021
text len: 4183
views: 79

>I find myself in the city of Lundila, a city built from prefab units from our world used to house thousands of refugees. Here I met a kobold named Sniv, a rag collector working for a small clothing factory that recycles the rags and turns them into new clothes.
>Before being a rag collector Sniv was born like most Kobolds in a warren deep underground. Then when still considered a child to Human standards he was forcefully conscripted into the Korean People's Army New World Expedition. Him along with all kobolds would later be pardoned, treated like those of the former Baltic SS units of World War II. Sniv is now in his 30’s rather old for most Kobold’s.

>Sniv was off work for the week, working a 60+ hour week consisting of 5 12 hour shifts. 
>”Sit please please.” Sniv said, beckoning me to sit on the old ammo crate with faded KPA markings on it. 
>”Good good, now I tell you of life, yes?” He asked, a small smile forming across his face.
>”Of course Sniv.” I replied. “Go ahead.”
>”Deep in warrens I was born, home to my clan it was, then the Joseon came.”
>”The North Koreans?” I asked.
>”Yes, yes, they came and made us into fighters, at gunpoint. My squad was my family but we had no mother, we had a Joseon sergeant, he was our master, and not a kind one.”
>Sniv reached over to his kitchen table and grabbed a can of Lion Lager, a popular Old World brand here thanks to the large South African diaspora.
>”Sergeant would beat us if we failed our daily duties,first he would beat us often. We learned to work hard and avoid the beatings.” 
>”They’d beat you but you all still fought for the KPA?” I asked before lighting a cigarette and taking a drag before offering one to Sniv. 
>”Yes.” He responded before taking the cigarette and lighting it with a piece of magic flash paper. “We would no longer have mother if we didn’t.” 
>Sniv was referencing the practice of keeping Kobold females as hostages by the KPA, even going so far as to brutalize or kill the women to keep rowdy Kobolds in line.
>”First of the New World peoples we were to learn to shoot your guns, I had a T58, we modified them to be small like us, the barrel of mine was cut and the sights re attached by Armorer, he was nicer than Sergeant, gave us all extra jabji (This is the Korean word for magazine.)


>”How long were you in the KPA-NWE?” I asked. 
>”Too many years, around five, the whole war.” He said before looking down at the sod floor and sighing. 
>”I am glad to be alive, and my job, even if it is hard work, glad to have family alive in city, glader still to keep warren mother alive.”
>He motioned to a hole in the ground which served as the warren’s tertiary entrances into the city, with most of the Kobold’s choosing to live underground still. 
>Sniv was one of around two dozen Kobold’s living on the surface, but he still had a small family that he kept safe underground. 
>”Job pays well enough, picking rags is long work, I work at night mostly, no one bothers me when I pick.” 
>”Mean looks cross my face from time to time, most still remember the war, most forgive us, understand our plight, others not so much.”
>”My last den brother stays underground out of shame, I have shame like him, but I do not let it keep me from the sun, it never will.” Sniv said before finishing his lager and tossing the can aside as he reached for his old T58, the AK-47 copy that he used during the Joseon Offensive as it’s called locally.
>”I keep this to remind self of what I was, and to protect me so I can stay what I am now, haven’t used it since war, hope I never will.” He said with a sad smile before opening the chamber of his rifle and dropping the magazine. “Never again will the Joseon enslave my people, this makes sure of it.”


>After leaving Sniv’s hovel I read the local Office of Statistics Census, which occurred every decade. The local Kobold population had dropped by 90% because of the war, the KPA-NWE used them as shock troopers by the thousands in order to save Korean lives. 
>Now only three of the former two dozen warren’s of the pre-war Kobold population remain inhabited, most now either forgotten or picked clean by looters, most being KPA-NWE deserters.