Good Job, Kobold!

Chapter 170: Gone. It's all gone.

Neither cold nor trembling...

As if he'd heard someone calling him, Hogg opened his eyes. The moment he woke, he felt someone pinching his face.

"Space Hero, open your eyes! I am Zoffy!"

"Kid, that's not funny."

When Hogg heard Zoffy tell the corny joke only the two of them understood, he knew he was safe. Still, something felt off. Why wasn't he on the Blacklight, the ship he knew so well?

Noticing Hogg's confusion, Zoffy hopped off the hospital bed and gestured at the golden decorations around them.

"Hogg, I've got one piece of bad news and one piece of good news. Which do you want to hear first?"

As someone with a severe case of indecisiveness, Hogg hated that sort of question. Normally, when something like this came up, he'd use his fists to force the answer out of the other person. But he was weak all over now; even lifting a hand was a struggle. He didn't have the strength to teach his pet a lesson.

"Good news first."

Knowing that was what his true self would say, Zoffy pulled over a mirror and set it by the bed. Pointing at the little kid reflected in it, he grinned.

"The good news is, you won the resurrection match. The Emperor dug out the leftover materials from when he made the Primarchs and used the core you had left to bring you back to life. You're smaller now, but you're still the same at your core. Then again, you were never very tall to begin with."

After surviving a disaster, Hogg couldn't afford to fuss over details like that. He knew he couldn't die for good, but he wasn't invincible either. If the Warp had really carried him off, who knew