CHAPTER 192: REVELATION

"That is impossible!"

He barked, eyes wide, voice cracking with disbelief. But even as he spoke, I saw it—the doubt crawling across his face, the tension in his jaw. Deep down, he believed me. He didn’t want to, but he did.

"Is it?" I muttered, tilting my head just slightly, letting the question drip with mockery.

His expression shifted almost immediately, hardening into something colder, more calculating. Whatever surprise he’d shown before was now buried beneath layers of guarded focus.

"Don’t tease me, fool," he said, voice lowering, grip tightening around his weapon. "We both know that cannot be possible."

We? Since when did we start sharing forbidden knowledge? Because this was the first time I was hearing of any kind of restriction.

I arched a brow, deliberately relaxed. "And what makes you say that?"

Jael didn’t flinch. He answered like a man reciting scripture. "No Chosen can possess a skill with a rank that high. It’s forbidden—something reserved for higher beings... or the ones destined to claim the title of Goblin King. Weren’t you informed?"

Again, that title—Goblin King. It kept coming up, like some looming final boss I hadn’t even unlocked yet.

And apparently, I was supposed to know something about it?

I scoffed inwardly. Right. Like there had been some grand tutorial I skipped.

"What is this about the Goblin King?" I asked, voice calm, but laced with edge.

Jael’s brow furrowed. His face twisted, an expression of genuine disgust settling in.

"How can you not know this?" he snapped, eyes scanning me as if trying to peel back my skin and see what I really was.

"What do you mean?" I asked again, my tone deliberate. I wanted to hear it straight from him.

"Every Chosen was briefed about it before they awakened as a goblin," he said, matter-of-factly.

I blinked. "By whom... Gandalf?" I replied slowly, my voice dry, borderline sarcastic as my brain frantically backtracked through every moment since I’d woken up in this cursed world.

No robed sage. No mysterious mentor. No ancient prophecy whispered to me in my sleep.

The answer was simple: I’d heard none of this.

Jael’s eyes narrowed further, his face creasing in confusion.

"Who is Gandalf?" he asked.

I let out a soft breath.

"Who was it that briefed you then?" I asked, keeping my voice neutral.

Jael frowned deeply, as if the question itself offended him.

"Lord Drugar. How dense are you?"

Ouch.

I blinked but held my expression steady. Still, the sting of that insult hit harder than it should have.

But honestly—how was I supposed to know any of this? Why did he just assume I’d been given the same script?

And that name again... Drugar.

I’d been hearing it since the moment I woke up in this twisted world. Whispers in system prompts, muttered reverence from goblins, and now this. But never anything solid. No explanation. Just a presence looming behind the curtain.

Jael seemed to catch the flicker of confusion on my face. His expression twisted slightly—still guarded, but now tinged with something else. Amusement... and maybe pity?

"I find it odd that you do not know of this," he said slowly, balling his fist.

He then let out a long, controlled sigh, and growled, voice low and bitter:

"It makes me even angrier, that someone so ignorant—someone with no path, no direction—could just show up and destroy something so carefully built."

I met his glare with my own, my voice sharp and cold.

"Cry about it then."

As if I was the villain here. As if I walked in unprovoked and tore their little empire down for sport.

They attacked me. They hunted me. They treated me like prey the moment I showed up—and now he wanted to act like I was the one who ruined everything?

Still, even as I stood there—Gravefang loose in my grip, heat rising in the air between us—I couldn’t shake the words he’d said. Couldn’t get that damn conversation out of my head.

If every Chosen was given some grand explanation, if they all knew what they were, what they were meant to become, then why the hell was my case different?

Was someone—Gandalf, or whatever puppet master was behind this—screwing with me?

Was I a mistake? Or worse... an experiment?

Why was I left in the dark?

Why did I have to piece everything together on the fly like some clueless pawn fumbling through a game I didn’t even know I was playing?

And yeah, maybe part of me wanted to call it unfair.

But then again...

To call it unfair?

Could I really cry foul when my innate skill was this broken?

From the way Jael’s face twisted in disbelief earlier—like he’d just been told the world was flat—I knew his skill wasn’t anywhere close to mine in rank. Maybe A. Maybe even S. But not S.

So maybe that was it. Maybe my skill was so far off the scale that whoever—or whatever—was running this show decided I didn’t need the usual hand-holding. No briefing. No guidance. Just toss me into the fire and see what happens.

Or maybe... I wasn’t supposed to exist at all. A mistake in the code. A glitch in the system.

A walking contradiction.

Whatever the case, the mystery wasn’t unravelling fast enough—and Jael didn’t look like the type to give long answers. He raised his weapon, the heavy blade crackling with blackened roots and dark energy that pulsed like a heartbeat.

"I do not care what you are," he said, voice rumbling like a war drum. "But if I end your life here and now... that skill of yours becomes mine. With it, I could crush the rest of the competition. No one would stand a chance. The crown would be mine. The title—Goblin King—would be mine. And then..."

His gaze hardened, teeth gritting behind cracked lips.

"I would finally break free from this prison."

Prison?

The words rang in my head, sharp and unfamiliar, twisting my thoughts into knots.

What prison? What the hell was he talking about?

With a single motion, Jael reached into his inventory, and his blade materialized in his grip. The moment it appeared, the air itself seemed to recoil. A dark aura bled from his body, thick and cold, swallowing the dim light in the cave. The temperature dropped sharply, the atmosphere tightening like a coiled spring ready to snap.

The ground at his feet cracked under the weight of it, black tendrils spreading like veins across the floor.

I still had questions.

Dozens of them.

About the Goblin King. The prison. The competition. About why I’d been thrown into all this without a clue.

But it was obvious Jael wasn’t planning to talk anymore.