CHAPTER 146: THOUGHTS

"But our number kept dropping, and annihilation seemed imminent. Until you arrived."

I listened with every bit of focus I could muster, my attention locked on her words as if they were the only thing keeping me tethered to reality.

When she finally finished, the only response I could manage was a long, heavy exhale.

My thoughts were a whirlwind, and through it all one refrain kept echoing in my skull: what the hell is this, what the hell is this, what the hell is this?

And yet... when I looked at my own story — the absurd twists of fate, the system, the blessings and curses — hers didn’t sound so unbelievable. Not really.

The quiet genuineness in her tone lent it a weight that was hard to deny, as though she wasn’t trying to convince me but simply laying out a truth she’d carried too long.

Still, something in her story snagged my attention, a detail I couldn’t ignore. I leaned forward, eyes narrowing.

"Wait a minute... did you say grandkids? As in more than one?"

She blinked, her tone calm as ever. "Yes?"

"Zarah and who?"

I pressed instantly, curiosity climbing up my spine.

Her reply was unflinching.

"Zarah, Thok, and Narg."

"The fuck?!"

I exclaimed, the force of it ripping out of me before I could temper it, and in that instant my legs seemed to give out beneath me.

I dropped hard, landing on the cold ground with my backside first, both hands flying up to clutch at my head as if I could hold the chaos inside from spilling out.

"Narg? He’s also your grandson?"

"Yes," she answered, calm as ever, as though revealing the most ordinary truth in the world. "He is."

I turned away sharply, unable to look at her, my mind tumbling over itself.

What the hell is this?

The thought clawed at me, louder with every heartbeat.

This was too much.

Thok being her grandson? That I could almost accept.

He had always taken her orders with barely a grunt of protest, his obedience to her feeling more natural than loyalty to me. But Narg? The same Narg who had once stood before me and dared to challenge my claim as chief? The shaman who had now become an anchor in my absence.

That Narg...was her grandson?

"Wow..."

The word slipped out, not in admiration but in raw disbelief, my voice flat with the weight of it.

I dragged a hand down my face, and then I thought about Narg’s evolution.

How it had set him apart, distinct from the others. How it had felt... different. Special in a way I hadn’t fully understood at the time.

Now, with this revelation hanging between us, it made a terrifying sort of sense.

But wait a minute... Thok’s evolution wasn’t that special.

Maybe that wasn’t the pattern.

I was reaching too far, but still...

There was no denying how remarkable they were.

Narg, with his strange evolution, and Zarah, with her keen eyes and unshakable will. Thok with his quirky mannerisms.

Together, they stood out.

Yet I refused to believe their gifts came simply because they were descended from Flogga, who herself had once been human and then somehow turned goblin.

No, that was too neat an explanation, too easy, and reality had already proven itself far messier than simple bloodlines.

If anything, I could make the argument that all of the goblins in this clan were something special. The loyalty they showed, the way they adapted, the strange sparks of individuality that surfaced even in the weakest of them — none of that could be dismissed as ordinary.

And in the back of my mind, I doubted any of it was free from Flogga’s influence.

Direct or indirect, her hand was somewhere in it.

The thought pulled me further down a trail I hadn’t bothered to consider before.

When I looked at enemy goblins — the ones we had fought and killed — I realized how little they spoke. Most communicated in guttural grunts, crude noises that carried no nuance.

Only their leaders ever formed proper words. It was consistent across other species too: the Mooncat I fought, the Direwolves, even the Alpha Deer.

Always the leaders. Always the elite. Only they carried intelligence sharp enough to shape language.

So perhaps it wasn’t just culture or coincidence. Perhaps power itself was tied to thought, to clarity, to speech. In this world, intelligence was not separate from strength — it was a symptom of it.

But with this clan, it was different.

Every single one of them could speak, could hold conversations, could reason and argue like people rather than beasts.

How had I not noticed that sooner? How had I missed something so glaring?

"Chief, this is not really a big deal," Flogga said, her tone calm, almost dismissive, as though she could sense the storm turning in my head.

"No, it’s not," I replied quickly, forcing myself to reel in the spiral before it carried me off.

This wasn’t supposed to be a big deal.

I had a former Chosen under me — fine. Strange, yes, but not world-shattering.

The real issue was that the enemy had numerous Chosen serving him, bending their strength to his will.

That was what mattered.

That was the big deal.

Still, I couldn’t shake the thought.

Our awakenings here... they weren’t the same.

Something about mine, and maybe the ones that came after me, felt fundamentally different from hers.

Was it possible that Drugar had changed the rules?

That he had figured out something new, like a craftsman tinkering with his tools, updating his tactics because it made managing us easier?

If that were true, then those Chosen who had appeared during Flogga’s time — would they have ever received the system at all? Or was the system a newer invention, a framework born after her age?

I dragged a hand down my face, exhaling slowly.

In the end, it didn’t matter. Not really.

What she had or hadn’t received in her day didn’t change the fact that the enemy was out there, gathering power.

But there was still a question gnawing at the back of my mind, one that had surfaced the moment Flogga revealed her ignorance of the system. I couldn’t let it go.

"Flogga," I called, my tone firmer than before.

"Yes, Chief," she replied immediately.