CHAPTER 227: PAWN

I dropped like a stone, hitting the ground with a hard thud, coughing violently as I clutched at my throat. Each gasp scraped through my raw windpipe, but I was breathing again, and that was enough.

The chamber was blinding now.

My eyes clamped shut on instinct, the brilliance too intense to face.

"What the hell...?" Drugar’s voice cracked through the light, but it had changed. The thunder was gone, replaced by something else. Unease.

"What is this...? You... you...how are you here?"

I still couldn’t see, but I heard it.

The tremble in his voice.

Whoever or whatever had arrived wasn’t someone he expected... and definitely not someone he wanted to face.

Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the light vanished. Gone in a blink, swallowed back into the void.

And with it, so was Drugar.

The chamber fell dead silent.

Then the sound of a notification...

Ding!

[Grave Consecration Successful]

[New Graveyard Has Been Established]

I glanced at the notification just long enough to confirm it was real, then let my head drop, shoulders sagging as I allowed myself a moment to breathe.

Inhale. Exhale. Slow and deep.

My neck still ached, and every breath scraped against the rawness in my throat.

Whatever had just happened... it had taken a serious toll. Not just physically, though my body felt like it had been beaten with iron rods and then thrown into a forge—but mentally too.

My mind was foggy, my thoughts sluggish, my limbs weighed down by something heavier than fatigue.

That...that...was the closest I’d ever been to dying.

I had been completely and utterly helpless, suspended in the air like a puppet with its strings tied around its own neck.

And all of that? That wasn’t even Drugar himself. That was just his avatar. A fragment. A shadow. Not even the real thing.

I wanted to say there was no shame in it.

That anyone...anyone...would have crumbled under that pressure.

I mean, it was Drugar, the god of goblins.

The one whose name alone could make any goblin tremble.

But still...

First, the Overseer. Now Drugar. Both encounters left me shaking, overpowered, and scrambling just to survive. And the worst part wasn’t even the fear—it was the helplessness. The feeling of being nothing more than an insect crawling beneath the feet of giants.

It was starting to piss me off.

Finally steadying my breath, I sat up a bit straighter and tried to piece it all together in my head, recapping what led me here.

In the process of consecrating the grave, I had somehow managed to summon an avatar of Lord Drugar himself—a deity whose very name carried weight among goblins, and whose presence came with crushing pressure and unrelenting fury.

He’d been furious, obviously, offended that I dared offer him a bone as a sacrifice.

And he responded like any divine being with too much pride and not enough patience: by demanding something impossible in return. One thousand goblin hearts.

When I tried to negotiate, when I dared to suggest an alternative, he went straight for my throat. Literally.

Choking the life out of me because I didn’t meet his absurd standard.

But then, out of nowhere, a flash of light exploded from my body. Bright, overwhelming—powerful enough to push the avatar of Drugar back and cancel out the crushing wisps around my neck.

And just like that... they were gone.

The room reset. The pressure vanished. The death grip released.

One second, I was on the edge of oblivion; the next, I was alone again, coughing on stone, with nothing left but fading mist and the ringing echo of a divine tantrum.

Yep. Totally not odd at all. Perfectly normal, if I judged it by the twisted standards of this insane world I now called home.

Still, even with all the insanity I’d come to expect, I couldn’t shake the question:

What the hell was that light?

I looked down at my hands, fingers trembling slightly as I turned them over.

Did that... come from me?

I hadn’t used any skill. Hadn’t channeled mana. Hell, I couldn’t even use anything at that point as my abilities had been sealed.

So what was it? A failsafe? A hidden blessing?

I didn’t even bother trying to guess. Every time I thought I was starting to figure this world out, something like this happened to remind me I was still deep in the unknown.

But one thing was clear:

Whatever that light was, it had everything to do with why I was here, why I was reincarnated in another world as a goblin.

This was why I constantly felt so lost, so out of place, when it came to understanding my role as a blessed of Drugar.

While others seemed to have clarity, even certainty, about their purpose in this world... I had nothing.

I wasn’t brought here the normal way. That much was obvious.

Everyone else had context, despite it being little about what it means to be a chosen and their missions.

But me? I’d just woken up here with the confusing realization that I wasn’t in my old world anymore, and that my new body had green skin and tusks.

So if the overseer, who was in charge of bringing in souls as chosen, wasn’t the one who pulled me into this world, then who did?

And more importantly... why?

Was I brought here by someone who stood against Drugar?

Was this all part of some larger scheme to infiltrate his domain and bring him down from within?

Was I the weapon meant to undo him?

I didn’t know.

I couldn’t say.

But ultimately, the conclusion I kept circling back to—the only one that made even a shred of sense—was that I was just a pawn.

A pawn to forces far beyond my understanding. A tool moved by unseen hands on a board I couldn’t even see.

A piece in someone else’s puzzle.

I was being used; that much felt certain.

Manipulated without my knowledge or consent.

And the worst part? I didn’t even know by whom or why.

Why me?

Was there...