Goblin King: My Innate Skill Is OP

Chapter 407: Lure

Our bond made lying to her surprisingly difficult at times. She couldn’t read my thoughts, but she could feel enough to know when something wasn’t matching up.

And right now, she clearly wasn’t buying what I was selling.

The fox continued staring. Silently. Judging me.

I hate it when she does that.

"Fine," she finally said. "If you’re going to be a wuss, go ahead."

I frowned immediately.

"Excuse me?"

Ariel ignored the interruption.

"Go upstairs and waste your time tinkering with your abilities when we both know you’d rather be out hunting monsters."

I clicked my tongue. That hit a little too close to home.

Because she wasn’t entirely wrong.

Over the last few days, I’d spent more time sitting around the settlement than I had in the entire time since arriving in this world. Even when I wasn’t actively doing anything, part of me constantly felt restless.

Like I should be moving. Fighting. Growing stronger.

Instead, I kept finding reasons to stay.

"Sometimes self-control is necessary," I said.

And to be fair, I believed that.

Not every opportunity needed to be chased. Not every risk needed to be taken.

Knowing when to stop was important too.

Ariel’s ears twitched. Then I turned and started walking toward the stairs.

Before I could climb them, however, her voice echoed from behind me.

"Coward."

My foot stopped halfway onto the first step. And I turned back almost immediately.

"I am not afraid."

"You are afraid," Ariel insisted without missing a beat. "Afraid that your absence might put the clan in danger."

I opened my mouth to argue, but she continued before I could.

"But isn’t that the whole reason you’ve spent so much time preparing the goblins? So they’d be able to function without you?"

I exhaled slowly.

"The threat is bigger than ever before."

"You don’t even know for certain that the threat exists."

That made me pause.

Because she was right.

For all my worrying, I didn’t actually know what Raghul was doing. I didn’t know where he had gone, if he had joined another candidate, if he was planning revenge.

Hell, I didn’t even know if he still cared about the garnets anymore. Everything was speculation. Possibilities. Worst-case scenarios my mind kept constructing and reconstructing every time I thought about him.

For all I knew, he could be preparing for the King’s Games like everyone else.

He could have found a new opportunity entirely. He could be halfway across the region, focusing on something that had absolutely nothing to do with me.

The truth was that I simply didn’t know. And I hated not knowing.

"Tell me something," Ariel said.

I looked toward her.

"Would getting stronger put you or the clan at any sort of disadvantage?"

I gave her a look. The answer was obvious.

No. If anything, it would accomplish the exact opposite. Every increase in my strength indirectly benefited the clan as well. Especially because of Skill Share.

The stronger I became, the more options I had available. The more options I had available, the greater our chances became when the King’s Games finally arrived.

So why was I hesitating?

I leaned against the wall and thought about it.

Since my last evolution, my strength has increased dramatically. Not just my level. Everything.

I had acquired abilities that would’ve sounded ridiculous to me when I first arrived in this world.

Absolute Lock. A skill capable of freezing the motion of whatever fell within its influence.

Absolute Phase. An ability that allowed me to become ethereal and ignore physical interaction entirely.

World Partition. A skill so absurd that it could fracture space itself into multiple layers.

And those were only the most outrageous examples.

All three were SSS-ranked abilities. Abilities that most goblins would probably spend entire lifetimes chasing without ever coming close to obtaining.

The more I thought about them, the more difficult it became to justify my hesitation.

Back then, when I had been trapped and isolated from the clan, I simply hadn’t possessed the tools I have now. Things were different. I was different.

If I approached the tomb cautiously... If I stayed alert...If I treated everything there as a potential threat from the moment I arrived...Then what exactly was I afraid of?

I doubted an ordinary restriction skill could hold me. I doubted an ordinary trap could stop me. And if things truly became dangerous, I possessed more methods of escape than I could count.

No. More than that. I genuinely believed I wouldn’t be caught by the same kind of trick twice.

That wasn’t arrogance. It was experience.

Experience earned through pain, mistakes, and situations that had nearly gotten me killed. So why was I still standing here arguing with a fox instead of making a decision?

The answer annoyed me.

Because despite everything I’d just told myself, there was still a small part of me that wasn’t thinking about the tomb at all.

I was thinking about the clan. About leaving. About what might happen while I was gone.

And the more I examined that feeling, the more I realized something.

I was afraid of responsibility.

Not responsibility itself. Failing it.

Because somewhere along the way, the Emerald Midget Clan had stopped being a group of goblins under my command. It had become something I genuinely cared about. Which made every risk feel heavier than it used to.

"I can feel what you feel," Ariel said. "And right now, I can tell you’re bored out of your mind. So what do you say? With your powers, it might only take a few minutes for us to clear the tomb and get out. You’re overthinking this."

I furrowed my brow.

Something about this felt suspicious.

It was almost as if she had figured out exactly what buttons to press and was deliberately pushing every single one of them.

Unfortunately, the offer itself was far too tempting.

A mysterious tomb. A powerful guardian. Potential rewards. And only five days remaining until the King’s Games.

It was practically bait designed specifically for me. So after a moment, I sighed.

"How far is this place?"