Chapter 430: Infiltration
"What are you doing?" Narg asked.
Zarah didn’t take her eyes off the goblins below.
"If they swear an oath that they’ll die the moment they harbor any hostile intent toward this clan," she replied, "then I don’t see any reason not to accept them."
Narg clicked his tongue.
The clan’s rapid growth had already been a source of concern for him. He had accepted it before because recruiting more goblins had been necessary to satisfy the requirements for becoming a King’s Game candidate.
Now, however, the situation was different.
Their numbers were no longer the priority.
Bringing in more goblins meant more mouths to feed, more people to protect, and more variables to account for during the King’s Games. If these survivors couldn’t contribute immediately, they would become burdens rather than assets.
More importantly...
The Chief wasn’t here.
Eli had been unusually cautious ever since the topic of Raghul resurfaced, which was exactly why Narg believed no decision connected to outsiders should be made without him.
His instincts told him to reject them.
To shut the gates and remove every possible risk before it reached the clan.
But Zarah had already made up her mind, and she wasn’t going to change it.
After watching her for another moment, Narg quietly let out a breath.
There was no point arguing any further.
So, despite his reservations, he chose to accept her decision.
"Fine. Do as you please."
Narg didn’t wait for a response. He turned and walked away from the wall, making it clear he wanted no further part in the discussion.
A brief silence followed after his departure. Then Zarah looked toward Caius.
"You’re awfully quiet."
Caius let out a slow breath.
"You both make valid points."
"And?"
He remained silent for a moment, his eyes still fixed on the goblins gathered outside the walls.
"I just can’t tell which one is right."
He rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Normally, I’d rely on [Foresight] to help guide a decision like this, but it hasn’t been working the way it’s supposed to."
The uncertainty in his voice was subtle, but it was there.
Zarah studied him for a moment before speaking.
"I doubt the Chief made you his advisor just because of your powers."
Caius fell quiet again. Her words lingered in his mind.
After several seconds, a faint smile appeared on his face.
"You’re right."
In just a few days, Caius had come to rely on the innate skill far more than he realized.
[Foresight] had quietly become a part of the way he made decisions. Whenever uncertainty arose, the skill had always been there to offer a glimpse of what lay ahead, allowing him to weigh his choices with greater confidence.
Now, without it...
Every decision felt incomplete. Not because he couldn’t think for himself, but because he had grown accustomed to having that extra certainty.
It made him more cautious than usual.
"I don’t need [Foresight] to look at things rationally," he muttered to himself.
Outside the walls, the refugees slowly approached.
They stopped where instructed, huddling close together as countless wary eyes watched them from above. Many of them trembled under the weight of those hostile stares, but none attempted to flee.
Zarah first had every one of them swear an oath to speak truthfully.
After that, she made them swear their loyalty to the clan, ensuring that any hostile intent toward their new home would cost them their lives.
Only then did she permit them to come closer.
Even so, Caius suggested they proceed carefully.
"Only a few of them at a time," he said. "If anything goes wrong, it’ll be easier to contain."
No one objected.
Caius, Drel, Gobbo, and Gork were the ones who stepped forward to receive them.
The process took several minutes.
Once they were satisfied that the oaths had taken hold and no immediate threat presented itself, the refugees were finally allowed through the gates.
As the goblins entered the settlement, they found themselves surrounded on every side by armed warriors.
Spears remained lowered. Bows stayed drawn. Not a single guard relaxed their grip on their weapon.
The refugees visibly tensed beneath those watchful gazes, but none of them complained.
After everything they had been through, they understood that such caution was only natural.
"That went well," Zarah said.
Caius gave a small nod, but his attention had already drifted elsewhere.
As the refugees followed Gork deeper into the settlement, his gaze settled on Rasak’s back.
For the briefest instant, he thought he saw something.
A tiny movement beneath the goblin’s tattered clothing, as though something had peered out before disappearing just as quickly.
His eyes narrowed.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Caius vanished from where he stood.
The next instant, he was directly in front of Razak.
The sudden appearance startled the goblin so badly that he instinctively stumbled back, his eyes widening in alarm.
"W-What is it?" Razak asked.
Caius didn’t answer immediately.
He carefully inspected Rasak’s clothing before moving behind him and examining his back, searching for whatever he thought he’d seen. But he found nothing.
Not satisfied, he activated [Mana Detection].
Mana spread outward from him in a controlled wave, washing over Rasak’s body as Caius carefully examined every fluctuation he could sense.
He searched for even the slightest trace of concealed mana, a foreign presence, or anything that didn’t belong, but despite his thorough inspection, he found nothing.
There was only Rasak.
After several more seconds of searching, Caius finally stepped back.
"...My mistake," he said.
He concluded that he had simply imagined it.
After all, he had already questioned Rasak extensively before allowing him through the gates, probing every possible inconsistency he could think of. The goblin had answered while bound by an oath that prevented him from lying.
There shouldn’t have been anything for him to hide.
Satisfied, Caius turned and walked away.
He never noticed the faint ripple that passed across Rasak’s back the moment his attention left.
It wasn’t because he’d been careless.
There truly had been something there.
A small, needle-like object remained embedded deep within Rasak’s back, but it didn’t exist entirely within the physical world. Most of it was anchored inside a hidden layer of space, leaving only the smallest point connected to Rasak’s body.
Because of that, no ordinary inspection could reveal it.
Neither sight nor [Mana Detection] could perceive something that existed outside the space they were searching.
As the refugees continued deeper into the settlement, the object remained perfectly still, concealed from everyone around it.
***
Far away, someone smiled.
Through that hidden object, Raghul had watched everything unfold.
He had seen the walls, the warriors guarding them, and, most importantly, he had finally discovered where the goblin he had been searching for all this time resided.