"Oaths aren't as foolproof as most of you think."

Gork's eyes narrowed slightly.

"What do you mean by that?"

I rested my arm against the table before answering.

"Oaths can be broken under one specific condition," I said. "If the person who initiated the oath dies."

Another wave of surprise swept through the room.

Not loud this time, but enough that the tension shifted noticeably again.

It was the exact situation that had happened between Caius and Raghul.

When Caius died, the oath Raghul had sworn to him became invalid, which was what allowed Raghul to move freely afterward without suffering the backlash of breaking it.

And that created a dangerous problem.

If I had Caius and the others swear oaths to me, then the moment I died—even temporarily—the bindings would disappear as well.

Even if the graveyard brought me back afterward, the original oath would already be gone.

Which meant that in the event of my death, an entire group of powerful Chosen would suddenly regain complete freedom all at once.

At that point, they could do whatever they wanted.

Honestly, the more I thought about it, the more terrifying the entire thing became.

Forget not dying to another Chosen. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

I simply could not afford to die at all.

Not to a monster. Not to an accident. Not to some random unlucky situation. Nothing.

Because the consequences wouldn't stop with me anymore.

That realization was exactly why I had been hesitating so much about accepting Caius and his group into the clan.

If I chose to kill them instead and steal their skills, I would still eventually need to recruit other Chosen later on anyway. And in order to trust those future recruits, I would once again need to rely on oaths.

But if those oaths lost meaning the moment I died…

Then what exactly was the difference in the end?

Why reject a group that already provided this much value when the same risk would eventually exist regardless?

The room grew quiet again as everyone processed that implication.

Then Narg slowly turned toward Gork with a suspicious look in his eyes.

"You didn't know about this?" he asked.

"I didn't," Gork replied calmly, though the expression on his face remained difficult to read.

Narg's brows narrowed further.

"I find that hard to believe."

Gork rolled his eyes at that.

"What you believe doesn't really matter," he said flatly. "What matters is what the Chief believes."

His gaze shifted toward me afterward.

I gave a single nod.

I believed him.

Or more accurately…

I simply didn't care whether he had known or not, especially now that I was aware of the weakness myself.

There was no point dwelling on suspicion endlessly.

At the end of the day, Gork had already sworn an oath, and that oath clearly stated that attempting to harm the clan would kill him. As long as I remained alive, the binding still held meaning.

So even if he had known about the flaw beforehand, then his decision to keep quiet about it hadn't been driven by malicious intent—at least not as long as he remained alive and bound by the oath.

And right now, that was all that really mattered.

"That's quite the shocking revelation, young totem," Flogga said as she looked at me thoughtfully. "But the solution sounds rather simple to me."

I raised a brow.

Simple?

How exactly was something like this supposed to have a simple solution?

"Just don't die," she said.

I frowned lightly.

"...What?"

"If dying renders the oath useless, then simply don't die," Flogga repeated as though the answer should've been obvious from the beginning.

For a second, the room went silent.

Then Narg looked at her with visible disbelief.

"Isn't that a little too simple of a solution?"

"It is," Flogga admitted without hesitation, flashing a toothy grin. "But it's also the only real solution. There's no point overthinking it."

I couldn't help grinning a little myself after hearing that.

As absurdly obvious as it sounded, she wasn't wrong.

At the end of the day, the best way to prevent the oath from becoming meaningless was simply to make sure I stayed alive.

And there was far too much at stake now for me to casually throw my life around anymore.

Not just because of Ariel.

Not just because of myself.

But because the stability of the entire clan had unknowingly started tying itself to my existence.

It would definitely become more difficult moving forward, especially considering I somehow always ended up attracting enemies and situations far more troublesome than they had any right to be.

Still…

It wasn't impossible.

Not if I kept it constantly in mind.

And honestly, the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was another issue I needed to fix about myself.

I tended to drag fights out.

Part of it was caution, but if I was being honest, another part of me genuinely enjoyed battle. I liked testing things. Experimenting. Pushing against strong opponents and seeing what happened.

I liked savoring fights.

But now, that was becoming a dangerous habit I could no longer afford to indulge in.

The stakes attached to my death had become far too real.

"Alright," I said as I rose to my feet. "I know what I'm going to do."

"And that is…?" Zarah asked immediately.

I looked at her for a second before grinning.

"How about you wait and see."

Several of them frowned at that response, clearly dissatisfied by the lack of explanation, but I ignored it and turned toward Narg instead.

"Take me to them."

Narg immediately stood and led the way out of the room while the others remained behind.

As we walked through the clan, I noticed the atmosphere hadn't completely calmed yet. News about Caius and his group had already spread, and plenty of goblins were still watching cautiously from a distance, whispering among themselves as we passed.

Eventually, Narg brought me toward a heavily reinforced structure near the inner section of the clan.

And I gasped on seeing it.

"So, this was the clan's dungeon."

The structure itself wasn't...