From Slave to King: My Rebate System Built Me a Kingdom With Beauties!-Chapter 218: Take Me To Kraghul! [FIXED!]

Byung had managed to get the attention of Urgar’s daughters through a combination of his unusual strength and his knowledge of Kraghul. There was no doubt they all had a single goal in mind which was to find their brother—everything else was secondary to that mission. Their father had sent them specifically for this purpose, and they would pursue any lead, no matter how suspicious the source.

He wondered if the dark elf would run away now that he was potentially leaving with these powerful orcs who could protect him. But to his utmost surprise, as he extended that strange new sense he didn’t fully understand, he could still feel her presence lingering around the area. She hadn’t fled. She was watching everything unfold with invisible eyes, observing from her camouflaged position. The realization sent a chill down his spine—whatever her intentions were, she was committed to following him.

Byung looked over his shoulder at the empty space where he sensed her presence, then returned his gaze to the three orc sisters. "Kraghul went west," he said carefully, pointing in that direction. "I can take you to where I last saw him. But we need to move quickly—the trail gets colder every day." 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

The two older orcs, Thulga and Roktha, looked at each other with a moment’s clear hesitation. They had no idea what Byung’s true intentions were, and this could easily be a trap. A goblin leading them into an ambush, using their desperation to find Kraghul against them. The possibility was obvious and concerning.

But more than that, this goblin was unusual in ways that couldn’t be ignored. He wasn’t as ugly as the rest of his kind—his features were more refined, less brutish, carrying an almost human quality to his structure. Not just that, he was significantly taller than any goblin they’d encountered, standing closer to five feet than the typical three or four. His body was more muscular, more proportioned like a warrior rather than a scavenger. This couldn’t be a coincidence, couldn’t be natural variation. Something had changed him.

And he had caught Mazga’s kick. That alone spoke volumes.

Thulga made her decision with the calculated efficiency that made her their father’s favorite tactician. "You’ll ride with us," she announced, her tone brooking no argument. "Hop on behind Mazga’s horse. She’ll be the one to carry you."

"What?!" Mazga protested immediately, her enthusiasm from moments ago replaced by indignation. "Why do I have to—"

"You said you liked him," Roktha cut in with a lazy smirk, finally speaking. Her voice carried amusement that bordered on mockery. "That means he’s your responsibility now. You wanted to play with him, now you get to babysit him."

Mazga’s mouth opened and closed like a fish, trying to find a counterargument and failing. Her face flushed slightly with embarrassment at having her words thrown back at her.

Byung was exhausted, both physically and mentally. He just wanted to go home at this point—back to his settlement, back to Maui and the others, back to familiar ground where he understood the rules and relationships. He needed to be better prepared before making journeys into unknown territories, needed to understand what had happened to him and why he felt so different.

But there was a silver lining to this situation. His decision to ultimately spare Kraghul’s life back during their confrontation—to take him prisoner rather than execute him—might be the very thing that could save his life right now even though Kraghul had caused irreparable damage to his people. If he could return their brother alive, these daughters of Urgar might become allies rather than enemies. It was a gamble, but one with potentially massive payoff.

He also knew that with horses moving at full gallop, there was a strong possibility they might be able to outrun the dark elf attached to him as well. She was powerful, certainly, but even magic had its limitations. If they put enough distance between them quickly enough, maybe she would lose interest and go her own way. It was wishful thinking, but he clung to it anyway.

Mazga finally agreed to carry Byung even though she had protested initially, her shoulders slumping in defeat. "Fine," she muttered. "But if he tries anything weird, I’m throwing him off."

"Noted," Byung said dryly as he approached her horse—a massive destrier that snorted at his approach, nostrils flaring as it caught his unfamiliar scent.

He climbed up behind Mazga with some difficulty, settling onto the horse’s broad back behind her. Her body was warm and solid in front of him, radiating heat like a furnace, and he had to wrap his arms around her waist to keep from sliding off. She stiffened at the contact but didn’t pull away.

"West it is then," Thulga declared, turning her horse in that direction. "Lead the way, goblin. And pray you’re not wasting our time."

As they began to ride, leaving the clearing behind, Byung cast one last glance over his shoulder. He couldn’t see the dark elf, but he could still feel her presence following. A shadow he couldn’t shake, watching his every move with intentions he couldn’t begin to guess.

This was going to be complicated.

----

The dwarf had openly declared war against the elves with that single brutal execution, slitting the throat of their scout in full view of their scrying pools. He had killed one of their own with no remorse, no hesitation, no diplomatic consideration—just cold, efficient violence designed to send a message. Because these elves must have forgotten what his kind was truly capable of when pushed beyond patience, when decades of careful maneuvering gave way to open hostility. They had grown complacent behind their barrier, secure in their power, convinced that their magical superiority made them untouchable.

They were about to remember why dark dwarves were feared.

There was nothing inherently wrong with returning the world to how it was before the barrier’s creation, the dwarf reasoned as he cleaned his blade on the dead elf’s robes. The natural order had been disrupted by elven arrogance, by their decision to seal away an entire continent because they deemed it too dangerous, too corrupted to be allowed to exist. But these elves had appointed themselves guardians without anyone’s consent, made themselves judge and executioner of what was acceptable in the world, decided unilaterally that their way was the only way.

He hated it with a passion that had burned for decades. Hated their self-righteousness, their casual dismissal of other races as lesser beings, their assumption that they knew better than everyone else what was good for the world. If he could find a way to drain one of their strongest—capture Lysandra or Aetherys or Seraphel and siphon every drop of their considerable power—he would do so without a moment’s hesitation. The thought of one of those arrogant champions reduced to a powerless husk brought him dark satisfaction and it would also give him access to far more juice needed for stronger spells.

But the dwarf was furious with himself more than the elves, his scarred hands clenching into fists as reality settled over him like cold water. It was his own mistake to think everything would go according to plan, his own arrogance to assume he had accounted for every variable. Plans were fragile things, dependent on countless factors aligning perfectly, and he should have known better than to trust in their execution without contingencies.

The prison had been unexpected. Byung’s armor being removed was a catastrophic failure of preparation. The loss of tracking capability left him operating blind in ways he hadn’t experienced in years. And now his perfect candidate—the goblin king who could wield the sword—was lost somewhere beyond his reach.

The elves had been ready for him in ways that suggested better intelligence than he’d credited them with. Their defensive positioning, their use of expendable hunters rather than valuable champions, their scrying network that tracked his movements—all of it spoke to preparation and caution that had countered his usual advantages. They were learning, adapting, and that made them far more dangerous than enemies who fought the same way every time.

He needed to find Byung and force him to take the sword, needed to get the plan back on track before the window of opportunity closed entirely. Time was working against him now—every day that passed gave the elves more chances to interfere, more opportunities to eliminate the goblin or strengthen their defenses. The urgency gnawed at him like acid in his gut.

The dwarf was about to leave the clearing, about to head underground where scrying couldn’t follow and begin the frustrating process of searching for Byung through mundane means, when he felt the shift in the air. Magic, close and deliberate, announcing itself rather than trying for stealth.

Three elves emerged from the shadow of the fallen elf’s corpse—literally stepped out of the darkness pooled beneath her body as if it were a doorway rather than absence of light. Shadow magic, rare and difficult even among elves, requiring precise control and significant power reserves. These weren’t scouts or hunters. These were specialists, sent for a specific purpose.

The dwarf immediately got ready to fight them, his hand moving to the weapon at his side, the dark continent technology that had served him so well. His red eyes tracked their movements, calculating distances and angles, preparing for the inevitable combat. Three against one was poor odds even with his advantages, but he’d survived worse.

But all the elves did was kneel beside their fallen sister’s body. No aggressive posturing, no prepared spells, no weapons drawn. They simply gathered around the corpse with practiced efficiency—one at the head, one at the feet, the third placing hands on the torso. Their movements carried the solemnity of ritual rather than the urgency of combat.

Then they sank back into the shadow, taking the body with them, all four figures disappearing into darkness that closed behind them like water closing over a stone dropped into a still pond. The clearing was empty again in seconds, no trace remaining that the dead elf had ever been there except the blood still staining the grass.

There was no need to fight the dwarf, the elves had clearly decided. Their sister’s body was the priority—recovering it before he could defile it further, before he could use it for whatever dark purposes his kind were rumored to employ. The confrontation would come later, when circumstances favored them rather than him.

He was powerless now in the ways that mattered most—unable to track Byung, unable to force events back onto his preferred timeline, unable to prevent the elves from adapting their strategy. And the retrieval team’s calm, efficient extraction told him something important: they weren’t panicking. They weren’t rushing. They had time, or believed they did, which gave them space to plan their next move carefully.

The dwarf stood alone in the clearing, surrounded by the evidence of violence but no enemies to fight, and allowed himself a moment of frustrated acknowledgment. The game had become more complicated. The players were smarter than anticipated. And his perfect plan was rapidly becoming an improvised scramble. However, this didn’t mean he didn’t have a plan B.