trying to understand ping

as you can see in my traceroute test, my average, min and current ping is around 26-30ms max on the hop right before i hit valorants server. but everytime im in game, my lower ping server is Chicago Illinois and its always showing as 42ms or higher in the lobby and in game im never getting below 38ms. can someone help me understand whats going on here? why is my ping so high in the game when in traceroute tests its around 30ms as it hits the valorant server ip?