Goblin Library - Chapter 100

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 100.

Lee Gang-hyuk stood before the men with his eyes narrowed.
“So… they vanished?”
“Yes.”
The subordinates he’d assigned to tail the two men they’d met at the Chinese Restaurant had lost them. And it wasn’t even a matter of—
“You’re saying they didn’t just lose them, but that they vanished?”
“I, I understand it’s hard to believe, sir… but they truly disappeared.”
Lee Gang-hyuk spoke to his subordinate, who was reporting cautiously.
“Fine. I believe you.”
“You do, sir?”
When his subordinate looked taken aback instead, Lee Gang-hyuk continued.
“If you were going to lie, you’d have made up a better story. But since even you find this hard to believe, and yet you’re telling me this happened—it must be the truth.”
The subordinate’s expression brightened somewhat. He had been unable to find an answer no matter how much he’d struggled with how to explain this to Lee Gang-hyuk.
“So tell me. Exactly what happened to you.”
“It was….”
After gathering his thoughts for a moment, the subordinate spoke.
“The two men entered a bar.”
“And then?”
“So we followed them inside, but… no one matching their description had entered.”
“No one matching their description entered?”
“Yes. We gave the staff a detailed description, and they said no such people had come in. And as you saw, one was wearing a luxury designer suit and the other was in casual sportswear—such an odd combination that the staff would have immediately noticed if they’d walked in.”
“What about the CCTV?”
“It was broken, sir.”
“Broken?”
“Whether it was a power issue or something else, the footage from that time period—about ten minutes—wasn’t recorded.”
Lee Gang-hyuk paused to think at his subordinate’s words, then asked.
“No signs of external tampering?”
“It was a small bar with an old-model surveillance camera that wasn’t connected to the internet. So there was no way anyone could have interfered with it from outside.”
The subordinate continued.
“And another strange thing—the bar had only one entrance. The bathroom was inside, and the window was too small for anyone to escape through.”
“They entered, but no one came in….”
Lee Gang-hyuk tapped his head with his finger for a moment, then looked at his subordinate.
“Did they notice they were being followed?”
“…I apologize, sir.”
After a brief silence, Lee Gang-hyuk asked.
“How did you know they noticed the surveillance?”
“They pointed at us with their hands.”
“He pointed at you? He didn’t run quickly or try to evade the surveillance?”
“No… He looked directly at each of us who were tailing him.”
The subordinate quickly bowed his head.
“I apologize.”
“No. No.”
Lee Gang-hyuk shook his head and waved his hand.
“Understood. You can go.”
At Lee Gang-hyuk’s words, the subordinate looked at him with questioning eyes before bowing and leaving.
Left alone, Lee Gang-hyuk fell into thought.
“He can detect surveillance. But he pretends to know about it? And then he vanishes?”
He muttered while exhaling a long breath.
“What exactly are these two?”
Soon after, Lee Gang-hyuk shook his head. He could probably learn more by investigating further, but a strong instinct whispered that it would be better not to meddle with them.

***

In a rural area of Gangwon Province.
In one corner of that place sat the Dung Carrier Goblin’s farm.
“It’s really quiet and nice here.”
I knew the Dung Carrier Goblin ran a farm, but this was my first time visiting in person.
And the Dung Carrier Goblin’s farm, which I was seeing for the first time, was quite large and pleasant to look at. Moreover, contrary to my worries when I heard he raised cattle and pigs, there was no unpleasant smell.
“I started this farm because I loved the scenery here.”
The Dung Carrier Goblin took Yu Tae-poong’s hand and waved the cloth tucked at his waist.
Whoosh!
Their bodies lifted into the air.
“Wow!”
Startled by his body suddenly rising, Yu Tae-poong exclaimed, and the Dung Carrier Goblin laughed as he spoke.
“There’s a place I like, but it would take a long time to walk there.”
Soon their bodies soared over the mountain.
“Brother, can you fly in the sky too?”
“I’m a goblin.”
With that simple explanation, the Dung Carrier Goblin descended to a clearing atop the mountain. He settled onto a large rock on one side.
“Oh, this is nice.”
Yu Tae-poong gazed down from beneath the rock. The farm and village spread below in a view that brought peace to the heart.
It felt like gazing upon a painting titled “Tranquility.”
The Dung Carrier Goblin smiled faintly at Yu Tae-poong’s words and set down beer and roasted chicken as he spoke.
“It’s my favorite place. You’re the first one besides me to come here.”
“What an honor.”
As Yu Tae-poong tried to sit on the rock, the Dung Carrier Goblin told him to wait a moment and shook the cloth against the empty air.
Flutter! Flutter!
The cloth slowly descended onto the rock. Yet remarkably, it passed through the roasted chicken and beer already laid out, settling across the ground beneath them.
“The rock is cold.”
“You’re quite thoughtful.”
As I laughed and sat upon it, I felt an unexpected softness and warmth that belied the cloth’s thinness.
Yu Tae-poong ran his hand across the fabric with wonder.
Though it appeared thin to the eye, pressing against it revealed a peculiar cushioning sensation.
“A goblin’s club really is something special.”
“That’s why it’s called a goblin’s club.”
As I spoke, the Dung Carrier Goblin opened the chicken box. Somehow, steam still rose gently from the roasted chicken.
“Just tear it apart with your hands, and wipe the grease and seasoning on the cloth. It’ll come clean.”
“But how can you use your goblin’s club like that?”
“What do you mean? It was made in cloth form specifically to wipe away dirty things.”
The Dung Carrier Goblin grasped a seasoned chicken piece with his hand, took a bite, then demonstrated by pressing his sauce-stained fingers against the cloth spread on the ground and wiping them across it.
The seasoning that had clung to the Dung Carrier Goblin’s fingers vanished entirely.
“Even a toilet made of gold serves its purpose only when used for its intended function. My goblin’s club is the same—it fulfills its true purpose.”
Yu Tae-poong laughed heartily at the Dung Carrier Goblin’s words, then poured draft beer into a cup and offered it.
“But it seems like you hardly ever stay at the farm… so how do you manage it?”
The Dung Carrier Goblin answered Yu Tae-poong’s question.
“People manage it.”
He then continued, gazing toward the farm.
“A capable family runs it, and things operate smoothly.”
“Your family operates it?”
“During the war in 1950, I took in a war orphan.”
“You did?”
“He was the son of a protagonist from a novel I was writing… The protagonist shielded his son and died on the battlefield. Seeing that made me feel sorry for the protagonist, so I brought the boy and raised him. Ah! I even created the farm because of that orphan. I needed to ensure he could at least eat and survive, after all.”
“Ah, so that person’s descendants are the ones operating the farm now.”
“The orphan works alongside them too. He’s aged, but he still works hard.”
Yu Tae-poong nodded at the Dung Carrier Goblin’s words and asked.
“Do those people know you’re a goblin?”
“How could they not? The man who brought them during the war still looks the same now.”
“What about the rest of the family?”
“Not everyone knows, only those who need to know.”
Yu Tae-poong chuckled softly at the Dung Carrier Goblin’s answer.
“Hm? Why are you laughing?”
“I just realized there are more people who know about goblins than I expected.”
At first, I thought I was the only one who knew about goblins, but the Jeonju Jeon Owner knew, and the restaurant owners the Dung Carrier Goblin had mentioned before also knew.
There were surprisingly many people who knew, yet it was remarkable how little information about goblins actually circulated.
‘Are they bound by some kind of secret oath?’
With that thought, Yu Tae-poong asked.
“But goblins don’t age, do they?”
“It’s not that we don’t age—it’s that our appearance doesn’t change as time passes.”
“Ah!”
Yu Tae-poong nodded at the Dung Carrier Goblin’s words and asked.
“Back in the old days, creating fake identities wouldn’t have been difficult, but isn’t it hard now? What about managing things like identification cards or properties like the farm your brother owns?”
If his ID card listed him as sixty years old but he only looked thirty, it would cause serious problems in society. No, it wouldn’t just be a problem—he’d be dragged off to the police station immediately.
In response to Yu Tae-poong’s question, the Dung Carrier Goblin took a sip of beer and spoke.
“There’s a Lawyer who handles all that.”
“A Lawyer?”
“We Spirit Servants who live alongside humans in the Living World can’t escape human law. No matter what, we end up entangled with humans and have to live mixed in with their society. That’s why we need people to handle identity documents, manage assets, and provide legal representation. In the old days, we could just carry around gold bars and settle things that way, but now….”
The Dung Carrier Goblin pulled out a card.
“We have to use things like this.”
The Dung Carrier Goblin poured more beer and continued.
“So we have Lawyers who create identities for us Spirit Servants and accountants who manage our assets.”
Yu Tae-poong laughed at the Dung Carrier Goblin’s words.
“Huh? Why are you laughing again?”
“Just as you said… it seems like more people know about goblins than I thought.”
“Since we’re mixed in with the human world, we can’t hide ourselves completely.”
The Dung Carrier Goblin shook his head and continued.
“And secrets used to be maintainable to some degree in the old days, but now we live in an internet age. It’s hard to keep secrets in a world like this.”
“Still, unless people meet goblins directly, they won’t believe goblins actually exist. Before I met the Company President, I thought goblins only appeared in fairy tales.”
The Dung Carrier Goblin laughed and answered.
“Well, anyone who breaks the secret gets cursed.”
“Cursed? You mean….”
The misfortune that befalls those who offend a goblin’s temper….
“Ah!”
Yu Tae-poong laughed, understanding what the Dung Carrier Goblin meant.
“Right, if you work with a goblin and don’t keep that secret, things would get messy.”
“Exactly. That’s why some disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“Yeah, they disappeared.”
At the Dung Carrier Goblin’s words, Yu Tae-poong, who had stiffened for a moment, cautiously asked.
“You don’t mean… you killed them? Or buried them somewhere… something like that?”
The Dung Carrier Goblin waved his hand dismissively.
“Come on! We don’t just kill someone because they slip up with their words once.”
“Phew! That’s a relief.”
“And if someone shared our secret, it means they were close to us. We don’t just kill humans like that. We goblins are soft-hearted, after all.”
The Dung Carrier Goblin shook his head.
“But humans are strange—when they learn a secret, some of them just can’t keep their mouths shut. Why do they always itch to tell?”
Yu Tae-poong laughed and nodded at the Dung Carrier Goblin’s words.
“There’s a reason the old tale about the king’s donkey ears exists.”
“Well, I suppose that’s true enough.”
Yu Tae-poong watched the Dung Carrier Goblin nod and take another sip of beer before asking suddenly.
“But what do you mean by ‘disappeared’?”
“We send them to an uninhabited island.”
“An uninhabited island?”
“We can’t exactly kill them, and we can’t let them run their mouths either. So we send them to an uninhabited island to live out their days. There, no matter how much they talk, it causes no problems.”
At the Dung Carrier Goblin’s answer, Yu Tae-poong looked at him and spoke.
“But wouldn’t it be difficult to survive on an uninhabited island?”
“Ah! It’s called uninhabited, but people do actually live there.”
Yu Tae-poong looked at him with confusion.
“Then wouldn’t that make it not uninhabited?”
“People who’ve made such mistakes have existed there for a long time. And we Goblins concluded it was better to let such people live together.”
The Dung Carrier Goblin drank his beer and bit off a large chunk of roasted chicken leg.
“So we send all the close ones who’ve made mistakes with us but are too difficult to kill to that island.”
The Dung Carrier Goblin spoke with a smile.
“That’s Ieodo Island.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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