Goblin Library - Chapter 134

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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 134.

Clink! Clink!
Gluttony Goblin watched Yu Tae-poong and Oh Mi-hee strike the charcoal, producing rhythmic sounds, then shifted his gaze to the meat and balloon flower prepared beside the Hwaro.
“The balloon flower is all prepped.”
The balloon flower to be grilled over charcoal had been thinly pounded flat.
“The marinade is ready too. Just brush it on while grilling the balloon flower.”
When Dung Carrier Goblin held up a container of marinade, Gluttony Goblin turned to look at the log placed in front of the Hwaro and asked.
“Instead of a chair?”
“It has character.”
At Dung Carrier Goblin’s response, Gluttony Goblin nodded and looked at Oh Mi-hee.
“You comfortable?”
“I’m fine.”
“If it feels too hard, there’s a cushion in the car—want me to grab it?”
“No, really.”
Oh Mi-hee sat on the log and gazed at the charcoal fire in the Hwaro.
“Just looking at the charcoal fire puts me in a good mood.”
At her words, Gluttony Goblin smiled and added.
“You’ll be in an even better mood once you taste something delicious.”
“That’s true.”
“Let me see here.”
Gluttony Goblin examined the meat and looked puzzled.
“Nice sirloin. Huh? The grades are different?”
All of it was beef sirloin, but one had marbling that bloomed like flowers in ornate patterns, while the other was clearly lean red meat.
“One’s prime grade, one’s just regular sirloin.”
“Why not buy all prime grade while you’re at it?”
“Yu Tae-poong doesn’t like heavily marbled meat.”
At Dung Carrier Goblin’s words, Gluttony Goblin looked at Yu Tae-poong. With a smile, Yu Tae-poong picked up the lean red beef and placed it on the grill table as he spoke.
“Heavy marbling feels too rich to me. I prefer less marbling.”
“Then why not eat tenderloin instead of sirloin?”
Tenderloin has no marbling, after all.
“Tenderloin is harder to cook properly.”
Gluttony Goblin nodded.
“True—tenderloin does require some skill to grill.”
Oh Mi-hee widened her eyes and spoke.
“Grilling tenderloin isn’t that difficult, though?”
At her words, Gluttony Goblin laughed.
“It’s easy for people who know what they’re doing. But for those who don’t, tenderloin is a tricky cut to grill.”
Gluttony Goblin brought his hand close to the Hwaro to check the temperature, then placed the meat on the grill table.
Sizzzzle!
The moment the meat touched the scorching grill table, the sound of meat cooking filled the air.
“Tenderloin tastes best when grilled thick. And with thick meat, it’s difficult to tell if it’s cooked all the way through or not. That’s why tenderloin is tricky—you don’t really know until you cut into it.”
“You can tell by pressing it with tongs though.”
As Oh Mi-hee placed her sirloin on the grill table while speaking, Yu Tae-poong looked at her.
“You can tell by pressing it with tongs?”
“How do you check if meat is cooked, Yu Tae-poong?”
Yu Tae-poong answered Oh Mi-hee’s question.
“You can tell by looking at the color, can’t you?”
“With thinly sliced meat, you can tell by the cooked color. If both sides have that golden-brown hue, it’s well done. But….”
Oh Mi-hee looked at the sirloin now on the grill.
“But with thick meat like this sirloin, you can’t really tell by the color of the outside. Even if the surface is charred, when you cut into it, the inside might still be undercooked.”
“Then couldn’t you just cut it and grill it again?”
“If you’re going to eat it that way, you might as well cut it first and grill it from the start.”
Oh Mi-hee gently pressed the meat and spoke with a slight smile.
“You can tell by how the meat feels when you press it with tongs—whether it’s soft, slightly firm, or hard. Soft means undercooked, slightly firm means more cooked, and hard means very well done.”
“But isn’t that just a personal feeling?”
As Yu Tae-poong said, the distinctions between soft, slightly firm, and hard would vary from person to person.
Gluttony Goblin laughed and answered instead.
“That’s why people who’ve grilled and eaten a lot cook it well. They develop their own sense for it. You haven’t grilled tenderloin much, have you?”
“No.”
“If you want to enjoy tenderloin deliciously, don’t be afraid of failure—grill it often and taste it. Then you’ll understand. You’ll develop a sense for what temperature makes it taste good.”
Then he offered additional advice.
“And tenderloin tastes better when you cut it with a knife rather than scissors.”
“A knife?”
“Scissors compress the meat when you cut, which squeezes out the juices.”
At Gluttony Goblin’s words, Oh Mi-hee nodded.
“Tenderloin tastes good because of the juices.”
“That’s right.”
“Now that I’m talking about it, I’m craving tenderloin.”
Gluttony Goblin looked at Dung Carrier Goblin.
“Don’t you have any tenderloin?”
“I only prepared sirloin.”
“Ugh! No sense at all.”
At Gluttony Goblin’s reproach, Dung Carrier Goblin looked at him, then quietly reached into a box beside him.
He pulled out instant ramen.
“You don’t want to eat ramen?”
“Ah, now that’s thoughtful.”
At Gluttony Goblin’s quick change of attitude, Oh Mi-hee also laughed and nodded.
“Ramen after grilled meat is the ultimate truth.”
“Absolutely right. The rich broth cuts through the oil coating your mouth from the meat, leaving you refreshed.”
As the two spoke, Dung Carrier Goblin placed meat on his grill table.
Sizzle!
“Come now, let’s enjoy the peaceful rural scenery while we grill this meat properly.”
At Dung Carrier Goblin’s words, Gluttony Goblin nodded and spoke.
“Grilling meat over charcoal isn’t easy. Even with the finest charcoal, if you’re not careful, the dripping fat creates soot.”
“That’s true. If you find it difficult to grill the meat, just let me know. I’ll cook it for you.”
At Oh Mi-hee’s words, Yu Tae-poong laughed.
“I’m fairly skilled at grilling meat myself.”
As he spoke, Yu Tae-poong inspected his meat. His cut was a sirloin with deep red flesh and minimal marbling, so it didn’t drip excessive fat.
However, juices and oil were already beading on the surface.
Seeing this, Yu Tae-poong lifted the meat and tapped it gently against the edge of the charcoal.
Sizzle! Sizzle!
The oil beading on the meat dripped onto the charcoal, and smoke rose up.
Sizzle!
Once the smoke cleared, Yu Tae-poong flipped the meat back over.
Watching Yu Tae-poong’s technique, Gluttony Goblin nodded approvingly.
“A frequent flipper, I see.”
“What about you?”
Oh Mi-hee called him “brother” rather than use his formal title, then asked her question.
Gluttony Goblin demonstrated through action, watching his meat before gradually shifting its position to the side.
Sizzle! Sizzle!
As the meat moved, the beaded oil dripped away.
“I don’t flip—I shift the position. That way, even when the fat drips, it doesn’t create soot on the meat.”
As he spoke, the meat began to cook through, and Yu Tae-poong started cutting small pieces from the edges to eat.
“Why are you cutting it that way? Why not cut it all at once and move it to the edge?”
Normally, when eating grilled meat, once it’s cooked through, people cut it all and move it to the edge of the grill table to eat.
But Yu Tae-poong was cutting the edges as if snipping them with scissors, which struck Oh Mi-hee as unusual.
“The edges cook faster. I eat the cooked parts first.”
“Ah, I see.”
“When I eat with others, I cut it all at once too. But since I’m eating alone now, I only cut what I’ll eat.”
Smiling, Yu Tae-poong cut another piece from the edge, dipped it in salt, and put it in his mouth.
Watching him, Oh Mi-hee also cut a piece from the edge of her meat and tried it.
As they ate the meat and admired the rural scenery, Yu Tae-poong handed over a book by Lee Yun-jeong.
“I thought it might help with your broadcast.”
“My broadcast?”
“If you read it, you’ll see—it’s a novel about food.”
“Food?”
“Your broadcast always discusses ingredients and food so thoughtfully. I thought this might help with those conversations. It has illustrations and tips on healthy eating that should prove useful.”
Yu Tae-poong handed the book to Oh Mi-hee, and she accepted it to examine.
“Title: Lee Yun-jeong, Author: Pot Goblin… Goblin?”
“It’s a pen name, a pen name.”
“Well, people do use quite unusual pen names these days.”
As she spoke, Oh Mi-hee flipped through the pages and suddenly noticed something odd. She turned the book this way and that before speaking.
“There’s no publisher listed?”
“It was made through self-publishing.”
I had already anticipated that Oh Mi-hee would find it strange that the book bore no publisher’s mark, so I had prepared an answer in advance.
Self-publishing meant creating a book from one’s own manuscript without going through a publishing house.
Nowadays, there were people who wanted to turn their manuscripts into books for personal collection or to give to acquaintances.
There were companies that existed to turn manuscripts into books for such people. Of course, the unit cost for just one or two copies was too high, so they typically produced a minimum of fifty to one hundred copies.
At Yu Tae-poong’s explanation, Oh Mi-hee accepted it as reasonable and began flipping through the book.
“The illustrations are… really wonderful.”
“It’s a bit dark right now, but the artwork looks even better in brighter light.”
“It’s impressive even now. But who drew these illustrations?”
“The author drew them.”
“The author really draws well.”
As Oh Mi-hee murmured those words, Yu Tae-poong was about to say something when his phone rang.
Checking the caller ID, it was Pot Goblin. Yu Tae-poong glanced at the book Oh Mi-hee was holding.
‘She must have heard the conversation through the book.’
It seemed she had called because she was pleased hearing herself praised.
After all, she couldn’t speak directly to Oh Mi-hee, a human, except through the book.
Understanding why the call had come, Yu Tae-poong smiled and spoke.
“The author just called at the perfect moment.”
“Pot Goblin?”
“You know her too. Mi-soon is that Pot Goblin.”
Goblins also had resident registrations, so they possessed human names. Mi-soon was Pot Goblin’s registered name.
“Mi-soon writes?”
“She’ll be publishing soon. Through a proper publishing house, not self-publishing.”
“So she’s becoming a professional author?”
“That’s right.”
Oh Mi-hee nodded at Yu Tae-poong’s words and gestured toward the still-ringing phone.
Yu Tae-poong then answered the call.
“Hello.”
[Right, you must be in the middle of eating meat right now.]
“Yes, and like you said, I gave the book to Oh Mi-hee. Oh! And the phone is on speaker mode right now. And everyone’s here with us.”
[Really? Everyone’s eating well without me.]
Of course, Pot Goblin already knew they were eating well. Whatever Oh Mi-hee felt through the book was transmitted directly to Pot Goblin.
But I couldn’t reveal that in front of Oh Mi-hee….
[By the way, hearing you mention my pen name, it looks like my younger sibling figured it out too.]
“Yes, you use the pen name Pot Goblin.”
[Actually, not just me—the two next to me use pen names as well.]
“Oh? You both write too?”
[We’re a novel creation collective called the Goblins. I’m Pot Goblin. And Gluttony Goblin—the one you get along with so well—and the one over there in the tracksuit is Dung Carrier Goblin.]
The two Goblins, who had been grilling meat without much thought, turned around with startled expressions.
Having their names spoken aloud so directly, they couldn’t help but be flustered.
“But those pen names are funny. Pot, Gluttony, Dung Carrier. Hehe!”
Oh Mi-hee accepted the explanation without suspicion and laughed, and Gluttony Goblin, relieved, smiled and spoke.
“We just came up with them as they occurred to us.”
“Well, Gyunam really does suit the name Gluttony.”
Gyunam was Gluttony Goblin’s human name.
Oh Mi-hee, who had been smiling at Gluttony Goblin, turned to look at Dung Carrier Goblin.
“But why is Hoyeol called Dung Carrier?”
At Oh Mi-hee’s question, Dung Carrier Goblin hesitated and pondered for a moment what to say.
He couldn’t exactly say “because I’m a dung carrier,” nor could he say “because of the smell.”
Seeing Dung Carrier Goblin’s awkwardness, Yu Tae-poong spoke instead.
“Do you know what a dung carrier is?”
“I’ve seen it in dramas.”
At Oh Mi-hee’s answer, Yu Tae-poong spoke.
“A dung carrier is something dirty that people dislike, but it’s something people can’t live without. If people didn’t empty the dung carriers back then, bathrooms would overflow and become filthy. And the people who carried those dirty dung carriers—they were all fathers working hard for their families.”
“Ah… I see. They were all fathers carrying it and working. For their families.”
Yu Tae-poong looked at Dung Carrier Goblin.
“Dung Carrier here is like that. On the surface he seems rough, but inside, he’s someone who works hard for the people he cherishes.”
After Yu Tae-poong spoke kindly, Dung Carrier Goblin let out a small cough and quietly placed some cooked meat in front of him.
“Eat plenty, my friend.”

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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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