Goblin Library - Chapter 172

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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 172

I removed my dress shirt as I watched Salim open the military first aid kit.
After unfastening the buttons and peeling off my clothes, Mahmoud came over with a water-dampened towel and wiped away the blood coating my body.
I raised my hand briefly to push the towel away, then stood up.
“Why are you getting up?”
“I don’t want to get blood on the sofa.”
As I spoke and rose to my feet, I caught sight of the wound along my ribs.
“Phew! But Salim, you know how to do this, right?”
“I treated gunshot wounds during my military service.”
Salim answered matter-of-factly, then opened the white container and spoke.
“It’s going to hurt quite a bit.”
“Are you trying to scare me?”
“I’m just telling you to prepare yourself.”
At Salim’s words, I swallowed hard and clenched my teeth. Salim gently brought the open container to my wound and poured the medicine over it.
“Ugh!”
A groan escaped my lips involuntarily. It was disinfectant. As the antiseptic solution poured onto the lacerated wound, pain far worse than I’d imagined crashed over me.
“Argh! Easy…”
Mahmoud watched as I unconsciously blurted out words in Korean, begging him to go easy, and spoke up.
“It’s better to do it all at once. Otherwise it’ll hurt for longer.”
At Mahmoud’s words, I bit my lip. Salim, who had poured the disinfectant, sprinkled white powder over the wound.
The white powder bubbled and fizzed as the bleeding gradually stopped. Then Salim wrapped it with a bandage.
“Stitches would be best.”
“Mahmoud says if the hospital finds out a foreigner got stabbed, they’ll have to report it to the Police Station, so he doesn’t want to go.”
At Mahmoud’s words, Salim looked at me and spoke.
“There are these adhesive strips—like stickers—that hold skin together. Let’s try using those for now.”
Mahmoud asked.
“What are those?”
“They’re like bandages that you apply to small cuts to make them look stitched. The laceration is long, but if we apply several strips, it should work. Go to a pharmacy and pick some up.”
“They really do sell everything these days.”
Mahmoud muttered to himself, made a note of “skin closure strips” on his phone, and left the Warehouse.
I watched Mahmoud drive off, then spoke from where I lay on the sofa.
“Salim, could you get me a glass of water?”
“Right away.”
Salim retrieved cold water from the refrigerator, I sat up and took it, drank it down, then lay back on the sofa.
“Making money is really tough.”
At my murmur, Salim spoke.
“Still, it’s far easier than it was ten years ago.”
“That’s true.”
Lee Gang-hun chuckled in agreement as he glanced at the bandage.
“I must have bled quite a bit. We should grill some meat for dinner tonight.”
“That sounds good. But since you’re a patient, you shouldn’t drink alcohol.”
“Fair enough.”
As Lee Gang-hun sighed, Salim retrieved medicine from the first aid kit and handed it to him.
“It’s an antibiotic.”
Lee Gang-hun took the medicine, popped it in his mouth, and asked, “How do you like the work?”
“How’s work going?”
“The pay is generous, but there’s so little to do that I feel apologetic.”
At Salim’s response, Lee Gang-hun let out an amused laugh. The salary he paid Salim was indeed substantial.
Of course, that was based on the wage standards of this country, not Korea….
“It’s like the military.”
“The military?”
“The military is a money-devouring ghost, but it has to exist. That way you can prepare for emergencies.”
Lee Gang-hun looked at Salim.
“You’re the same kind of existence. You’re here in case the Warehouse ever gets attacked.”
“I’ll guard it diligently.”
“Then I’m grateful.”
As I spoke, I pulled out my phone and took a picture of my abdomen.
Click!
After taking the photo, I sent it to Park Young-il. A moment later, the phone rang.
“Hello?”
[What is this? Are you hurt?]
“I was stabbed.”
[You were stabbed?]
“Would you like me to show you on a video call?”
[Never mind. Come in right now.]
“How can I come in? I still have a lot of work to do.”
[The clients you’ve already secured are more than enough for us.]
“No. It’s still not enough.”
[How much are you trying to sell?]
“As much as possible. That’s why I’m asking… can you bring more inventory?”
[We have bulk goods this week anyway. That alone is a huge amount.]
“I need more.”
[Are you serious about needing more?]
“Yes.”
[Why do you need so much?]
“It will become my seed capital.”
[Seed capital?]
“If I go back to Korea, it will be difficult to create new sales channels. I’ll just be handing goods over to existing ones.”
[So… while you’re here, you need to build a lot of new sales channels?]
“Exactly. And I also need to supply goods to the channels I’ve already established. That’s why I need large quantities.”
At Lee Gang-hun’s words, Park Young-il fell silent for a moment, then let out a sigh.
[You’re asking the company to stake everything on this.]
“You saw the photo. I’m not staking the company—I’m staking my own life.”
Lee Gang-hun glanced at the goods stacked in the Warehouse. The inventory was incomparably larger than when I first arrived at this place.
“This business venture will lay the foundation for our company’s growth.”
[…Alright! I’ll pull from my loan pool and secure the goods to send you.]
“This business… it’s very important to our company.”
[Understood.]

Park Young-il was holding a meeting with his employees in the morning. Though it was called a meeting, there was no separate conference room—the employees simply gathered around a large table in one corner of the Office and discussed matters.
With each employee’s preferred beverage in front of them, sitting at the table that normally served as a dining table, Park Young-il took out his phone and displayed a photo on the screen.
Then he passed it around to the employees.
“Huh? What is this?”
“It looks like someone got hurt?”
Park Young-il responded to the employees’ questions.
“Gang-hun got slashed with a blade.”
“A blade?”
“What do you mean?”
Park Young-il sighed as he spoke to the shocked employees.
“Looks like it was done by Chinese Organized Crime.”
“This is… shouldn’t we have him return to the Capital?”
The Capital—a shortened form of “Chief Executive Officer.”
“I was going to, but… Gang-hun says this business will be the foundation for our company to grow, and he’s asking me to send even more goods instead.”
“But even now, we’re stretching ourselves thin to send what we do.”
“It’s a stretch, sure, but it’s profitable. And the money comes in well.”
“That’s true, but… the funds only circulate if all the goods we sent this time sell out.”
Somehow, whenever Lee Gang-hun sold goods, the payment came through immediately.
But the problem was the unsold goods currently being shipped by boat. Since those hadn’t been paid for, they represented a loss for the Company.
“Gang-hun is risking his life to grow this company.”
At Park Young-il’s words, the employees fell silent. Seeing them like that, Park Young-il spoke.
“I’ll do my best to secure the funds… so you all focus on securing as much inventory as possible.”
“Understood.”
As the employees nodded, Oh Myeong-seok spoke up.
“What if we tried diversifying the product line?”
“Diversifying?”
“Until now, we’ve only sourced quantities of predetermined items.”
“That’s right.”
I had only procured the items that Lee Gang-hun requested and sent them over.
“From what I understand, the boss wants to sell large quantities regardless of the specific items.”
“And?”
“So we secure whatever heavy equipment components we can and send them.”
“Just anything?”
“Not just anything—heavy equipment components. The reason we’re having difficulty securing inventory now is because we’ve already procured and sent several batches. The factory is producing more, but it’s not easy to meet the volume the boss wants.”
“So you’re saying we should just send large quantities regardless of the specific items?”
“Any component that goes into heavy equipment will sell. Or… we could ask the boss for his opinion and request a list of the components he needs most urgently.”
“So you’re suggesting we send those specific items.”
“That way, securing inventory would be much easier, and we could procure larger quantities.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“And…”
Oh Myeong-seok spoke with a resolute voice.
“Please send me there.”
Park Young-il squinted and shook his head.
“No. It’s too dangerous.”
“If I went openly, it would be dangerous. But if I disguise myself as Chinese, it should be fine.”
“As Chinese?”
“I’m very fluent in Chinese. I can stay there posing as Chinese and work while maintaining contact with Mahmoud. That way, the Chinese won’t know I’m from here.”
Hearing this, Park Young-il sighed.
“Why are you sighing? Did I make some mistake?”
At Oh Myeong-seok’s question, Park Young-il placed his phone on the table.
“Once upon a time, our people had to travel far away in person, talk directly with people there, place orders, and handle unexpected situations. But…”
Park Young-il picked up his phone and showed it.
“Now everything is possible with a phone. We can talk, give instructions, hear about the situation there… Why would you need to go there and take risks doing work that we can handle through phone calls from here?”
“Ah…”
Oh Myeong-seok’s face flushed as he nodded.
“Then you might wonder why the boss goes there in person to work. Do you wonder?”
At Park Young-il’s question, Oh Myeong-seok shook his head.
“No, sir.”
“Really? Then why do you think that’s the case?”
“Because it’s difficult to understand local conditions through phone calls alone.”
“Exactly. You might hear over the phone that something is good and sign a contract, but when you see it with your own eyes, it might be poor quality. And the same goes for people, not just goods. You might think someone is trustworthy and sign a contract, only to find out they’re a con artist. That’s why even in this modern age of advanced communication, we maintain branch offices abroad and station employees there.”
“I was thinking about this incorrectly.”
Park Young-il smiled slightly.
“This is how you learn, one thing at a time. When I was young, I asked foolish questions and got scolded for it.”
Then Park Young-il dialed a phone number and spoke.
“So Myeong-seok, ask plenty of foolish questions.”
“Won’t I get scolded for that?”
“Don’t you think getting scolded is better than losing hundreds of millions, billions, or trillions?”
“Ah… I understand.”
“Mistakes we can manage become lessons.”
With that, Park Young-il made a phone call to someone.
“Myeong-seok offered an opinion….”

Lee Gang-hun, who was grilling meat with the Factory Employees at the Warehouse, paused briefly at Park Young-il’s call before responding.
“Myeong-seok’s opinion has merit, and I see his point. But if we just secure inventory haphazardly and send it, we’ll end up with a stockpile here.”
[That’s true. So you find out what supplies are needed there. We’ll prioritize those items when securing inventory to send.]
“Understood.”
[And really, take care of yourself.]
“Don’t worry.”
After ending the call, Lee Gang-hun paused in thought before speaking to the Factory Employees watching him.
“It looks like our volume is going to increase.”
“By how much?”
“Significantly more than now.”
Lee Gang-hun answered Mahmoud’s question and continued.
“Ask Sayed which parts fail most frequently—just get me about twenty of them.”
“Twenty?”
“We’ll use those twenty to match our volume.”
“You’re buying without orders?”
At Mahmoud’s question, Lee Gang-hun nodded.
“For now.”
“What if they don’t sell?”
When Mahmoud asked with a worried expression, Lee Gang-hun laughed.
“That’s why we research which parts fail frequently before ordering. If they fail often, replacements will be needed regularly.”

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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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