Goblin Library - Chapter 180

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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 180

Lim Sung-un’s team had gathered at Jang Ma-ru’s Hideout, and among them lay an assortment of desserts that Choi Tae-sik had brought.
“Brother, this is delicious.”
Choi Tae-sik spoke as he watched Jang Ma-ru enjoy a beautifully crafted cupcake.
“I don’t know much about these things, so I just grabbed whatever looked good. I’m glad it tastes nice.”
“Next time you bring something, maybe stick with treats like these instead of anything too unusual.”
At Jang Ma-ru’s words, Choi Tae-sik squinted his eyes.
“Didn’t you like what I brought before?”
“I did like it.”
Lee Hye-eun had asked him to bring snacks, and Choi Tae-sik had done so several times—but they weren’t quite suited to young Jang Ma-ru’s palate.
Of course, they weren’t tasteless. Choi Tae-sik had searched for restaurants on his phone before bringing them.
But cupcakes like these were more to young Jang Ma-ru’s liking.
Lee Hye-eun seemed to agree, contentedly eating her cupcake. As the team members enjoyed their treats, Lim Sung-un entered.
“You’re here.”
Jang Ma-ru and Choi Tae-sik stood to greet him, and Lee Hye-eun rose as well to do the same.
“I’m back.”
Lim Sung-un looked at her with surprise. Until now, Lee Hye-eun had never been the first to greet him.
Seeing his expression, Lee Hye-eun licked her lips and spoke.
“I’m part of the team now too. I should show proper respect to the captain.”
At Lee Hye-eun’s words, Lim Sung-un gave a small nod, then noticed the cupcakes and set down what he had brought on the table.
“Put this in the freezer and eat it tomorrow.”
“Brother, what did you bring?”
“Hye-eun was so insistent about it, I had to bring something. It’s cheesecake.”
“Oh!”
Jang Ma-ru’s eyes lit up at the sight of the cheesecake box, and he quickly placed it in the freezer.
“Alright! Since you’re busy, let’s get straight to business.”
As Jang Ma-ru tapped at the keyboard, Lee Hye-eun pushed her cupcake aside.
“The memory card that Hye-eun copied today turned out to contain exactly the important data we expected.”
As he spoke, Jang Ma-ru typed, and Excel files appeared on the monitor.
But something was odd. The text was a mixture of English and Korean characters.
“Is it encrypted?”
“Exactly. Without applying the correct rule, this is meaningless on its own.”
“That means you’ve already found the rule, then?”
At Lim Sung-un’s words, Jang Ma-ru smiled and nodded.
“Of course. I ran this through a decryption program I created, and voilà!”
As he typed, the characters on the screen transformed, revealing legible text.
“This is…”
“This contains records of every criminal operation The One has conducted. Which crimes were committed, who commissioned them, how much was paid—everything. Even the personal information of all the criminals The One manages… it’s all here.”
At Jang Ma-ru’s words, Lim Sung-un’s eyes remained fixed on the screen before he extended his hand. Jang Ma-ru handed him the mouse, and he began scrolling through the data with keen attention.
“Wow, so these bastards orchestrated that Kim Councilman corruption scandal from three years ago.”
At Lee Hye-eun’s remark, Jang Ma-ru glanced at the screen and spoke.
“The client was Yoon Councilman—from the same party.”
“Why would someone from the same party take down a fellow party member?”
Jang Ma-ru smiled as he looked at the bewildered Choi Tae-sik.
“When you were in gang life, if there was someone in your organization you didn’t like, what would you do?”
“…Ah, I see.”
Choi Tae-sik nodded, understanding what Jang Ma-ru meant.
“Beyond that, there are plenty of major cases. Stock manipulation schemes… and quite a few murder cases.”
At Jang Ma-ru’s words, Lim Sung-un squinted at the monitor. Just as he said, the screen displayed numerous incidents.
Fraud, assault, theft—they were implicated in virtually every category of crime imaginable.
After staring at the screen for a moment, Lim Sung-un stroked his chin.
“It’s… bigger than I expected.”
“At this scale, they’re a criminal organization.”
As Choi Tae-sik looked at the screen with astonished eyes, Jang Ma-ru turned to Lim Sung-un.
“What do you want to do about this?”
“First… this material is too illegally obtained to use as evidence.”
At Lim Sung-un’s words, Choi Tae-sik spoke up.
“When have we ever worried about legality versus illegality while gathering evidence? Doesn’t this give us a foundation to move forward?”
“It does… but without the process, only the result, finding the method won’t be easy.”
The current data was like mathematics. One plus one equals two. We had the problem and the answer, but we needed to find the equations and numbers that went in between.
We knew the perpetrators and the crimes, but we lacked the methods and evidence.
“Finding evidence piece by piece won’t be straightforward.”
At Lee Hye-eun’s murmur, Lim Sung-un nodded. Then, as if something occurred to him, he looked at Jang Ma-ru.
“But doesn’t it feel a bit too easy? What do you think?”
At Lim Sung-un’s question, Lee Hye-eun’s eyes narrowed.
“What are you talking about? I infiltrated that Study Hall Dormitory and played spy like I was in Mission Impossible just to find this.”
At Lee Hye-eun’s words, Choi Tae-sik also nodded.
“She’s right. Besides, we only found the Family Goshiwon because luck was on our side—otherwise we never would have located it.”
“Exactly. Who would ever think criminal organization evidence would be sitting in the Study Hall Dormitory Administrator’s room? It definitely wasn’t easy.”
At their words, Jang Ma-ru spoke.
“I don’t think that’s what you meant.”
Jang Ma-ru looked at the monitor.
“I mean this data was too easy to find.”
“Too easy to find?”
“The One’s security is top-tier. Honestly, breaching the Ministry of Defense would probably be easier than breaching The One.”
At Jang Ma-ru’s words, Lee Hye-eun looked at him in shock.
“That serious?”
“Well, the top-tier hackers don’t work for governments or institutions—they operate independently. It’s only natural.”
“Is that so?”
“Of course. If you work for the state, even the most skilled hacker becomes a civil servant. And civil servant compensation is predictable… no elite hacker would voluntarily sign up for that. So why would government firewalls ever be robust?”
“That’s a fair point.”
“And not all hackers earn money illegally. The legitimate ones—white hat hackers—they build firewalls for corporations or deliberately breach them to identify vulnerabilities, then get paid for the service.”
“They deliberately breach firewalls?”
“On a scheduled date and time, a white hat hacker intentionally attacks and penetrates the company’s firewall. Once it’s breached, they tell the company to patch the vulnerabilities. And that’s how they earn.”
Jang Ma-ru shook his head with a slight smile.
“But we’re getting off track. The point is, a hacker of that caliber wouldn’t have left these files so easily accessible.”
“Maybe they thought it wouldn’t be found?”
“Possibly. But if it were me, I’d have encrypted this. With encryption so sophisticated that even a truly exceptional hacker would struggle for days to crack it.”
“So there’s no encryption that can’t be broken?”
Lee Hye-eun’s question prompted Jang Ma-ru to shake his head.
“It’s just a matter of time. Eventually, everything gets cracked.”
Jang Ma-ru continued, his eyes on the monitor.
“But this… it’s far too simple. It’s only difficult for ordinary people. For someone like us, it’s trivial.”
At Jang Ma-ru’s words, Lim Sung-un nodded.
“I agree. A hacker of Maru’s caliber would never leave sensitive documents this exposed.”
Having worked with Jang Ma-ru for some time, Lim Sung-un had come to understand the peculiarities of hackers.
They were obsessively paranoid about their own security.
“Then what is this? It cracked far too easily.”
As Lee Hye-eun studied the spreadsheet on the monitor, Lim Sung-un paused thoughtfully before speaking.
“I have a feeling the hacker is asking for help.”
“The hacker?”
“Doesn’t that feel right to you?”
Lim Sung-un then turned to Jang Ma-ru.
“Once a firewall is built, it doesn’t need to be rebuilt, right?”
“Not at all. As the digital world evolves, so do hacking programs and firewalls. While daily updates aren’t necessary, firewalls still need regular upgrades to stay current.”
“Then we should assume the hacker is still working with The One.”
“Exactly. Which is why their firewall remains formidable.”
As Jang Ma-ru nodded, Lim Sung-un spoke after a moment.
“And based on what you’ve said, hackers earn more and have it easier working alone, don’t they?”
“That’s true. My situation is the exception.”
Jang Ma-ru worked for justice and his loyalty to Lim Sung-un and Choi Tae-sik, not for money—making him fundamentally different from ordinary hackers.
“Then this hacker must be unwillingly continuing to work for The One.”
At Lim Sung-un’s words, Lee Hye-eun struck the table sharply with her palm. As eyes turned toward her, she spoke.
“If that’s the case, the hacker did this intentionally. Made the encryption crack immediately.”
“Intentionally?”
“I once worked with a tax accountant who was handling tax matters for a gang-affiliated company.”
At Lee Hye-eun’s words, Lim Sung-un looked at her, silently urging her to continue. Meeting his gaze, she went on.
“But they were so terrified. They kept saying those gang members were demons, that if tax issues came up because of their mistake—which wasn’t even their fault—they’d get beaten. When they asked what they were supposed to do about receipts the gang brought in incorrectly, they just froze.”
“And then?”
“Well, I did my job as a Flower Snake and comforted them. I told them to just switch companies. But they said they couldn’t leave because they knew too many company secrets. They were terrified that if they tried to quit, they’d disappear.”
Choi Tae-sik nodded at Lee Hye-eun’s words.
“So the hacker is also staying because they’re afraid to leave.”
“Exactly.”
“That makes sense.”
Choi Tae-sik looked at Lim Sung-un.
“That does make sense.”
“Then… the hacker deliberately made the encryption easy to crack. So we could either take down The One completely or destroy it. Because the hacker won’t be free until The One is gone.”
Lim Sung-un spoke while staring at the monitor.
“So the Administrator… is the hacker?”
At Lim Sung-un’s murmur, Jang Ma-ru paused before responding.
“It’s possible, but it might not be. No one knows what the hacker looks like.”
At Jang Ma-ru’s words, Choi Tae-sik spoke.
“Come to think of it, the person doesn’t seem to be bad.”
“Why? Because they gave you money?”
Choi Tae-sik nodded at Lee Hye-eun’s remark.
“It felt like they were worried about me.”
“Worried?”
At Choi Tae-sik’s words, Lim Sung-un looked at him.
“If you had heard me during the operation, you would’ve known what a mess I made of things.”
“I know.”
Choi Tae-sik paused in thought before speaking.
“That friend slipped ten thousand won through the door crack back then… and the feeling was strange.”
“Strange how?”
“Usually in those situations, there are only a few possibilities, right? Charity, pity, or ‘here, take this and disappear.’ That kind of feeling.”
“But?”
“This felt more like ‘go eat something and survive.’ That kind of feeling.”
Lee Hye-eun tilted her head at Choi Tae-sik’s words.
“Isn’t that pity?”
“No. It was different from pity. It was more like… we’re in the same boat, you know?”
“Same boat?”
“It’s hard to explain in words, but that’s the feeling I got.”
At Choi Tae-sik’s vague explanation, Jang Ma-ru and Lee Hye-eun tilted their heads in confusion.

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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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