Goblin Library - Chapter 2

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

Chapter 2

I couldn’t quite grasp what the Goblin Man had meant, but one thing was certain—his words were connected to my hump.
The realization ignited a fury that blazed through my mind.
Rage surged within me.
“Hey, you!”
I bellowed and rushed toward the sports car.
Through the window, I glared at the man watching me.
“What did you do to me!”
At my cry, the Goblin Man’s gaze flicked toward the hump on my chin.
“Is it a bit small?”
“What?”
Ignoring my question, the Goblin Man tilted his head and spoke.
“Did I attach it a bit smaller than before?”
“What are you talking about! Did you do this to me!”
Only then did the Goblin Man meet my eyes and open his mouth.
“First. I attached a hump to your chin. That’s a fact.”
“You—”
“Shh!”
The Goblin Man pressed a finger to his lips. When I instinctively closed my mouth, he continued.
“Second. If I could attach one, why couldn’t I attach two or three? Want me to add more?”
“….”
In my agitation, I hadn’t considered this threat. My face contorted.
The Goblin Man sighed and spoke.
“Third. When you speak to a being capable of attaching a hump to a human body in a single day, shouldn’t you show some courtesy? Ah, don’t answer right away—think about it first. If you don’t like what’s attached now, I could replace it with something much larger.”
My lips trembled. I wanted to retort, but something told me I shouldn’t open my mouth carelessly.
Seeing my hesitation, the Goblin Man spoke.
“Get in.”
“Pardon?”
“Get in the car.”
At his command, I hesitated briefly before approaching the passenger door. Normally, I would never board a stranger’s—no, a suspicious person’s—vehicle, but these were hardly normal circumstances.
If I angered this man, a much larger hump might indeed appear on my chin.
Ultimately, I obeyed. I opened the passenger door and carefully climbed into the car.
“Fasten your seatbelt.”
Vroom!
The engine roared to life, and the Goblin Man drove off.
Being a luxury sports car, the interior was appointed with premium leather seats and fine trim.
But I barely noticed. My attention was entirely consumed by the fist-sized hump protruding from my chin.
“Who exactly are you?”
“A goblin.”
“A goblin? Are you joking with me right now?”
As Tae-poong squinted and glared at him, the Goblin Man glanced back at me.
“How much do you think this car is worth?”
“Pardon?”
To Tae-poong, who looked bewildered and confused, the Goblin Man pointed to his clothing with a finger and spoke.
“Or this suit? Giorgio, an Italian master craftsman, makes only three suits a year, and this is one of them. In other words, it’s that expensive. So why would I joke around with you?”
“Then… why are you doing this?”
The Goblin Man answered as though it were obvious.
“Because I’m a goblin.”
Tae-poong’s brow furrowed.
It still felt as though he were being toyed with.
“I’ll show you the proof later… For now, just listen to what I have to say.”
At the Goblin Man’s words, Tae-poong decided to keep his mouth shut. But when he heard what came next, a question burst out immediately.
“You’re a descendant of Old Man with a Hump.”
“Pardon?”
“Exactly as I said. That’s why I came looking for you.”
Faced with such an absurd statement, Tae-poong couldn’t muster a response and simply stared at him blankly.
Old Man with a Hump? And that he was his descendant? It was as difficult to believe as the claim that this man was a goblin.
The Goblin Man glanced at Tae-poong and spoke.
“You know the story of Old Man with a Hump, right?”
“Yes.”
“In that story, Old Man with a Hump tricks a goblin and has his hump removed, correct?”
At the Goblin Man’s question, Tae-poong nodded.
“Yes.”
“And when another old man heard that rumor and came to have his hump removed, the opposite happened—he ended up with an extra hump. As punishment for trying to deceive the goblin.”
The Goblin Man glanced at Tae-poong.
“A goblin who punishes those who try to deceive him. So what would such a goblin do to Old Man with a Hump, who had already deceived him?”
“…I suppose you would have found him and punished him?”
At Tae-poong’s words, the Goblin Man sighed.
“Yes, I should have punished him. I should have… but.”
The Goblin Man smacked his lips regretfully.
“I couldn’t find him.”
“Pardon?”
“I couldn’t find him. I searched the lands of Goryeo back and forth, again and again… I summoned all the Spirit Servants of Goryeo and still couldn’t find him. So I was unable to punish him.”
“Spirit Servants…?”
At the unfamiliar term, Tae-poong murmured in confusion. But the Goblin Man offered no explanation.
When the flow of the conversation paused, Tae-poong asked carefully.
“More importantly… can you remove my hump?”
What mattered to Tae-poong now wasn’t some absurd nonsense about goblins or Old Men with Humps—it was the hump hanging from my own chin.
“Since it was attached, of course I can remove it.”
The man who spoke reached out his hand casually.
Flinch!
Tae-poong recoiled, jerking my head back from the hand extending toward me. But then I remembered that the man had said he could remove the hump, so I slowly brought my head back into position.
The man grasped the hump on Tae-poong’s chin. And when his hand withdrew, it held a fist-sized lump of flesh.
At the same moment, the heavy, uncomfortable sensation that had plagued my chin vanished.
Tae-poong’s eyes widened as I tentatively touched my chin with my hand.
The tiresome hump that had been there just moments before was gone.
Amazed and delighted, I was touching my chin this way and that when the man extended his hand again.
Tap!
The instant his large hand touched my chin, Tae-poong’s face contorted.
The heavy sensation of the hump had returned.
“What in the world are you doing?!”
The man laughed as he answered Tae-poong’s outburst.
“I said I could remove it—I never said I would remove it.”
“Y—”
Tae-poong was about to cry out in frustration when I suddenly panicked. My mouth wouldn’t open at all, as if it had been sewn shut with thread.
“Mmm! Mmmm!”
The man spoke to Tae-poong, who was fumbling at my mouth and making muffled sounds.
“Now that I’ve shown you this much, you should believe I’m a goblin… and understand that you shouldn’t speak carelessly, shouldn’t you?”
Then the man raised his hand.
Whoosh!
In his hand was another fist-sized lump of flesh, identical to the one I’d seen before.
“Or would you like to experience firsthand the old saying about coming to remove a hump and leaving with one attached instead?”
At the man’s threat to attach another hump, Tae-poong fell silent. Well, my mouth was already sealed, so more precisely, I stopped making muffled sounds.
Watching Tae-poong, the man snapped his fingers lightly.
Snap!
“…Gasp!”
With that, Tae-poong’s mouth, which had been sealed shut, opened easily.
“Now then, may I continue with what I was saying?”
“…Yes.”
Tae-poong nodded obediently. Whether he was truly a goblin or not, one thing was certain—the man sitting beside me was profoundly strange and dangerous.
The man turned the steering wheel and resumed the story he’d been telling before.
“In any case, the search for Old Man with a Hump that began during the Goryeo period has continued all the way to now.”
“So for several hundred years?”
“Nearly eight hundred years. And then I found you—a descendant of Old Man with a Hump.”
“But Old Man with a Hump must have many other descendants besides me. Why did it have to be me?”
I had my own family members and relatives. So among all those people, why had I been the one singled out?
“Because I sense the strongest aura of Old Man with a Hump emanating from you. That’s why I chose you as my target. Or would you prefer I attach a hump to each and every member of your entire clan equally?”
“No, that’s not it!”
Tae-poong answered hastily, his voice trembling with alarm. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he asked.
“…But did you really search for eight hundred years?”
“A goblin never forgets a debt of gratitude. Even if a thousand years passed instead of eight hundred, I would have searched for you.”
With those words, the Goblin Man glanced at Tae-poong. His brow was slightly furrowed, as though troubled by something.
“But meeting you has created a problem.”
“A problem?”
“I mentioned it before. Goblins never forget debts of gratitude. Just as we must find and punish those who have wronged us, we must also repay those who have shown us kindness.”
The Goblin Man sighed.
“Yesterday, at the Han River, you gave me coffee and a sandwich.”
“Yes.”
Tae-poong, who had answered without much thought, suddenly looked startled.
“Is that considered a debt of gratitude?”
“It is.”
The Goblin Man nodded slightly.
“But I gave you the coffee and sandwich without any particular intention.”
“That’s precisely why it’s a debt of gratitude. If you had given them to me expecting something in return, it wouldn’t be a debt of gratitude. You showed kindness without thought—that’s what makes it a debt. If I’d known this would happen, I should have simply attached a hump and left immediately….”
At the Goblin Man’s words, Tae-poong spoke in disbelief.
“Then why did you attach a hump to me in the first place? Without repaying the debt of gratitude?”
“We repay debts of gratitude by granting what the person desires most. We fulfill their deepest wish.”
“My wish? Then remove this hump from me. That’s what I desire most.”
At Tae-poong’s urgent plea, the Goblin Man shook his head.
“That’s your wish today. But yesterday, your wish was to find employment, wasn’t it? I will grant that wish.”
“You’ll help me get a job?”
“Yes.”
“But I’m currently….”
As Tae-poong touched the hump on his chin, the Goblin Man reached out his hand.
Pop!
He removed the hump as easily as one might peel away the cookie topping from a cream puff.
“There.”
“Huh?”
As Tae-poong touched his now-lightened chin, the car came to a stop.
“Get out.”
When Tae-poong stepped out of the car, his eyes fell upon a small two-story building.
And….

「Goblin Library」

On the first floor was a bookstore with a sign reading “Goblin Library.”
A man passed by Tae-poong, who was gazing at the small bookstore that seemed ill-suited to its name, and opened the shop door.
“Come in.”
At the man’s words, Tae-poong carefully began to follow him inside, then stopped in his tracks.
His face bewildered, he peered into the interior of the shop.
The Goblin Library he’d just seen through the window was merely a small bookstore. Yet… the landscape visible through this doorway was truly… impossibly vast, with countless bookshelves stretching endlessly in a colossal library.
Tae-poong hastily stepped back and looked through the window once more at the interior.
There it was again—the small bookstore’s interior, exactly as he’d seen it before.
Tae-poong stood bewildered, his gaze alternating between the door and the window.
‘What is this?’
The interior viewed through the door and the interior viewed through the window were completely different?
The man urged him forward.
“I said come in.”
Tae-poong hesitated briefly, then stepped inside.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the door shut automatically.
Tae-poong gazed around with wonder. The interior was far more expansive than what he’d seen from the entrance.
It seemed even larger than the central library of the university I’d attended, and the ceiling stretched far higher.
‘So he really is a goblin.’
I’d already accepted this fact when he was removing and reattaching his hump, but being in such an impossible space made it feel far more real.
The goblin glanced at Tae-poong, then removed his formal jacket and hung it on a coat rack at the counter near the entrance.
“From now on, this is the Goblin Library where you’ll be working.”
“The Goblin Library?”
Tae-poong, who had been murmuring to himself, suddenly recalled the bookstore he’d seen earlier and asked.
“Then what about the bookstore that was visible from the entrance?”
“That’s my shop.”
“You operate a bookstore?”
At Tae-poong’s question, the goblin nodded.
“Back in the Joseon era, the source of money wasn’t really a problem. But in this age, once you spend money, its origin can become an issue. That’s why all goblins living in the modern era have jobs. We pay our taxes regularly too.”
The goblin shook his head as if thoroughly annoyed, then looked at Tae-poong.
“Your salary will be paid through that bookstore as well.”
“I receive a salary?”
“Isn’t it natural to receive payment when you work?”
Tae-poong licked his lips.
In this situation, the goblin’s offer of a salary felt far more surreal than anything else.

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