Goblin Library - Chapter 30

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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 30

After escorting Noh Hong-su out to the street, Kang Woong loaded him into a delivery truck and drove him to the Apartment.
Then he bought coffee from the Convenience Store at the Apartment entrance and handed one to him.
“I’ve always been on the receiving end. Now it’s my turn to give.”
“Thank you.”
Kang Woong cracked open his can, took a sip, and spoke.
“It’ll be one of two things.”
“What do you mean?”
Noh Hong-su looked confused, so Kang Woong explained.
“You showed weakness in front of those errand boys… so they’ll do one of two things. Either they’ll avoid you, or they’ll bully you even more.”
At the mention of increased bullying, Noh Hong-su’s face hardened. It was already unbearable—how could it possibly get worse?
Kang Woong observed his expression for a moment, then spoke.
“You heard what those kids were saying earlier, right?”
“What did they say?”
“That I used to be in the School Gang. And a pretty demonic one at that.”
Kang Woong sipped his coffee as he continued.
“What do you think School Gang members are like?”
『….』
Noh Hong-su remained silent, as if he didn’t grasp what Kang Woong was getting at. Seeing this, Kang Woong answered his own question.
“You think they’re just kids who fight well?”
“Yes.”
Noh Hong-su nodded as if there could be nothing else to it. Kang Woong chuckled and shook his head.
“Even if you’re good at fighting, you’re still just a high school student. How much difference in physical ability can there really be between students?”
“But those kids do taekwondo and boxing…”
Kang Woong shook his head again at Noh Hong-su’s objection.
“If they were good at taekwondo and boxing, they’d be athletes. Why would they waste time beating up kids?”
Kang Woong paused, looking at his coffee before speaking.
“School Gang members don’t become what they are because they fight well… they become what they are because they can hurt people.”
“Because they can hurt people?”
Kang Woong nodded and looked directly at Noh Hong-su.
“Want to know how to escape from the School Gang?”
“Is there really a way?”
“There’s a method that’s one hundred percent effective.”
“What is it?”
Noh Hong-su asked, and Kang Woong replied.
“Hit them together.”
At Kang Woong’s words, Noh Hong-su’s face went rigid. Seeing his reaction, Kang Woong continued.
“Of course it won’t be easy. It won’t be easy at all. And there might be other ways too.”
“…I can’t do it.”
At Noh Hong-su’s words, Kang Woong nodded.
“Right. If hitting people were easy, then that would mean…”
Kang Woong trailed off with a sigh. He’d been about to call such a person crazy, but since he’d lived that way during his school days, he couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought.
After a moment of silence, Kang Woong stood up.
“Follow me.”
At Kang Woong’s words, Noh Hong-su rose and followed him. As Kang Woong led him into the Apartment complex, he spoke.
“I’ll let you choose between two options.”
Meeting Noh Hong-su’s gaze as he looked at me, Kang Woong continued.
“If you have a phone call with me in front of those kids, they won’t bother students anymore.”
“A phone call? Just that one thing?”
At Noh Hong-su’s question, Kang Woong nodded.
“School gangs don’t fear teachers or police. In fact, they think it’s cool to disrespect and defy teachers and police. What they’re afraid of are neighborhood seniors and school upperclassmen. They know that police and teachers won’t hit them, but seniors and upperclassmen will.”
Then Kang Woong looked at Noh Hong-su.
“So if I tell them not to hit students, they won’t bother them anymore. They know they’ll get beaten if they don’t listen to me.”
At Kang Woong’s words, Noh Hong-su’s face brightened. Then he suddenly asked.
“What’s the second option then?”
“The method I mentioned earlier.”
“You want me to hit them too?”
Kang Woong looked at Noh Hong-su and spoke.
“School is a small society. When you enter the real world later, there are people far crueler than school gangs.”
“People worse than Lee Jong-hyuk?”
“School gangs bully one student… but gangs in society don’t just bully students—they torment their families too.”
“Even my family…”
“Gangs in society use your job to torment you. If you lose your job, you can’t earn money, and then your family suffers. That’s why people endure and persevere.”
Kang Woong touched his delivery cap briefly and spoke.
“I’m being tormented by a gang like that in society right now.”
At the revelation that Kang Woong—someone who could make terrifying kids like Lee Jong-hyuk cower—was being bullied, Noh Hong-su looked at him in shock.
“Sir… or rather, Senior?”
“I had power in school, but out in society, I’m just a fool.”
Then Kang Woong looked at Noh Hong-su.
“When you enter society, there’s no one to help you. You have to overcome it yourself.”
Noh Hong-su hesitated for a moment, then spoke in a small voice.
“I think… I’d just be grateful if you’d keep them from hitting me, Senior.”
At Noh Hong-su’s words, Kang Woong looked at him and nodded slightly.
“If that’s what you want, I’ll do that for you.”
Then Kang Woong pulled out a business card from his pocket and handed it over.
“Have a phone call with me in front of those kids tomorrow.”

***

I sighed as I set down the book I’d been reading.
“So it’s come to this after all.”
I’d hoped Noh Hong-su would have overcome this on his own….
[It’s not an easy thing to do.]
At the Bamboo Sword Goblin’s words, I nodded. Choosing the difficult path when an easier one lay open was truly a hard thing to do.
“Still, at least he’ll be free from the harassment.”
And just because someone was bullied at school didn’t mean they’d be bullied after entering society.
Just as a school gang member who thrived in school wasn’t guaranteed to thrive in society.
“What was it you wanted, anyway?”
I turned my head at the Bamboo Sword Goblin’s voice. Somehow, he’d already positioned himself beside me.
“You’re here.”
The Bamboo Sword Goblin nodded and pointed at the book as he spoke.
“What ending did you want for Noh Hong-su?”
“Does what I think really matter?”
“It does.”
The Bamboo Sword Goblin tapped the book with his hand and said:
“It’s reader feedback.”
At the word “reader,” I let out an “ah” and looked back at the book. I’d momentarily forgotten.
Though this book chronicled real events, I was reading it as a reader.
And what the Bamboo Sword Goblin wanted was feedback—comments from a reader.
He was asking which development would have been more interesting: Noh Hong-su overcoming his fear and fighting the gang members, or being freed from violence through others’ help.
I looked away from the Bamboo Sword Goblin for a moment and back at the book. It remained open, the story still unfolding.
“I didn’t hope for him to fight back the way Kang Woong suggested. I just wanted him to take the step of asking others for help, to say he needed to be saved.”
I paused, lost in thought as I gazed at the book, then continued.
“The methods differed, but both Kang Woong and I believed Noh Hong-su needed to change and take the initiative himself.”
“So your vision did come true, even if the method was different?”
“Yes. But seeing the episode with Kang Woong… I think it would have been more entertaining if Noh Hong-su had actually hit the gang members as Kang Woong suggested. If he’d fought and won, it would have been a more thrilling development.”
After speaking, I smacked my lips and shook my head.
“But this isn’t really a novel, and we can’t judge it by entertainment value. He couldn’t have suddenly gained fighting skills overnight… if that had happened, he would have gotten beaten badly and bullied even more.”
“That’s right. This is a novel, but it’s also reality.”
At the Bamboo Sword Goblin’s words, I nodded and spoke.
“Still, it’s good that Hong-su won’t be harassed by the gang members anymore.”
The Bamboo Sword Goblin looked at the book at my words and said:
“Good, you say….”
The Bamboo Sword Goblin shook his head slightly.
“It’s good for Hong-su, certainly.”
As he spoke, the Bamboo Sword Goblin took the book from my hands and closed it shut.
Snap!
After placing the book back on the shelf, Typhoon asked with a puzzled expression.
“But there’s still content I haven’t read.”
“The enjoyable part ends here. And I won’t be writing any more about this protagonist.”
“What?”
“It’s a discontinued work, so there’s no need to read further.”
“You’re not going to write anymore?”
“Has it been about five days since you started reading this book?”
Typhoon nodded at Bamboo Sword Goblin’s words. Though barely worthy of being called a serialization, Bamboo Sword Goblin had been writing the story about Noh Hong-su bit by bit.
Even the single day when Kang Woong met the School Gang members and promised to help Noh Hong-su had been serialized over three days in short installments.
“It wasn’t even a character I particularly liked… I wrote it on a whim, hoping it might work out. But now he’s become a character I dislike even more.”
“What happened?”
At Typhoon’s question, Bamboo Sword Goblin glanced at the book on the shelf before speaking.
“The target changed.”
Then he turned and walked toward his room. Watching his retreating figure, Typhoon tilted his head in confusion.
“The target?”
Trying to understand what he meant, Typhoon’s eyes narrowed as the meaning became clear.
The School Gang had switched their bullying target from Noh Hong-su to someone else. And whatever Noh Hong-su did in that situation must have displeased Bamboo Sword Goblin.
Whatever happened, it wasn’t Noh Hong-su’s fault. The ones who threw the punches were wrong—what crime did the one who received them commit?
“This isn’t some game of hot potato… They’re despicable.”
Cursing the School Gang, Typhoon took the book that Bamboo Sword Goblin had placed on the shelf.
Not knowing how far he’d written, Typhoon still wanted to finish reading what had been completed.

***

Kang Woong, who had been watching Noh Hong-su, spoke.
“But why are you helping me?”
At Noh Hong-su’s question, Kang Woong looked at him.
“It’s not so much about helping a student… it’s about a friend who was bullied by me in the past…. No, that’s not it….”
Kang Woong shook his head.
“I kept thinking about the victims who were hurt because of me. And I felt sorry toward them…. That’s why I helped.”
Then Kang Woong met Noh Hong-su’s gaze once more.
“Call me tomorrow.”
As Kang Woong turned to leave, Noh Hong-su watched him and suddenly asked a question.
“But why did you bring me here?”
He wondered why Kang Woong had led him deeper into the Apartment complex. At Noh Hong-su’s question, Kang Woong turned back to him.
“Hitting someone for the first time is difficult, you know.”
“Pardon?”
Wondering what he meant, Noh Hong-su watched as Kang Woong tapped his own face lightly with his hand.
“Well then, I’m going.”
Watching Kang Woong’s retreating figure, Noh Hong-su tilted his head in confusion.

And the next day, Noh Hong-su hurriedly called Kang Woong when he saw Lee Jong-hyuk’s group glaring at him.
After speaking with Kang Woong, Lee Jong-hyuk’s group merely looked at Noh Hong-su for a moment before leaving him alone.
Instead, starting the next day, a different student was dragged around by Lee Jong-hyuk’s group.
And when that child looked toward Noh Hong-su… Noh Hong-su quietly turned his head away.

***

Typhoon sighed as there were no more sentences written beyond that point.
He had figured out why the Bamboo Sword Goblin had stopped writing here.
“So that’s why he gave up on this.”
The story had progressed in a style the Bamboo Sword Goblin disliked. Typhoon shook his head and was about to return the book to the shelf when he squinted and looked at it again.
“Anyway… I hate the sight of these School Gang bastards.”
After thinking for a moment, Typhoon nodded and opened the book.
‘The name of Noh Hong-su’s Apartment was somewhere in here….’
Murmuring softly, Typhoon searched for the name of the Apartment where Noh Hong-su lived.

Typhoon had entered the Apartment complex early in the dawn. Among the lined-up buildings, he was looking at one particular building.
And beside it….
Lim Sung-un stood there, holding a cup of coffee in his hand.

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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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