Goblin Library - Chapter 91

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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 91.

After reading what Bamboo Sword Goblin had written, Yu Tae-poong looked at Dung Carrier Goblin.
“What do you think?”
Dung Carrier Goblin paused in thought before speaking.
“Doesn’t it feel a bit weak?”
“Weak…?”
At Bamboo Sword Goblin’s question, Dung Carrier Goblin nodded and looked at Yu Tae-poong.
“What about you?”
“I understand that Lee Gang-hyuk helped people who accidentally committed crimes and looked after his family on the outside… but it still feels insufficient.”
At their words, Bamboo Sword Goblin poured soju and drank before speaking.
“But expanding the content further is also problematic. If we do that, the subplot becomes too extensive.”
Bamboo Sword Goblin picked up a piece of stir-fried squid and continued.
“Besides, the good deeds I witnessed from Lee Gang-hyuk are only this much.”
“Is that all?”
“I only observed from shortly before he left the Prison.”
Bamboo Sword Goblin shook his head and continued.
“I can’t just imagine and write about his past.”
“Right. We only write what we’ve seen.”
At Bamboo Sword Goblin’s words, Yu Tae-poong, who had been lost in thought, made a suggestion.
“Why don’t we just cut this episode?”
“After all the effort I put in?”
Dung Carrier Goblin looked at the book regretfully at Yu Tae-poong’s suggestion, but Yu Tae-poong shook his head.
“Actually, we only know that Lee Gang-hyuk is a good person because the Company President told us.”
“That’s true.”
“But the readers don’t know. Since we know, we’re disappointed by that aspect. Wouldn’t it be better to make Lee Gang-hyuk appear as a thorough villain to other readers viewing this text?”
At Yu Tae-poong’s words, Bamboo Sword Goblin, who had been deep in thought, nodded.
“There’s no need to draw the snake’s feet.”
“Unnecessary additions… exactly. If Lee Gang-hyuk were the protagonist, it would be good to show his human side, but here he appears as the opposing villain to Lim Sung-un, so there’s no need to depict such details.”
Dung Carrier Goblin shared his perspective as a writer goblin. Though his novels weren’t popular, he was still a writer who had been writing for hundreds of years and possessed literary refinement.
At Dung Carrier Goblin’s words, Bamboo Sword Goblin looked at the book, then waved his hand.
Whoosh!
In an instant, the sentences Bamboo Sword Goblin had written vanished.
Bamboo Sword Goblin sighed after erasing the text and wiped his face with his hand.
At the sight of Bamboo Sword Goblin, Dung Carrier Goblin spoke.
“Why didn’t you save it somewhere instead of deleting it?”
“If this scene becomes necessary for the narrative flow later, I can simply rewrite it then.”
With that, he picked up his laptop with a weary expression and moved toward his room.
“You seem quite tired.”
At Yu Tae-poong’s words, the Dung Carrier Goblin shook his head.
“Erasing what you’ve written isn’t easy. In a way, deletion is harder work than creation itself.”
“That makes sense—for a writer, their words are like children.”
The Dung Carrier Goblin, who had been watching where the Bamboo Sword Goblin went, shook his head and pulled out his laptop.
“Are you going to write?”
“I want to read through my own work once more.”
It seemed he intended to review his writing for any unnecessary additions, following the Bamboo Sword Goblin’s example.
Yu Tae-poong nodded at this and stood up, beginning to clear away the bottles and dishes the Bamboo Sword Goblin had used.
“We’ve managed dinner with this, at least.”
“Still, we should eat a proper meal.”
Then the Dung Carrier Goblin suddenly exclaimed as if struck by a brilliant idea.
“Ah! Let’s go there.”
“There?”
“That Chinese restaurant Lee Gang-hyuk went to earlier for a meal.”
“You’d like to have Chinese food?”
“Well, it’s from the novel, but seeing him eat black bean noodles and sweet and sour pork makes me want some too. And there’s something fun about eating at a location from the story itself.”
“Like dining at a restaurant that appears in a movie.”
“Exactly.”
The Dung Carrier Goblin licked his lips and smiled.
“Why does sweet and sour pork dipped in sauce, then dipped again in soy sauce mixed with vinegar and red pepper powder, taste so good?”
“It’s not too salty and it’s delicious.”
As I conversed with the Dung Carrier Goblin, my appetite stirred as well.
“I want to eat too. Let’s go.”
At Yu Tae-poong’s words, the Dung Carrier Goblin made his laptop vanish and summoned his own book, holding it.
“Let’s go right now.”
“You’re taking the book with you?”
“I want to read while drinking baijiu.”
“If you read a book while eating Chinese food….”
Yu Tae-poong trailed off and shook his head. He’d been about to say something about broth and oil splattering, but then thought that since it was his own book, he could handle it however he pleased.
Soon after, Yu Tae-poong and the Dung Carrier Goblin left the Goblin Library.

***

The front door of a villa in a residential complex in Gyeonggi Province swung open. Dung Carrier Goblin and Yu Tae-poong stepped outside.
Yu Tae-poong glanced at the closing glass door of the villa, then asked something that had just occurred to him.
“By the way, you said Spirit Servants can’t enter a home without an invitation, right?”
“That’s correct.”
“Then how do you open doors like this? The owner of this villa never invited you, did they?”
At Yu Tae-poong’s words, Dung Carrier Goblin chuckled and continued walking.
“You can open a door without an invitation, but you can’t enter through it.”
Then Dung Carrier Goblin looked at Yu Tae-poong.
“That’s why in ghost stories, spirits call people from outside the house. They can’t come in, you see.”
“Ah, I see!”
Yu Tae-poong nodded, then asked something else that had crossed his mind.
“But there are ghosts that come out of houses too, aren’t there?”
That would explain the urban legends about ghosts under beds or in wardrobes.
“Those are spirits who died in that house. Or they attached themselves to an object and entered that way.”
As Yu Tae-poong nodded, Dung Carrier Goblin offered further explanation.
“But there are doors you can enter without an invitation.”
“There are doors like that?”
“The common entrance doors of villas like this, or shop doors—you can enter those without the owner’s permission. They’re open to multiple people, not a specific individual.”
“So Convenience Stores and Food Restaurants would work too, then.”
“Exactly. Places where many people come and go can be entered without permission.”
“So Spirit Servants have rules too.”
“This isn’t so much a rule of us Spirit Servants as it is a matter of courtesy between the living and the dead. If we Spirit Servants had lived however we pleased, thinking we could do anything, how could humans have maintained any order in the Living World?”
Yu Tae-poong considered this and found it made sense. If invisible ghosts and goblins with special powers had lived exactly as they wished, the order of the Living World would have collapsed.
“So you maintain courtesy toward each other.”
“We maintain our courtesy, and humans maintain theirs by keeping our existence hidden.”
“Hidden?”
“There are quite a few humans who know about us, like you and Jeonju Jeon Owner. But they don’t go around spreading stories about us.”
“Quite a few? Does that mean a lot?”
“In Korea, it’s not in the thousands, but it’s definitely in the hundreds.”
“I had no idea there were that many.”
“Humans with spiritual sensitivity naturally know about us. Those deeply devoted to various religions sense us too. And restaurant owners like Jeonju Jeon Owner sometimes know about us as well.”
“Spiritual sensitivity and religion make sense since they’re related to this side of things, but… restaurants? What do restaurants have to do with Spirit Servants?”
“Everything.”
Dung Carrier Goblin pointed to the Chinese Restaurant sign visible in the distance.
“We’re heading to a Chinese restaurant right now, aren’t we?”
“We are.”
“Spirit Servants eat too. Unlike humans, whose meals are mixed with the necessity of survival, we eat purely for the pleasure of taste. So Spirit Servants like us frequent good restaurants often. Because of that, some restaurant owners recognize us and know about us.”
“That’s fascinating.”
Yu Tae-poong nodded and asked another question.
“But goblins like you have physical bodies so you can eat, but can spirits and others like that also eat food?”
“They eat. They eat quite well.”
The Dung Carrier Goblin spoke with a smile.
“Why would people bother setting out memorial meals otherwise? Of course, the Spirit Servants without physical bodies—their consumption is invisible and the food doesn’t disappear—but they still eat. And those creatures enjoy delicious food too.”
The Dung Carrier Goblin looked at Yu Tae-poong.
“Ah! There’s a famous restaurant among the Spirit Servants. I’ll take you there sometime.”
“So the restaurant owner knows about goblins?”
“He does. The owner of the Chinese restaurant I frequent can see Spirit Servants, and we’re close.”
“That’s fascinating.”
Yu Tae-poong smiled as he spoke.
“You’ve said that word a lot today.”
“It’s the hidden side of a world humans don’t know… It would be fascinating to you.”
As they conversed, the two had arrived in front of the Chinese restaurant without realizing it. Yu Tae-poong opened the door.
Ding!
Yu Tae-poong froze the moment he stepped inside.
The Chinese restaurant didn’t have many tables, just as novels often describe.
There were about six tables, and at one of them, a middle-aged man was eating jjamppong and sweet and sour pork.
And above the man’s head, a name floated.

「Lee Gang-hyuk.
A villain who appears in the Bamboo Sword Goblin’s novel 【Lim Sung-un】.
He was falsely accused and imprisoned fifteen years ago, and was recently released. He harbors resentment toward the corrupt judicial system.」

Lee Gang-hyuk was eating alone. And above the heads of two men dining at a table near the entrance, names and descriptions were also visible.

「Bodyguard A.
A man assigned by Lee Ho-yeol to protect Lee Gang-hyuk.」

「Bodyguard B.
A man assigned by Lee Ho-yeol to protect Lee Gang-hyuk.」

In the book, Lee Ho-yeol’s mention of “Chairman, please take these fellows with you as well” marked the end of his description of them, which is why there was no further explanation about the two.
As Yu Tae-poong entered, Lee Gang-hyuk glanced at him briefly. And then….
“Why aren’t you coming in? It smells great.”
The Dung Carrier Goblin, who had slipped in sideways while Yu Tae-poong blocked the entrance, was smiling and sniffing the aroma when he spotted Lee Gang-hyuk and his expression shifted to mild surprise.
Then he took Yu Tae-poong to an empty table and sat down.
“What do you want to eat? Let’s start with sweet and sour pork as the basics, and I’ll have two servings of tray noodles with black bean sauce.”
At the Dung Carrier Goblin’s words, Yu Tae-poong nodded.
“Then I’ll have the seafood noodle soup. And let’s share a bite of each other’s dishes.”
“Sounds good.”
As the Dung Carrier Goblin nodded, Yu Tae-poong looked toward the owner.
“We’ll have the medium sweet and sour pork, two servings of tray noodles with black bean sauce, and one seafood noodle soup. Oh! And one bottle of strong liquor, please.”
“Yes.”
Once the owner placed the order in the kitchen, Yu Tae-poong pulled out chopsticks and set them on the table.
Clack!
But then a shadow fell across the table. Looking up, Bodyguard A and B stood before him.
“What is it?”
At Yu Tae-poong’s question, A turned his body slightly to the side. Through the gap, Yu Tae-poong could now see Lee Gang-hyuk watching him.
Lee Gang-hyuk spoke in a courteous tone.
“Come join us at our table.”
“We prefer eating just the two of us.”
“You seem to know who I am, so let’s at least exchange names. Don’t refuse.”
Bodyguard A and B casually picked up the spoon and chopsticks placed at the two’s table.
The Dung Carrier Goblin squinted his eyes and reached for the cloth caught in his pants cuff.
Flinch!
At that motion, A and B watched the Dung Carrier Goblin with wary eyes. They suspected that his sudden movement toward his waist meant he was about to draw a weapon like a knife.
Yu Tae-poong gave the Dung Carrier Goblin a small shake of his head and spoke toward Lee Gang-hyuk.
“Let’s do it.”
Yu Tae-poong stood up from his seat. At his action, the Dung Carrier Goblin spoke.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
The Dung Carrier Goblin flicked the cloth tucked into his pants cuff with his hand as he spoke, and Yu Tae-poong laughed.
“With you here, what trouble could possibly happen?”
“Nothing will.”
“Then let’s join them. I’m curious anyway.”
At Yu Tae-poong’s words, the Dung Carrier Goblin looked at Lee Gang-hyuk.
“I’m curious too.”
The Dung Carrier Goblin nodded and spoke toward A and B.
“Bring water glasses too.”

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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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