Welcome to the Goblin Hotel - Chapter 31

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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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Episode 31
The back of my head burned under the weight of all those staring eyes.
“First things first — get your clothes on.”
I grabbed the hem of his pants as he pulled on the hoodie he’d shed moments before, and dragged him toward the Event Venue entrance.
He glanced at me sideways, his voice small and wheedling.
“Um, sir…. The pants are pinching me.”
“Who’s your sir?”
Whether his pants were cutting off circulation had nothing to do with me.
‘He should’ve never run in the first place.’
I flashed the Access Pass Rina had given me, and the security guards at the entrance stepped aside.
Though they did tilt their heads, eyeing the grass-haired mess dangling from my grip.
Fortunately, the fans inside the Event Venue had their attention fixed on Lovely Days up on the stage.
“Boss!”
Min-jae, eyes alight with urgency, bounded over to me.
“You caught him alone?”
I hoisted up the hem of Min-cho’s pants as I answered.
“…There’s been a lot because of this Min-cho bastard.”
“…Min-cho?”
“Dandelion hair, grass-green head. Short for Min-cho.”
Min-jae caught sight of Min-cho’s hair and swallowed a laugh.
“Huh—! It suits him perfectly.”
“Ugh…! Sir, please, my pants…!”
Min-cho writhed and pleaded, but I ignored him and looked around.
“Yeah, boss, I think it’d be better if you headed into the Waiting Room.”
Quick-witted Min-jae darted toward the Waiting Room and pulled the door open.
I shoved Min-cho inside, half-dragging him the whole way.
Click.
Min-jae planted himself in front of the door.
‘The Gatekeeper.’
I suddenly remembered what Gang-rim had called Min-jae, and a laugh bubbled up.
“Heh….”
Flinch.
At the sound of my laughter, Min-cho paused from adjusting his waistband and stole a cautious glance at me.
I walked toward him slowly and stood face to face.
“Talk. Now.”
I grabbed his collar as he tried to look down and avoid my eyes.
‘How did he plant the curse?’
I locked eyes with Min-cho directly,
【 Soul Insight 】
and activated the ability.
# The guy with pink hair opened a delivery box.
Inside were several yellow sheets of paper.
And two small, round jars.
He scratched his head as he peered into the box.
“Did I waste my money on this?”
‘He bought that with actual money?’
I continued watching his movements.
He shook one of the small jars, tilted his head in confusion, then rummaged inside the box.
Then he pulled out a slip of paper and unfolded it.
The note contained detailed instructions on how to plant a curse.
This punk.
He’d actually bought the method to curse someone.
‘Who the hell sells something like that…!’
I ground my teeth thinking about whoever had peddled this curse kit.
“Oh, an instruction manual. Right, I paid fifty thousand won for it—there should be a manual.”
He nodded and read through the instructions.
“Mix the powder in the jar, dissolve it in water, apply to yellow paper…. Huh? That’s all there is?”
He finished reading and grinned.
The last sentence at the bottom.
※ Effect increases significantly if the curse-caster’s blood is mixed in!!!
“Well… that’s not really…”
‘Right. If you have any sense, you wouldn’t actually go through with it.’
But.
“Ow!”
Opening the container’s lid, a sharp edge cut into his finger.
The one who’d been sucking on his finger in pain hesitated, then let a drop of blood fall into the ingredients.
Red powder, ash, a single drop of blood squeezed from his fingertip.
He began mixing the materials together.
“What character is this supposed to be?”
He wavered for a moment.
“…Well, it doesn’t matter if I don’t know.”
Then he slowly traced out dark crimson characters.
‘If I don’t know, I should look it up later!’
# He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
Then the scene before his eyes shifted.
A familiar landscape.
Ye-na’s apartment.
I was using Soul Insight on the pink-haired one.
‘Why would Ye-na’s apartment appear?’
When I turned my head—
The pink-haired one came into view.
This was his dream, then.
Or perhaps an out-of-body experience?
I was still looking into his soul, after all.
He was wrapping Black String around Ye-na’s body as she sat vacant-eyed and trembling, his hands shaking.
‘Is this thread I burned with my spirit power?’
He wound the Black String around both her arms and legs.
And around her neck as well.
The Black String was coiled tight.
Tears streamed down his terrified eyes, yet he couldn’t stop.
“I don’t want to. No, I can’t…!”
His words and actions didn’t match, as if his body were moving of its own accord.
Looking closer, Black String was tangled around his own body too.
He was an insect wrapped in a spider’s web.
Just as I’d thought.
He’d been affected by the curse as well.
If I hadn’t burned the Talisman…
Min-cho would’ve become prey to the curse long ago.
As I nodded at this realization—
The Soul Insight ended.
My vision returned.
To the moment I’d been gripping his collar.
Looking at Min-cho’s finely trembling eyes, I spoke.
“The Black String.”
Startled, Min-cho’s eyes went wide.
“……!”
“How about it? Your sleep’s gotten better lately, hasn’t it?”
I pulled harder on his collar as I asked.
“But has it really gotten better?”
I asked once more, my voice low.
“What do you think?”
Releasing my grip on his collar, Min-cho’s legs gave out and he collapsed to the floor.
“You… you don’t mean it’s not over? U-ugh… I can’t…!”
Scratch-scratch.
Min-cho started clawing at his entire body.
“No, I can’t…!”
Scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch—
His arms, his legs, his neck.
Angry red marks appeared where his nails had dragged.
Faint traces of blood were visible here and there.
Thrashing against invisible black threads, trying to tear them away.
He kept clawing at himself like a madman.
Part of me wanted to just leave him as he was, thinking about what he’d done.
But I decided to hear the full story first before making a judgment.
‘He seems to have been deceived too.’
Being deceived wasn’t exactly innocent, though.
“Stop.”
At the sound of my voice, Min-cho, who’d been scratching at his nape, went rigid.
He jerked his head up to stare at me, then crawled toward me on his knees.
“P-please, sir! I-I didn’t know something could be this terrifying…! I’m serious! Please, just this once, forgive me!”
“I’m not your teacher.”
“S-sir!”
I haven’t taught you anything.
He grabbed at my pant leg, clinging to it.
“Please, save me. I’m begging you…! I-I was really wrong. Sob…!”
‘Stupid, but not completely without sense.’
He’d figured out I had the power to save him.
I crouched down in front of him and met his eyes.
“Alright. Answer my questions properly, and I’ll help you out. How’s that?”
“Y-yes…! Yes!”
He nodded his head emphatically.
A yellow flower clip clung pitifully to a few strands of his hair, then tumbled to the floor.
“Why did you curse Ye-na?”
……
“Don’t want to answer? Suit yourself.”
I stood up without concern and turned to leave.
That’s when a desperate voice stopped me.
“Because…Ye-na started dating someone, and it made me angry…!”
‘A man?’
Did Ye-na have a boyfriend?
I’d never heard about it, but that was her private life.
I asked him with my brow deeply furrowed.
“You cursed her just for that?”
He added defensively.
“She wore a couple bracelet on a broadcast! If you think about the fans…. That’s just not right, is it?”
“That’s seriously the reason?”
He shrank his neck and answered.
“I-I was angry at the time….”
“So you cast a curse?”
“I didn’t think the curse would actually work…. It was half a joke.”
The image of Ye-na that I’d seen through Rina’s Soul Insight came flooding back.
A homeless wretch’s appearance, eyes with unfocused, misaligned pupils.
A ruined home.
Dolls hanging from the ceiling.
As those memories surfaced, rage bubbled up from deep inside me.
‘This idiot…! Over something like that?’
Heat seared through my chest.
I glared at him, then picked up a bottled water sitting on the table.
It was still cold, thankfully.
Gulp, gulp.
I felt the cold water sliding down my throat with perfect clarity.
After cooling the burning inside me that way.
I asked him.
“Where did you get the curse?”
He flinched at my shoulders.
“There was an ad on SNS…selling a Curse Kit.”
“What? There was an ad selling curses?”
“Yes. It was just curiosity. The ad was colorful and didn’t look ominous at all…. So I sent them a DM.”
I signaled him with a nod and said.
“Show me.”
“…What?”
“Try contacting him right now.”
“That is… well…”
“Do it.”
“…It’s not that I won’t—I can’t. I wanted to get rid of the curse too, so I looked for the seller, but… the account’s gone. Deleted.”
I tilted my head and stared hard into his eyes.
There was no lie in that anguished gaze.
‘The account really is gone?’
The seller of the curse.
I wanted to grab them and demand to know what possessed them to sell such a thing.
And then I wanted to give them a proper beating for it.
But there were no more leads.
I sipped some bottled water to cool my burning frustration, then asked him one more thing.
“What about the tools you used to make the Curse Talisman? They should still be around somewhere?”
“Those… I was too scared to keep them, so I buried them in the ground.”
“You buried them?”
“I couldn’t just throw them away carelessly, so I buried them in the earth.”
“Well then, where exactly did you bury them.”
“Sam-yeong Mountain.”
“……!”
A jolt.
An electric sensation shot down my spine like current through wire.
A bad premonition washed over me.
Sam-yeong Mountain.
The same name as the mountain not far from our hotel.
And.
That mountain is also the one where Mi-ho originally lived.
“You don’t mean that mountain in northern Gyeonggi, do you?”
He nodded, his chin bobbing.
“Yes. That’s the one.”
‘Of all places… that mountain?’
This was truly not good.
I tried to think of an excuse not to go there.
Did I really need to recover it?
I’d already caught the one who planted the curse on Ye-na….
So there was no real need to go, was there?
Buried tools wouldn’t end up in anyone’s hands….
I nodded to myself, organizing my thoughts.
Min-cho scratched at his wrists frantically, his voice wavering.
“I’ve told you everything I know… Please, just get rid of this…!”
“Oh, about that—”
Just as I was about to speak to him.
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
[ Caller: Min-ju ]
‘Something wrong at home?’
Tilting my head in curiosity, I answered.
“Yeah, Min-ju?”
But the voice coming through the phone wasn’t Min-ju’s.
「 Dad! 」
“Huh? Song-i?”
「 Yes. Dad, when are you coming home? 」
“Mm… well, I think my work will run late into the afternoon.”
「 Dad…. You know…. 」
Song-i drew out her words.
I’d said goodbye to her this morning.
Does she already miss me?
‘Then I should finish up quickly and go meet Song-i—’
「 I want Strawberry Cake…! 」
“Ah… so our daughter called just because she wanted Strawberry Cake?”
「 Hehe. Yes! 」
“Don’t you want to see Dad?”
「 I really do! 」
“That’s what I thought. You want to see Dad as much as you want that strawberry cake, right?”
「 Yes. I want to eat the cake, and I want to see Dad too! 」
So I heard what I needed to hear.
That was enough.
“All right, Dad will bring home a strawberry cake for you.”
「 Yes! Dad, I love you! See you soon! 」
The tense expression I’d been wearing softened as I spoke with Song-i.
Min-cho, looking up at my face, opened his mouth like a well-cooked clam.
I tilted my chin up and glared at him.
“What? What is it?”
“Oh, no, nothing.”
He shook his head and hunched his shoulders.
I glanced at him once, then turned to Min-jae, who stood guarding the door. “Min-jae, want to go climbing?”
Talking with Song-i had crystallized my thoughts.
I couldn’t leave that ominous thing anywhere near the hotel where Song-i was.
‘A bad premonition?’
Then I had to dispose of it faster.
Those dangerous things could always come boomeranging back.
Min-jae answered, retying his sneaker laces.
“Should we go right now?”
Inherited a Goblin Hotel
Author
: Whygranol
Created
: August 25, 2026
Publisher
: Acesmedia Inc.
Editor-in-Chief
: Acesmedia Editorial Team
Address
: 10F Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
Email
: [email protected]
※ This work is published by Acesmedia Inc. under contract with the copyright holder and may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the company and the author.
This e-book is a work protected by copyright law, and unauthorized reproduction or duplication may result in legal liability.
UCI
: G720:N+A129-20260730113

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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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