Welcome to the Goblin Hotel - Chapter 34

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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 34
Min Cho’s shoulders flinched before he slumped down.
“…Yes. Please, just believe me.”
He never did say he wanted to turn back after all.
He seemed not to have gotten a clear look at the spirit entity, but his terror was unmistakable.
‘Easily frightened, this one.’
And yet he’d had the nerve to plant such a vicious curse.
Though in his defense, he hadn’t anticipated the consequences.
I clicked my tongue curtly.
“Go wash up. You reek. Min Jae, give him a room.”
“Yes, boss.”
I added one more thing.
“The smallest one.”
***
After washing in warm water, my body loosened considerably.
My Spiritual Power seemed to have recovered; I felt no lingering exhaustion.
I opened the Management Window to check my status.
【 Administrator Details 】
*Kim Woo-jin:
Health Good
Spirit Sight
Soul Insight
22,305 Points
“Already over twenty thousand points.”
I’d long since surpassed my initial goal of accumulating ten thousand points to banish minor ghosts.
But there were things out there stronger than minor ghosts.
I needed to be strong enough to defeat them handily if I was going to keep Song-i safe.
‘I’ll need to keep accumulating points steadily.’
First, though, I had to deal with that one.
After collecting my thoughts, I made my way to the dining hall, where the savory aroma of beef broth tickled the tip of my nose.
Min Jae and Min Cho had arrived earlier and were already bent over their bowls, eating ravenously.
Slurrrrrp—
Smack, smack, smack, smack…!
Two hungry twenty-something men.
A fierce battle was raging across the dinner table, chopsticks wielded as weapons.
Min Joo arrived with a steaming bowl of beef radish soup, the gleaming white rice billowing with warmth beside it.
“You must be starving. Come, sit down.”
I settled into a seat well away from the two engaged in their combat meal and asked:
“Where’s Song-i?”
“She had two slices of cake. She’s probably in the field with Hwang-geum-i right now.”
“That so?”
I nodded and picked up my soup bowl.
Holding the bowl itself, I gulped down the broth in long swallows to quiet my urgent hunger first.
I felt the hot liquid clearly as it traced down my esophagus and settled in my stomach.
“Ahhhhhh… that hits the spot.”
“Hehe…! Anyone watching would think you were getting over a hangover.”
“Close enough. Considering what I’ve been through today… worse than a hangover, really. I need to detoxify.”
Min Joo laughed and turned away.
“Then I’ll bring you another bowl of broth.”
“Please do.”
Only after finishing two bowls of rice and three bowls of soup did my pace slow.
As I sat contentedly rubbing my belly with a satisfied smile, it suddenly occurred to me.
“Oh, Min Joo. Have you seen Mi-ho?”
“Mi-ho left the hotel around the afternoon.”
“Left?”
“Yes. She seemed to be in quite a rush….”
‘Hm? Where’d she go…?’
Mi-ho was the type who rarely left the hotel.
It’s too soon for her to pay the lodging fee….
Though if she brought Heavenly Ginseng again, I wouldn’t refuse.
I rotated my stiff shoulders and spoke.
“Min Joo, could you mix up some honey water for the throat? Two cups—one for me and one for Min Jae.”
Today felt like the last day we’d be drinking honey water.
The supply was running dangerously low.
“Of course. Just give me a moment.”
Min Joo disappeared into the kitchen, and I watched Min Cho, who’d licked his bowl clean as a whistle.
“Did you call home?”
“There’s no one there.”
“No one?”
“My mother’s passed away, and my father works out of province.”
“How old are you now?”
‘About the same age as Min Jae, maybe…?’
It was hard to judge kids these days by their faces alone.
But judging by what he did, he still seemed young….
“Twenty-two.”
“Twenty-two? You should be heading to the military soon.”
Min Cho shook his head at my muttered remark.
“I already did my service.”
“Huh?”
“Military service. I already went through it.”
But the way he carried himself was completely that of someone who hadn’t served.
“…So you served and you’re walking around with your hair looking like that?”
“I just didn’t want the same boring haircut everyone else has.”
I shook my head.
“Right, sure. Must be nice being different. Really nice.”
“Boss, are you being sarcastic?”
Now that the kid had a full belly, his nerve was getting bigger along with it.
I fixed him with a look and spoke.
“Watch it! Should I call a cab for you? And why am I your boss, exactly?”
Min Cho’s defiance was short-lived.
He hunched his shoulders and clamped his mouth shut.
I glanced at Min Jae, who was laughing silently beside me, and continued.
“So how’d you fund your fan hobby? Don’t merchandise and albums cost a fortune?”
“Oh…! My merchandise!”
The kid’s face crumpled as he remembered the goods he’d left at the Fan Signing Event Venue.
“Tsk! Answer the question.”
Min Cho’s lips drooped as he replied.
“With money I saved from my military salary.”
“Are you…serious?”
The taxes I paid…! The defense budget…!
The national defense budget bleeding away like that.
And he spent it on idol merchandise.
‘If he’d been my brother, I’d have beaten him half to death.’
“Hoo….”
I breathed deeply, trying to settle myself.
Think positive.
Yeah, isn’t being into idols a much healthier hobby than throwing money around on entertainment and vice?
Unless he was an idiot, surely he didn’t spend all that money on fan activities alone.
Even as I thought it, I couldn’t bring myself to ask.
‘You didn’t spend it all on that stuff, right? Right?’
I shook my head to clear away the stray thoughts.
“Tsk…!”
He wasn’t even my kid—I needed to stop worrying about this.
It was only giving me stress.
I drained the cool honey water Min Joo had given me in one go and opened my mouth.
“Now, tomorrow when dawn breaks, you’re heading straight home—”
That was when it happened.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
Mi-ho stumbled into the dining hall, caked in dust and dirt.
— I’m starving.
“Mi-ho, where on earth did you go to end up looking like that?”
— I went to check on a Barrier I’d set up.
“A Barrier?”
Mi-ho tore into the raw meat Min Joo had brought out, swallowing hastily before speaking.
— That’s right. I’d placed a Barrier beneath the mountain where I was staying. It started wavering, so I went to check on it.
‘Ah, could it be that? That thing back then?’
The image of the Spirit Entity standing at the end of the road, roaring, flashed through my mind.
It had seemed blocked by something at that moment….
So there must have been a Barrier that Mi-ho had set up there.
I watched Mi-ho chewing the meat methodically and spoke up.
“Um…. I think that might be because of me.”
— …What?
“I went to Samyeong Mountain today to search for a Cursed Tool. I didn’t go deep, just toward the lower slopes.”
Mi-ho’s eyes sharpened.
— What? Why would a Cursed Tool be there?
I gestured toward Min Cho with my chin as I spoke.
“He buried it there.”
Mi-ho’s eyes flashed as she looked at Min Cho.
— So it was you! You planted that curse.
Mi-ho bared her teeth and growled.
— How dare you bury something so filthy on my mountain?
Min Cho had gone rigid the moment Mi-ho appeared.
He stood there with his mouth agape, pointing at Mi-ho.
“T-tails….”
Min Jae laughed and folded Min Cho’s outstretched fingers closed.
“Yep. Three tails. She’s a Nine-Tailed Fox, so don’t do anything reckless or you’ll regret it.”
Mi-ho glared at the stammering Min Cho once, then turned her gaze toward me.
— Did you, by chance, see that creature?
“If you mean the Spirit Entity, I fought it. It looked absolutely horrifying.”
— It’s heaven’s mercy you came back in one piece.
“It’s thanks to your Barrier. I barely escaped because of it. But I think I can catch it next time.”
— Catch it…? You think you can…? That thing?
“Yeah. This time I couldn’t control my strength properly, so I ran out of Spiritual Power. I think it’ll work next time.”
— Don’t underestimate it just because you survived once. That creature is growing too.
“Huh…? Spirit Entities grow?”
— They do. Stray Spirits keep entering that place. It’ll devour them and grow steadily larger.
“But there’s a Barrier. Can’t that stop it?”
— A Barrier I make is like a coarse sieve. It can block large chunks, but not small grains pass through.
“Then I’ll have to catch it before it gets any stronger.”
— Right. That’s why I’m gathering my strength too…. But it’s still not enough.
“Let’s do it together. I owe that creature a debt as well.”
Right, should I ask Gang-rim for help?
The dead fear reapers, after all.
He’d be a tremendous asset.
“Min Jae, light some incense at the front gate. I need to see Gang-rim.”
***
Not long after the incense was lit, Gang-rim arrived.
【 A Reaper from the Underworld has come to visit. 】
I gestured to the children and quietly stepped back.
Gang-rim approached with his long legs stretched out in leisurely strides.
“Reaper, thank you for visiting.”
“I had no pressing matters at hand, fortunately. But what brings you to summon me this time?”
“I have a favor to ask of you, Reaper. Shall we have a meal first?”
“Ha-ha-ha! Splendid. I’m just getting hungry.”
Gang-rim turned toward the Hotel with a smile, then suddenly stopped.
“Hmm?”
He slowly turned his head.
Upon seeing Min Cho, Gang-rim’s lips twisted into a smile.
In that instant.
A blue light flickered across Gang-rim’s eyes.
Gang-rim opened his mouth.
“So it’s you.”
“……Gasp…!”
“Small vessel, yet you managed to stir up quite the spectacle. Kekeke…!”
Min Cho’s body froze rigid the moment his eyes met Gang-rim’s.
His face drained white—he wasn’t even breathing properly.
‘At this rate he’ll suffocate.’
I signaled Min Jae with my eyes.
‘Get him out of here.’
Min Jae nodded and smacked Min Cho’s back hard.
“Ack…!”
Only then did Min Cho’s breathing return, and he gasped for air.
I’d told him to pull back.
Not to hit him from behind.
‘Min Jae’s been holding a grudge.’
Still, his method worked, and Min Cho could breathe again.
Gang-rim kept his gaze fixed on Min Cho without wavering.
He murmured in a low voice.
“You found the loophole well. Was it chance…?”
Min Cho trembled, pinned by Gang-rim’s stare, his shoulders shaking.
“……U-u-u.”
“Amusing. Yes. The proprietor here is your lifeline, so hold on tight.”
I tilted my head and asked Gang-rim.
“What do you mean I’m a lifeline? I’ve already burned away all his curses. Are you referring to that?”
“Hahaha. No. The curse may be finished, but his karmic debt remains.”
“Can’t he wash that away by apologizing to Ye-na?”
“Does karmic debt vanish so easily? An apology is merely the beginning of atonement.”
True enough.
An apology, forgiveness received—
guilt doesn’t simply disappear.
Min Cho lowered his head and asked in a small, crawling voice.
“Then… what should I do?”
Gang-rim glanced at Min Cho and spoke.
“Accumulate virtue to counterbalance your karmic debt. Do that, and you’ll live. Working alongside the proprietor here will naturally lead you there.”
“Virtue….”
“If you fail to wash away your karmic debt… you cannot escape the arrow that returns.”
I stared directly at Gang-rim and asked.
“Why are you telling us this?”
“Hell is at capacity, for one.”
“…and?”
“A gatekeeper or two won’t hurt to have at the hotel.”
“A gatekeeper…?”
“Kekeke…! A gatekeeper….”
Min Jae, the hotel’s doorman, laughed while looking at the would-be gatekeeper.
I shrugged my shoulders and answered.
“I don’t know. Our hotel runs on automatic management—we don’t really need that sort of thing.”
Gang-rim stepped forward and replied.
“If you’d rather not, proprietor, simply refuse. Hahahaha! There won’t be room in hell for this wretch anyway, will there?”
‘Wait—is he saying he’ll throw this guy into hell if I don’t accept him?’
Gang-rim passed in front of Min Cho and spoke as though in passing.
“Whoever gave you that name—you have no idea. Thank them. Your name saved you.”
Suddenly I became curious about Min Cho’s name.
Inherited the Dokkaebi Hotel
Author
: WhyNotNovelRa
Created
: August 25, 2026
Publisher
: ACMEDIA Inc.
Publisher
: ACESIS Media Editorial Team
Address
: 10F Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Email
: [email protected]
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and its contents may not be used in any form or by any means without the permission of the publisher and author.
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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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