The Golden Goblin
“WHY, why are you grabbing an innocent man like this! WHY!”
Il-chul was already bleeding freely from the nose, but even so, he kept shouting with not a shred of his spirit broken.
Part of it was his pig-headed personality, but mostly it was because he had something to believe in.
Not connections or backing — he was a freelance survivor with a mediocre Gift, after all.
What he was banking on were the dozens of eyes watching this whole scene unfold.
Surely, any moment now, the beastfolk administrators would step in.
Won-goo curled his lips into a crooked smile.
“Il-chul, you're pretty feisty for a guy in your position. That nerve of yours is emperor-grade.”
“You just charged in out of nowhere! I honestly can't think of a single reason! If it's about the trash talk, then—”
Won-goo crouched down and shook his head.
“That level of trash talk, you can shout to my face. I'd laugh it off a hundred times over.”
“Then WHAT is this about!”
“You already know, don't you? Didn't the rumors spread already?”
“What are you—”
“You bought something from Youngjae Pharmacy, didn't you?”
“What does THAT have to do with any of this!”
“Nothing? Then I guess I'm the one making a mistake here?”
“This is a frame job! A frame job! You're doing THIS to me just because I bought some stuff from a pharmacy? Yes! In the middle of the shelter! Is this how you treat an innocent man!”
“You sure do love screaming.”
“I was born with a loud voice!”
“I know. That's partly why I came.”
“Huh?”
“Figured you wouldn't mind screaming your damn head off some more.”
“......?”
“You're carrying on like this, and yet no one's coming. Now why do you suppose that is? Your head's nice and pointy, but your instincts are dull as a fencepost.”
Only then did blood finally rush to Il-chul's brain. He glanced around frantically — and immediately noticed there wasn't a single beastfolk guard in sight.
“Getting it now? Why I'm doing this somewhere with so many eyes watching.”
“I... I'm really not mixed up in anything.”
“You are. You bought things from Youngjae Pharmacy.”
“No! That's—”
“That's what?”
“Who among the people using this shelter hasn't bought medicine there!”
“If you looked hard enough, I'm sure you'd find one or two. But you? You're definitely not one of them. You're a Youngjae Pharmacy VIP, aren't you? You even got surgery there. That pointy head of yours — that wasn't one of their procedures too, was it?”
“What kind of law IS this...... I've only ever gone there as a plain, honest customer, I swear.”
“Law died a long time ago. Listen up, Il-chul. Me? I've survived on simple, fast, and certain. Just those methods, nothing else. And from all that living, I've reached one conclusion — it's the fastest way there is. To get to the heart of something complicated, you have to dig into the deep, deeeep root first.”
“What kind of bull—”
CRACK!
Won-goo's warhammer came down on the crown of Il-chul's head with lightning speed.
Blood gushed up from the pointy skull in a spattering fountain.
Il-chul thrashed and screamed, but he couldn't so much as twitch.
Lee Hyun-sung had him pinned in an iron grip.
“Blood pressure a bit high? You're spurting a lot. Here, I'll stop the bleeding for you.”
Won-goo pressed the flat of the warhammer over the gushing wound.
“If you'd just read the room, treatment wouldn't have to hurt at all...... But our Il-chul's situational awareness has straight-up run away from home. The guy I treated earlier fessed up the second I hit him once...... You've probably bought fewer coins than him, going by the look of you, so where do you get the guts? Is it because you fly solo? Anyway, don't feel too wronged. The waiting line for this is plenty long, and you're not even at the front of it.”
Won-goo lifted the warhammer away from Il-chul's head. The blood was still spurting.
He straightened back up and continued.
“Any bastard who's so much as bought an antacid from Youngjae Pharmacy, I'm going to track down to the very end and work over. Until when? Until the moment our Golden Goblin comes home! And somewhere along the way—”
Right then, someone in the crowd began to move, quick and furtive.
“THERE he is!”
Won-goo caught it instantly and hurled the warhammer in his hand without a moment's hesitation.
CRUNCH!
A murmur rippled through the onlookers. The crew didn't care in the slightest.
“See? Told you this was the fastest way.”
The man the hammer had struck got back up after the hit and tried to bolt — but the crew was faster. Fastest of all was Geum Chul-soo.
Geum Chul-soo closed the distance and swung his axe without mercy.
Watching him, Won-goo's mouth curled up at the corners.
“See, people move quicker once they're properly motivated.”
Geum Chul-soo sealed the man's movements with his axe, and Jo Mu-sa and Suwon dragged him back by the legs. A long trail of blood scored the ground like a road.
“Il-chul. You're not feeling safe about this, are you?”
“......?”
“If nothing comes out of this one's mouth, we'll be seeing each other again. I told you — this goes on until our Golden Goblin comes back. And when it does, you'll have to pick one of three. Kill me, run very, very far away, or find out where Youngjae Pharmacy went.”
“......”
“Next time we meet, that smugly pointy head of yours is going under the knife. Prepare yourself accordingly. Have a guardian's consent form ready too. Got it?”
Il-chul, who had been listening with his mouth hanging half open, snapped to his senses and started moving fast —
pressing both hands down on his gushing head.
Won-goo's mouth beamed with a bright smile, but his eyes were brimming with killing intent. With that gaze, he swept his surroundings.
“Everyone just going to stand there and watch? What is this place, a gathering of nothing but the perfectly healthy? Never set foot in a pharmacy once in your lives, I suppose?”
At those words, the crowd that had swarmed in like a cloud bank vanished in an instant.
Won-goo flipped over the fallen man and asked.
“You definitely know something. You don't? You don't know? Feel free to say that — if you've got the guts.”
“I......”
“BUT! Think carefully. You're going straight into surgery — no diagnosis, no preliminary procedures. Right to the operating table.”
“......”
“When I had my skull opened up, exactly... Kkakdugi! What was the record for pieces again?”
“128 pieces, Hyeong-nim!”
“Right. 128 pieces — that's as far as I went. But I'll carve YOU up well past that, so if you want to verify it, go ahead and tell me you don't. Kno. W. Nothing.”
Low moans filled the air all around.
Won-goo's crew paid the groaning no mind and silently went about their work.
And their work, in this case, meant creating the ideal environment for Won-goo to extract information.
Only one person hovered awkwardly at the edge of it all — Jeon Hye-ji.
She found the whole situation bewildering.
She could understand that the goblin was worth a small fortune, and even that Won-goo was venting his fury over it.
Then there was the matter of reputation. In this world, carving the image of "cross him and you will pay, without fail" into people's minds was genuinely important for survival.
Fine. That explained this much.
But still......
Did I misread him?
The scenes playing out before her were excessive enough to shake even Jeon Hye-ji's faith.
Won-goo showed no sign of stopping, dragging in person after person connected to Youngjae Pharmacy for "treatment."
Treatment in name only — in practice, it was torture, forcibly prying memories loose until something useful surfaced.
One name led to the next, like a string of sausages pulled link by link from the casing.
The names never stopped coming, and neither did the interrogations. Critically injured men piled up at the spot where Il-chul had first taken his beating. The one mercy was that every last one of them was still breathing.
“Hard to watch or not, this is something you need to watch.”
Mu Beob-sa drifted over beside Jeon Hye-ji, who stood dazed and detached. Hands behind his back, he slipped a single cigarette toward her.
“A slow-smoking cigarette.”
“Thank you.”
“Light that, and watch it all the way through. Every bit of it is something you need to learn. You may never throw yourself in like Chul-soo over there, but at least learn to observe properly.”
“THIS is something I'm supposed to learn?”
“I take it from where you're standing, Director Gong just looks like he's laying it on far too thick?”
“I wouldn't say... excessive, exactly—”
“It's not excess. In this line of work, the moment you look like an easy mark, everyone and their mother lines up to eat you alive. If a small crew like ours doesn't want to be somebody's meal, then when it's time to show we have poison in us, we have to show it beyond any doubt.”
“......”
“Hmm. Doesn't seem like it landed, going by that face. Say it straight. You're allowed to disagree.”
“It just seems like it'll breed more resentment. Grudges pile up too, don't they?”
“Do you know anyone who's walked both roads — this one and that one — before choosing? That's exactly why we have a head. To judge, and to choose. And then to take responsibility for it. Jeon Hye-ji.”
“Yes.”
“Living isn't a game. The world turned upside down, and it stopped being a joke a long time ago.”
“Yes......”
“And one more thing — Director Gong isn't going this far over the goblin alone. It's also about one of our own. That's the part of it.”
“......?”
“The Trainer was one of our crew too. He split off from the main house, but still.”
“......!”
“You remember the Trainer, don't you? Cut into three pieces. He traveled with us briefly, back in the day. Director Gong figured his talents lay elsewhere, so he set him up with his own spot here in the shelter. They didn't see each other often, but they were the kind who rooted for each other.”
“Ah......”
“And this goblin business? With Director Gong's skill, he could have tamed that thing docile as a lamb, no question. He lined up that job as a favor to the Trainer. And then this happened. Of course Director Gong is furious. That much is only natural.”
Jeon Hye-ji's eyes wavered.
“It's a different case from Poke. Poke was given his independence and broke his promise to build his own gang. The Trainer settled down and made an honest living. There's a difference.”
“......”
“There are more reasons besides, but you'll have to hear those from Director Gong yourself. Stude— no. Miss.”
With that, Mu Beob-sa slowly rose from his crouch.
“Take your time with that cigarette. Don't look like you're drifting off on your own island. The others notice that sort of thing too, you know. That's just how it is.”
“Boss Dong. Are you seriously going to just sit there?”
“You can see it's about to pour. What exactly would you have me do out there?”
Sapiens sat, and arrayed before him were the merchants who had put down roots in the shelter.
“The damage is severe. The survivors using this shelter are in an uproar — they're all talking about packing up and moving.”
“Then they should move, if it doesn't suit them.”
“What kind of—! Haven't you taken a heavy loss yourself this time, Boss Dong?”
It was Yu Jeong-seok who spoke — the mustached boss they called Mr. Yu. A man with a squarish head, large face and large skull atop a small body, proportions all out of joint — and yet no one inside the shelter dared look down on him.
Because it was Yu who handed out work to the freelance survivors.
Where Sanghae recruited crews team by team to run big jobs, the man known as Mr. Yu, Yu Jeong-seok, Boss Yu, brokered the small, fiddly contracts. He also supplied mercenaries for jobs that needed full teams, so there wasn't a soul living off Shelter Sabbath who didn't know his name.
“Can't have good days forever. Rainy days come too.”
There wasn't the slightest tremor in Sapiens's gaze.
“What matters most at a shelter? Safety, no? And that safety is under threat right now. This is the very foundation of the shelter shaking. You're telling us not to do business!”
Boss Yu's voice rose, and the bosses behind him echoed the sentiment. But Sapiens remained calm as ever.
His voice was almost bored.
“A shelter's purpose is to shield people from external threats. That, and nothing more. That's why every shelter has its own flavor. Just look at the others right now — one's been swallowed whole by a single organization, another tacks on an extra toll just to pass through, and some run on membership-only. What Won-goo's Services is doing right now doesn't come anywhere close to shaking the foundation.”
“It's not just the users saying they'll move. It's spreading among the merchants too.”
At that, Sapiens smirked.
“Then tell them to move. Everyone already knows this shelter is far and away the easiest place to put down roots, don't they? This used to be Thousand Eyes Cult ground. You do remember who crushed it, don't you?”
“Didn't you receive ample compensation for that? You did, Boss Dong.”
“Ample? I got a hell of a discount. And that discount included events like today's. Besides — do you really think Director Gong does anything without reason? He's got all the justification he needs. One of his own got hurt. Who just sits on their hands after that?”
“The goblin is 'one of his own'? Because it's a cursed shaman?”
“You're going to die lonely in your old age, Mr. Yu.”
“......?”
“Did you forget the Trainer was under Director Gong's banner? Honestly, you're starting to hurt my feelings too.”
“......!”