The Ghost Market Closes
One thing Lee Hyun had realized after running several operations with the Cheongroe unit was that he must never get excited during a mission.
He had to stay ice-cold instead.
How to draw up the plan, how to respond when the unexpected happened.
He needed to tilt the entire board in his favor.
Never giving the opponent breathing room.
Forcing all their choices into a single path was the most important thing.
This time was no different.
The moment Lee Hyun stepped into the dungeon, he moved to resolve the dungeon quest first.
‘The Goblin Market is exactly a place that tempts outsiders and sells their desires. But what if they don’t purchase those temptations and desires? No—what if they can no longer buy them at all?’
Wouldn’t the market lose its reason to exist?
Sa Oh-jeong’s offhand remark became the decisive clue to solving the quest.
By utilizing the Holy Relic: Hwaan Geumjeong, you have discovered what the dungeon was hiding and succeeded in finding the answer.
1. Merchants Selling Goods — Non-Human Vendors
What the vendors in the Goblin Market truly sell is their own ‘names.’ The more widely their ability-infused products spread, the more recognition they accumulate, allowing them to become Named entities.
Non-humans who obtain a name gain dignity and can write their own narrative, just like outsiders.
2. Customers Purchasing Desire
Customers buy products containing non-human abilities to fulfill their own ‘desires.’
However, if there are no products attractive enough to satisfy those desires, the number of customers will naturally decrease.
The vendors will then have no choice but to seek new customers and move on to other markets.
3. The Market’s Reason for Existence
The market can only persist when there is mutual agreement between vendors seeking to spread their names and customers seeking to fulfill their desires.
4. The Ghost Market — Open Only at Certain Times, Vanishing Without a Trace
The Goblin Market is maintained because the system judges that time has stopped while vendors and customers are present.
Once the customers leave, the stopped time will resume flowing and the market will disappear.
The reason the Drug King and the cartel were so obsessed with the Black Market’s security wasn’t simply for the sake of their own fame.
If the Black Market became unstable and customers dwindled, the market itself would vanish along with them.
The hint that the Goblin Market was a ‘ghost market’ had already been stated plainly in the quest description.
In other words, the Goblin Market wasn’t a permanent bazaar—it was a flash market.
Lee Hyun immediately focused on that point.
Make the market’s stopped time flow again and shut the whole place down. If he did that, the dungeon would naturally close along with it.
‘There’s no better way to throw the cartel into chaos.’
When Lee Hyun had reached the butcher district, he hadn’t simply passed through each zone.
He had deliberately scattered the necessary items across the market floor.
◈ An item created by engraving the origin of Dueoksini onto the many fingers of the spell-loving Yellow Wind Monster. Single use.
◈ Where the fingers roll, Dueoksini’s rage will wander like a ghost.
◈ Origin: Myth Journey to the West, Legend Goblin Dance Stage
He had already absorbed the related legend into his body, so he no longer needed the previous version.
Instead, Lee Hyun had asked Docheol Elder to engrave his own legend onto the remaining fingers.
And as a result—
While Lee Hyun fought the Great Families, the lightning energy that had spread across the entire market stimulated the fingers…
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The ground shook violently as lightning strikes poured down. Screams erupted everywhere.
Hunters scrambled desperately toward the dungeon exit while vendors folded their stalls and fled the market.
The dungeon’s stopped time has begun flowing again!
All vendors and customers are leaving.
The market has lost its reason to exist. The ghost market is beginning to close.
Normally the security forces should have stepped in before the chaos grew worse to calm the vendors and customers, but—
‘They were all taking bribes from the Great Families and abandoned their posts, right? Or maybe Camilla already had their heads by now? That would make calming everyone even harder.’
Camilla, having realized the same thing, hardened her expression.
The scales in her mind tilted back and forth without pause.
In the end—
"Damn it…! What are you all doing?! Run! We have to stop time first!"
Camilla spun around and began sprinting away.
Her eyes burned with murderous intent. The look that said she would never let this slide the next time they met.
Lee Hyun responded with a light snort, then—
6
5
Flash!
He vanished from the collapsing dungeon.
* * *
The moment Lee Hyun emerged from the abandoned building with Go Jin-woo on his back, he moved again without rest.
Shweeeeee—
Sun Wukong asked, clinging to the top of Lee Hyun’s head.
Sa Oh-jeong had been performing emergency treatment with curse-sealing talismans the entire time, but it was no substitute for proper medical care.
‘Exactly. That would risk exposing our side.’
Unless Camilla was a complete fool, she would definitely be scouring every hunter hospital and major emergency room in the country.
‘I’m thinking of going to my mentor.’
‘Yes. His wife is a healer with a surgical background. She has a wide network of contacts.’
‘Would I have trusted and followed someone with a loose mouth?’
‘He’s someone I trust and follow like my own parents. If he were to betray me… well, I don’t think I’d be able to trust anyone again.’
‘Fortunately he’s retired and doesn’t live far. I’ll pick up the pace.’
If Lee Hyun were asked to name the moment he was most grateful to Sun Wukong, this would be it.
The monkey had given him a proper movement skill when he had none.
Dueoksini’s Swift Thunder
The goblin appears wherever and whenever it wishes, flashing east then west, startling all who see it.
Type: Sub-skill of ‘Dueoksini’s Deep Breath (A)’
Origin: Legend ‘Curse of the Seven-Star Rock’
Flash!
People who happened to be in the area Lee Hyun passed tilted their heads at the sudden dry lightning.
Even that was barely visible thanks to the shadow-stepping movement.
‘Here it is.’
Lee Hyun soon arrived at a quiet village not far from Uijeongbu.
Tap!
A two-story Western-style house standing alone at the edge of the village. A Jindo dog slept peacefully in the yard, and a well-tended lettuce garden sat to one side.
At a glance, it looked like the kind of place where a refined elderly couple would retire.
Lee Hyun landed right in the center of the yard.
Bark! Bark!
The Jindo dog suddenly jumped up and began barking at empty air.
"Why is this fool acting up all of a sudden? They say a house-guarding dog can see what people cannot. Is that what’s happening with you?"
An old man who had been quietly picking lettuce in the garden chuckled as he watched the dog.
The dog kept barking furiously.
"What’s gotten into you?"
The old man stood up, wondering if the dog was sick, then froze in shock.
Crackle—
The space in the middle of the yard rippled, and a man wearing a white coat appeared.
He was carrying another man on his back who looked like a corpse soaked in blood, and he was even wearing a mask.
Anyone would find the sight suspicious, but—
Click.
The instant he removed the mask, the old man’s eyes widened.
It was the beloved disciple he hadn’t seen in four years.
"You… Hyun-ah…?"
"It’s been a long time, General."
"How did you get that skill…? No, more importantly, the person on your back…"
"It’s Jin-woo hyung. He’s badly hurt. Could I ask for Madam’s help?"
For a moment the bewilderment vanished from the old man’s eyes, replaced by the resolute gaze of the commander who once led Cheongroe.
"My wife went to the market, but she’ll return immediately if I call. Come inside first."
"Excuse me."
Following Lee Gun-san, Lee Hyun carefully laid Go Jin-woo down in the guest room on the second floor.
Having run a long distance at full speed, Lee Hyun was also drenched in sweat.
"His condition… is terrible."
Lee Gun-san let out a deep sigh.
"Excessive blood loss is the main issue, but the emergency treatment was done well. If we suture him properly he should be fine. However, the biggest problem is his hand."
Lee Hyun clenched his teeth.
The reason he had been so enraged.
Go Jin-woo’s left hand was far more mangled than any other part of his body.
It seemed they had changed their mind midway through trying to cut off his wrist, but if left like this he would never use it properly again.
Go Jin-woo was a doctor.
"I brought potions."
Lee Hyun took out the potions he had looted from Heo Jae-woon and the Great Families guild members’ inventories.
"There are high-capacity ones too. Even the highest-grade elixir from the Elixir Company. This should be enough."
Only then could Lee Hyun finally breathe a sigh of relief.
‘…Yes. It really is a relief.’
Lee Hyun looked at Go Jin-woo with a bitter expression.
Even in deep sleep, the pain had not fully subsided; his brow remained slightly furrowed.
"Just what happened? And what’s with your current appearance?"
Lee Gun-san asked carefully, but Lee Hyun simply shook his head with a calm face.
"It would be better if you didn’t get too deeply involved, General. It could become dangerous for you."
"That remark is rather unpleasant. Are you telling this retired old man to just sit in the back room wasting time?"
"…That wasn’t my intention."
Lee Hyun tried to explain, then let out a hollow laugh when he saw Lee Gun-san grinning mischievously.
Even so, the old man’s eyes remained firm.
In the end, Lee Hyun realized once again that he could not do without this man’s help, now or in the past.
"You once worked for an intelligence agency like the National Intelligence Service, correct?"
"Only for a very short time. Why? Does this have something to do with them?"
"If we were to raid the main headquarters of the Great Families, where would be the best place to start?"
Lee Gun-san’s eyes flashed coldly.
It was the look he showed when facing enemies.
"Those bastards were already crossing the line while I was still in service, and now they’ve finally done it. They dared… to touch one of my own children?"
His eyes looked ready to storm out at any second.
But—
"You must not."
"Must not what?"
"I will finish this with my own hands. Please step back, General."
Lee Gun-san gazed steadily at his former beloved disciple.
Just what had happened to him in the meantime?
After taking off his uniform four years ago—no, to be precise, ever since his sworn brother Mun Su-chan had died in battle—the boy’s eyes had always been filled with emptiness.
Yet the disciple he met again after so long had changed.
He was different from four years ago,
and different again from the Lee Hyun of his Z-Team days.
"…If you say so, I have no choice. But you won’t stop me from helping, will you?"
"Of course not."
When Lee Hyun nodded, Lee Gun-san finally smiled.
"Good. Then follow me. I have related materials in the study."
After hooking Go Jin-woo up to an IV mixed with potion, Lee Gun-san led Lee Hyun down to the basement.
However—
‘…A blast door?’
Lee Hyun was startled by the bunker-style steel door he never expected to see in an ordinary home.
It was even a hydraulic dog-gear mechanism.
It looked like an underground bunker that could survive a nuclear war.
"The door is rather unique, isn’t it? A normal study seemed too boring, so I decorated it with some character."
"……"
Was this what he called ‘a little’ character?
Just as Lee Hyun’s head began to throb over where to even begin his critique—
Clunk!
The sliding door moved sideways, revealing the bunker’s interior.
"Here it is."
Upon seeing it, Lee Hyun could no longer hold back a groan.
"…Are you planning to fight a war all by yourself, sir?"