Goblin Dad
Gabi sat on Woojin’s lap, absently wiggling her fingers with a look of fascinated wonder.
“Hehe. I got fingers and toes.”
At that, Woojin asked her, “Huh? You didn’t have fingers or toes before?”
“Nope! Gabi didn’t have anything before!”
Woojin’s expression turned a shade more serious.
“…Nothing?”
“But then Kim Seobang puffed breath at me, and Gabi got fingers and toes! And a body too! Gabi was jealous!”
“R-right…?”
He had no idea what she was talking about, but he could tell, at least, that she was absurdly happy.
That was because Woojin and Gabi were connected mentally.
Sangjin, still wearing a dazed expression, approached Gabi.
Then he carefully poked at her soft, squishy cheek.
Gabi accepted the touch without the slightest fuss.
Pop—
“Whoa… hyung, is this for real? She feels exactly like a baby. She’s way too cute… I’ve got a niece all of a sudden?”
At Sangjin’s useless babbling, Woojin grabbed the back of his neck and shouted, “Niece, my ass! How is this my….”
He had almost blurted out, How is this my daughter?! but with Gabi in his arms, he just couldn’t get the words out.
Gabi tilted her head and blinked up at him with her big eyes.
“Kim Seobang angry?”
“N-no! What’s there to be angry about? I’m not angry!”
Then she sniffed the air and looked back and forth between Sangjin and Woojin.
“Weird! Kim Seobang, you smell similar to the other Kim Seobangs!”
Sangjin cackled at how adorable she was and ruffled Gabi’s hair.
“Gabi, that’s because your dad and I are brothers. We’ve got the same blood. Now, repeat after me. Uncle. I’m your uncle.”
“Uncle!”
“That’s it! Good job! Our Gabi’s a genius!”
“This Kim Seobang, no, Uncle, smells nice too!”
Sangjin got so excited that he scooped Gabi up into the air.
And then he landed the finishing blow.
It was a terrifying lesson that would utterly destroy Woojin’s chances of ever getting married.
“Gabi, that Kim Seobang over there is your dad now, your dad! He gave you life, didn’t he? Say it—Dad!”
“Dad!”
“That’s right! Aigoo, my beautiful niece!”
Gabi laughed brightly and threw her arms toward Woojin.
Woojin pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling as if the world itself were collapsing.
“Hey, Kim Sangjin… were you born just to ruin someone’s marriage prospects?”
“Hyung, it’s already too late. If an Origin-grade goblin says he’s her dad, how’s the system supposed to argue with that? Congratulations, hyung. You always said you wanted a daughter, didn’t you?”
“Hey! That was only if I actually got married!”
Just then, the heavy door to the command center was shoved open with a rough clang.
“Phew… there’s a lot to deal with, Woojin oppa. The workload is— uh…?”
Eileen, Yu Jihyun, and Jo Ayoung had returned after stepping out briefly to handle the aftermath of the raid and coordinate the allied hunters from other countries.
The moment they saw the scene in front of them, all three of them froze.
“Daaad!! Heehee!! I like Dad! Dad, dad, dad!!”
Gabi dove into Woojin’s arms and wrapped her little arms tightly around his neck.
Then she rubbed her chubby cheek all over his.
“…….”
The file Eileen was holding slipped from her hand and hit the floor.
“What in the world is going on in this damn house now…?”
Yu Jihyun stared at Woojin with a flustered look.
“Haah… you’re going to have to explain this properly, Woojin…”
Jo Ayoung stood there with her mouth hanging open, tears brimming in her eyes.
“A, a hidden child?! O-oppa…! I-I understand! I can accept this!”
Woojin shouted at the top of his lungs, “Accept what, you idiot! There’s nothing to accept!”
His head was pounding, but Gabi showed no sign of leaving his arms.
“Daaad! I like Dad’s smell!”
Anyone looking at the way Gabi clung to Woojin and acted spoiled would have sworn they were a real father and daughter.
What made it even more troublesome was that Gabi’s appearance strangely resembled Woojin’s.
Her delicate face, with its clear, distinct features, was the sort of face he could easily imagine his own daughter having if he ever had one.
“No, Gabi! He’s not your dad, he’s—!”
When Woojin tried to pry her off, Gabi tilted her head and asked, “Huh…? Not… Dad…?”
Her eyes instantly filled with tears.
Woojin thought desperately to himself, What the hell am I supposed to do about this?!
“But he is, isn’t he? He gave me life… If you give someone life, you’re their dad and mom, right? Just like I’d be her mom…!”
Gabi pointed at the little tin goblin standing nearby.
At that, the tin goblin bowed deeply with a clanging sound.
“That’s right! Mother! Gabi’s master is my mother!”
Clang!
Woojin immediately kicked the tin goblin aside.
“You little shit! What do you mean, mother, to a kid?! Just call me Master! No, Master sounds weird too! You’re calling her Gabi-nim!”
Calling a three- or four-year-old girl “mother” or “master” was unacceptable to him as a proper Korean man.
“Understood, Gabi-nim!! And Kim Seobang is Mother’s father! I shall call him Grandfather! Grandfather!!”
“He’s not your grandfather, you insane tin can!!”
The workshop turned into a total disaster in an instant.
In the middle of that bloodline-destroying chaos, where fathers, mothers, and grandfathers were being hurled around like nonsense, Woojin felt his soul leaving his body.
Once things finally calmed down, Woojin somehow managed to explain the whole situation to Eileen and Yu Jihyun.
“That… makes any sense at all?”
Woojin let out a long sigh.
“When has any of this ever made sense?”
They wore expressions of cautious disbelief at the story that a doll had been transformed into a living being at the end of an enhancement process.
Yu Jihyun looked down at Gabi with open bewilderment and said, “So… this little one is the doll Himari gave you? That’s impossible. How does a doll become such a perfect living being?”
The instant the word “little one” came out of Yu Jihyun’s mouth, Gabi’s eyes changed.
She bared her tiny, adorable fangs and, in a flash, clamped down on the back of Yu Jihyun’s hand.
“Ow!! What do you think you’re doing?”
Yu Jihyun jerked her hand back in shock.
And then something astonishing happened.
A clear bite mark and a bead of blood appeared on the back of Yu Jihyun’s hand, the skin of the world’s strongest Valkyrie and a high-level Awakener.
Eileen’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“…Yu Jihyun. She broke through your defense and left a bite mark? That little kid? You said she was just born, didn’t you?”
Yu Jihyun stared blankly at the back of her own hand.
It was proof that Gabi’s base physical strength was beyond reason if she could pierce the skin of someone over level forty with nothing but a child’s bite.
“I’m not a little kid! I’m Gabi! I’m Dad’s daughter!”
Gabi shouted furiously.
Thwooaaaarrrr—!!
At that instant, an enormous wave of golden magical power burst outward from around Gabi.
The reinforced walls of the underground workshop began to split with sharp cracks, and the huge ceiling lights hanging overhead shrieked as they swayed.
All three women wore an unprecedented look of tension.
“This is insane. The density of the mana—”
“N-no way… how is this even possible?”
Eileen shot Woojin a glance and barked, “Woojin! Stop her! At this rate, the entire command center is going to come down on top of us!”
Woojin hurriedly pulled Gabi into his arms.
“Gabi! Come here! Calm down!”
The moment she heard Woojin’s voice, the storming wave of mana vanished as suddenly as if it had never been there at all.
Gabi brightened at once and flopped right back onto Woojin’s lap.
“Yep! Dad!”
Yu Jihyun wiped at the cold sweat on her forehead and asked, “……At least she can be controlled. Does she only listen to you?”
Woojin sighed and nodded.
“Looks that way. Her grade is Origin—the source of all goblins. That’s what this kid is.”
“Origin….”
Eileen rolled the word around in her mind as she looked at Gabi again.
The transcendent grade above Mythic, something never once found even in Unirealm.
With a strategist’s instincts, she studied Gabi closely.
“You said you can make lots of friends, right?”
“You like making friends too?!”
Eileen gave a faint smile. “Yeah. I do.”
Gabi beamed, delighted, and snapped her fingers.
“Great! Then let’s all play!”
Snap—!
At the sound, everything in the workshop began to stir.
The trash bins stacked in the corner, empty enhancement potion bottles, the expensive chairs, even the decorative paintings and sculptures hanging on the walls.
Limbs sprouted from hundreds of objects. Eyes opened. One by one, they transformed into bizarre but cute little forms and knelt before Woojin and Gabi.
“Th-this is insane…! They all turned into goblins?”
Jo Ayoung screamed.
In the blink of an eye, the workshop was packed full of hundreds of goblins.
Woojin panicked and tried to stop Gabi.
“N-no! Gabi, no! You can’t make friends here right now!! The place is going to collapse!!”
“Can’t…?”
“Right, can’t! Change them back!”
Gabi answered in a crestfallen little voice, “Okay, Dad!”
She snapped her fingers again.
“We’re done playing! Go home!”
Snap—!
The goblins that had been dancing around only seconds before instantly reverted to lifeless objects again.
Eileen and Yu Jihyun exchanged a look.
This was too much to call simple summoning.
No, it would not have been an exaggeration to call it the authority of a god.
Eileen stepped closer to Gabi, lowering herself so they were eye level, and took out one of the +3 supply swords Woojin had enhanced for the subjugation campaign in Asia.
“Gabi, can you turn this into a goblin too?”
“Of course! I like the smell of metal!”
Gabi snapped her fingers toward the sword, and a far sharper energy than before filled the room.
Fwoooosh—!
“Sword goblin, appear!! Kya-hahaha!!”
With a bright, ecstatic laugh, a goblin appeared.
It was a knife goblin, its entire body made up of razor-sharp blades, its eyes burning with sword energy instead of pupils.
Eileen gauged the goblin’s presence and her expression hardened.
“Yu Jihyun… do you feel that?”
“Yeah. This is… at least the mana of a C-rank monster…. She can casually make soldiers of this level out of nothing but a supply sword?”
It was an ability that far surpassed Sangjin’s corpse revival.
Sangjin needed powerful corpses in the first place if he wanted to build an army, but Gabi could mass-produce elite soldiers from a single object.
And since the test had been done with a +3 enhancement, it seemed clear that the higher the enhancement, the stronger the goblin she could summon.
Eileen’s eyes gleamed sharply.
“We need to revise the strategy. Woojin, is that all right? It’d be a waste to let this ability rot.”
Woojin fell into thought as he looked at Gabi’s powers.
Either way, he still needed to level up through the Asia subjugation campaign.
And under the pet system, the experience Gabi earned from the monsters she handled would be shared with her master, Woojin.
Woojin scooped Gabi up in his arms again and met her eyes.
“Gabi, can you fight together with Dad? Can you go beat up the monsters?”
At this point, he had simply accepted that he was Gabi’s father.
“Fight? Like wrestling?”
“Uh… kind of?”
Gabi broke into a wide grin.
“Gabi likes wrestling!”
“You’re dangerous, so you stay behind me and make lots of friends to send out. You can do that, right?”
Gabi clenched both fists and answered with fierce enthusiasm, “Yep! Gabi has lots of friends! They all like wrestling!! But Gabi wants to do it too!!”
“Gabi, it’s dangerous. If you get hurt, Dad’ll be sad.”
“Dad… sad…?”
“Yeah. But I’ll make sure you get to wrestle anyway.”
It should be fine to let her rough up weaklings once or twice….
“Okay!! Hehe!!”
Woojin smirked and looked over at Eileen and Yu Jihyun.
“She says she’ll do it…?”
A thin, dangerous smile curled at the corner of Eileen’s mouth.
“At this rate, the Asia subjugation campaign might be over sooner than we thought.”