Goblin: The Lonely and the Great God - Chapter 27

The God's Question

    Sometimes there were more ghosts than customers at the chicken shop; Eun Tak was glad that Sunny had gone out for a moment. Today, the ghosts were more talkative than usual; apparently there was a ghost that had been wandering around the world for a long time. They wanted her to meet him. Eun Tak sighed in disbelief; what would meeting a new ‘old ghost’ do any good to her? But the ghosts said something else that caught Eun Tak’s interest. The ‘old ghost’ had apparently met a grim reaper before and had escaped them like her. 

    Before the virgin ghost could point out where he was standing, the ‘old ghost’ came into the shop. He was wearing the clothes he had died with; it was covered in blood and his hair was a mess. If she had to define him with one word, it would be: hideous. The ‘old ghost’ walked up towards Eun Tak and brought forth his hand as if to ask for a handshake. 

“Nice to meet you. You must be the Goblin’s bride.”

He spoke his greeting very slowly, and Eun Tak could see something that was more hideous than his appearance. The ghost’s tongue was black.

After chasing away all the ghosts, saying she had to open up the shop, Eun Tak stared at the place the ‘old ghost’ had been standing.

Something felt a bit off. 

Eun Tak shook her head and sighed. She couldn’t stop thinking about that hideous ghost. Flipping the notebook in her hands aimlessly, Eun Tak found the page where the Goblin’s love letter was written. She had already felt annoyed, but this was just getting over the top. 

Holding the notebook tightly in her arms, Eun Tak walked into the grim reaper’s room. The Goblin’s first love must have been important, if he had written a letter to her, and Eun Tak wanted to know more about it. 

Her plan crumbled into dust when she saw that there was not one, but two men in the room. The two men had been sitting in the grim reaper’s room drinking beer together; talking about Sunny. The grim reaper was very sad and serious about the whole situation, but the Goblin kept telling him to try hold Sunny’s hand one more time, and they had been fighting about that. 

If she had the power to teleport or just vanish into thin air, Eun Tak would have used it right that moment. After quickly hiding the notebook behind her back, she tried to walk back out but the Goblin was quicker. The notebook flew into the air, right into the Goblin’s arms. She quickly tried to grab it back, but the Goblin was too tall. 

“Give it back! Why are you trying to look at someone else’s notebook?”

The Goblin looked at the page and noticed that it was his will. 

“Then why is someone else’s writing in your notebook?”

He shook the notebook waiting for an answer or apology, but Eun Tak just huffed angrily. 

“I know what all this is! This is a love letter! A love letter! Written by your hands!”

The grim reaper walked towards them curiously. 

“A love letter?”

“Yes. A love letter. To his first love. I just wanted to know what a grand love his first love was, so I came to find you.”

The Goblin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. A love letter to his first love? His first love was the angry girl in front of him, and if this girl hadn’t gotten the letter, he had obviously not written one in the first place. 

“It seemed like a very romantic masterpiece! After living a hundred more years! On that day! On that normal day!”

“... That’s not what this writing is about.”

“But apparently it is! Duk Hwa read it for me!”

He stopped shaking the notebook. Duk Hwa couldn’t have translated this will for her. There were come words that were different from the original writing and the words Duk Hwa had told her was indeed the Goblin’s but he had never written them or even said it out loud. 

The grim reaper took the notebook and read it. The Goblin was right; this writing wasn’t a love letter. It was the Goblin begging the gods for death. 

They looked at each other, and the grim reaper raised an eyebrow. 

“Before, when you broke all those cars, did you tell Duk Hwa that I could hypnotise people and change their memory?”

“No.”

“Then why did he take me there all of a sudden?”

There was something quite strange about the Goblin’s fake nephew. The person who had found Eun Tak’s maple leaf; the person who had found out that Eun Tak was working at a ski resort; the person who had made a contract with a grim reaper; the person who had put the Goblin’s place on rent. Now they thought about it; there were a lot of strange things about the fake nephew. The Goblin's face darkened.

*

Music was playing as loudly as ever, in the night club where Duk Hwa came nearly every day. In between all the drunk and fancily dressed people, the Goblin found Duk Hwa sitting on the bar stool by himself; a glass of whiskey was in his hands. 

“So, you’ve come at last.”

Unlike his usual tone of voice, Duk Hwa’s voice was very arrogant today. The noisy atmosphere stopped and the three men stared at each other. 

“Should we greet each other?”

Duk Hwa looked at the Goblin coldly at his question. 

He had loved them and so he wanted to stay with them for longer, but it wasn’t going to be easy anymore. The body he had borrowed was quite handsome; he had liked living here. 

A weird sound suddenly filled the room; it was the people calling for gods. The stars, the earth, the heavens; the people called for any god in the world in desperation. The man sitting in front of them was the almighty god. He had watched the Goblin and the grim reaper go through happy, sad, desperate, and despaired times. 

“Why…”

“The gods are still not listening, you grumbled. There must be a reason for erasing my memory, you guessed.”

For a slight moment, a smile appeared on Duk Hwa’s face. 

“I was always listening. I gave you a chance to die, so I ask you why you are still alive?”

Duk Hwa looked at the grim reaper. 

“I have never erased your memory; you were the one who decided to erase them. And I ask you, does this seem like the gods plan or mistake? The gods are just asking the questions.”

The Goblin had wished for death, but now did not want death anymore. The grim reaper had drunk the tea that had erased his memory, but now he wanted his memories back. It was them who had thought about the gods however they wanted. They had no right to resent anyone. 

“Destiny is just my question. You find the answer.”

Then I’ll be off. After saying what he needed to, he left the man’s body.

Thousands of white butterflies wrapped around the body and soon left the room. Duk Hwa fell to the ground, and the Goblin caught him. Time started to move again. 

    (This is a translated version of "Goblin: The Lonely and the Great God." Written by Eun Sook Kim and Soo Yeon Kim.)