On a deep night with a bright full moon rising.
A tall man in a luxury suit was climbing the mountain alone.
At last, the man who reached the edge of the cliff took out his phone.
After staring at the phone for a moment, the man’s expression twisted.
[Dongdaemun startup success myth, Man in Black sold off cheap!]
[Reckless business expansion leaves nothing but debt!]
[Wild Fox Group acquires Man in Black, evolving into a dinosaur of the fashion industry.]
The man’s finger, which had been scrolling through the article titles, ended up opening the comment section.
[wud***: Wild Fox is devouring everything. slurp, gulp, burp!]
[bes***: No commemorative sale for the acquisition lolㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[con***: The CEO was too young, so he overreached. tsk tsk.]
[didy***: Man in Black employees hit the jackpot. Off to a big corporation~]
The man’s trembling fingers turned off the phone.
Tears poured down the man’s face as he gulped down the bottle of alcohol in his hand.
“…It’s over, it’s over.”
Do Min-wan. Twenty-seven.
He was the founder of the online clothing shopping mall [Man in Black], which had received enthusiastic support from people in their 20s and 30s.
He ran a fashion community from the age of seventeen, and at twenty he went around Dongdaemun Market on foot and began a full-scale shopping mall business.
His shopping mall started from a small shop, gradually gained word of mouth, and then saw a major surge as it moved online.
Following this momentum, he created an independent brand and even aimed for overseas expansion.
And while pouring in every investment fund he could mobilize, the incident occurred.
Embezzlement.
While Min-wan focused on external activities, the older brother he had trusted with the company’s internal affairs had been lining his own pockets.
Not only did he siphon off company funds, he took out massive loans under Min-wan’s name and then disappeared.
Creditors who had never met him before flooded the company, and the legal process to resolve it was slow with no end in sight.
They barely caught the embezzler and handed him over to the police, but there was no way to resolve the debts.
Unpaid wages, withdrawn investments, and loan interest swelling like a snowball.
In the end, Min-wan sold the company he had built by devoting everything to it for a pittance.
‘There’s nothing left.’
No.
What remained was only distrust of people, contempt for himself, endless depression, and painful sleepless nights.
Tears dripped from his eyes.
The sparkling night view of Seoul entered Min-wan’s eyes as he stood at the edge of the cliff.
“…In the end, you come into life alone, and you leave alone!”
He gulped down the remaining alcohol and took a step forward.
Curmble.
The pile of dirt crumbled and his foot slipped.
“Ugh, damn. I almost died.”
Min-wan instinctively grabbed the tree beside him and rubbed his chest in relief.
Even in the middle of that, he felt a little embarrassed and looked around.
Of course no one had seen, but he still felt awkward and rolled his shoulders back and tilted his neck.
He had lived his whole life valuing style above all, living and dying for looking cool!
What would happen if he jumped off a cliff like this at the very end?
“…It’s a custom suit hand-stitched in Italy.”
As Min-wan brushed the dust off his clothes, he recalled something his mother often said.
‘A good outfit will guide you to a good person.’
Now that he intended to see the end of his life, even if that good person was the grim reaper, he didn’t want to show a dirt-covered appearance.
Min-wan stared down below the cliff, then turned his steps.
To find a good place to decorate his last moments.
Even though it was deep night, the full moon was bright, so the mountain path was clearly visible.
Srrr. Srrr.
Trickle. Trickle.
The sounds of insects in the grass and somewhere the sound of flowing water were heard steadily.
Walking along the moonlit mountain path to die, Min-wan felt miserable and was once again overwhelmed with emotion.
‘Still, I lived diligently.’
He recalled the days when he took the first bus every morning, soaked in dawn dew.
The days he wandered around all day dragging an old cart, loads hanging from both shoulders because he had no car.
At night, red marks remained clearly on both shoulders, and he treated them like medals.
At the memories that surfaced, tears filled Min-wan’s eyes and he lifted his head.
At that moment, a large tree entered his sight.
From the large tree that looked like it had lived for hundreds of years, yellow, white, and red cloths were hanging in clusters.
In front of it, piles of large and small stones stacked in layers formed individual towers.
“Here, here! Do Min-wan dies here today.”
Min-wan stepped onto the stacked stones.
He just had to wrap that yellow cloth around his neck and jump.
“Hoo… hoo…”
He tied the knot of the yellow cloth tightly, and just as he was about to push his neck into the circular loop.
“…But, they say you soil yourself if you hang yourself is that true?”
Min-wan hesitated for a moment, then came down for now.
No matter how he thought about it, this method didn’t seem right either.
“Ah, what should I do?”
If his car hadn’t been seized, he would have burned charcoal briquettes.
No, he should have bought pills.
‘But don’t I have to take a lot of sleeping pills? Can I even buy that without a prescription?’
Just then, while he was worrying and trying to hold onto his mind blurring from alcohol.
Something shining caught his eye.
“…What is this?”
What lay between the stone towers was a dagger not even a span long.
As if possessed by something, Min-wan raised it high with both hands and held it up to the moonlight.
Luxurious embossed patterns densely decorated the sheath.
Srrng.
When he drew the blade from the sheath, his face was reflected like a mirror on the polished blade.
“…Pretty.”
Min-wan muttered without realizing it.
This beautiful blade might have been something heaven had sent to adorn his final moments.
Staring at the blade shining in the moonlight, Min-wan bit his lip tightly.
Then he rolled up his sleeve and placed the tip of the blade against himself.
“Hoo… Right, now… it’s really all over.”
Slice.
The blade was so sharp that red blood seeped out instantly, and startled by the sharp pain, Min-wan dropped the knife.
“Ugh, ss!”
It wasn’t a large wound.
But since he had lived his whole life carefully taking care of his own body, the pain felt shockingly intense.
Just then, as he grabbed his wrist and hopped in place.
Blink, blink.
A blue light from the dropped dagger swelled and faded repeatedly, as if breathing.
“…W-What?”
Startled, Min-wan stepped back and knocked over the stone towers on the ground.
Whoooosh- whooosh.
The sudden wind made the colored cloths flutter, and white smoke slowly rose.
“Uaaaaah!”
Min-wan fainted on the spot.
The one who appeared within the white smoke was the Mountain Spirit Guardian of Mount Wolhyang.
With a long white beard and a pale jade robe, the Mountain Spirit looked confused.
“Huh? What did he faint for?”
“It looks like he thought you were a ghost.”
Beside the Mountain Spirit, a large tiger washed its face with its front paw and spoke indifferently.
It was Beom, the tiger attendant of the Mountain Spirit.
“Hah, honestly. A ghost? How can you compare my aura to something like that?”
“Pale like that, you look exactly like a maiden ghost or a white fox. Heh. Ow!”
The Mountain Spirit smacked the snickering tiger on the head.
“Ahem!”
The Mountain Spirit cleared his throat to assert authority and rolled up his sleeves.
Then, with careful hands, he lifted the dagger faintly blinking with blue light.
“…Hoo. Beom, am I trembling?”
At his pointless fussing, Beom urged him.
“Please hurry, the light is about to disappear.”
With trembling hands, the Mountain Spirit brought the dagger close to his face and blew on it.
Hoo.
Each time his breath touched it, the blue light of the dagger grew clearer, as if responding.
Hoo.
At last, the blue light clumped into a single mass, and the form of the dagger disappeared.
Hoo-oo.
When he blew in the final breath, a small baby was wriggling in the spirit’s arms.
“A goblin is born!”
[Dokkaebi are legendary creatures from Korean mythology and folklore. Dokkaebi, also known as “Korean goblin”, are nature deities or spirits possessing extraordinary powers and abilities that are used to interact with humans, at times playing tricks on them and at times helping them.]
The Mountain Spirit lifted the baby high with a voice full of joy.
“Whaaa-aah!”
The baby’s face, letting out a loud first cry, shone brightly in the moonlight.
In the curly black hair, a faint red tint lingered.
On the pale face, the plump cheeks and soft peach-colored blush were irresistibly adorable.
Whenever the long eyelashes blinked, the large jet-black eyes sparkled like stars.
Soon the baby stopped crying and moved its small lips.
“Ha-bu!”
“Yes, yes. Little goblin, you’ve come well.”
Beom also stretched his head forward to see the adorable baby goblin.
“Hehe, how jealous the other Mountain Spirits will be!”
A goblin was born when a person’s affection or blood seeped into an old object, and a spirit breathed sacred breath into it.
But these days, old objects rarely had the chance to meet people.
Even slightly old things were all thrown away or trapped in glass cases in museums.
Moreover, mountains everywhere were dug up in the name of development, and there were many mountains without Spirit Guardians.
So in this era, a goblin being born was tens of thousands of times harder than picking a star from the sky.
“A goblin in our mountain~ a goblin after three hundred years~ Wonderful! Woo, how wonderful~!”
The Mountain Spirit happily rocked the baby, delighted.
Even the Jade Emperor (supreme ruler of heaven in Asian mythology), troubled by the severe aging problem of the Heavenly Realm, might grant a great reward upon hearing this news.
“Muhahaha!”
The Mountain Spirit, excited with all kinds of rosy imaginings, swayed his shoulders in a dance.
Then Beom said one thing.
“But how do you raise a goblin?”
The Mountain Spirit froze.
A goblin born in the human world had a destined task.
Until that task was fulfilled, it couldn’t ascend to the Heavenly Realm, nor be granted divine status.
Since the goblin was still a baby, time to grow was needed before it could find and accomplish its task.
“Th-That, well! Just have a human raise it.”
“A human?”
“Yes, you wouldn’t know since it’s been so long, but from old times, little ones like this were all raised by humans.”
“Ah, I know. Like putting them in a basket and floating them down a river, or putting them in an egg and making them hatch!”
“Right, right. Then when the time comes, they all awaken their abilities, do good deeds, and whoosh~ ascend to the Heavenly Realm!”
The spirit spoke while making eye contact with the baby goblin, who was looking at him with bright eyes.
“Don’t worry, little one. Humans are really good at raising babies! Let’s see~ where should I put this child to send… huh?”
The Mountain Spirit saw Min-wan lying collapsed.
“Oho! The dad is right here?”
“Daa?”
Beom strode over to Min-wan and checked his breathing.
“Should I wake him?”
“Right. Wake him gently.”
Beom tilted his head and cleared his throat.
Then he opened his mouth wide, stuck out his tongue, and slowly licked up Min-wan’s face.
“…Ugh, urgh!”
A rough sensation.
A musty smell.
Startled awake, Min-wan met the fierce eyes of a large tiger that had appeared before him.
“Aaaah!!!!!”
He jumped up without thinking and stepped backward, then thud, bumped into something.
When he turned around, it was an old man with pure white hair.
“Aaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!”
As Min-wan’s legs gave out and he collapsed, the Mountain Spirit held out a hand.
“Nice to meet you, young man. I am the Mountain Spirit of Mount Wolhyang.”
“S-S-Sp… Mountain Spirit?”
“Yes. Well? It’s your first time seeing a Mountain Spirit, isn’t it? Ahuhuhuhut!”
At his hearty laughter, the baby goblin wriggled.
“Hoya!”
“Ah, that’s right. Here, young man. Come and hold it.”
Before he knew it, Min-wan was holding the squirming baby.
It was the first baby he had ever held in his twenty-seven years of life.
Soft and warm to the touch.
An indescribably sweet smell.
“Now then, from this moment on, you will raise this child!”
“…What?”
“You are truly blessed. This child, you see, is the first baby goblin born in the last three hundred years. The hope of this era who will shoulder the future of the Heavenly Realm! Our light!”
“Ha-bu!”
Min-wan looked at the baby in his arms.
…Goblin?
Clear eyes that reflected his face as it was. Plump cheeks that looked like chewy white rice cakes just by looking at them. Glossy dark-reddish curly hair.
Not hairy, nor with horns, just ordinary.
No, just a particularly pretty baby?
“Th-Then why me?”
At Min-wan’s question, the Mountain Spirit answered.
“That child was born from your blood, your daughter!”
“…Daughter?”
“Yes, you are this goblin’s father!”
At the Mountain Spirit’s bright reply, Min-wan’s thinking stopped.
‘…I am… what?’
