«One’s one, never two. Two’s two, never three. Three’s three—»

Humming a Korean song he’d rewritten in goblin tongue, Go Byeonggap strolled Asvillam. He skimmed the three-hundred-pyeong farmland—the sprouts had already shot up a handspan high.

A sight that made humming come naturally.

«Potato’s potato, never sweet potato. Sweet potato’s sweet potato, never goblin.»

«Huh?»

«…What, you son of a bitch?»

«My Lord. What. Did you say?»

«What did I say? I said you’re an idiot. What, you got a problem?»

The normal goblin watering the potato field pouted his lips.

«Tch…»

«Hey. Tuck those lips in before I cut them off.»

«Eep!»

The normal goblin hurriedly rolled his lips back in. The sight was so absurd Go Byeonggap chuckled. He clasped his hands behind his back and ambled on.

He headed for the cave.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

«Ah! My Lord. You came?»

«Yeah, bung-bung Gobungi.»

«B-bung?»

Gobungi tilted his head.

«Right. Any issues on the job?»

«No! Nothing! At all!»

«Good. I left drinks in the cooler outside—grab one.»

«Yep!»

Gobungi bobbed his head and resumed swinging his pickaxe. Go Byeonggap swept his gaze across the cave like a supervisor on patrol.

‘Who would have thought there’d be a cavern this vast deep inside the mountain.’

He smiled with satisfaction as he gazed at the soaring ceiling overhead.

Three weeks ago.

Asvillam’s population had swelled to 324. More workers was a good thing, but it had landed Go Byeonggap with a problem.

The cave was too cramped to house over three hundred goblins.

He’d managed up to a hundred or so, but beyond that was impossible. If he tried assigning them to other tasks, he’d just be putting ten goblins on work one could do.

Unemployment in Asvillam. Well, live long enough and you see everything.

He’d been racking his brain over what to do with the surplus slackers when that happened.

-M-My Lord! The—the cave!

-The cave? What about it?

-It—it collapsed!

-What!?

Even now, recalling that moment made his heart lurch.

He’d sprinted like crazy to the cave, dreading what awful sight awaited him. But the scene on-site was nothing like he’d expected.

-What the…

Yes, one wall of the cave had caved in. Debris had scattered, and a few goblins had minor scrapes. But it wasn’t the catastrophe he’d call a ‘disaster.’

Far from it—it was a windfall. The wall’s collapse had revealed an unimaginably vast chamber. The ceiling soared dozens of meters high, and the floor area rivaled a decent soccer field.

Three hundred? No problem. It could hold a thousand.

And that wasn’t all. Alongside the red crystals, there were milky-white ones there too.

Milky-white crystals worth 10 Crystals apiece!

«My Lord. Coming through.»

«Oh, yeah, yeah. Good work, there.»

«Not at all.»

The hob goblin answered cheerfully, pulling a cart half-loaded with milky-white and half with red crystals toward the exit.

‘Maybe I should lay down some rails later.’

Go Byeonggap stepped outside, mulling over how to develop Asvillam.

He headed to his personal tent, sank into the sofa, and enjoyed the sound of water and wind. This was practically a fairy’s life on earth.

‘Ancient Shop.’

[Ancient Shop]

-Construction

-Technology

-Miscellaneous

-Other

[Crystals Held: 370,496]

“Whoa…”

Three hundred seventy thousand. A full three hundred seventy thousand.

He hadn’t spent a single one in three weeks.

“Saving ten million might not be impossible after all.”

With over three hundred miners, the haul was anything but paltry.

A single goblin mined roughly twenty crystals a day. Since half were milky-white, the effective value topped a hundred.

It varied day by day, but the daily yield hovered between 27,000 and 33,000.

“Now then, what should I spend this on.”

There were crystals to spare—overflowing, even. But now that it came time to spend them, some hesitation crept in. That was exactly why he’d saved up for three weeks without touching a single one.

“If I save just a bit more, I could buy the Explorer’s Flag or a female goblin.”

The flag and the female goblin each cost five hundred thousand crystals. Another three or four days of saving, and he could afford one of them.

“But it’s still kind of awkward.”

He’d need both the flag and the female goblin eventually. They were items on the must-buy list. Just not right now.

The Explorer’s Flag? He was nowhere near ready to venture beyond the mist.

A female goblin? Even if he bought one now, it’d just be dead weight.

“Right. Don’t go blowing money just ‘cause you’ve got some. Save it. Scrimping’s how you get ahead.”

Building walls, raising structures—that would take a mountain of funds. Spend crystals thoughtlessly, and he’d be in trouble when he really needed them.

Go Byeonggap bought just one bottle from the Ancient Shop—the elixir of Growth—and drank it. Lately, he’d been downing one every day like a dose of tonic.

Of course, at this point he barely felt any change in his body. If before it was like jumping from 10 to 100, now it felt like going from 100 to 100.5.

It was a shame the medicine’s effect was fading, but one thing was certain: he was getting stronger.

* * *

Go Byeonggap rested his chin on his hand and stared into the campfire. The embers were dying. He reached out, grabbed a dry log, and tossed it into the flames.

«Feels like things are starting to come together.»

«I am sorry I could not be of more help.»

«No, you helped a lot. I learned plenty.»

Out of habit, Go Byeonggap put a cigarette to his lips. He lit it and took a long drag.

Then he slowly chewed over everything he’d heard so far.

‘What a twisted story.’

Darkness had settled over Asvillam.

Go Byeonggap called Dorma to his personal tent for an in-depth conversation.

The topic was clear: the goblin race and Asvillam itself.

This was what the goblin shaman Dorma had told him.

First, it began with their origins.

“A rift, you call it. So the Lord names that place a ‘rift.’ We have no name for it ourselves. But as the Lord says, a name matters little. You ask what we did before we were in the rift? Regrettably, I have no answer. I do not remember.”

Dorma had answered that he didn’t remember.

The phenomenon was akin to a dream, he said.

Just as a dream from the night before is quickly forgotten by morning, the memories from before entering the rift faded rapidly.

All that lingered in his mind were the barest fragments. And even those felt as distant as if they’d happened centuries ago, he added.

I told Dorma to say whatever came to mind, and this was his reply.

“My last memory… I was. No, we were fleeing. I can’t recall what was chasing us. But… what pursued us was a being of utter terror and despair.”

“Terror and despair? You mean something like a monster was after you?”

“I’m not sure… I don’t even know if it had a physical form. What’s certain is that we were petrified with fear.”

All that surfaced was a memory of running.

Go Byeonggap wanted more detail, but couldn’t coax anything further from him.

Next, they talked about Asvillam and the Goblin Lord.

Fortunately, even if his past memories were erased, the knowledge remained. Thanks to that, he could hear a more detailed account than before.

“Asvillam fell long ago. It was already ruined from the time of my ancestors’ ancestors. So to my generation, Asvillam was like a legend. Still, my kin always dreamed of returning there. To be honest, I’ve never even seen Asvillam. Yet the moment I arrived here, I could feel it.”

“That this place is Asvillam?”

“Yes. I felt like I’d come home. A home I’d never visited.”

“And the Goblin Lord?”

“The Goblin Lord is the same as Asvillam. Legend, superstition, myth… That’s what the Lord was to us. One difference is that the Goblin Lord existed even in my generation.”

“You mean there was a Lord other than me?”

“Of course. I have faint memories of the previous Lord. He too was a Goblin Lord who emerged after centuries. But he was sickly. He had neither great power nor the virtues to lead our kin. He passed away when I was very young, and after that, the Lord’s seat remained vacant for decades. I thought I’d never see a Lord again in my lifetime. Then you appeared, my Lord.”

“I became the Goblin Lord thanks to a goblin shaman named Oddick. Do you know him?”

“Oddick? Oddick…”

Dorma repeated the name Oddick for a long while. In the end, he shook his head.

“I don’t know. After Asvillam fell, our kin scattered across the continent. That’s why we look so different from one another—it’s the result of adapting to our environments.”

Go Byeonggap understood immediately. Right here, there were giant goblins, albino goblins, beast goblins, and so on.

The long conversation ended there.

Back to the present.

‘How pathetic. Truly pathetic.’

His cigarette had burned down without him noticing. Go Byeonggap tossed the stub into the campfire.

Just as he was thinking of wrapping things up, something flashed through his mind.

«Ah, and there’s one more thing I’ve been dying to ask. Why don’t you have any females?»

«That is because of the curse laid upon the goblins.»

Dorma answered without hesitation.

‘Curse?’

The word snagged in Byeonggap’s memory. Familiar—he’d seen it somewhere before.

He flicked open the Ancient Shop and scrolled down until he found the entry for ‘Female Goblin.’

[Female Goblin]

-Price: 500,000 Crystals

-Description: A female goblin driven extinct by a curse. Capable of reproduction; can birth female offspring.

‘Right. That’s it. They went extinct because of a curse.’

He closed the shop window and asked.

«What kind of curse was it that wiped out every last female?»

«I do not know what curse it was, nor why it fell. All that has been passed down is that Asvillam fell into rapid decline after the female goblins vanished.»

«So you’re saying the female goblins were already gone before Asvillam was destroyed?»

«Yes.»

«Then how the hell… were any of you even born?»

Go Byeonggap felt a strange hesitation—like he wasn’t sure he should be asking this at all.

Dorma answered flatly.

«We were born from the previous Shaman’s sorcery.»

«Sorcery?»

«Yes. When an old goblin dies, the sorcery brings it back to life.»

«Wait, that’s possible? That’s incredible! So you don’t really need females, do you? Can you do it too?»

Dorma’s expression hardened. He shook his head heavily.

«That is not an incredible thing.»

«Why? It sure is.»

«Goblins born from sorcery grow more inferior with each generation.»

Go Byeonggap tilted his head, not understanding Dorma’s words.

But one second later. A gasp of shock and awe escaped him.

«W-Wait, you don’t mean—»

«Yes.»

Dorma looked toward the campsite with sorrowful eyes.

«You see those poor little ones, no different from beasts.»

«……»

«With each generation, we grow more inferior. Our bodies shrink smaller, our powers weaken. Our appearance grows uglier, our nature more wicked. Those among us who changed most drastically have reached the point where they can’t even speak properly.»

Go Byeonggap swallowed. He felt goosebumps crawl across his entire body.

‘Fuck…’

Until now, he’d looked at normal goblins and thought they had a certain cute charm. Their clumsy speech, their small frames, their childlike innocence.

But it was the product of a terrible curse.

Degeneration.

Evolution in reverse.

From sentient beings to beasts…

What in the world could be more horrifying than that?

To put it in human terms, a normal goblin was a severe dementia patient.

«And you asked me whether I could perform that spell? No. I cannot. As our race grew inferior, so did our techniques.»

«I… see.»

«Yes. That is so.»

Go Byeonggap felt his head spin. Then, like an electric shock, a sharp tingle ran down his spine.

‘The—the Ancient Shop!’

He opened the shop window as if possessed.

‘So that’s how it was!’

His mind snapped wide awake.

He looked into the ‘Seed of Enlightenment’ under the ‘Miscellaneous’ category.

[Seed of Enlightenment]

-Price: 100,000,000 Crystals

-Description: A seed of the World Tree, Yggdrasil. It holds the spirit of a race that incurred the wrath of the gods and lost all wisdom. If the World Tree sprouts, it can fulfill the race’s long-held wish.

‘Incurred the wrath of the gods and lost all wisdom!’

Now the missing link felt complete.

The gods’ curse. The extinction of the female goblins that followed.

They barely avoided annihilation through borrowed shamanic power, but the price was their wisdom.

«My Lord? Are you all right? Your complexion has worsened.»

«…Yeah, I’m fine, Dorma. You go on and rest now. You worked hard talking with me today.»

«As you wish. Have a peaceful night.»

Dorma left.

Go Byeonggap put a cigarette in his mouth and looked up at the sky.

Countless stars filled the night sky.

“Hoo.”

Cigarette smoke scattered across the clear heavens.

“Rescue a cursed race? This isn’t something that can be solved by just putting up a few buildings.”

It was truly a night that invited deep thought.