Fabre in Sacheondangga Episode 160
Mountain vegetables 1
In typical amphibians, the hind legs emerge first, followed by the forelimbs. The hind legs start out as protrusions between the tail and the body and slowly take shape and grow, while the forelimbs grow inside the body behind the gills and, when they grow to a certain extent, tear the side and stick out.
However, when the forelimbs have just emerged from the sides, they are too short to be used for swimming.
All it does is stick to your body and sway while you swim, like a decoration.
However, the front legs growing on Hwayang’s body were clearly functioning as feet.
I noticed that he was holding a water bottle tightly.
‘Gyaaaah!’
I knew that it would grow by eating fire, but I didn’t know that it would suddenly grow so rapidly when eating a large amount of fire.
Seeing Hwayang’s front paws tightly gripping the rim of the water bottle, I unconsciously reached out to the dog’s front paws.
Because I wanted to check the guy’s feet more clearly.
After all, amphibians can tell quite a bit of information from just one forelimb.
First of all, if there are suction cups on the front feet, it means that it can climb somewhere, if it has webbed feet, it means that it can swim, and if not, if it just has hook-like feet, it means that it can dig the ground.
Even if you can’t tell right away whether it’s a frog or a toad, you can at least tell if it’s a terrestrial amphibian with claws, a tree frog that’s good at climbing trees, or an aquatic swimmer.
“Little Dragon! It’s addictive!”
“Ah, oh no.”
But my attempt was unsuccessful and I had to give up due to the restraint of Hwa-eun and Seol.
Because if I did something wrong, I could become addicted again.
It wasn’t long ago that I became addicted and suffered greatly.
“Little Dragon, have you forgotten what happened a while ago?”
“That’s right. Little Dragon, you have to be careful. What if you forget?”
“Sir, no way. I’m not some baby fish.”
I told Hwa-eun and Seol that I couldn’t possibly have forgotten that since I’m not even a fish, but honestly, I forgot the moment I saw Hwayang’s front paw.
‘How can you keep your wits about you after seeing that?’
Even if words like undressing and perverting were applied to Hwa-eun, I would still be able to maintain my sanity, but if the kids were to undress or pervert, they would inevitably become insane.
Hwa-eun and Seol also seemed to have noticed that my excuses were not true and had expressions on their faces as if they couldn’t stop me.
“I, without knowing it···.”
He gave them both an apologetic look and looked at Hwayang again.
I regret not controlling my food intake if I had known it would grow this quickly.
‘I should’ve just fed him generously. I adjusted the amount for nothing.’
Some amphibians are quite greedy, so I regulated the amount they ate for fear that their stomachs would burst and they would die, but it seems I was mistaken.
Because it seemed clear that Hwayang would grow as he ate.
I thought that if it was normal food, it would be primarily stored in the stomach, so if it was done wrong, it could tear the stomach, but to Hwayang, fire was probably yang energy.
There’s no way your stomach will explode just because you eat a lot of energy, right?
Cho, Bin, and Hyang-i absorb the energy of nature, and Bing-i, Seol-i, and Dong-i feed on the cold air that flows from Bing-ok.
The fairy feeds on my yang energy.
Of course, there are some that eat honey, like the Golden Phoenix, but leaving that aside, most spirits are creatures that grow by eating energy, so it doesn’t seem like there would be a problem if they eat a lot.
Perhaps if there are a lot of them, they won’t metamorphose or evolve?
This was a very credible thought, as most of the poisonous plants I’ve raised so far have exhibited this behavior.
‘Then I should feed it well so that it can grow into an adult quickly, right?’
If you knew that a guy would grow as much as he ate, what would you do next?
It is the guardian’s job to feed them enough to make them adults.
He knelt down, lowered his head to Hwayang’s eye level, and asked the boy.
“Hwayang, should I eat some more rice?”
Then the guy happily spit out water.
-Peek.
It seemed like the guy could now breathe with lungs rather than gills.
***
He ordered his men to cut more reeds and set a huge fire in the village square.
Now that the front legs have grown, I had some expectations that maybe today we would be able to see the end of Hwayang Tech.
Since the front legs had grown, it seemed like it wasn’t impossible since the whole process would be over if only the tail was shortened.
‘Hwayang, let’s go for the last tech.’
I felt a little bad about using the enemies for personal use, but if Hwayang eats a lot and produces a lot of poison, it will help defend the village and control the lice, so it’s not a situation that’s only good for me.
So, I tried to bring in as much firewood or dry wood as possible from the surrounding area and feed it to Hwayangi. I was able to make enough poison, but unfortunately, Hwayangi’s tail did not get shorter right away.
It feels like it’s some kind of step-by-step growth, or something that needs to be fed to a certain level.
If I had time, I would have stayed up all night to feed him, but I couldn’t.
Because as the sun went down, they started coming.
That’s right, a bedbug.
As the sun sets and the deep night begins to approach, bedbugs start to swarm here and there.
The bedbugs that came into the village didn’t come out very often because Hwa-eun would track them by scent during the day, but as expected, they swarmed in droves beyond the waterway we had created.
We usually know that cockroaches reproduce infinitely, but honestly, cockroaches are nothing compared to bedbugs.
A single bed bug lays about 500 eggs in its lifetime, but inside the house, they hide in corners and reproduce infinitely, so the number increases exponentially.
“Ryong-ah, they’re coming in like a black swarm, just like you said!”
“Little Dragon, are you sure you’re okay?”
“The water probably won’t come over.”
People watched the waterway with tense expressions at my words, and when the wave of lice reached the shore, they couldn’t do anything and just stopped at the shore.
The reason they are afraid of water is because their bodies are so light and vulnerable to the surface tension of water, so when they get near the water they stick to the surface.
“It stopped! It stopped!”
——————
faqwiki.us
Join our Discord for new chapter updates!
https://discord.com/invite/xr7SxG5T6V
——————
“The bugs have stopped!”
“Yeah, I survived!”
People rejoiced with relief as the waves of lice stopped at the shore.
I threw rocks at the lice from the other side and gave them a boost.
“You want to eat? You want to eat? You guys!”
And at dawn, that confrontation continued.
While I was dozing off by the campfire, Lee Tae and some of the soldiers who were standing guard came up to me and reported the situation.
“Master Soryong, just as you said, the insects have become more active!”
“Churup. Then, prepare some water.”
“All right!”
As I wiped the drool dripping from the corner of my mouth and rubbed my eyes, the demon approached me and placed me on his back.
I feel like I should just grow more and not wake up.
My eyes closed again at the sight of the fairy’s soft fur, but I quickly came to my senses and spoke.
“No, you idiot. I have something to do.”
-Kishi.
It seemed like I was growing up more, but I still had to do what I had to do.
Now, I woke up and rubbed my eyes, knowing that if I missed this moment I would have to wait until tomorrow.
People think that bedbugs bite people at night, but they are actually most active at dawn.
So when we move, it’s right before dawn, before the sun rises.
I decided to change the water in the water bottle that Hwayangi was in, scrape up all the weeds, place them near the waterway, and start spraying pesticide right away.
“Your Majesty, we are ready. Let’s begin.”
“Oh, what about the bamboo water bottle?”
“Here it is.”
He wore mittens made of fairy thread on both hands and sucked up water with a water gun made of bamboo.
And he sprayed the water containing Hwayangi’s poison on the lice gathered on the other side of the water.
-Tsk tsk.
A stream of water shoots out from the end of a bamboo water gun and sprays the heads of the bedbugs.
As I walked along the waterway and carefully sprayed them with insecticide, the sun began to rise and, just like yesterday, the bedbugs began to scatter in all directions.
“Get out!”
“They are scattering!”
And so, after the guys had dispersed, a few hours later, everyone was gathered together in the village square, eating breakfast, covered in thick morning fog.
“Dragon! Look over there!”
Seol’s sister suddenly got up from her meal and pointed to the mountain.
I turned my head and looked in the direction my sister was pointing. Here and there on the mountain, covered in pure white fog, looking like a snowy Christmas tree, blue sparks were blooming and fading like blue light bulbs.
Perhaps it feels like Hwayangi’s poison is definitely taking effect.
The fireworks continued in the forest near the village, and Seol and Hwa-eun, who saw the light, spoke with blank expressions.
“you are pretty.”
“really.”
It was a very splendid and beautiful death, not befitting of the gnats.
***
After repeating the same process for about two days, the number of bedbugs was definitely reduced.
Now, there are only a few guys flocking to the village.
And as I checked the guys coming and the dead guys, I realized something strange.
“It’s definitely weird.”
“What else?”
Seol’s sister frowns and asks what is strange, knowing that this is bad news.
He answered with a smile to his sister Seol.
“It’s a drunkard. Among the drunkards that flocked to the village, strangely there are no females at all.”
“Not even one?”
“Yes, not even one.”
One of the insects that is difficult to tell the s*xes apart is bedbugs.
The reason is that their appearances are almost similar, making it difficult to tell them apart.
Because the size is similar and there are no distinct differences in characteristics.
The only distinguishable feature is that the males are slightly more slender and the females are slightly more rounded.
But if you don’t look at them together, you can see that there is almost no difference.
“Isn’t that strange?”
“Well, if they were human-made, then that might be natural. If these guys were to reproduce in the wild, there’s no telling how much they would grow.”
It seems that they intentionally excluded females because it would be difficult to control the bedbugs if they were to breed naturally.
He said, looking at the bigger flesh beyond the mountain behind the village.
“I think I might have to go there.”
The village was now slowly being cleaned up, and the ship would soon be repaired, so I thought I should stop by the mountain fortress of the bandits.
***
Since it was unknown how many lice were still left in the forest, Hwa-eun and I decided to ride a horse and be careful.
“You have to be careful, Ryong-ah.”
“Yes, Sister Seol.”
Seol Nui, who strongly urges him to be careful, sees him off, and as he floats up into the sky wrapped around Cho’s body, Seol Nui gradually gets smaller and smaller, soon appearing as a small dot.
“Hey, fly over to the mountain over there.”
-Tsurut!
After climbing to a certain altitude, I asked Cho to fly to the mountain where there was a mountain herb, and Cho began to move towards the mountain while limping.
The mountain is very quiet, perhaps because of the gorgeous blue fireworks that have been going on for several days.
The trees were so thick that I couldn’t see anything, but after walking around a bit, I began to see an open space below that looked like a mountain stream.
An open space that is well hidden on all sides with grass and trees to hide the mountain vegetables, but is clearly visible because it is not thought to be visible from the sky.
I asked the hermit to come closer and looked around for a while, but the mountain village was as quiet as a mouse.
“I think it would be okay to go down?”
“Yes. There is no one here.”
We confidently descended into the middle of the mountain where there was no sign of life, but there was not a single bandit in the green forest waiting to greet us.
We searched several wooden houses, but found only a few corpses that had already decayed and had visible bones.
It was when I entered the largest log cabin among them.
The log cabin was filled with herbs and potions.
A corpse lying on the floor, rotting and with its bones exposed, greeted Hwa-eun and us.
“Is this perhaps where the boss lived?”
“Is this guy the boss?”
“I’ll look into the medicine first.”
“Okay, Hwa-eun. I’ll look for anything else that’s strange.”
-Tsurut!
“You’re helping too? Well, yeah. If you see anything strange, find it and bring it to Dad.”
-Tsrrrr!
While Hwa-eun was checking the pills and medicine, Cho and I were checking other things inside the log cabin.
Cho, who had been looking around frantically, said he would help too, then crawled out from under the table in front of the fallen corpse with a book in his mouth out of the dust.
-Tsurut!
“Oh my, our daughter did well.”
The moment I took the book and patted the boy’s head, I knew that since he didn’t know how to read and write, it wasn’t like he had found anything great.
A familiar sentence caught my eye.
On the cover of the book, I noticed a drawing of the five poisonous creatures I had seen in the underground cave of Odokmun.
