Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang

After finishing the conversation, I waited for a moment, and then Bini, Cho, and Yo-hwa returned from the water, washing off the bedbug fluids from their bodies.

Perhaps because they were wet, they immediately began grooming themselves.

Scratch, scratch. Slurp, slurp. The grooming process for centipedes always starts with their antennae.

As expected, Cho and Bini used their upper jaws to grab their antennae, bringing them to their mouths and carefully licking them.

Yo-hwa also took her forelegs and brought them to her mouth.

Though they were spiritual beings, after washing off at the water, they acted just like regular centipedes and spiders when grooming their bodies, licking them clean with their mouths—much like how a cat would clean itself.

However, unlike cats, centipedes don’t shed fur, so they’re even cleaner creatures than cats.

‘Ah, how neat they are.’

Many people mistakenly think centipedes and spiders are dirty creatures, but that’s a serious misunderstanding.

Both centipedes and spiders are incredibly clean animals. Centipedes, living in damp places, are vulnerable to mold, so they always keep their bodies clean. Spiders, too, regularly groom themselves to prevent their webs from making their bodies sticky.

After eating, it’s customary for both centipedes and spiders to carefully lick their antennae and fangs to clean them.

Since our little ones haven’t eaten yet, we don’t see this kind of grooming often, so I watched them with a blank expression.

It was a rare sight to see large centipedes and spiders adorably and delicately cleaning their bodies.

‘Ah, how precious. How sweet.’

I could almost understand why parents record videos of their kids growing up.

I deeply regretted not having a phone or any camera to capture this moment, instead engraving the image of them grooming into my mind.

It was a scene that I couldn’t afford to miss.

As I stood there, watching them, Seol’s voice suddenly interrupted my thoughts.

“So-ryong, you said we were going to dig the ground once Bini returns.”

“Oh no!”

I had momentarily forgotten, engrossed in watching the kids clean themselves. It occurred to me that we needed to dig a moat around the village.

Bedbugs usually avoid water, so I thought digging a moat around the village would effectively stop them.

Since they weren’t spiritual beings but simply oversized bedbugs, they likely still retained the behaviors of their smaller counterparts.

I quickly turned to look at Bini.

I was about to say, ”Let’s dig the ground.”

“Bini? Uh...”

Skrch?However, as I turned to call Bini, what caught my eye was the shiny, glistening antenna of Bini, reflecting the light. Bini was in the middle of grooming, and now I had to ask him to dig the ground again, which made my words falter.

He had just cleaned himself so neatly, and now I was asking him to go back into the dirt.

‘Is this okay? I feel a little bad asking Bini to do this.’

Bini had finished licking his right antenna and was now making his way down his left antenna when he looked up at me, as if asking why I called him.

Chit?‘Well, it should be fine, right?’ I was a little worried, but I decided it would be okay, so I asked in a cautious voice.

“Bini, I know you just finished cleaning, and I’m sorry to ask you this... but could you do me a favor? It’s nothing serious, just need to dig some ground.”

As I spoke, Bini’s antenna slipped out from his mouth, and he looked down at his body, checking himself.

Then, Bini’s body started to tremble slightly.

Thinking about it, Bini’s personality was quite neat and tidy.

‘He just bathed and did his grooming, but now I’m asking him to do something dirty...’

***

Having just finished cleaning himself and almost completed his grooming, it was no surprise that Bini would be annoyed by my request to dig the ground.

But, since it was his father’s request, even though he was annoyed, Bini agreed to dig.

“Well, then I guess I’ll have to dig with the workers using shovels... If we dig all day, we should get it done.”

Skrch!As I looked at Bini, who seemed to react to my words with a little shout, it felt like he was saying, “Who said I wouldn’t dig?” That was part of what made Bini so charming.

Thud, thud.As Bini began to dig into the ground, the soil bulged up, much like when a mole tunnels underground. Soon, the mound split in two, forming a trench-like shape.

While Cho and I watched from above, Bini came running from the other side, and I signaled to Lee Tae, who had been waiting at the starting point.

“Lee Tae! Now’s the time!”

“Understood, So-ryong!”

Lee Tae, along with the workers, quickly began dismantling the dyke near the Yangtze River.

The remaining dyke crumbled, and water surged in, rushing into the trench where Bini had passed.

Splash, splash, splash.The water, now filled with momentum, swept the surrounding dirt and rushed toward the opposite side. The water running along the trench, which Bini had dug, reached the end and exploded through the thin dirt mound, flowing back into the Yangtze River.

As the water settled, the width of the trench began to widen, and the flow became steady.

The village, situated at the base of the mountain and near the reed field, was now completely surrounded by water.

Once the water flowed around the village, I turned and saw Hwa-eun, who had gathered some of the evacuees, approaching with a few workers and Yo-hwa.

It seemed that the trench work had been completed.

Soon, Hwa-eun’s voice rang out.

“So-ryong, it’s ready!”

“Let’s go down! Cho, let’s go.”

Skrch!As promised before the trench work, Hwa-eun brought Yo-hwa and a few people down with her. Slowly descending, Hwa-eun led us to the defense line where we had been fighting the bedbugs the previous day and asked, “This place should be fine, right?”

“Yeah, further out might still be risky, so that house over there should work.”

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

As we neared our destination, Hwa-eun pointed to an old house standing near the spot where we had been blocking the bedbugs.

Entering the house, Hwa-eun closed her eyes, raising her nose, and began to scan the area.

“I’m relieved. I think they’re here.”

What Hwa-eun was doing was scent tracking, using her sharp sense of smell to locate where the bedbugs had hidden.

After a moment of scanning, Hwa-eun pointed to a bamboo wall inside the house.

“Over there. Between the walls!”

At Hwa-eun’s words, the workers approached carefully, and from the gap between the bamboo walls, bedbugs began to poke their heads out.

During the day, they would hide in such dark cracks, and when people came near, they would sense the temperature and stick their heads out.

‘Ah, I guess it’s the scent tracking from the Tang Clan?’

Thinking about it, I realized that if Hwa-eun hadn’t checked for poison on the bodies, we might have found the bedbugs sooner.

I quickly turned to Yo-hwa.

“Yo-hwa, take care of those pests!”

Kiss!After I gave the order, Yo-hwa extended her web and carefully pulled each bedbug out, placing them one by one into the large bag she had made from her web. Sample bedbug capture complete.

The reason we were capturing these bedbugs was to test the poison from Hyang.

Given that it was a burning poison, I thought it might have a strong effect on the bedbugs.

“Let’s take these back to the ship for now.”

“Understood, So-ryong.”

We had caught eight bedbugs in total.

With the wriggling bedbugs in Yo-hwa’s web bag, we headed toward the ship.

As soon as we arrived at the ship, I took one of the bedbugs and fixed it onto a wooden board using the Tang Clan’s needle, as if preparing an insect specimen.

The bedbug struggled, but it was stuck to the needle and couldn’t move.

I immediately took some of the water Hyang had swum in and gently dropped it onto the bedbug’s abdomen.

Drip drip.Since the bedbug’s respiratory organs were located in its abdomen, I thought it would be more effective to let it inhale the poison there. However, the bedbug showed no reaction to the poison.

“Hm... What’s going on?”

It was a poison strong enough to make me burn with flames, yet there was no reaction from the bedbug.

“Could it be that this only works on mammals?”

The first thing that crossed my mind was that perhaps the poison only affected mammals.

After all, there are poisons that can kill humans but have no effect on insects.

The idea that animals or insects can eat fruits safely when stranded is technically inaccurate. Some insects, such as certain species of beetles, actually eat poisonous mushrooms, so it wasn’t an unreasonable suspicion.

But Hyang proposed a different idea.

“Could it be that the quantity is too small? Since it was diluted in the water, maybe the poison’s strength was reduced.”

Her suggestion was that because the poison had been diluted in the water, its effect might be weakened.

To be honest, if that was the case, it wouldn’t matter how potent the poison was, as it wouldn’t be very useful to us.

Hyang’s poison was limited in quantity, and if it required a concentrated dose, it would be difficult to use.

“I’m not sure. Let’s try another test.”

But we decided to check further, so I took out another bedbug and placed it next to the one already fixed in place.

This time, instead of using the water Hyang had swum in, I took a stick and rubbed it against Hyang’s body, then applied it to the bedbug.

Yet, after waiting for some time, there was still no reaction.

It was a bit disappointing, but it seemed like we would need to go back to the clan and consult with the elders to examine this more carefully.

It felt like I was being poisoned, but it wasn’t having any effect on the bedbugs.

“It seems like it’s going to be difficult for the two of us to figure something out here.”

“Yeah, we’ll have to ask grandfather once we get back.”

Though a bit disappointing, I decided that, without the poison, we would still be safe until the morning, so we should focus on getting through the night.

With that, I left the bedbug that had been poisoned and fixed to the wooden board as it was, and placed the one that had been exposed to Hyang’s water back into Yo-hwa’s web bag and tossed it onto the deck.

And since there was a chance the bedbugs might cross the water, I decided to rest in the cabin that night.

After a long day, I was holding Bini like a pillow in the cabin, finally catching some deep sleep.

Suddenly, a pungent smell brushed past my nose.

Chit chit!Hearing the kids making a fuss, I opened my eyes to find blue flames rising from the table in the cabin. Fwoosh.“What, what’s that!?” Looking closely at the source of the rising blue flames, I saw a bedbug, still fixed to the wooden board, spewing blue fire from its mouth and abdomen.

But strangely, only the bedbug was burning.

Unlike when I burned, the flames weren’t burning the wood or anything else nearby.

“This, this is...”

Hyang, who had been sleeping in the next room, heard the commotion and rushed over, her eyes wide in surprise when she saw the burning bedbug.

At that moment, I heard the startled voices of the crew outside the cabin.

“Fire!”

“Fire!”

As the blue-flamed bedbug, still fixed on the wooden board, moved toward the door, something else on the deck was also burning.

I rushed over, threw the wooden board into the water, and the crew threw a stick to knock Yo-hwa’s web bag off the deck, sending it flying into the water.

In the air, Yo-hwa’s web burned up completely, and the eight bedbugs, now floating on the water, spewed flames for a while before sinking beneath the surface.

Watching the bedbugs sink, I realized that it seemed like the poison took some time to take effect.

Hyang, watching the bedbugs sink with me, said,

“It seems like the poison takes over three hours to kick in. If that’s the case, it’s going to be tricky to use it effectively.”

It had been about six hours since we applied the poison to the bedbugs.

As Hyang said, the poison took some time to show its effects.

But there was something wrong with her statement.

It wasn’t that the # Nоvеlight # poison was difficult to use; it was actually the perfect insecticide.

“No, this poison is perfect for the situation.”

“Perfect for the situation?”

At night, the bedbugs would swarm together, and when the sun came up, they’d huddle together in dark places. If one of them was poisoned, like the ones in Yo-hwa’s web bag, it would trigger a chain reaction, causing them to burst into flames.

It was a perfect insecticide.

With the sun setting, I had little time left.

I asked Bini to relay a message to Hyang, requesting more of the poison.

Bini responded with a single word.

“Food.”

He probably meant that more food was needed to produce more poison.

As the crew stacked dry reeds and bamboo on the village square, a huge flame began to rise, and it was all being sucked into Hyang’s mouth.

When the flames finally died down, Hyang, whose forelegs had grown, was looking up at me, holding onto the edge of the water barrel.