Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang

I nodded at Hongbi’s words.

I told him I would make her submit, no matter what.

“Alright. I’ll make sure I subdue her.”

It did sound a little weird when said out loud, but hey, he told me to try, didn’t he?

Also, limited to So-ryong’s females—no, no, limited to the ladies—I’ve already made the Tang Clan’s proud eldest daughter of Sichuan, the noble golden-bough imperial princess, and even the current Heavenly Demon of the Heavenly Demon Cult all yield, haven’t I?

In fantasy terms, I’ve ended up sampling the duke’s young lady, the imperial princess, and even the saintess of a dark cult.

So I was full of confidence.

’I’ve already made the haughtiest women in the Central Plains mine. That settles it.’

Of course I didn’t mean anything weird by it, but come on—if I could make those high-nosed ladies mine, then no matter how “spiritual,” a female frog is nothing.

At my words, Hongbi laughed heartily.

-Kwaaak.

“Hoho. Bold little fellow. Fine, try to make this body submit. But if you melt to death, that’s on you.”

After he stuffed himself and left behind a boisterous laugh, Hongbi lazily swam away over the water and vanished.

The direction he disappeared to matched the mark on the map we’d taken off those Five Venoms bastards still lodged in my head.

’To think I’d assumed it pointed to somewhere in the Central Plains. Looks like it was marking which place here is his home.’

As I watched him glide away with elegance, Gun Hye-rin asked me:

“What did you talk about with him? And what do you mean I ‘gave birth’ to Cho?”

“Ah, that.”

I decided to call everyone into the group chat.

It wasn’t just Hye-rin—I needed to report the situation so far to the other wives too, so I figured I’d handle it all at once.

“I should tell Hwa-eun and the Princess we’ve found the World-Destroying Golden Toad, so let’s talk in the mindscape.”

“In that case, let’s meet face-to-face for once.”

Since we were doing it anyway, Hye-rin insisted we do it in person inside the mindscape.

That did sound best.

We hadn’t seen each other in days; I needed to top off my wives with some So-ryong energy.

Since wired charging isn’t possible right now, I’d at least do some wireless charging.

’I—I’m not saying I’m going to do anything. Just show my face, at least.’

Of course, I wasn’t planning to do anything.

Wireless charging is still a technology with room to grow.

Unless I obtain the method to sever body-mind linkage, it’s only a half-finished technique.

There’s cleanup to deal with afterward.

I told Hye-rin okay and asked the kids to stand guard.

“Shall we? Kids, watch over us for a bit, alright? We’re going into the mindscape and back.”

-Tsrrr.

“Okay, Dad.”

“Lie down here, Hye-rin.”

“Got it.”

Moji and Soji took to the air, and with Cho between us, Hye-rin and I lay holding hands. As we rose toward the mindscape, my vision grew hazy.

A moment later the view shifted, and the familiar forest appeared.

My mindscape—tropical rainforest.

In this So-ryong paradise packed with insects, amphibians, and reptiles, my wives came running like angels.

“So-ryong!”

“My lord!”

Hwa-eun and the Princess rushed me from both sides and threw their arms around me.

With the Princess and Hwa-eun clinging like cicadas, I carried them over to a nearby boulder.

“Have you two been well?”

“I missed you, my lord.”

“So-ryong, when are you coming back? Feels like it’s been months.”

“So how did it go? Did you find the World-Destroying Golden Toad?”

“Right, the World-Destroying Golden Toad! How did that turn out, So-ryong?”

I hadn’t even reached the boulder and the questions already crashed over me like a flood.

I was glad we’d linked the mindscape, just like Hye-rin suggested.

Once I had the Princess and Hwa-eun seated on either side and Hye-rin resting her head on my lap, I began my report.

“Yeah, I found it right away.”

“Congratulations, So-ryong.”

“As expected of you, my lord. Congratulations.”

When I finished the part about finding the World-Destroying Golden Toad and the business with the Heavenly Demon Cult, the Princess burst out laughing.

“Haha. Sounds like you gave the Heavenly Demon Cult folks quite the scare.”

“Well, a Realm of Manifestation master suddenly showing up with Hye-rin—no wonder they thought you came to conquer them.”

After a good round of laughter—

When I relayed my last exchange with Hongbi, Hye-rin’s expression turned worried.

“Can you really do it?”

She asked if I could really pull it off.

It’s not like she doubts my skill.

She just sounded uneasy.

“Yeah, I told you before, right? Catching the World-Destroying Golden Toad is dead simple.”

“You did say that. Still...”

She probably said it because the World-Destroying Golden Toad’s poison is terrifying. Even knowing that, I put on a needlessly sad face, and Hye-rin startled.

“Am I that unreliable?”

“Ah, no, absolutely not! You’re reliable.”

I stroked Hye-rin’s hair.

“There won’t be any danger at all. I’ll do it the easy way, so don’t worry.”

“What way exactly...?”

She still looked uneasy and asked what method I’d use to catch it, but before I could answer—no, before Hye-rin even finished asking—the Princess and Hwa-eun clapped hands over her mouth and shouted.

“That’s far enough!”

“Don’t ask any more, Hye-rin. It’ll only be annoying.”

Apparently both of them had realized I was about to say, “Telling you now would spoil the fun.”

’Time to cook up a new stock catchphrase. Spicy Fabre is in trouble. The viewers know exactly what I’m going to say.’

A serious crisis for the channel.

The regulars had figured out my pattern.

***

When I opened my eyes, it was still dark—dawn.

The sun hadn’t risen yet.

Hye-rin still had her eyes closed, apparently not yet out of the mindscape, and I wiped the cold sweat off my brow.

Because of what happened just now in the mindscape.

It was great finally seeing my wives and chatting about this and that, but then, at the end, the Princess showed a strange curiosity.

How she got there so fast I have no idea—what a mind, and in such a direction.

“I don’t want to part yet. Even looking at you, I miss you. I long for your warm embrace.”

The Princess clung to me and poured on all kinds of coquetry.

I let her rest her face against my chest and stroked her hair, and suddenly she snapped her head up like a snake roused by venom and asked Hwa-eun:

“Ah! Hwa-eun, have you ever... been held by So-ryong here?”

“Eh?”

“I mean, in the mindscape, can we... do that? Since it’s the same as reality, can we really do it? I’m curious.”

Hwa-eun and I needed a good while even to conjure that thought, but the Princess, apparently a prodigy in this department, arrived at it instantly.

I shook my head to tell her not to say it, but Hwa-eun’s answer spilled out at the same time anyway.

“I—I have tried it, Ji-ryeon.”

“Really, Hwa-eun? How was it? What was it like?”

“Well, it’s no different from doing it in real life, but...”

When asked if we’d ever done a married couple’s deed in the mindscape, Hwa-eun answered far too honestly, and the Princess shouted that she wanted to try too.

“Really!? So-ryong, I want to try it too!”

“Ah, ahem, I should get going. °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° Sleep well, everyone.”

“So-ryong! So-ryong!”

And that’s how I fled the mindscape.

I wiped my cold sweat, carefully sat up, and checked our surroundings. Seeing me, Moji and Soji, who’d been keeping watch, scanned the area and then fluttered over to perch on my shoulders.

-Flap.

-Myu-myu. “So-ryong, Dad.”

-Myuuu. “So-ryong’s Dad, are you up?”

“You two stayed up to guard us? Thanks.”

As I thanked them while they licked my cheeks, Cho startled awake, opened her eyes, and began wiping her antennae.

That was Cho’s face-wash.

She must’ve dozed off and was pulling herself together.

-Tsrrr.

“I—I nodded off for a second.”

Our daughter didn’t “nod off”—she dumped it all on Moji and Soji and took a full sleep—but feeling guilty, she was claiming it was just a quick nap.

It was cute; I chuckled and wiped her antennae for her. Then Hye-rin woke and spoke with a grave face.

“Master, why did you run? The Princess won’t let this go. She’ll drag you into the mindscape by force later.”

“T-this is bad.”

Running had been step one, but there’s a downside to these mindscape chats.

If they call me into the mindscape while I’m asleep, even the mindscape’s owner—that’s me—gets dragged in by force.

I figured next time I’d better be careful when I sleep.

“Sigh. Well, nothing to be done.”

I let out a breath as the sky brightened.

Dawn was coming.

If you enter the mindscape, your body recovers as if you’d slept, even without sleeping there, so I decided to head out at once to make the World-Destroying Golden Toad submit.

There’s nothing like a hobby to soothe a troubled man’s heart.

’Now I get why the older bros in my previous life always went fishing.’

“Let’s go make the World-Destroying Golden Toad submit.”

I stood, and Hye-rin rose to follow.

“I’m coming too.”

“Alright. Let’s go.”

With the map now almost memorized, I matched the surrounding spires and headed for the spot where I expected the World-Destroying Golden Toad’s nest.

There, in a hollowed dip along the water’s edge, the World-Destroying Golden Toad slept.

Most frogs are nocturnal, but this one, being truly a poison-dart-frog spirit beast, seemed to be diurnal.

Poison-dart frogs are diurnal, after all.

I first scooped up a handful of pinky-nail-sized pebbles from the stream.

Then I tossed them one by one at Hongbi’s head as he slept.

-Tuk. Dutuk.

-Kwaaak!

“What are you doing!?”

Hongbi snapped awake and screeched at me.

I grinned.

“I’m making you submit right now.”

-Kwaa?

“Hah?”

He made a face like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

The corners of his mouth twitched, then he burst into wild laughter and shouted:

-Kwaaak!

“I spared you because you were cute, but it seems that won’t do! To think you’d try to make this body submit with mere pebbles! I’ll humor you!”

-Pwhoom!

As he roared in anger, a one-meter sphere of space centered on him simply vanished.

Different from what I’d expected—the poison wasn’t pitch-black; it was red.

A dangerous crimson field erased a radius of about one meter around him.

At the same time he lunged our way, but unlike brute-force spirit beasts, his physical prowess wasn’t exceptional.

He wasn’t that fast.

If your body is strong, you don’t need your poison to be, after all.

As I opened distance and ran, Hye-rin’s worried voice reached me, running alongside.

“Master, this looks far too dangerous. Are you sure this will really make him submit?”

We didn’t have to worry about being caught, since his physical specs weren’t great, but with that much miasma billowing off him, of course it sent chills down your back.

But this was the only way to make him yield.

“This is the only way to make that guy submit.”

Because Costa Rica’s poison-dart frogs carry multiple toxins, and the strongest among them is batrachotoxin.

More than ten times stronger than pufferfish toxin, it’s lethal enough to kill on mere skin contact or mucosal absorption.

And yet even such dangerous frogs can be kept by hobbyists, because we enthusiasts fully understand the frogs’ toxin synthesis mechanism.

’I learned it from biologists.’

Poison-dart frog toxins are based on alkaloids in plants, and the process is fascinating.

First, it’s a plant’s own defensive toxin—something many plants possess.

How does that end up in a frog?

Termites eat plants or fungi cultivated on plants, and the alkaloids they accumulate pass into the frogs that eat them, building up in the frog’s body and becoming the frog’s poison. That’s the system.

So if you catch a poison-dart frog in the wild, feed it something other than termites for a while, and get it to quickly expend the toxin it already has, it becomes a frog without poison.

In other words—

’Piss it off so it uses up its poison, then starve it. That’s the idea.’

When it comes to breaking something’s will, nothing beats starvation, right?

So if you keep tailing it so it can’t eat and won’t let it sleep, you can make it submit fast.