Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang

A parasite of the Sacculina genus.

These little bastards are also called parasitic barnacles.

Yeah, those barnacles that grow attached to seaside rocks or the bottoms of ships.

Why were those barnacles here?

Other kinds of barnacles attach themselves to rocks and live by filtering plankton, but these things live by parasitizing a host’s body and sucking out its nutrients.

These things are absolutely terrifying to males, because they are known to turn whatever they parasitize into a eunuch, and beyond that, into a female.

Tearing off the dick of the parasitized male, and later turning it completely female, was this thing’s nature.

Of course, that was limited to crabs.

There was nothing known about them parasitizing humans or other animals.

‘If they could parasitize other creatures too, that would be a real disaster.’

As for how something like this happened—

These things begin their parasitic process in a very tiny state.

At first, they settle into a crab’s joint and burrow in through there, taking root inside the body.

After that, they spread through the crab’s body like roots, and in that process they take over the host’s liver and gonads—or, since it’s a crab, what are called the hepatopancreas and seminal vesicles—and absorb nutrients.

What these things do in the process is destroy the male crab’s gonads and force the secretion of female hormones.

A male crab whose gonads are destroyed and who is forced to secrete female hormones stops molting, and its body gradually changes into that of a female.

For a human, it would be exactly the same as having the genitals removed and being pumped full of female hormones.

The easiest way to tell a female crab from a male crab is the size of the abdominal flap on the underside of the shell.

If it is large and broad, it is female. If it is long and narrow, it is male. So that long, narrow male abdomen starts changing into a large, broad one.

Once the body has changed completely like that, the male crab becomes so altered that it is hard to distinguish it from a female, and once it reaches that point, something even stranger happens.

The male crab begins behaving even more femininely than a female.

The parasite creates an egg-like organ on the crab’s abdomen, and the male crab pretends to care for it as though it were precious eggs.

It even goes so far as to shake them out into the sea when eggs appear there, even though they are not its own.

Forced femininity and implanted maternity.

That was what this Sacculina parasite was: a thing that erased the dick through parasitism and turned both body and mind into those of a complete female.

From a crab’s point of view, it could only be a vicious bastard.

Because it steals a male’s dignity and everything else along with it.

—Slash!

The instant I was thinking about the thing’s nature, Bulsiho swung her claws at me.

When I threw myself backward, Bulsiho, clutching Yubing in her arms, cried out like a scream.

“What do you think you are doing! If I had known I would have to endure even this because of the Nine Heavens Hyeonnyeo, I would never have—!”

Bulsiho had gone wide-eyed, thinking I had harmed her partner.

Blue ghostfire began blazing from her tails.

That same attack she had fired at me a few days ago at the Ascension Platform.

The very thing she had unleashed when she learned I was Master’s disciple was about to be fired at me again.

I had rushed out far too suddenly and burned off the eggs between Yubing’s legs without a word of explanation, so it looked like she had lost her mind.

‘Did she expect a club or something?’

Thinking maybe she had been hoping for a male body instead of a female one, I pointed at the one in her arms.

“Calm down and look at Yubing.”

“Shut up!”

Bulsiho snarled at me, but the very next moment she noticed something strange.

Just before she unleashed the flames, Yubing’s body, which had gone limp, began writhing.

More precisely, the egg-like thing between the legs that I had burned began spewing outward, scorched black, with something trailing behind it.

“T-this is!?”

What the charred eggs dragged out with them was something root-like.

A mass of fine rootlets came spilling out from between the legs.

At the grotesque sight, Bulsiho jumped back in shock and shouted,

“W-what in the world is this!?”

Watching that, I said,

“It is still alive? Then has it somehow become a spirit-creature? It is a parasite that lives inside a crab’s body. That egg-like thing is not a male organ. It was something that thing created.”

“A parasite!?”

Judging by the way Yubing had believed all along that Yubing was female, and by the lack of any sense that something was wrong, the parasitic infection must have happened quite early.

Probably before an ordinary creature became a spirit-creature and gained intelligence.

Since it had lived as one body with it from before gaining intelligence, Yubing had thought of the self as female, and when that thing had grown in the body, had taken it for natural.

“Ghk.”

Once all of it had flowed out of the body, Yubing sagged again.

Something that had burrowed all through the body had just been torn free, so it seemed the heart had stopped from shock.

I hurriedly shouted to Yo-hwa,

“Yo-hwa, wrap that thing up with your silk and hold it down.”

—Kishishi. 『Yes, Oppa!』

—Fwoosh!

Yo-hwa’s silk shot out and began wrapping around the parasite, turning it into something like a cocoon.

That thing was a parasite.

Once it came out of the body, it could not move very well.

It was the kind that turned the body female, not the kind that directly controlled the body’s movements.

While Yo-hwa was turning the thing into a cocoon, I dragged Yubing back.

Then I quickly observed the body.

This was the first time I had gotten a close look at the changes in a spirit-creature’s body when taking human form, and Yubing was human only on the outside; inside, the body was close to the spirit-creature’s true form.

Inside Yubing’s body, there was a hepatopancreas instead of a liver, and gills instead of lungs.

Even the heart was in the center of the body.

It was exactly a crab’s internal structure.

It seemed that taking human form only changed the body’s outward appearance, and just as expected, the heart had indeed completely stopped.

“Y-Yubing!”

“Stand back!”

I shoved Bulsiho aside and began shocking the heart with lightning qi.

I could not let Yubing die here.

I also had things to ask of the Ink Shadow Altar.

Besides, Master had already ruined the first wife, and if I killed the candidate for the second wife during treatment, there was no way our relationship would improve.

—Crackle.

—Crack-crack.

As I slowly raised the intensity of the lightning qi and shocked the heart, Yubing jolted each time the lightning hit.

“I-isn’t Yubing dead?”

“Lady Siho!”

“What is happening here?”

By then, the commotion inside had been noticed, and the other spirit-creatures of the Ten-Thousand Demon Forest came crowding in.

My mind was already busy enough, and now the room had gotten even more complicated with spectators.

“There is still a chance to save Yubing, so please stay quiet for a moment!”

After shouting and shutting the mouths of Bulsiho and the other spirit-creatures who kept asking bothersome questions, I continued striking the heart area with lightning qi.

Fortunately, after only three or four shocks, a cough burst out.

“Cough.”

“Yubing!”

The heart started beating again, and bloody phlegm spilled from Yubing’s mouth.

That was a relief.

Before Yubing’s breathing stopped again, I drew out Moji and Soji’s abilities and began healing.

—Wooooong.

White and black energy flickered and wrapped around Yubing.

The inside of the body was healing little by little.

As I treated Yubing and looked even more closely into the inside of the body, it seemed the parasite had badly damaged many of the internal organs when it came out.

Sacculina parasites spread through the inside of the body almost like nerves, so it looked like the nerves had been heavily damaged as well.

As I carefully treated the interior and examined it, there was, just as expected, a long path left behind where the parasite had been rooted, and the bodily damage was indeed worse than I had first thought.

“C-can Yubing live, Elder?”

Bulsiho, who had been raging a moment ago, was now being utterly respectful.

I nodded and said,

“Well, if I had been even a little later, not even Great Ra Immortal would have been able to save Yubing, but Yubing will live.”

“Th-thank you. Thank you so much.”

Bulsiho was sincerely grateful.

She had even dropped to her knees.

“Well, this is work I am being paid for, so you do not need to be that grateful.”

I said it a little coolly and casually.

Like it was nothing.

At that, Bulsiho waved both hands.

“No. If you had not been here, that thing chewing away at Yubing’s body would have ended up killing Yubing. Thank you.

But a parasite... how in the world did that get into Yubing’s body... And just now, you definitely said male?”

A question following the end of her words.

It seemed a detailed explanation was needed, so I continued treating Yubing while explaining.

“There are many bizarre life forms in the sea to begin with. That is one of them, a kind of parasite that lives in a crab’s body and grows by sucking energy from it.

And when I said male, I meant it because Yubing really is male.”

“Yubing is male?”

“Yubing is male?”

When I said again that Yubing was male, everyone looked shocked.

I nodded and continued speaking.

“Yes. The characteristic of this parasite is that it melts away a male’s manhood and turns him female. It even makes him more female. Personality and behavior both.

But the thing that had grown on Yubing’s body was not Yubing’s male organ. It was something like an egg sac created by the parasite.”

“Th-that...”

Bulsiho was flustered.

It seemed hard to believe that the one she had been about to kill for the sake of saving the polar bears was actually a man.

Bulsiho bit her lip, then asked again,

“Then will Yubing return to being male now?”

I shook my head.

If it had been a body capable of turning back into a male one, then it would have started changing the moment I began treatment.

Maybe because the period of parasitism had been so long and the body had been completely changed into a female form, Yubing’s body was still remaining female even as I restored it.

At Bulsiho’s question, I examined the body again, and there was a uterus as well. There were no ovaries, but there was something that could be called their equivalent in place of them.

Even the testes had now been completely remodeled so that they produced only female hormones.

That was probably because of Sacculina’s characteristics.

When a male crab is infected with Sacculina and becomes female, the abdominal shell widens so it can hold eggs, and special legs for brooding eggs also grow. In a human body, those seemed to have taken the place of female genitals and a uterus.

And the Y-organ in the crab’s testes had been remodeled so that it produced only female hormones instead of male hormones.

Yubing could not bear children, but other than that, Yubing was basically no different from a female.

Even though I did call Yubing male.

“No. It seems Yubing will probably remain female.”

“That is a relief.”

Bulsiho looked less like someone thinking about a club and more like someone eager to lend a hand to the extinction of the polar bears.

After treating Yubing for about half a day like that, Yubing’s body was completely healed.

I took my hands off Yubing’s body and announced the end of the treatment.

“It is all treated now.”

“Thank you, Elder. It may have been arranged through the Ink Shadow Altar, but I will absolutely repay this favor separately.”

“Originally I was going to refuse, but since I treated Yubing very thoroughly, I will not refuse. May I look forward to it?”

Even though Yubing still had not regained consciousness, I had truly treated the inside of the body with meticulous care.

Enough that even if Bulsiho gave me something extra, I would not feel guilty taking it.

So I asked with a faint smile, and Bulsiho answered with one of her own.

“Of course.”

The place where White Night City stood was the best location around here, but the place Bulsiho had settled in was where spirit ice formed.

I had heard that spirit ice was the same sort of thing as spirit stones.

And the more spirit stones one had, the better, so I was thinking I ought to receive some of that, when Yubing, who had been laid out on the bed, twitched and began to come to.

“Gngh.”

“Yubing, are you awake?”

“L-Lady Siho?”

“Yes, it is me!”

Even though Yubing had opened Yubing’s eyes and recognized Bulsiho, nothing seemed wrong.

The vitals were fine, and the treatment looked to have ended well.

Bulsiho looked at Yubing with sticky eyes, and just as Yubing raised a hand to touch Bulsiho’s cheek—

Yubing’s arm dropped from the shoulder and rolled onto the floor with a thud.

“Ghk.”

“Y-Yubing!”

Then the other arm also fell off with a thunk.

Both legs dropped away as well.

I dashed over, pressed Yubing’s arms and legs back against the body, and once again poured healing energy into Yubing.

They had only just fallen off, so I ought to be able to reattach them.

Crabs can do something called autotomy, where if a large predator bites a leg or they are in danger, they can detach the limb and run away.

Sometimes when you buy crabs at the seafood market, some of them are missing legs, and this is why.

Apparently, because I had hit Yubing with electric shocks earlier, the limbs had already been right on the verge of autotomy.

Since a crab’s autotomy happens through muscle contraction, it seemed the electrical shock had caused the muscles to contract and triggered it.

“I-it is nothing serious. I will reattach them right away.

And this may be a bit startling, but it is a kind of proof that the treatment went well.

Crabs can originally tear off their own arms, but when they are infected by that parasite, they cannot tear off their arms. So this is proof that it was treated very well, you could say.”

I gave the explanation honestly, but there was a slight distrust in Bulsiho’s eyes.

I had said I treated Yubing thoroughly, so that was rather embarrassing.