Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang

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Elixir 1

The next day, after the clan’s discipline was grandly ‘established.’

The martial arts training ground behind the Four Harmonies Courtyard, used by the clan’s direct descendants.

“Again! Where did I say to throw it, regardless of whether there’s poison or not?”

“You said the center of the body.”

“How did you come to throw it at the center of the body?”

“You said that if I aimed for places like the head or shoulders, they could easily dodge. So, throw it at the center of the body, so even if they dodge, it could still graze them.”

“Right, the chest and abdomen are indeed the best. Now, try again.”

‘Aiming at the straw dummy and focusing on the center…’

In a training ground where a giant ancient tree stood majestically in the center, I was diligently throwing a flying dagger at a straw dummy shaped like a person.

Just as I released the tension in my arm, like a rubber band—

Crack!

Did I just hear the sound of splintering wood?

Suddenly, my older sister rushed into the training ground with a startled face.

“S-So-ryong! Something terrible has happened!”

-Teng!

Startled by my sister’s shout, the flying dagger missed the straw dummy and lodged itself into the hollow trunk behind it.

My grandfather, Mandok God, grimaced in displeasure.

“Ah! I told you to concentrate when throwing the flying dagger! If this were a real battle, the enemy’s blade would have reached your neck!”

“I-I’m sorry!”

‘You told me to hit the faraway targets. Don’t blame me just because you want to scold me…’

I winced at my grandfather’s reprimand and looked at my sister, who had rushed in, her expression still alarmed.

What caught my attention was her already large eyes, which seemed to triple in size, resembling a protagonist from a shoujo manga.

Looking at my grandfather for a moment, I asked, “What happened, Little One?”

My sister then said something I couldn’t comprehend, “W-Our babies! Our babies are acting strange!”

“What! Babies? What do you mean!? You have kids?”

Hearing my sister’s words, my grandfather’s eyes widened in shock.

Who wouldn’t be surprised to see a granddaughter who had never even been married suddenly burst in claiming she had kids?

Then my sister realized her mistake and blushed a vivid red, looking as if she had just been caught doing something embarrassing, and clarified, “I meant the Ogong! The Ogong are acting strange!”

I thought she meant “mom and dad,” but calling them “our babies” threw me off.

I suppressed a chuckle at my sister’s ditzy behavior and asked, “The Ogong, you say?”

Firstly, I scanned my sister’s body, looking for the Ogong that should be attached to her.

Normally, whenever she practiced her martial arts, she entrusted the Ogong to me, since having them cling to her made it difficult to move.

They would eat while I achieved my freedom during that time.

Everything had gone smoothly until now.

However, the Ogong were nowhere to be seen.

‘Did those little rascals hide in my sister’s arms?’

Just as I thought about checking her sleeve, my sister quickly clutched it, startled.

With a look of alarm, she shot me a concerned glance.

“They’re not here! They all fell off!”

“Fell off!?”

“And something’s really strange! What should I say this?”

My sister, unable to explain the strange occurrence, had me worried.

When I confirmed with the Blue-Spotted Centipede earlier, they had all clung to their mother until their second molt, so I rushed with my grandfather to the pavilion where my sister had been.

If there was some kind of illness, it would be a serious matter.

Arriving at the center of the pavilion, I found the Ogong lying perfectly still.

“What’s going on? Why are they like this? Hey, guys?”

Leaping up onto the pavilion, I examined them more closely and noticed something unusual.

Their color seemed slightly more transparent.

No, it wasn’t just transparent; it looked like they had a layer of something covering them.

It felt as if they were wrapped in plastic, and at that moment, I understood the situation.

‘Oh, they’re about to molt.’

It seemed they were experiencing their first molt.

“Don’t be surprised. Creatures with hard shells like centipedes shed their exoskeletons as they grow, and I think they’re trying to do that now.”

“They’re shedding their shells?”

“Yes, probably soon…”

In an attempt to reassure my sister, I was explaining when her shout came.

“Hey! Look! Their heads! Their heads are!”

Turning my head at her shout, I saw one of the little ones’ heads starting to swell at the back.

-Snap.

And then the back of its head opened up.

As its yellow neck popped out, the Ogong’s head began to emerge from its shell.

The wriggly body of the Ogong tumbled out like a spirit exiting its original form.

As the body unfolded, it had started out the thickness of a sausage, but now it had thickened to the size of a forearm.

The previously solid yellow of its body began to glimmer with a hint of white.

It seemed as though the shell was sharpening in some manner.

As they were trying to fill their bodies with fluid, I saw the expansion and contraction of their forms.

“Ooh. What an incredibly fascinating sight!”

“Really! They seem to have doubled in size!”

“Ooh! The second one is shedding its shell too!”

“The third one is opening its head!”

My sister and grandfather were watching, their eyes wide with wonder as if they were observing a nature documentary.

As the Ogong began drying off after emerging from their shells, my sister asked, “But what are these little ones called?”

“Their names?”

I realized I hadn’t named them yet.

Scratching my head, I replied, “How about Oil, Oi, and Osam?”

My sister looked at me disappointed.

With a look that clearly said “absurd,” she shook her head.

“But Ogong turns into a dragon after a thousand years, right? We can’t have names like Oi and Osam for dragons that will protect our clan for those thousand years.”

“No, Little One! There’s no way Ogong would turn into a dragon after a thousand years…”

Believing that the Ogong would turn into dragons after a thousand years was a notion my sister clung to—almost as if a child believed in Santa Claus still—so when I argued against the absurdity, she turned to my grandfather for support.

“Surely, if So-ryong knows about the venomous insects, he should know this too! Ogong turns into a dragon after a thousand years, right, Grandpa?”

And my grandfather nodded in agreement.

As much as my sister was a beautiful granddaughter, I’d have to reevaluate my grandfather’s beliefs.

Christmas is only meant to be protected until elementary school; for the sake of maintaining innocence, but now my sister was twenty and it was time to enlighten her with reality.

“Ah, well, Ogong, after a thousand years, does indeed become a dragon, and that’s why they’re sometimes referred to as Celestial Dragons.”

‘What more was there for me to say to these folks?’

Thinking of how people here wouldn’t even grasp the basic concept of taxonomy, I realized I was fighting a losing battle.

Whether they knew spiders and scorpions were different animals or not.

Soon after, my sister and grandfather began naming their beloved venomous insects as if it were nobody’s business.

“How about Jin-hu (金後), Jin-je (金帝), and Jin-sang (金相)? It incorporates the character for gold to signify the most precious ones in the clan, shining like gold as they are!”

‘Shouldn’t we name them something like Jeomhu, Jeomje, Jeomsang?’

With my sister’s seriously questionable naming sense.

Maybe the little ones felt the same, as they raised their heads towards my sister while drying off, perhaps thinking, “If we had mouths, we’d tell her how ridiculous that is.”

However, aside from everything else, our Ogong were all female.

I decided it was time to teach my sister about that fact.

“Little One, those little ones are all females.”

“WHAT!? All three of them!?”

“Yes.”

“Then, what should we call them…?”

In the end, I decided to name them before my sister could unleash her worst naming sense.

“Let’s just call them Chao, Hyang, and Bin.”

“Chao, Hyang, Bin?”

“The one with longer antennae will be Chao, meaning ‘first.’ The one still wiggling her antennae is Hyang, meaning ‘fragrance,’ and the last, since her shell is shinier than the others, we’ll call her Bin, which means ‘light.'”

My sister poked her cheek with her index finger, wearing a contemplative expression before nodding her head.

“Yeah… Well… the names should be decided by dad anyway.”

“Excuse me?”

At my sister’s statement, my grandfather looked astonished.

*

Normally, when centipedes molt, they eat their own shells, but the Ogong showed no interest at all.

Even when I held the shell out in front of them, they turned away, suggesting they were growing via energy and essence.

Thus, there lay three discarded Ogong shells—a slightly yellowish, translucent trio—remaining on the floor of the pavilion.

Like socks discarded after the little ones crawled out, the shells were crumpled.

As I contemplated how to perfectly flatten and preserve them, suddenly—

-Bang!

“What is this!?”

“A treasure!”

As my grandfather struck one of the shells with his dagger, a bizarre sound echoed.

It sounded as if metal had struck metal from the Ogong’s shells.

“The shell of one captured in Hainan Island was tough, but indeed, this too is remarkable. It wouldn’t even scratch normal weapons.”

I had no idea that the little guys were actually hiding such secrets beneath their squishy exteriors.

As I was examining the fallen shells, my grandfather took the shell he was holding, scrutinizing it deep in thought, and began to press it against my arm.

It seemed he was envisioning crafting a tailored armor for me.

Nodding, he said, “With this, I could make you an armored gauntlet. If we tie the legs together, it should make for a splendid piece.”

“An armored gauntlet!?”

“Yes, just long enough to cover your wrists, it would provide protection from the elbow to the back of the hand. If you place its head atop your hand, you could even coat its fangs with poison and use it for stabbing. It will be brilliant.”

‘Whoa! A centipede armor gauntlet with fangs on the back of my hand!? Isn’t that like full-on centipede man attire?’

With my grandfather sketching an impressive design, I realized he wasn’t your average old man; he understood the male fantasy well.

“Is that even possible?”

My sister smiled, looking for confirmation, as if this was all too good to be true.

“Our clan’s artisans are incredibly skilled. They can make flying needles and various traps as fine as a hair’s breadth.

So I believe we could indeed create the armored gauntlet you described using these kids’ shells.”

“Ohhh!”

I had thought they were an infamous family in the Central Plains, but the Four Heavenly Houses truly were not a bad clan.

They were perhaps a family that knew what romantic dreams were.

As I thought about making two armored gauntlets and preserving one, my grandfather’s voice rang out.

“The last one should be made into gloves for Hua Eun. Its inside is soft and the outside is hard, making it perfect for protecting her hands from venom.”

No way! I planned to keep one for my records, but my grandfather was suggesting making gloves for my sister out of my molted shell.

Looking at him wide-eyed, he chuckled, “Why? Are you worried about that?”

In response to his question, my sister turned to me, her expression implying, ‘How could you possibly care about that?’

I quickly shook my head.

“Me? No way. Not a chance!”

I denied it, but honestly, I felt a bit regretful.

*

After a whole day passed, the newly molting Ogong began to crawl about.

Though it seemed their bodies hadn’t completely hardened yet, they were now moving around just fine.

The change after their first molt was that they had finally secured their centipede forms.

Centipedes belong to the subclass of animals that don’t change their segment layout as they grow, retaining their initial form.

Initially, they appeared a bit round, almost like comedic centipedes, but now they were flatter and their legs and shells had grown tougher.

They were now perfect centipedes.

I noticed they seemed heavier than before, giving a clear indication of their growth.

“Whoa, you guys are heavier now!”

-Zururu.

As I lamented their weight, the Ogong chimed in with their own warning sounds in reply, asserting they had grown heavy now too.

Having flattened out compared to before, instead of clinging tightly to my body as before, they now wrapped around my arms individually.

The last remaining one snaked around my waist, taking its position.

With their legs now sharper, I felt slight pricks as I moved, and while getting used to their weight and size, I was passing by the Clan Head Hall.

“Ha ha! See? What did I tell you?”

“Indeed! Those from the Four Heavenly Houses always know what’s up! Let’s head over to Kiru today!”

Two burly men who resembled vigilantes emerged from the Clan Head Hall, heading down the mountain with gleeful expressions, clutching rustling bags, giving off vibes of having just scored big.

Even though this was an assassination clan, such boorish fellows felt out of place here.

As I pondered this, a voice rang out from deep inside the Clan Head Hall.

“Go summon So-ryong.”