Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang

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< The Delicious Death 1 >

After the Great Method concluded, I finally recalled the tasks I had been neglecting.

I needed to check on the homes of the Golden Hair Bee Kings that I had left in the hands of the Venomous Insect Team and see if the Chinese hamsters at the Venomous Insect Garden were growing well.

With the betrothal ceremony coming up, I had been busy chasing geese, and afterward, I got so caught up in the Great Method that I hadn’t even thought about it until now.

As for the Golden Hair Bee Kings, they managed just fine among themselves, so there wasn’t much for me to do except say hello. But I definitely needed to check on the Venomous Insect Garden.

‘Looks like I’ve been a bit neglectful since there’s not a single living creature in sight.’

That’s why today, I woke up early for breakfast and headed toward the Venomous Insect Garden.

“Wei So-ryong!”

I heard Gu Pae, the Deputy Commander, calling me from a distance.

Turning my head, I saw him running toward me, having tossed aside a large bag he was carrying.

“Oh, Deputy Commander Gu.”

“Did you receive the Great Method safely? I heard there was an incident and was worried!”

His worried expression was unmistakable.

That’s our Deputy Commander Gu for you.

Feeling grateful for his concern, I replied, “Thank you for worrying. There was a minor issue, but with the help of my grandfather and father-in-law, I was able to receive it well.”

“That’s a relief! So, it means the Great Method was a success!? Congratulations, Wei So-ryong!”

After exchanging greetings, my curiosity was piqued by the bag he had tossed aside, so I asked what it was.

Is it something you can just throw down anywhere?

“By the way, what’s that? Is it all right to leave it like that?”

“Oh, that? It contains food for the mice.”

So, it’s hamster food.

Since it seemed the Deputy Commander was also heading to the Venomous Insect Garden, I quickly stepped ahead of him.

“It looks like you’re going to the Venomous Insect Garden? I was planning to go there too, so let’s go together.”

“Really? Don’t you need to rest a few more days? Usually, after receiving the Great Method, you should take a break for a few days. You don’t need to worry about the Venomous Insect Garden. I’m taking good care of my duties.”

His response was reassuring and dependable.

However, it wouldn’t make sense not to be concerned about sending someone off to do the work.

“Still, is that reasonable? Besides, it’s just a quick visit.”

“Yes, well, that much is fine.”

As we walked towards the Venomous Insect Garden together, I asked him how things had been going.

I was going to check with my own eyes anyway, but a report was essential, right?

“How are the short-tailed mice doing?”

Short-tailed mice refer to the Chinese hamsters.

Upon hearing my question, Deputy Commander Gu explained the current situation.

“About forty of them have given birth, and it seems that even the first ones born are pregnant.”

Chinese hamsters are crazy breeders, coming into heat between 7 to 14 weeks after birth and giving birth in just 2 to 3 weeks.

It looked like the first litter was already getting ready to have more babies.

“The number should be just right if the mothers have had one or two litters.”

If forty have given birth, even if only six each, that would be a total of 240.

In about two months, those would start having babies too, and suddenly, there will be a thousand at once—now, the supply of Pinkies should stabilize unless the number of creatures raised increased significantly.

Just when I was nodding in satisfaction at that thought, Deputy Commander Gu followed up with a question.

“So, are we going to catch the venomous insects now!?”

His face was full of eager anticipation.

He seemed keen to fill the Venomous Insect Garden with various kinds of venomous insects.

“Well…,”

Just as I was about to answer his question while passing the entrance of the training hall, I spotted something ahead.

Focusing my eyes, I saw a small child crouched against the wall.

‘What is that? Who is it?’

There are children in the Tang Clan as well, but this part is restricted to direct descendants.

No child would come this far in, so I approached curiously and called out, “Who’s there?”

The child sprang up and ran towards me.

In an instant, the child was clinging to my leg.

“Wei So-ryong, big brother!”

“Yeo-yeong!?”

The child who had been squatting by the wall was Yeo-yeong.

Seeing her there raised questions, so I looked at Deputy Commander Gu, who explained,

“She has decided to stay with the Tang Clan for treatment for a while. Only our clan can handle poison, right? So, the Peng Clan Head asked us.”

“Then Peng Clan Head is also here?”

“He had to take care of his clan, so he left already. He did leave a few guards behind, though.”

“So, Yeo-yeong stayed behind?”

That made sense; the only place that could extract poisons from the ground was the Tang Clan.

Even if they knew the treatments, there was nowhere else other than here to carry them out.

That’s why I thought Yeo-yeong would return once I did, but it looked like she was staying longer.

“I missed you, big brother! It’s been days since I returned, why didn’t you come to see me? So today, I waited for you!”

With a gap in her front teeth and a bit of a lisp, Yeo-yeong spoke with excitement.

I looked at the Deputy Commander, questioning what she meant since she had spent all her time in the Four Harmonies Courtyard since her extended stay.

So, even though only the clan elders attended my betrothal ceremony, she wasn’t able to see me.

How poor Yeo-yeong must have felt being sick and away from her family all alone, living with guards who were like petty thieves.

Feeling guilty, I picked up Yeo-yeong and replied with an apologetic expression.

To calm her down, I decided to change the subject a bit.

“I’m sorry. Yeo-yeong, I thought you had already returned. By the way, what were you doing sitting there just now?”

She had definitely been busy doing something crouched down, so when I asked her, Yeo-yeong smiled and answered.

“I was catching click beetles!”

“Click beetles?”

Yeo-yeong’s answer about catching click beetles made me curious.

With that, she carefully pulled out a little silk pouch tied around her waist and pulled something out to place in my palm.

-Click!

At that moment, something clicked and broke in my hand.

And then something sprang up from my palm.

“Oh! This is!?”

What Yeo-yeong had placed in my palm was a click beetle.

When flipped, it makes a ‘click’ sound and jumps up, a creature known in the West as a click beetle.

Though it’s a pest that bores into potatoes or sweet potatoes, it’s familiar and adorable to children.

Seeing it reminded me of how Yeo-yeong might be going through the same stages of life as I did.

Come spring, these click beetles start to become active, and my first insect in my previous life was this one too.

Sometimes, I would find them near my home, and at night they would fly indoors. I’d catch them and keep them in matchboxes, letting them out to watch them jump and click away when I got bored.

Could this be my introductory insect on the way to becoming a spicy Fabre?

“Is this a click beetle?”

Over here, they refer to them as click beetles.

“Have you been catching this?”

“Yes! Click beetle!”

I smiled at Yeo-yeong as she nodded, and since I had also called these creatures ‘click beetles’ in my previous life, it seemed our childhood sentiments were quite similar.

It got me thinking about our commonalities.

Why does the Peng Clan end up with all those petty thief-like bodies? Because they specialize in wielding huge weapons with martial arts.

That’s why it seemed they spend much of their time on physical training, which ultimately ended up giving them bodies resembling fitness junkies.

Moreover, they only train day and night—how can a person live like that?

There should be leisure and free time, after all.

That’s when a thought crossed my mind about Yeo-yeong; maybe I should secretly teach her about insects and venom as a fun hobby, without letting the Peng Clan Head know.

‘Yeo-yeong, I shall let you join our insect and venom club!’

I wasn’t teaching her martial arts, just sharing hobby knowledge, so it wouldn’t be bad at all.

I smiled and asked Yeo-yeong, “Yeo-yeong, it seems you really like insects?”

“Yes! I love them! I like the bees too! I love click beetles as well!”

“Then, would you like to learn about insects with me? They are very special and interesting.”

“I’d love to!”

Happy, Yeo-yeong hugged me.

With a smile, I planned to check her catches first and start our first lesson.

She carried a faint earthy smell; it seemed she was repeating the mistakes I made when I was young.

‘Today, Yeo-yeong might have a tough time.’

I could already envision what would happen in the evening, but originally, every insect lover goes through this rite of passage.

I pointed at Yeo-yeong’s pouch and asked, “Yeo-yeong, can you show me that pouch?”

“Yes, big brother. You have to see my beetle! I caught this many!”

The silk pouch she pulled from her waist was handed over to me by Yeo-yeong.

With that, we headed toward the Venomous Insect Garden.

So far, there’s been nothing but the blood tree, and it wasn’t a secret area, so explaining her mistakes there would be just perfect.

Yeo-yeong wasn’t old enough to be an industrial spy.

When we arrived in the Venomous Insect Garden, I laid a piece of white paper on a large wooden platter and first poured out Yeo-yeong’s catch.

-Whoosh.

Dozens of click beetles were inside.

The flipped click beetles jumped up without hesitation.

-Click! Click!

First, I gathered the ones Yeo-yeong had dubbed click beetles and set them aside.

Then, I moved about a third of the remaining bugs to the other side.

The reason I split them like that was that although they looked very similar, they were entirely different insects.

“Yeo-yeong, look closely. The ones here are the click beetles you called.

But the ones over here are something else entirely.”

“Different?”

Yeo-yeong’s expression showed she didn’t understand as I hastily gathered the critters trying to escape in every direction.

I chuckled internally and said to her, “Yeo-yeong, why don’t you try smelling your hands?”

“My hands?”

When I said that, Yeo-yeong brought her hands to her nose.

Upon sniffing her hands, she recoiled and shouted, “Ewww! My, my hands!”

Yeo-yeong’s reaction was due to her hands smelling quite horrid.

In fact, even after washing, the smell wouldn’t come off, so Yeo-yeong probably felt like she was in for a rough time today.

She may have to get dragged into a bath by the servant girls later.

Deputy Commander Gu observed Yeo-yeong’s expression, inspecting the bugs closely, and smiled as he remarked, “This one is the Yellow Powder Bug, right? It seems the click beetle was caught along with it.”

‘A powder bug? Oh no, that name is a bit…’

Here, the brown beetle is referred to as the Yellow Powder Bug.

In my previous life, I had referred to the netizens who spammed negativity online as dung beetles, meaning they dumped dung instead of writing, but this name seems a bit harsh.

An adult may emit a slightly unpleasant smell, but the larvae and pupae are quite nutritious as a food source.

After all, this is something people can eat and is widely used as feed for insects or lizards.

Hmm, so this is the adult form of the mealworm.

Calming down the horrified Yeo-yeong, I set both insects side by side to explain.

“The click beetle has a part on its abdomen that makes a clicking sound, but the Yellow Powder Bug doesn’t, so make sure not to confuse them next time.

They may look alike, but they are easy to mix up at first glance.”

“I see. I will remember, big brother.”

Yeo-yeong looked at her hands, clearly distressed.

Yet, she couldn’t give up on her click beetles, so she quickly sorted them out and repacked them into her silk pouch.

Leaving behind the Yellow Powder Bugs, which were the mealworms, I said to Deputy Commander Gu,

“Now, the second thing we will raise here in our Venomous Insect Garden is this Yellow Powder Bug.”

The second feed needed for mass rearing.

After Pinkies, the mealworms.

These are our second breeding target in the Venomous Insect Garden.

Pinkies, mealworms, and crickets are the three essential components for breeding insects, venom, and lizards.