Poisoning 1
“Kuhehehehe… You really do love poisonous creatures that much. Truly a wish befitting you.”
Shintu, who had been staring at Geolhwang’s laughter with a question mark on his face, finally grasped the situation and his eyes flew wide open.
Then he shouted at me.
“Don’t tell me you want the eggs of the Heavenly Silkworm?!”
Shintu looked at me with an utterly dumbfounded expression.
When he demanded confirmation again, I nodded clearly so he would understand exactly and answered.
“Yes, Elder. All three of them. And what a splendid name—Heavenly Silkworm. Heavenly Silkworm…”
A silkworm descended from heaven… Well, they did fall right into my lap from the sky, so the name fits perfectly.
At my continued answer, Shintu turned to Geolhwang with a blank look, clearly hoping for some help. But the moment Geolhwang saw that face, he burst into roaring laughter, clutching his belly and rolling on the ground.
One of the greatest elders of the Murim, yet he clearly cared nothing for dignity. Then again, he was a beggar—and somehow that was part of his charm.
“Kuhehe… Look at that face! The greatest thief in the Central Plains getting robbed by a bandit. Kuhehe…”
Geopbi was the Central Plains word for bandit. So Geolhwang meant that I was currently mugging Shintu.
A day-robber, was that the idea?
Hey, day-robber? That hurts! I’ve already heard how several of them starved to death because he couldn’t even feed them. Strictly speaking, this is animal rescue—no, poisonous creature rescue.
Being called a bandit was just unfair. I was practicing poisonous-creature rescue with a philanthropic heart, after all. Hadn’t he said several of the moth larvae had already died because he failed to feed them? That disqualified him as an owner; confiscation was only proper. That was pure poisonous-creature abuse!
Absolutely. An owner who can’t even feed them has no right to be an owner.
I stared at Shintu with a look that said, Hurry up and hand them over—I can’t wait to see what kind of eggs pop out.
Then the voice transmission of Grandfather Mandok Singun arrived.
[To see that old man make a face like that… Well done, So-ryong! Snatch them all clean away! Hahaha.]
I beamed at the thought of obtaining the Heavenly Silkworm eggs. Geolhwang beamed watching me and Shintu. Grandfather Mandok Singun beamed at Shintu’s expression. Everyone was happy except Shintu.
Startled, Shintu even stammered as he cried out.
“Y-you there! Did you properly hear me say I need the silk the Heavenly Silkworm produces? If you take those, what am I supposed to do?! They’re my sacred treasures!”
“Is that not allowed? You clearly said that if I captured Shintu, you would grant any wish… and just now you said that since I captured your disciple, you would grant any wish.”
“W-well, that is…”
He seemed not to have heard the part about giving the cocoons; bound by his own words, he floundered under my question. Beside him, Geolhwang cheerfully piled on.
“I heard what that fellow said, so don’t you worry, So-ryong. This Geolhwang will guarantee it.”
“Big Brother! Whose side are you on?!”
Shintu wore an aggrieved look, but Geolhwang shouted “Gal!” and took my side.
“Gal! You brat! Sides… An elder of the Murim like me must be impartial. Didn’t you yourself say with your own mouth that you would grant anything?”
“Kkeuk…”
Afraid Shintu might actually start crying, I decided to explain calmly step by step. He really did look on the verge of tears.
A full-grown adult about to blubber over a few eggs…
“Elder Shintu, please listen carefully to my explanation first. I am not saying I will simply snatch them from you by force. Did you not tell me yourself that you need to draw out the Heavenly Silkworm’s silk in order to obtain the Heavenly Silk you use as a sacred treasure?”
“Th-that’s right. That’s why I asked how I could possibly give them to you.”
“Yes. But I wonder how much you know about silkworms. Do you realize that once you draw the silk from a silkworm, the silkworm inevitably dies?”
Sericulture was an extremely ancient industry. According to materials I had researched in my previous life when explaining moths—one type of poisonous creature—speculation placed its beginning around 2500 B.C. It was widely believed to have started with the wild silkworm moth (Bombyx mandarina Butler), a pest of mulberry trees, and continued through domestication to the present day…
The problem was that while silkworms had grown docile and cute through breeding, the method of harvesting silk had remained unchanged for twenty-five hundred years. The reason I wanted the eggs from Shintu was only partly greed for a poisonous creature. The greatest reason was species preservation, wasn’t it?
Truly, my personal desire is very small…
As I had said, the silkworm inevitably died in the process of obtaining the silk. A fully grown silkworm larva extruded silk from the spinneret beneath its mouth to form an oval cocoon for metamorphosis; that silk became the raw material for silk fabric. But to draw the silk from the cocoon, one had to place the cocoon in boiling water and stir it with something like chopsticks. Only then would the end of the silk the larva had first spun catch on the chopsticks, allowing the thread to be reeled off—the traditional and still-current method.
The issue was that it was essentially boiling the cocoon, so the larva died inside without ever metamorphosing into a moth. Of course, since the Heavenly Silkworm was a spiritual creature, the silk itself would certainly differ, but the proteins maintaining the cocoon’s form would not be greatly different, so the method would be much the same.
Shintu nodded at my question, having heard that much.
“Yes, I heard that from the master silk craftsmen.”
“Exactly. Ordinarily one boils them in water to draw the silk.”
There was a reason this method had been handed down. Remarkably, silkworm silk was one hundred percent protein, composed of two proteins: fibroin and sericin. Fibroin was the thread itself; sericin was the glue that held the threads together to form the cocoon. Because that glue, sericin, dissolved readily in hot water, this method came into use—melting the glue and leaving only the pure silk to harvest.
One might ask why not simply wait for the moth to emerge and tear the cocoon before drawing the silk, but then the threads on the torn side would inevitably break, so the method had solidified in order to obtain the longest possible continuous filament. Thus the pupae sold in my previous life’s Korea were the corpses of silkworms left after the silk had been reeled in boiling water—tragic traces of pitiful silkworms that met a miserable end.
“Then doesn’t a precious spiritual creature die?”
“No—if you don’t kill it you can’t draw the silk. So what am I supposed to do?”
This man is basically subjecting the silkworms to the ancient punishment of being boiled alive…
It was no different from the ancient penalty of boiling a person to death, yet Shintu failed to see the problem. Setting that aside, I decided to correct his shortsighted way of thinking.
“Ahem, you stand at a very great crossroads right now and don’t even realize it.”
“A crossroads?”
“Yes. You said only three eggs remain. I don’t know how much silk you need, but the amount of cocoon you can obtain from three creatures is only three cocoons. What do you intend to do afterward?”
“Afterward?”
Shintu blinked at my question. I smiled and continued.
“Let’s say, fortunately, that the amount of silk from three cocoons is not small and you pass it on to your disciple. Then what about your disciple’s disciple? And that disciple’s disciple’s disciple? Your disciple’s disciple will probably become a Shintu without a sacred treasure.”
“Haaak! Th-that’s right!”
Only then did he recognize the problem; Shintu’s eyes went wide like a rabbit’s. He had not realized it, but as a master he not only had to obtain Heavenly Silk immediately—he also had to raise the Heavenly Silkworms and secure eggs for the next generation. For the sake of the successors. I did not know the durability of the silk, but otherwise the next Shintu would definitely be a Shintu without a sacred treasure.
“Th-then what do I do?!”
His voice grew urgent as he finally grasped the situation.
Almost there. Why is it that whenever poisonous creatures are involved, my IQ seems to skyrocket?
Strangely, anything connected to poisonous creatures made my IQ soar like a cockroach facing a survival crisis. I explained smoothly to the Thief King.
“That’s why I’m asking for the eggs. Capture a pair, raise the Heavenly Silkworms, collect eggs, and increase their numbers—wouldn’t that help the next generation of Shintu and the generation after that? From what I’ve heard, Elder Shintu keeps no fixed residence and roams the Central Plains like the wind. Do you have a place where you can secretly increase the Heavenly Silkworms? It might take years or even longer. Even if you leave it to others because you cannot do it yourself, can you trust them? And what about the success rate?”
Keeping a secret required power, and the place that possessed that power was our Sacheon Tang Clan. We would end up sharing the Heavenly Silk, but Shintu would be able to resupply Heavenly Silk whenever he needed it, and our Sacheon Tang Clan would obtain both Heavenly Silk and the poisonous creature known as the Heavenly Silkworm—a win-win for both sides.
Honestly this shouldn’t even count as a wish; I’m being extremely generous.
As if making a decision, Shintu let out a long breath and looked at me with a serious expression utterly different from before.
“Can you truly succeed?”
He seemed a little worried, but the line that came out at moments like this was naturally fixed.
“Elder, have you ever heard the word ‘expert’?”
“Expert?”
“Expert—jeon, mun, ga. A family or person who pours everything into one single field and becomes thoroughly proficient in it. For example, the Sacheon Tang Clan can be called experts in poison.”
“Oho… And?”
“The moment I became the live-in son-in-law of the Sacheon Tang Clan, the Sacheon Tang Clan became experts in both poison and poisonous creatures. Without me, obtaining Heavenly Silkworms would be impossible.”
At my confident words the elders of the family and Geolhwang nodded with pleased smiles. And at my confident remark, Hwa-eun’s mouth hung half-open and refused to close.
Kyaa. That younger-man look that triggers protective instincts, yet every so often this expert aura peeks out. Amazing!
Just as I thought I had appealed to Hwa-eun’s charm again today, I felt a gaze. When I turned my head, Shintu wore the exact same expression as Hwa-eun.
Hey, old man, you hold it in too.
It was a truly burdensome gaze.
“Very well. Here they are.”
Clack.
Shintu seemed hotter-tempered than I expected; once his mind was made up, he wordlessly took a fairly large medicine box from his robes and set it on the table.
Sssk.
Whether he used internal energy or not, the box slid straight toward me. With trembling hands I opened the lid; inside were three eggs the size of ping-pong balls.
“Ooooh, these are—!”
Crazy! Why are they so huge?!
Judging by the size of the eggs, the adults would be no joke. Rough calculation put the adult moths at least the size of a human head—or even a torso.
[So-ryong?!]
At the sudden voice transmission from Hwa-eun I came to my senses and realized I was unconsciously rubbing an egg against my cheek. Startled, I set the egg down and returned to solemn, serious mode.
“Ahem. The eggs were so beautiful I briefly lost… Ah, would you also give me the dead ones? They’ll provide information for gauging what sort of creatures they are.”
“R-really? You can tell that much even from insect corpses? H-here they are.”
I emptied the small pouch that slid toward me; out tumbled seven pitiful silkworms. Their pure-white bodies had shriveled, yet they were still quite cute and slender little things.
Let’s see. Hmm? They have an osmeterium?
An osmeterium was a horn-like organ found on some butterfly larvae that popped out when touched and emitted a foul odor. I was marveling that moth larvae possessed one when Grandfather’s voice transmission arrived.
[So-ryong, now that I think about it, we ought to put that old man to work. Tell him you can’t help him right away.]
Tell him I couldn’t help immediately—Grandfather’s message. Pretending to examine the dead Heavenly Silkworms, I rolled my eyes toward Grandfather, and he spoke again.
[We have to go to the Murim Alliance, yet that fellow delayed us by three whole days. So he must take responsibility. With Elder Geolhwang here, if you mention it he will certainly help. It’s an important matter for the Murim. Bring it up.]
I myself had already decided not to go, but it was true the others’ journey had been delayed. Nodding at Grandfather’s words, I tucked the medicine box and the Heavenly Silkworm corpses into my pouch.
“Ahem… I see…”
“Did you discover something?!”
When I floated the impression that I had found something out, Shintu asked urgently. Following Grandfather’s cue, I spoke in a regretful tone.
“No. I’ll examine them thoroughly later, but it seems I won’t be able to help you right away.”
“Huh? Wh-what do you mean, you! I already gave you the Heavenly Silkworms you asked for, and now—!”
To the angrily shouting Shintu I explained the circumstances as Grandfather had hinted.
“The truth is, because Elder sent that letter, we have to go to the Murim Alliance, yet we’ve already been delayed three days.”
“The Murim Alliance?”
At the words “Murim Alliance,” even Geolhwang focused on my story. When I explained what we had experienced in Yunnan and why we had to go to the Murim Alliance, Geolhwang shot to his feet.
“Something like that happened?!”
“Yes. So we must urgently report the Blood Cult’s affairs, yet Elder Shintu’s letter has delayed us several days…”
“Then this is no time for this! I already knew that people and warriors of the Murim Alliance had crossed the Yunnan border searching for the Blood Cult’s stronghold. And they all died?!”
Geolhwang smacked Shintu on the back.
Smack!
“Kkeuk! Hey, why are you hitting my back?!”
“It’s delayed because of you, isn’t it?! As soon as your disciple’s body recovers, take So-ryong and the Beast Palace’s daughter and leave for Wuhan! With you it won’t even take three days!”
“Eii, if it’s Murim business I suppose I have no choice but to help. Fine. Round trip in ten days should be plenty. I’ll take responsibility for getting to Wuhan and back, so you just focus on those Heavenly Silkworms without worry.”
From here to Wuhan in three days?!
Along with the three Heavenly Silkworm eggs, I had just obtained a free Murim bullet-taxi voucher.