The Ant Mill
The lord and elders of the Beast Palace froze as they stared at the blocked escape route at the entrance of Beast Valley.
It wasn't so much that the path of retreat had been sealed—it was the sight of the elephant melting away that had left them all in shock.
An elephant that feared not even a tiger, shrieking madly for help. Watching it vanish as if snow were melting into the earth was a horror they had never witnessed, never even imagined.
So the elders and the Beast Palace Lord gathered at the entrance could only stare blankly at the swarm of demonic ants sealing the way.
In that moment, they spotted the spider climbing the cliff, and the panicked faces of the young hero and the Tang Family's young lady.
For a brief instant, the climbing spider seemed to offer hope—but even with its aid, they would have to abandon all their beasts. Few in the Beast Palace would choose that path if it meant forsaking the animals they treated as their own children and siblings.
Moreover, the young hero and the Tang Family's daughter had come as complete strangers to warn them of danger. They could hardly ask more of them. More people would only slow the escape, and if their benefactors might be put at risk, it seemed right to let them leave freely.
Then the young hero approached carefully and spoke unexpected words—not a farewell, but something entirely different.
"Um... there's a way for everyone to survive. Would you hear me out?"
"A way for everyone to live!?"
"Of course."
Upon hearing the young hero's proposal, the Beast Palace Lord quickly summoned all the elders back to the Lord's Hall to seek their counsel.
"...That is what he says. What do the elders think?"
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Beast Palace Lord Maeng Ho finished speaking as he drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair. The sound of his anxious tapping echoed loudly through the quiet Lord's Hall.
"He is a righteous man, true enough, but he is still a young hero. I worry whether following his counsel is the right choice. In other matters, perhaps—but when the Palace itself faces annihilation..."
Chief Elder Cheong-ung trailed off at Maeng Ho's question.
Thinking of the demonic ants they had seen under the moonlight, the Beast Palace now faced the crisis of total destruction. In such a situation, following a young hero's opinion was, as he said, quite the gamble. The young hero was simply too young to follow blindly—and beyond knowing he was the Tang Family's live-in son-in-law, they knew nothing of what kind of person he truly was.
Then his daughter Seolpyo's voice rang out.
"Palace Lord—no, Father. When it comes to beasts, we may know better. But when it comes to poisonous creatures, isn't it already well known that the Sichuan Tang Family knows far more than we do?"
"That is true."
"On the way back, I asked Young Lady Hwa-eun, the Tang Family Head's daughter, and she said something hard to believe. She said they took him as a live-in son-in-law because they recognized his talent for handling poisonous creatures."
His daughter, who had initially been more suspicious of the young hero than anyone, now seemed to support him more than anyone.
"The Sichuan Tang Family recognized his talent for handling poisonous creatures?"
They had thought him a peculiar young hero for traveling with mysterious poisonous beasts—yet the Tang Family itself had acknowledged his skill with them. As Beast Palace Lord Maeng Ho looked astonished, his daughter seemed to recall something further.
"Yes. According to Young Lady Hwa-eun, he is some kind of... expert? Something like that."
"An expert?"
"Yes. Someone exceptionally skilled in a particular field, she said? He's handled quite a few matters related to insects, and even if you can't believe all of that—looking at the poisonous creatures he keeps, it's clear he knows things we don't. So I think giving him a chance isn't a bad idea. He probably knows more about insects than anyone here right now."
Indeed, if the Sichuan Tang Family had taken him as a live-in son-in-law based solely on his talent with poisonous creatures, it was a trustworthy account. And his daughter continued.
"And I don't know about anything else, but the young hero could have fled to safety himself, yet he said he would stake his own life. Doubting that hardly seems the proper way. You always told the people of our Beast Palace to keep these words in your hearts—surely none of you have forgotten?"
"Crow's Filial Return—repaying the grace of one's parents?"
"Yes. Even crows bring food back to the parents who raised them. How could we doubt the young hero who is willing to risk his life? He has shown us grace—now it is the Beast Palace's turn to answer."
"But what if he fails..."
The chief elder voiced one last anxiety at the daughter's words, but Beast Palace Lord Maeng Ho rose from his seat and roared to the elders.
"If the young hero fails, the Beast Palace will be buried in Beast Valley alongside our benefactor. But if he succeeds, the Beast Palace will have gained a benefactor and hero who saved us from annihilation... Prepare according to the young hero's orders!"
"We receive your command!"
"We receive your command!"
At the Beast Palace Lord's order, the elders led the Beast Palace warriors and raced toward the entrance where the young hero waited.
"So-ryong, are you confident?"
My older sister asked with an anxious look as she gazed at the brightening sky.
I scratched my head as I answered. Honestly, if she asked whether I was confident, I wasn't sure. I knew it could be done experimentally, and I remembered the materials, but there were no army ants in my country, so I had never actually done it myself.
"W-well..."
Then my older sister grabbed both my shoulders, shoved me back against a rock, and pleaded.
"So-ryong, please stop joking and just say you're confident."
Wall slam? Whoa.
My sister's intense presence. But her face was so desperate that I answered as she demanded.
"I-I'm confident. And don't worry. Yo-hwa will protect me."
My sister seemed frightened that her husband-to-be had to risk his life. Putting her mind at ease was my duty, wasn't it?
Once I had reassured her, Yo-hwa's voice came from above my head. Apparently she was answering because her name had come out of my mouth.
-Kishit!
-Tseureureureu!
-Ggukku!
And from my sister's shoulders, the Ohgong and the lizards gave energetic cries as if telling me to come back safely.
Then my sister looked at me and spoke with a frustrated air.
"I thought having an outstanding husband would be wonderful, but it isn't! Having to wait like this with my heart in my throat..."
She seemed upset that there was nothing she could do to help. I hugged her tightly, and she whispered into my chest.
"So-ryong, you absolutely must not get hurt. If you get hurt, I'll scold you—understand..."
If my sister scolded me, it would be more like a reward than a scolding, but I nodded at her words. Then the sound of a double-reed horn began from the entrance.
-Buuuuuung.
And the sound of ants surging forward as they began their activity.
-Tseureureureureu!
The moment to deal with the army ants had begun.
-Tseureureu.
Two days after the elephant fell, the moment morning broke, a wave of demonic ants came surging with that bone-chilling sound. Just as the young hero had said, the ones with massive jaws at the front came clacking forward.
Looking to the side, a Beast Palace disciple stared ahead with a face full of fear. The fellow glanced around with terror written all over him.
Is he afraid?
It was a fight against an enemy they had never faced, and word of the elephant's fall two days prior had spread—so of course the Beast Palace disciples were afraid. They had always known the elephant as the strongest of beasts, so it was understandable.
But lest any break ranks from sheer terror, Maeng Ho poured internal energy into his deep, resonant voice and roared.
"Disciples of the Beast Palace—hold your ground like Mount Tai!"
"""Yes!"""
As Maeng Ho thus disciplined the disciples and looked to the opposite side to confirm the young hero's signal, he caught sight of the young hero calmly watching the front.
Far younger than the disciple who had caught his eye moments ago, yet never taking his eyes off the enemy. Truly a young hero he coveted. He didn't know the young hero's abilities, but that bearing alone made him a talent worth coveting. He found himself naturally understanding the Tang Family Head's decision to offer his daughter—when the sound of the demonic ants flooding in filled his ears.
-Swaaaaah.
Soon the wave of demonic ants pouring from the entrance of Beast Valley reached within thirty feet, and it felt as though they were about to spill out of the gourd-bottle mouth. From the young hero watching the front, the long-awaited signal finally burst forth.
"Now!"
"Now!"
-Hwagreureureuk.
At the same moment as the young hero's cry, Maeng Ho roared with internal energy, and flames blazed up. Fire that began at the edge of the entrance raced along the canyon walls and sealed the entrance of Beast Valley—where the wave of demonic ants was pouring from—with a wall of flame.
-Hwagreureuk.
-Kiiiieeek. Kiii!
The demonic ants screaming as they burned at the Beast Valley entrance. But the ants still pouring through the long entrance of Beast Valley did not stop. The young hero's next cry followed as he watched.
"The water buffalo!"
"Send in the water buffalo!"
-Dudududu.
-Kwajik! Kwadeuk!
At the young hero's cry, the water buffalo charged into the canyon entrance, and along the path of demonic ants crushed under their hooves, the Beast Palace beasts and disciples charged into the canyon mouth.
"Leave not a single one, as the young hero said!"
"Uwaaaaaah!"
Fire alone could not completely stop the demonic ants. The Beast Palace didn't have that much oil, and the rainy season had only just ended, so it wasn't a season when fire caught well. So what the young hero had asked of the Beast Palace was one thing.
The demonic ants operated a hunting party at the front—split that hunting party with fire and annihilate them before the flames died. Charging with water buffalo and following behind to mop up the scattered ones—as the young hero said, it wasn't difficult. Each individual demonic ant wasn't particularly strong.
So they stomped the heads of those hook-jawed giants to pieces or smashed them with clubs as they advanced—until before they knew it, they reached the flames. Their bodies were covered in ant fluids and a stinging stench, and beyond the dying flames, an endless wave of scarlet ants stretched all the way up the hill.
"P-Palace Lord."
Arriving before the flames and confirming the sight of the scarlet ant swarm, the disciples looked at him with fearful faces. Maeng Ho ordered them.
"Fall back to the second entrance as the young hero said. Gather the wounded and injured beasts, and throw as many of the demonic ants as you can into the flames!"
"Yes! Palace Lord!"
Maeng Ho, the disciples, and the elders quickly gathered the wounded beasts and disciples, hurled the crushed demonic ants around them into the fire, and withdrew.
Then, contrary to the Beast Palace disciples who had been waiting and now withdrew, the young hero approached the flames. As they fell back, Maeng Ho enhanced his vision and looked at the young hero—who stood calmly before the fire and, at the entrance where the flames had completely died, began throwing rocks at the demonic ants.
"Come on! Over here! Right here!"
As if taunting them, he threw rocks at the ants to lure them. The demonic ants that had hesitated at the extinguished fire seemed angered by the young hero's pebbles and soon began chasing him—and what followed was the bizarre sight of a small young hero racing ahead, drawing thousands, tens of thousands of red demonic ants behind him.
Looking as though he might be swallowed by the red wave at any moment, the precarious figure of the young hero running ahead of the ants continued.
"Th-that!"
"He's going to get caught like that!"
The anguished voices of the Beast Palace people watching the young hero. Beside them, the Tang Family's young lady clenched both fists, her heart in her throat.
-Swaaaaah!
When the young hero had circled about halfway through the first meadow, the chief elder wiped off ant fluids and asked.
"Will it go as the young hero said?"
"We'll have to watch and see."
It was when the young hero had, by a hair's breadth, led the ants completely around the first gourd-bottle circle. The column of ants pouring from the entrance and the front of the ants he had led began to merge. And the young hero, mixed into the ant swarm, seemed to leap up with light-foot technique a few times—then vanished.
The young hero was completely swallowed into the ant swarm.
Beside him, the Tang Family young lady's cry burst out like a wail.
"So-ryong! So- So-ryong!"
"That young hero!"
Forgetting even the young hero's absolute instruction not to come toward him, Maeng Ho nearly charged out at once.
Then—
-Puhwak!
Something shot up from within the ant swarm and was hauled up onto a pointed rock in the middle of the meadow. What came into view was the young hero's face, comically peeling ants off himself. The young hero, his waist bound by the spider's thread, was being pulled up onto the rock.
And just as the young hero had said, the ants entering the first circle of the gourd-bottle began biting one another's tails and slowly rotating within the bottle, gathering speed.
-Swaaaaaah.
"Ow ow ow..."
-Kwadeuk.
I crushed the head of the medium-sized ant biting me and threw it down.
-Kishit!
Then Yo-hwa got angry that I'd been bitten by an ant, even though I was the one who was hurt. I spoke to Yo-hwa with a put-upon expression.
"Even if you don't say anything, I'm going to get scolded by my sister again."
My sister had said she'd scold me if I got hurt—and when I joined the ant swarm after circling the first ring of the gourd-bottle, I'd slipped on ant fluids and gotten buried under the swarm. Fortunately I'd tied Yo-hwa's spider silk around my waist and left Cho perched on her shoulder in case of just such a situation—otherwise I might have become a meatball. Cho had signaled Yo-hwa at my voice and pulled me up right away, so it was fine—but I'd come dangerously close to real disaster.
I'd used the Iron Safe Technique so I wasn't badly hurt, but I was still a bit stingy and prickly all over.
I lay sprawled on the rock and looked down.
The army ants whirling madly across the vast circular meadow. Ants kept pouring in from the entrance, but they just kept spinning in their circle.
The abnormal phenomenon army ants experience when cut off from their hunting party while nearly blind. That was an ant mill. In murim terms—the Demonic Ant Ring!
Army ants can't see ahead and run relying solely on the hunting party's pheromones. So when the leading hunting party disappears and only the small-to-medium workers emitting the advance signal remain, they sometimes end up like that. I had artificially eliminated the hunting party to create this.
They would now run until they dropped dead. That was the death spiral of the ants—the ant mill.
Farewell, you lot.
I quietly offered a prayer for the ones racing toward death.