The Source of the Insects
After Dohyun and his legion tore down one stronghold, the question still had no answer while they rested in the camp.
...Something is wrong.
“Kko-kko?”
Gyetoo, who had been admiring wildflowers for a moment, lifted his head.
“What is it?”
Before ten nights had passed, the place they had cleared was already swelling with Chongyo again.
“Chongyo, many.”
He did not seem especially concerned, as if he were simply observing a natural phenomenon.
Was it always like this?
“Kill. Keep killing.”
Gyetoo’s answer was simple.
“That is how it has been done.”
Then for how long?
He paused, thought hard for a moment, then answered roughly, as though numbers were not his strength.
“Several decades?”
For a moment, Dohyun’s vision went hazy.
So you mean decades?
“Kko-kko... yes.”
He said it as if it were only natural.
“Kill, and kill again. Then they disappear.”
If it took decades, then their current method was wrong from the start.
Not merely slow.
It was wrong.
The Chongyo Tribe and the forest might have fought for a long time, but the forest seemed to know nothing at all about the Chongyo.
...Aside from this place, are there other sites like it?
He asked because there might be things Gyetoo did not know, or information Gwiwolrang had hidden.
Gyetoo seemed to search his memory at the question.
“Kko-kko...”
He rubbed at his neck with a wing, deep in thought.
Only after a long while did he finally speak.
“...Seems there are.”
Can you get information on them?
“Do not know.”
Huh?
“Kko-kko... not just Gyetoo. Other warriors too.”
Then they know the other sites?
“Gyetoo. Warrior.”
...Huh?
“Do as told.”
...No, that did not sound right.
This rooster yokai warrior seemed the quiet sort, the kind who simply did what he was told without a word.
By the time a week had passed and the final day of the expedition had come, Dohyun could not ask anything more and had no choice but to return to the Dungeon, where he fell into thought.
There is something else.
There had to be some kind of production facility, something similar to the one in his own territory.
Because they kept replenishing, there was surely a supply route.
While Dohyun studied the map, Heok-o spoke to him.
“Dragon, these days you’re getting more familiar with the outside than with your nest.”
Heok-o, where have you been?
Kwaaak~
“Just looking into a few things.”
Heok-o answered carelessly and fluttered in front of Dohyun.
“Dragon, your nest has been empty quite often lately.”
Do not worry about it.
From his conversations with Gyetoo, Dohyun had learned there was no one worth targeting the Dungeon.
Yogul.
That was the current name Dohyun used for his Dungeon, and it was known as a place under the protection of Gwiyeongmabok.
Unless the great yokai of the forest came in person, invasion would be difficult.
“Then I suppose you have a plan, Dragon.”
Yes.
“Dragon, more eyes are on you than you think.”
His voice had turned a little more serious.
“You’ve accounted for that too, haven’t you?”
I have. In any case, if they are enemies...
If they were not great yokai, then they were meaningless.
And if they were great yokai...
...stopping them is impossible.
In that case, only the last resort remained.
“Well, sounds like you’ve got a way forward.”
Ignoring Heok-o’s offhand remark, Dohyun finished building the map in his head.
Twenty sites.
Even if he drew lines between the sites and imagined their connections, no regular pattern emerged.
Feeling that something was hidden, Dohyun summoned the goblin warriors and hunters.
Track them.
As word of goblins began to spread through the forest, the threat they posed had dropped considerably.
Except for the Chongyo, that is.
He ordered the warriors and hunters to move through the forest in teams of three.
As dozens of teams were formed, they scattered into the forest.
There is definitely a clue.
The clue had already been given.
Following the twenty sites.
The likely points where replenished Chongyo strongholds were hidden had been circled many times over in Dohyun’s mind.
He still had time.
If he kept purging them every week and replenishing his forces, he would certainly...
find it.
He could keep checking while carrying out the raids.
As always, after purging two sites and leaving them completely empty, he found traces.
When he returned to the Dungeon, the first thing he saw was a wounded goblin warrior.
A makeshift leather bandage had been wrapped around his entire body.
Ki-eek...
Dohyun’s eyes twitched.
He had sent them out in teams of three, but the one who had returned was only the warrior.
The goblin warrior breathed hard.
His body trembled like a poplar in the wind.
Still, as if insisting he had something he absolutely had to report, he drew the route on the ground with his hand.
The paths they had taken.
Looking closely, the wounds on the warrior’s body were similar to the injuries they had been getting from the Chongyo they had been exterminating all this time.
With his hands and feet, the warrior reported what had happened at the destination.
The ground sank underfoot.
It was hard to breathe, he said, clutching at his throat.
They touched what guarded the place.
He mimed closing his eyes and said the companions who remained had gone somewhere they could never return from.
...The loss is heavy.
And then he realized something about the reproduction.
...So it really was there.
But...
I handled it inefficiently.
He had thought about it wrong.
...Should I have sent more warriors?
The lone surviving warrior was badly injured as well.
If he had been hurt to that extent, sending more would have been more efficient.
From now on, I’ll assign more warriors.
He looked at the warrior in front of him and said, “Take care of his injuries.”
Now that they had earned results, they had to receive reward as well.
The leader warrior stepped forward and led the injured one away.
Dohyun watched them for a moment, then turned away.
I will not repeat the same mistake.
Dohyun shouted at once.
Prepare for the expedition.
He sent orders to every corner of the Dungeon.
And then the ones made up of goblin warriors charged straight out beyond the Dungeon’s borders.
He needed a forceful reconnaissance.
...
Again, when the time came, Gyetoo came to the Dungeon’s entrance.
“Kko-kko... a little many.”
The numbers have increased a little.
He had gathered nearly a thousand.
Lately, as they hunted the local pests, the number of warriors had also grown.
There was nothing to waste on the bodies of the local pests.
The meat became nourishment for training.
The innards were used as fertilizer for the spirit-herb fields.
The carapaces were turned into all kinds of equipment.
That was how the Dungeon’s economy kept turning.
Thunk.
Three hundred warriors finished their preparations.
Hundreds of goblin warriors checked their gear.
Arm guards made from centipede shells.
Light cloaks woven from moth wings.
Ropes twisted from spider silk.
The age when they had relied only on stones was long gone.
The equipment is sufficient, and the number of pills is finally increasing in production. I should raise the proportion of warriors a bit more.
Among the more than six thousand goblins now in the Dungeon, warriors did not even make up one-seventh.
About twenty percent would be ideal.
Blood did not flow from their bodies; black mucus did.
The reason there were so few orcs, at least, was that it was difficult to replenish them through the local pests.
“Kko-kko. Where do you intend to go?”
The source.
Dohyun meant the point they had found after sending out reconnaissance teams of three.
The present.
He shared the sight sent back by ten goblin warriors and five hunters.
A black swamp, blocked off by a haze of murky black smoke.
The place where the Chongyo Tribe crawled out from.
Strangely, it could not be observed unless one entered a certain area.
Some unfamiliar law was at work.
“Kko-kko... understood.”
Without another word, he headed toward the changed objective.
The legion moved quickly, and because they were good at scouting, they soon reached the area around the target.
But then...
The forest was... silent.
There was no difference from the forest they had passed through.
At least on the surface.
Dohyun’s gaze slowly swept around the area.
The spacing of the trees.
The position of the rocks.
The rise and fall of the terrain.
Through the eyes of the other goblins, nothing seemed wrong.
But to the dragon’s eyes, it was different.
It is empty.
Only this area.
It was alien.
The flow had been severed.
As though an invisible boundary stood before him, Dohyun stopped walking.
His gaze slowly lowered.
“Kko-kko... here?”
Gyetoo wore a puzzled expression.
Dohyun focused on the absence of sound in his ears.
There were no insect cries.
Even when the wind passed by, the leaves did not stir.
It was as silent as death.
To cut off the flow.
To swallow even sound.
One thing suddenly came to him.
A formation...
A field of study called a cultivation art, one of the disciplines he had learned from human knowledge.
The boundary was clear.
The moment you cross it, everything changes.
Dohyun’s eyes finally caught it for certain.
Here.
At his words, the goblin warriors moved first, standing in a row beside him.
The moment they stepped forward, their vision changed, and the place where the advance party had been became visible.
Dohyun took one step in the same direction.
He felt as if he were passing through some kind of barrier.
Swish.
An unpleasant sensation rose from beneath his feet.
Black soil appeared before his eyes.
No, not soil.
It was rotting leaf mold.
Damply soaked and pressed down by footfalls, it looked like a swamp.
“Kko-kko!”
Gyetoo followed and his eyes widened slightly.
“...Flowers cannot bloom.”
A land shaped like a black swamp.
The air was thick with smoke, so dense it was hard to see ahead.
Poison smoke.
Everyone put on the leather masks prepared from moths.
Wriggle... wriggle...
Small larvae crawled across the ground.
Thump... thump...
Something beneath the earth pulsed like a heartbeat.
Seeing the goblin warriors and goblin hunters who had arrived first salute, Dohyun gave the order.
Dig.
At once, the warriors in the back took up their shovels and began to dig.
The swamp-like leaf mold was soft, and they tore through it in no time.
Below it...
Something that looked like flesh was revealed.
A sticky, entangled mass.
A shell.
Filled with liquid.
Eggs.
Dohyun recognized what it was.
...So this is the source.
Inside the eggs, larvae were undergoing metamorphosis.
Spiders, moths, centipedes.
Every Chongyo Tribe member they had seen all this time had been inside those eggs.
Wriggle.
The Chongyo prepared to be born from within.
The whole vast swamp.
Thump... thump...
An uncountable number of heartbeats reached Dohyun’s ears.
Dohyun’s eyes settled completely.
Found it.