The Pest Beneath the Fields
“The Toryeong Juseo showed up?”
When Yoo Eunhyeon asked again, eyes wide with shock, Su Hwa-seon and Ju Yu-ryeon both pressed their lips tight and nodded.
If a Toryeong Juseo had appeared, the state of the fields suddenly made perfect sense. That they had managed to keep the damage even this contained said volumes about how hard Su Hwa-seon and Ju Yu-ryeon had been fighting it.
“Yeah. A Toryeong Juseo is a mole that tunnels through the ground and tears fields apart. That’s how it ended up like this.”
Ju Yu-ryeon bit down on her lip, voice thick with frustration.
Anyone who didn’t know better might have wondered how a mere mole could reduce martial artists—not ordinary people—to this. But the creature had not earned the grand name of Toryeong Juseo for nothing.
It was no ordinary mole. It was a kind of spiritual beast. Regular moles also ripped up soil and ruined fields, but as a spiritual creature, the Toryeong Juseo operated on an entirely different scale.
“Your father mentioned it once, didn’t he?”
At Su Hwa-seon’s question, Yoo Eunhyeon nodded.
Spiritual beasts were never easy to find, but he had heard the stories from Yoo Pyo-gyeong long ago. As a boy, his grandfather had watched a neighboring village collapse after a Toryeong Juseo appeared—an entire farming community wiped out by the creature’s hunger.
“Unlike regular moles, this one doesn’t just churn the soil. Its diet is different, so the damage is direct.”
Ordinary moles ruined crops by overturning the earth and destroying the roots of whatever had been planted. But where common moles ate underground insects and earthworms, the Toryeong Juseo was a vegetarian. It devoured the crops themselves, leaving nothing of the roots behind.
“Haa… And that’s exactly why the Jijeungsam is the problem. The other four herbs are one thing, but Jijeungsam is a type of ginseng—it grows entirely underground. There’s nothing left to save.”
Ju Yu-ryeon let out a long, heavy sigh. Su Hwa-seon laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“On top of that, Jijeungsam happens to be the rarest and most expensive of the five. It isn’t an immediate crisis, but…”
“Once a Toryeong Juseo claims a territory, it won’t leave until the place is completely destroyed.”
“That’s one problem. And even after it leaves, the land is useless for years.”
“Shouldn’t driving it out still come first?”
“If this were ordinary farming, yes. But it isn’t that simple. Lives are riding on this harvest. Considering everything the clan has already invested, walking away isn’t easy either.”
As Su Hwa-seon narrowed her eyes, Yoo Eunhyeon unconsciously mirrored the expression. Ju Yu-ryeon, watching her mother’s face, muttered under her breath.
“I’m the one managing this place, so I have to decide whether it’s possible and report back. If it isn’t, we’ll have to start a new field somewhere else… It’s driving me insane.”
“Have you tried catching it?”
“Of course I have. But like I said—it digs through the earth. Going after it directly is impossible.”
Only then did Yoo Eunhyeon understand why she looked so filthy and exhausted.
She’s been fighting this thing without proper rest. And of course she never found a real solution…
Ordinary moles sometimes surfaced and never burrowed particularly deep. The Toryeong Juseo went twice as deep and moved with frightening speed. Worse, it could sense vibrations on the surface—the moment it felt danger, it simply dug farther down and vanished.
Martial artists were still human. Underwater might have been one thing. Underground was hopeless.
“Traps were useless. We tried driving wooden boards into the ground to block it, and it just punched straight through them.”
“Spiritual beast through and through, then… Yeah, that’ll be hard.”
The measures Ju Yu-ryeon listed were the standard methods for dealing with harmful animals, and Yoo Eunhyeon knew most pests could be handled that way without much trouble. But the Toryeong Juseo was a genuine spiritual creature. Ordinary tricks would never be enough.
“What about sealing it off with iron plates?”
Yoo Eunhyeon offered the idea as it came to him. Even a spiritual mole would struggle to break through solid iron. At the very least, it would buy them time to react.
“That won’t work either. There’s a limit to how deep we can sink iron plates, and the Toryeong Juseo just goes deeper.”
“Poison?”
“Most of it doesn’t work. And if we use enough to actually hurt it, we contaminate the soil itself. Then there’s no point farming here at all.”
Yoo Eunhyeon nodded, understanding. The deeper the ground went, the more rock you hit. You could drive stakes, but laying wide iron sheets at a uniform depth was impossible. Internal energy might make it feasible, but the efficiency would be terrible—and the creature could simply go around.
“If we truly can’t solve it, we’ll have to close the fields. But Yu-ryeon and I have been throwing everything we have at this… All we can do is plant more every time something gets destroyed.”
“Just the two of you? What about everyone else? You said this was critical—and it’s only the two of you handling it?”
“We’re the only ones who were properly trained in farming. Bringing outsiders in would mean exposing a family secret, so we couldn’t open this place up. We were still turning that problem over when… well. You arrived.”
Yoo Eunhyeon scratched the back of his head, looking far from confident. From everything he’d heard so far, he had no idea how he was supposed to catch the thing.
“Even if we somehow force it out into the open, could we actually take it down? It’s a spiritual beast—it’ll be strong, right?”
He asked with genuine worry. Su Hwa-seon and Ju Yu-ryeon both snorted out a laugh.
“Once it’s on the surface, beating it to death is the easy part. Do you even know where you are? If any other spiritual beast crawled into the clan grounds, its body would end up as restorative soup and its core as an energy-boosting elixir. Of all the things that could have shown up, it had to be a Toryeong Juseo. That’s why we’re in this mess.”
“Yu-ryeon’s right. Just get it out of the ground. I’ll catch it myself and turn it into mole stew.”
Listening to the two women grind their teeth, Yoo Eunhyeon could only hum in sympathy. Those few sentences alone made clear just how thoroughly the Toryeong Juseo had tormented them.
“I’ll start by observing it, then. I need to look things over before any answers show up…”
“Mm. That makes sense. Perfect timing, Yu-ryeon. Rest for real this time. U-hui’s back, so go see your mother. If Eunhyeon can’t solve this, bringing in any other farming expert won’t make a difference. We can rethink things then.”
“Yeah… If you think of it as showing Uncle Dong-gi, that tracks. All right. Eunhyeon—I’m counting on you. You too, Auntie.”
Apparently Su Hwa-seon’s reasoning had landed. Ju Yu-ryeon’s energy drained away at once. She left the request with Yoo Eunhyeon, turned on unsteady feet, and staggered off somewhere.
Watching her go, Yoo Eunhyeon felt a sudden flicker of unease and turned to his mother.
“Please tell me that won’t be me in a few days.”
“I believe in my son.”
“Not like I can dump this on anyone else… Fine. I understand.”
For all his lack of confidence, genuine interest was already stirring in him. He still remembered, clear as day, the stories Yoo Pyo-gyeong had told him about the Toryeong Juseo when he was small.
When else would someone like him ever get to see a spiritual beast? And not just any spiritual beast—a mole spirit that every farmer would count as a mortal enemy.
Surveying the situation only needed one person, so Yoo Eunhyeon claimed the room at the back of the storehouse where Ju Yu-ryeon had been staying and settled in.
“You should head back too, Mother. It’s comfortable enough here.”
“Honestly. One night sleeping next to your mother and you’re already trying to live alone again? Mother is hurt.”
“This is the clan compound. It’s basically the same as being under one roof. What’s there to be sad about? You can see me whenever you want.”
“What a cold-hearted child. Is there anything I can help with?”
“Could you assign me someone who knows the herb fields well? I don’t have the full layout yet. I want to walk everything and try a few things.”
“Mother can show you herself. I’m only still here because of this mess. It’s been twenty years since I left the main house—there’s nothing else for me to do.”
On second thought, having Su Hwa-seon beside him made more sense than being paired with a stranger—especially if she wasn’t particularly busy. Yoo Eunhyeon nodded.
“All right. But no nagging while I’m working.”
“Listen to you. When have I ever interrupted you or complained while you were working?”
“Fair enough. You haven’t.”
In truth, Su Hwa-seon only teased him when they were resting at home. She had never once gotten in the way of actual work.
And so Yoo Eunhyeon’s campaign against the Toryeong Juseo began.
He had never been particularly confident about the job, so he decided not to rush. He took his time walking the entire herb garden.
“It’s definitely wrecked. And not by anything natural—something deliberate has been at work here.”
Guided by Su Hwa-seon, Yoo Eunhyeon surveyed the fields and muttered to himself. Natural disasters never left damage that looked like this.
Earthquakes, typhoons, floods—those operated on different scales, and they never destroyed without also improving something in return. That was the logic and flow of nature. The Toryeong Juseo’s damage was mindless, without pattern or rule.
“You could call this a kind of natural disaster too, I suppose… but the grain of it is completely different. And looking at this, I still have no idea where to start. What now…”
He sank into thought for a moment, then finished whatever calculation he was running and stood up abruptly. Su Hwa-seon asked,
“Did you think of something good?”
“Not at all. But I can’t leave the fields like this. I need to see exactly how the damage is being done before I can do anything about it.”
“Yu-ryeon kept records, didn’t she?”
“I have to see and feel it myself. Some work you can do from documents. Some you can’t.”
“Is that so? Do as you like.”
Su Hwa-seon apparently had no intention of second-guessing whatever he decided. She simply nodded and said nothing more.
For the next three days or so, Yoo Eunhyeon threw himself into restoring the fields with Su Hwa-seon at his side.
Plenty of servants were available to help. The land was flat rather than mountainous, and though the herb garden was broad, it was less than half the size of the mountain plots he usually managed. The work itself was not difficult. He planted new herbs, tended what was already growing, and began reworking everything around the fields as well.
“The surroundings have changed a lot since Father last worked on them. That tree needs to come down, and we should plant a new one here. Block the side window on this side, open one over there, and put a new vent through here…”
The servants eyed Yoo Eunhyeon with open skepticism as he ran about giving orders. But Su Hwa-seon—and Ju Yu-ryeon, who had returned fully rested—were handing him complete authority, so there was little the servants could say.
“He looks like he’s enjoying himself.”
“He’s been doing this since the day he was born. Honestly, I don’t understand any of what he’s doing right now. Do you?”
“Not even a little. I have no idea what logic he’s following, but every result comes out better, so I can’t really complain. Then again… Uncle used to be the same way.”
“According to Eunhyeon, logic only gets you so far. Once you’ve armed yourself with it, you sometimes feel something that goes beyond it…”
“Huh? What is that even supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know either. He’s my son and I’ve watched him for twenty years, and sometimes I still wonder if he’s right in the head.”
Hearing them whisper, Yoo Eunhyeon dusted the dirt from his hands and walked over.
“That’s what it means to be an ordinary person.”
“With results like this, there’s nothing I can say back.”
Ju Yu-ryeon frowned slightly at his words. Su Hwa-seon only shrugged, long since used to it.
“I may not understand it, but my son has never once failed at anything related to farming. He’ll handle this just fine.”