The Pest That Hates Wet Earth
Yoo Eunhyeon’s work restoring the field stretched on for more than half a day after that. When he finally paused to catch his breath, certain the worst of it was done, Su Hwa-seon approached and asked,
“What do you think will happen from here?”
“Hard to say. If it’s just about putting the field back together, it’s only a matter of time… but that thing will be back soon enough, won’t it?”
Yoo Eunhyeon surveyed the rows with a sour edge to his voice. Knowing full well the place was about to become a disaster zone again made the whole effort feel strangely pointless.
“In my experience, it’ll show within five days.”
“Once it does, we take a good look. We might be able to pin something down.”
With that, he turned and headed back into the field. Su Hwa-seon and Ju Yu-ryeon both knew there was little else they could do, so they left it at that.
Three more days passed. Yoo Eunhyeon practically lived out among the rows, all but camping in the herb garden.
Ju Yu-ryeon seemed busier than expected; after leaving the field in his hands she rarely managed to visit. Su Hwa-seon claimed nothing particular was wrong, but her position meant she was constantly being called away.
“Weather’s perfect.”
Yoo Eunhyeon stood on a rise that commanded a full view of the herb garden, reading the overall flow of the land. Not a cloud marred the brilliant blue sky—the kind of dazzling, clear day a farmer loves most. He squinted up at it and muttered,
“!!”
A sudden prick of sensation spun his head around. The currents of energy he had so carefully woven through the field—the natural flows he had guided so the crops would thrive—were breaking apart.
“Of course. Weather this fine would get the Toryeong Juseo moving.”
It was a motion that gnawed artificially at nature’s course, yet it was not the blatant, man-made unnaturalness of a human hand. It was the peculiar, almost-natural-but-not-quite quality unique to an animal.
Yoo Eunhyeon headed straight for the patch of jukwanhwa.
As he drew near the planted flowers, the earth heaved and more than a dozen jukwanhwa already lay toppled, roots exposed. The Toryeong Juseo was clearly beneath that thrashing soil. The moment he approached, however, the ground went still. It had already fled.
“Sensitive and fast… catching it head-on really is going to be a stretch.”
He had rushed over, so of course the creature had felt the vibration through the earth and bolted.
Since it was gone for the time being, Yoo Eunhyeon set about gathering the uprooted jukwanhwa. Leaving them scattered like that was something no farmer could abide.
Judging by the fact that roughly ten stalks had been ruined in that brief span, the beast could reduce an entire field to ruin in less than a day.
“Well? Did it come?”
Ju Yu-ryeon appeared while he worked and called out. Yoo Eunhyeon simply gestured at the ransacked flowers as if to say, See for yourself.
“As you can see.”
“Huh? That’s all the damage?”
“I felt the disturbance and ran over the second it started.”
“How?”
“How? Exactly what I said.”
Yoo Eunhyeon answered as if the question itself made no sense, only for Ju Yu-ryeon to give him the same incredulous look right back.
“I mean how did you sense it? Don’t tell me you can feel the Toryeong Juseo coming through the vibrations in the ground too?”
“Nothing that impressive. I just felt the field’s flow getting tangled and came.”
Watching him speak of it as though it were nothing special, Ju Yu-ryeon murmured in a daze,
“You can feel that? How does that even work?”
“Uh… just a feeling?”
He gave the vague reply and finished sorting the jukwanhwa. Explaining further would have been useless anyway; this was something only Yoo Eunhyeon could do.
“If the damage stays this light, maybe we can just leave it alone?”
“You want me to stay here permanently? That’s not going to work.”
“Mm… fair point. Still, this is a big harvest, isn’t it? We’ve never even laid eyes on the Toryeong Juseo ourselves.”
“Catching it would be the real harvest. No matter how quickly I notice it, it runs too fast.”
“Maybe because it’s some kind of rat? Haha. What if you approach more slowly next time?”
“I could get closer without being spotted, sure… but the herbs would be shredded by then.”
“They’re getting shredded either way. As long as we can catch that damn thing, short-term losses don’t matter.”
She had a point—catching it took priority over minimizing damage—so Yoo Eunhyeon had to concede.
“All right. We’ll restore everything first, then try a slower approach.”
Together they put the field back in order, and Yoo Eunhyeon returned to the high ground from which he had been watching earlier.
The Toryeong Juseo showed itself again the following day. Once more Yoo Eunhyeon felt the energy fray and began closing in with every scrap of presence he could suppress.
The careful approach paid off. At last he laid eyes on the creature.
“Ugh… since when is a mole the size of a dog?”
Unlike an ordinary mole, the Toryeong Juseo was roughly the size of a large dog. Its massive forepaws ended in long, razor-sharp claws clearly meant for digging, and stiff bristles jutted from every inch of its body, making it look thoroughly uninviting to touch. Looking at it, one could only conclude that a spiritual beast was indeed a spiritual beast.
“Could I just charge it and win? Hmm… or would it bolt instantly?”
Even if the Toryeong Juseo attacked, Yoo Eunhyeon was confident he could escape from this distance. He edged closer for a better look—only for the creature to jerk its head up and stare straight at him.
“?!!”
The instant their eyes met, the Toryeong Juseo—still mid-meal—leapt as though startled out of its wits. Then it set its claws, tore into the earth, and vanished underground.
“Damn thing. Filthy sensitive.”
The curse was more than justified. Even with a considerable gap between them, the moment he entered a certain range it had fled at once.
Yoo Eunhyeon had no way to subdue it from that far out. He brought Su Hwa-seon along on the chance that someone else might manage it, but nothing changed.
“From this distance? If I could circulate internal energy it might be different, but the second I raise even a spark of it the creature will notice, won’t it?”
“Most likely. So the only option is to get within a certain range without using any internal energy at all, then freeze its movement in a single instant….”
Yoo Eunhyeon frowned, turning the problem over, but no workable answer presented itself. The greatest obstacle was that the Toryeong Juseo fled into the earth. Even if he could throw a hidden weapon without stirring his energy, failing to kill it outright would only send it diving underground again.
Unless he could do something about that earth it fled into, there was no solution.
Muttering to himself, he abandoned the half-restored field and returned to the storehouse. There had to be a method.
The room was packed with the booklets Ju Yu-ryeon had filled with her research into the Toryeong Juseo’s habits. Yoo Eunhyeon began combing through them, determined to find an answer.
Until now he had barely glanced at the records, preferring to assess the damage firsthand. But if even the smallest clue or spark of inspiration might be buried inside, it was better to look.
“There’s a lot of volume here… but almost no quality information.”
He frowned as he read Ju Yu-ryeon’s notes.
He was the first person ever able to track the Toryeong Juseo’s movements and actually see the creature, so the material she had left was painfully simple. There was nothing about ecology or habits—only a dry ledger of dates and numbers: when the pest had appeared, how much damage it had done, how many herbs had been replanted. Still, thinking a clue might hide even there, Yoo Eunhyeon kept digging.
A day passed, then two. By the time he had returned to the same ragged state he had worn when Ju Yu-ryeon first met him, the hand mechanically turning pages suddenly stopped.
“This… could it be…?”
Life flooded back into half-dead eyes. As his hands moved faster through the pages, one fact solidified into certainty.
“How did I miss this? Does Yu-ryeon already know?”
“Know what?”
As if on cue, Ju Yu-ryeon’s voice sounded behind him. Exhausted and absorbed in the records, he hadn’t even noticed her approach.
None of that mattered now. Brightening as though the timing could not have been better, Yoo Eunhyeon thrust the papers at her.
“Here. Look. The weather on every day the Toryeong Juseo caused damage. You wrote these, right?”
“Yeah. I figured I should record at least that much. Why?”
“Every single day it appeared and did damage was clear weather. Not one rainy day.”
“……Give me those for a second.”
Sensing something herself, Ju Yu-ryeon took the records from him, pulled out additional sheets, and began cross-checking. After a long stretch of turning her head from page to page, she looked up at him.
“Huh. You’re right. It’s been showing up for over a year and never once on a rainy day. How did I miss that?”
“Not so much missed as never paid attention. Either way, looking at this, the Toryeong Juseo clearly hates water.”
“Does it die if it gets wet or something?”
“Doubt it. Nothing that extreme. Rain soaks the ground into mud, so moving becomes hard. Soil pores shrink and breathing gets difficult too. That’s why earthworms surface when it rains. The Toryeong Juseo just seems to dig deeper instead.”
Ju Yu-ryeon let out an impressed “Ohhh.” For a moment both of them stared off in different directions, lost in thought.
Two pieces of information now sat before them: the Toryeong Juseo slowed in wet earth, and Yoo Eunhyeon could sense its presence. Plans of every shape began to circle.
When they finished thinking, they looked at each other without a word. Then, little by little, they began refining the details of a strategy to drive the Toryeong Juseo out for good.
The next day, after Su Hwa-seon’s final review, the operation to eliminate the Toryeong Juseo began in earnest.
The opening move, naturally, fell to the one who could sense the creature: Yoo Eunhyeon.
As before, he waited on high ground until the Toryeong Juseo snagged on his senses.
“All right. Let’s begin.”
He gave the signal to start the plan, then erased his presence and began a careful advance.
In his hands he carried a sizable water cask, filled to the brim. An ordinary person would have struggled simply to lift it, yet Yoo Eunhyeon—now a body that had cultivated internal energy—moved with the water inside remaining perfectly still, not so much as a ripple. Remaining undetected was the absolute first priority, so he advanced with extreme caution and deliberate slowness.
Only because he could read the currents of nature and move in harmony with them rather than against them was even this much possible.
When he had closed to a distance that would not yet alert the Toryeong Juseo, Yoo Eunhyeon drew a quiet breath as if to say Here we go, and raised the cask.
“Let’s see who wins this one.”