—Crash!

“What the—? I could maybe accept turning silver with poison, but making locusts?”

“Are you being serious right now!?”

The two men shot up from their seats at the same time, chairs clattering and toppling behind them.

Their shock was so intense I instinctively shrank back a bit.

“Well... it’s not that difficult, really...”

As I mumbled, a new expression spread across their faces—one I hadn’t seen before.

It wasn’t just disbelief or awe this time. There was fear.

I gulped without realizing it.

This was different. Even when I’d shown them silver-plating or caught spirit beasts, they’d never looked at me like this.

This was the most extreme reaction I’d ever gotten.

‘Wait... why? What’s going on—ah!’

Then it hit me.

Locusts. Swarming locust.

They weren’t just some insect in this world—they were an ancient terror. One of the four great natural disasters, right up there with plague, floods, tsunamis, and earthquakes. Calamities no human could control.

Even in my past life, when locust swarms showed up around the world, they caused chaos.

In the Central Plains, locusts were sometimes called chaekmaeng. But when they appeared in devastating swarms, they were no longer just insects—they became Swarming locust. The term itself was reserved for disasters.

A yellow tide that devoured the sky.

In swarms, locusts become gluttonous. They multiply endlessly and eat their own body weight in food every day as they travel.

They sweep through fields, leaving behind nothing but dust—and I had just casually said I could create that kind of apocalyptic swarm.

No wonder they were terrified.

To people in this era, this wasn’t a novelty or scientific marvel—it was a threat to survival itself.

‘I... I really should not have said that.’

And I even said it was “not that difficult”...

Silver-plating with poison might’ve made me look like an alchemist, but creating a plague? That was a whole different level.

As expected, their voices rose sharply.

“So Geol-gwi, you will take what you just heard to the grave!”

“O-of course! Even if I have to cut out my tongue, I swear I will never speak a word. I swear it on my martial oath!”

“Then leave. Now.”

“Yes, Elder.”

Elder Geolhwang glared at the man he'd brought with such intensity that So Geol-gwi nearly stumbled out the door.

Then my father-in-law turned to the hallway and shouted.

“You outside—come in!”

“You called, sir?”

“Did you hear anything from inside?”

“It’s an unspoken rule not to listen or watch anything coming from the master’s study—”

“I asked if you actually heard anything.”

“Apologies, sir. I didn’t hear a word...”

“Nor did I, sir.”

“Good. Then go fetch Hwa-eun and the Elder Gonryun—this is urgent.”

“Yes, sir!”

He sent the guards off immediately to bring Tang Hwa-eun and Mandok Shingun.

A few moments later, both arrived, faces tight with concern.

“You called for us? The message said it was urgent.”

“What’s going on that you needed both me and Hwa-eun? I was checking the new venom beasts when the call came in. Huh? Elder Geolhwang, even you’re here?”

Hwa-eun looked worried, while Elder Gonryun—Mandok Shingun—looked surprised to see Geolhwang had even set up a sound-sealing barrier around the study.

This technique prevented any sound from leaking out, which meant what was happening here was extremely serious.

“Please, have a seat, Elder Gonryun. This may take a while.”

“Understood.”

“Hwa-eun, sit as well.”

“Yes, Father.”

Once both were seated, Elder Geolhwang spoke:

“The reason I called you both here on such short notice... is because So-ryong says he knows how to create Swarming locust.”

“What!?”

“He can make locusts!?”

As expected, Hwa-eun and her grandfather were just as shocked.

They stared at me, wide-eyed.

Hwa-eun spoke first, clearly in disbelief.

“Is... is that true?”

“Well... it’s not that hard—uh, wait, I mean...”

I nearly said it again—not that hard.

But the way their eyes bulged made me clamp my mouth shut.

She pressed again, confused and tense.

“Are you saying that... if you have the right materials, you can make Swarming locust?”

“Pardon?”

Her wording threw me. I glanced at everyone in the room—Elder Gonryun, my father-in-law, Elder Geolhwang—all of them were nodding solemnly.

I tilted my head and asked back:

“Materials?”

“Yes, materials. Like... dust or rotting plants.”

‘Ah...’

Now it made sense.

They all thought I meant I could make locusts from materials, like I had done with the silver-plating process.

As if I could throw together ingredients and have locusts pop out of a pot.

‘Right, of course. People in this era mostly believe in spontaneous generation...’

The idea that life could emerge from non-living matter.

In my old world, we’d laugh at that, but even in the early 19th century, spontaneous generation was a widespread belief.

They thought fleas were born from dust, maggots from rotting meat, and insects like mites or gnats spontaneously appeared from dew or mud.

After all, sometimes a sealed room suddenly had a mosquito in it, or ants popped up from nowhere—so they explained it that way.

They had no other framework.

So now they thought I had mastered that mysterious force and could generate locusts at will.

Ants? That’s just a queen flying into the house in spring and building a colony.

Mosquitoes? They cling to people’s clothes and come in when someone enters.

So even the Tang Clan, who dealt with venomous creatures like snakes, spiders, and scorpions, clearly believed that bugs like flies, millipedes, or locusts were born from filth.

To clear up the misunderstanding about locusts, I’d have to start from the very basics.

I organized my thoughts and began explaining.

“First, I need to say this—Hwa-eun, no insect is born from damp or dirty air alone.”

“Huh? You mean they don’t just appear? But don’t they get born from dirty, humid qi even without parents like themselves?”

Hwa-eun asked, and the elders all nodded in agreement.

It was a bit different from what I expected, but not surprising.

The Tang Clan, who handled venomous creatures all their lives, understood that insects could lay eggs—but they still believed some insects could spontaneously appear from nothing in nature.

“No, they’re born only when there’s a mother and father that are the same species.”

“Really?”

“Yes. It only looks like bugs are suddenly appearing from filth because their mothers laid eggs in those places when no one was watching.”

“So... it’s not about qi gathering in dirty places?”

“No, Grandfather.”

“But we’ve sealed dirty things inside jars in the Tang Clan, and seen maggots or other things appear anyway...”

So even the Tang Clan had done those kinds of experiments, huh?

What were they sealing inside jars, anyway? Dirty rags, food scraps, whatever they found?

That’s like those old alchemist experiments from pre-modern Europe.

You know, the ones where they claimed mice were born spontaneously in grain jars soaked in milk and oil.

In those days, people just didn’t understand the concept of contamination, or external interference. So I explained:

“There were probably eggs already inside the materials. If you’d boiled them before sealing the jar, nothing would’ve appeared.”

Mandok Shingun rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then slowly nodded.

If this weren’t the Tang Clan, someone probably would’ve called me a lunatic.

But I guess my credibility here was just high enough—and the Tang Clan had enough scientific thinking—that they were following along.

“That’s definitely something I want to test myself. So then... are you saying you don’t create locusts, but raise them? Like crickets?”

I was just thinking how glad I was that someone finally asked a reasonable question—when Elder Geolhwang chimed in:

**“Then that means you don’t create locusts—you just multiply them, right? If there aren’t any locusts to begin with, you can’t make more. Doesn’t sound so dangerous after all. Kind of pointless, even.

After all, people only ever notice locusts once they appear in swarms.

It’s not like you ever see just one or two flying around.”**

Everyone nodded at that.

Being a man who dealt in information, Elder Geolhwang clearly knew a lot—even though he wasn’t from the Tang Clan.

And he was right: Locusts don’t show up one at a time. They appear in massive swarms and disappear the same way.

‘This explanation alone isn’t going to cut it.’

To properly answer him, I’d have to show it in action.

I smiled and asked:

“It’ll be easier to show you. Should I go ahead and make a few? Just a small batch—completely safe, I promise.”

Everyone flinched at once, exchanging uneasy glances.

They were curious—but the very idea of creating locusts had clearly triggered some deep-seated fear.

***

“So Hwa-eun saw a locust swarm when she was young?”

“Yes. It was horrifying.”

“We were lucky to have food stockpiled... but a lot of people in Sichuan starved to death.”

We were on our way to find Yo-hwa, with the elders in tow.

No wonder their reactions were so extreme—they’d actually lived through a locust plague.

If something like that burned into your memory as a child, fear would come naturally.

Soon, we reached Yo-hwa’s silk house above the well.

“Yo-hwa!”

At my call, Yo-hwa quickly descended headfirst on a thread of spider silk.

But because she was still in her Hwa-eun form, her skirt flipped up all the way to her thighs—causing Hwa-eun to panic.

“Yo-hwa! We talked about this!”

—Ksssk.

For Hwa-eun, it must’ve felt like looking into a mirror.

Luckily, after some scolding about image rights, Yo-hwa had learned to behave.

She quickly flipped her body around mid-air.

While the elders looked off into the distance and Hwa-eun clutched her chest in horror, Yo-hwa tilted her head and clung to my arm, wondering why I’d called her.

—Ksssk?

“I need a favor. Can you spin a square-shaped cage for me out of webbing?”

—Kssskssk.

She started wiggling her hips, ready to spin on the spot.

I stopped her in a hurry.

“No, not here. Over there.”

I led her to the backyard garden near the pond, where the vegetation was thick, and asked her to create something like a mosquito net enclosure.

“Right here. Something in this shape.”

“Ksssk!”

I sketched the shape roughly in the dirt with a stick, and Yo-hwa immediately started weaving the structure.

Threads flowed from her hips, stretching from tree to tree, creating lines and planes that quickly formed a mesh.

Just then—

“So-ryong-nim, you called for us?”

“Yes, Commander Gu Pae. I need your help.”

“Give the order!”

I’d called in the Venom Blood Squad.

I jumped into the brush nearby and rummaged around for a bit—until I found my target.

“Got you, you little bastard.”

It was fast, but nothing that could escape a martial artist like me.

I grabbed the bug and showed it to Commander Gu Pae.

“Could you help me catch more of these?”

“Ah, this is Green locust, isn't it?”

So that’s what they called it here. What I’d caught was a green locust—a grasshopper.

I nodded, and the Venom Blood Squad scattered through the grass, rounding up more of the little jumpers.

Soon, Yo-hwa’s enclosure was filled with the green-bodied locusts.

***

The next morning, right after breakfast, I headed back to the garden to check the «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» enclosure Yo-hwa had made.

Behind me trailed Hwa-eun and the elders. Elder Geolhwang had even spent the night here just to see this.

“So-ryong... are you serious about this?”

“Yes.”

“It’s almost too hard to believe.”

“Indeed.”

As we walked, they still wore expressions of doubt, despite all my explanations.

In the garden, the enclosure was still standing where Yo-hwa had woven it the day before.

It was thick and opaque—so we couldn’t see what was happening inside.

“Well then, shall we take a look?”

Smiling, I opened a little flap I’d prepared in advance and slipped my hand inside.

I pulled out a single insect—and held it up for them to see.

“How about now?”

In my fingers wasn’t the bright green grasshopper from yesterday—but a yellow locust.

The kind people feared above all else.

Swarming locust.