Entomologist in Sichuan Tang Clan Chapter 193

193
“Huh? Hair?”

Seol’s sister blinked at the words, “I’m giving in because I have hair.”

He had an expression on his face like, “What’s the big deal about hair?” I don’t know if Seol is a Beast Palace person who raises mammals, but this was a very serious and grave problem for me.

Mammals are just furry, hot-bodied creatures, but they are much dirtier creatures than clean, tidy amphibians, reptiles, insects, or arthropods.

Dandruff just falls off from their hairy bodies, and when they defecate, oil and secretions come out of the anal sacs, and when the anal sacs fill up with a lot of fluid, it’s like skiing with your butt.

I remember being shocked when I was a kid when I went to a friend’s house to play and saw a dog skiing on its butt.

I don’t know if the birds that dinosaurs, which were reptiles, were friendly with had feathers, but they definitely didn’t have hair.

‘Hair? That’s crossing the line. Of course not.’

Well, the fairy has hair, but the fairy is a spider, an arthropod, and its hair is extremely soft.

Also, since they are cold-blooded animals, you won’t get sweaty even if you hold them.

It is a very clean creature that does not even shed dandruff.

So, furry mammals were something to be avoided.

Because there are many much better kids.

Who would bother with copper when there is gold?

To me, the difference between furry mammals and reptiles, amphibians, and insects is that small.

“Anyway, there is something like that.”

When I answered with an expression that said I didn’t want to think about it anymore to Seol Noo-ni, who was still making an expression that said she didn’t understand something, Seol Noo-ni smiled bashfully and nodded.

Whatever the reason, from Seol’s point of view, there is no loss at all.

If it’s a gain, then it’s a gain.

“Yeah, what does that matter? What matters to me is that I now have a spirit. Hehe. Thanks, Soryong. After all, our Soryong is the only one.”

As expected, Seol is a quick-witted sister.

When the two of us had roughly agreed on what to do after the capture, Hwa-eun pointed to the bushes and said.

“Huh!? It’s not just one.”

As we looked at the bushes that Hwa-eun was pointing at with her finger, two of them were now sticking their heads out and looking at us.

“Huh!? There were really two!?”

Thinking about what Hwa-eun and Seol-nu said, I remembered that they didn’t say how many guys there were.

I couldn’t explain anything because I was running right away.

He nodded and answered both of their questions.

“Oh, there are three in total.”

“Three!?”

“Three!?”

Hwa-eun and Seol were surprised at the word “three”.

In particular, Sister Seol looked at me with an expression of disbelief.

I thought you were just going to catch one and give it to me, but you said there were three.

“S, no way. You’re not going to give me all three, are you!?”

“Oh, of course.”

“Yeah, I was surprised···. But not even one···.”

Seol, who obviously thought she would receive only one, smiled and continued speaking.

Even if there were ten instead of three, I would have given them all.

“Of course I have to give you all three. Sister Seol, please give me all three.”

“What!? Really!?”

Seol’s eyes widened at my words.

Suddenly, a high-frequency cry like the cry of a dolphin came out of Seol’s mouth.

“Gyaaaah! Thank you, Little Dragon! Thank you!”

When the excited Seol sister suddenly screamed, she saw the guys taking turns poking their heads out of the bushes as if they were playing whack-a-mole.

In the darkness, the red eyes were very strong and scary, but now that I look at them, they are really cute eyes.

Eyes filled with fear, perhaps because of the approaching grass and the appearance of the demon.

-Tch!

-Cheers!

They seemed to be at a loss, talking among themselves, so I told them to give way to the upstream side.

“Okay, everyone, clear the way upstream so the guys can escape.”

“Huh? You want me to run away? Aren’t you going to catch me?”

Seol’s sister was flustered when he said he would catch her but then asked her to make way for him.

He suddenly had an expression on his face like, “What on earth are you talking about?”, but I smiled and answered him.

“If you just follow them quietly, you can catch them. Those guys.”

“huh?”

“You can catch it even if you just follow it?”

Hwa-eun and Seol looked at each other with expressions of incomprehension at the words that they could catch it if they just followed quietly.

Those guys are so fast and nimble, it’s unbelievable that you can catch them just by following them.

But really, those guys were the kind of guys you could catch just by following them.

The reason they say that you can catch them very easily if you follow them is because of the characteristics of shrews.

The shrew is an animal belonging to the family Shrewidae, order Chordata, class Mammalia, order Cnidaria in the animal kingdom.

Although they look like rats and are called shrews, these guys are not rats at all.

If we were to say that it is close, it would be a mammal closely related to hedgehogs, moles, and bats.

Because of this, their front teeth do not grow like those of rats, and unlike rats, their diet is not omnivorous but strictly carnivorous.

Shrews only hunt animals to obtain protein.

There’s a reason these guys only eat protein; they’re animals that need a lot of calories despite their small size.

The reason they need so many calories is very simple: their metabolism is faster than that of any other animal.

The reason why these guys have such a fast metabolism is because their heart, the engine of the animal world, beats like crazy.

Depending on the species, shrews have hearts that beat between 900 and 1,500 times per minute, and because their hearts beat so fast, they expend a tremendous amount of energy.

Yes, that’s right.

Because of their fast heart rate, shrews have a higher metabolic rate than any other animal, so they must consume only protein, and depending on the species, they can die of cardiac arrest if they do not eat something within 3 to 24 hours.

A shrew’s heart is one that extracts energy from muscles and bones when the period of starvation is long, and when even that is not enough, it simply rests.

There’s no rice?

Really? Then just rest.

What happens when the heart rests?

It is only natural that a brief rest becomes an eternal rest.

Honey, this is why I told Seol and Hwa-eun that they could just follow me.

If you follow them around and starve them, they will lose energy and you can pick them up easily, and when they are confused because they can’t eat, you can try to negotiate with them for food.

If a spirit were to be asked to choose between starving to death or going with someone who would provide food, he would obviously choose the latter.

“These guys lose energy quickly if they don’t eat anything for a few hours. They must have had nothing to eat since last night, so they must be in a hurry right now.

So, even though he was surprised by the demon, he hunted in a hurry.”

“Really? Is that so?”

According to my explanation, the snow sister who had been blocking the upstream side quickly cleared the way, and the grass on the downstream side rushed straight into the bushes.

Then, the guys who were startled by this and ran down the path that Seol had opened.

As I checked the bushes, a dead wolf caught my eye.

It looked like the skin had just been ripped off, but it was clear that it had been chased away without even having a bite.

“Little Dragon, how far do I have to chase you?”

Seol’s sister’s question after confirming the wolf in the bushes.

He answered with a smile.

“Well, I guess there isn’t much time left.”

***

The guys wrapped the wolves they had hunted in magic thread and gave them to Cho, then slowly chased after the guys.

Now that I know they’re shrews, I can’t help but be very relaxed.

Because those guys will never be able to run away.

Judging from the hasty hunting, it seems they haven’t eaten anything since last night, so they don’t have much time left and they had to hunt.

Because if you don’t eat, your life is in danger.

As expected, after a short chase, I saw the guys attacking a raccoon that had come to drink water.

-Tsk tsk!

-Squeak!

-Keeeeeek!

A one-hit, two-run tactic where one catches the raccoon’s attention from the front, while the other two rush in like wild beasts, bite, and quickly run away.

It was the best hunting method for them, as they had paralyzing poison and were fast.

But unlike his cute appearance, he now looks very ferocious.

Even though they look cute, their hunting is so ferocious. Since hunting is a matter of life and death, if they fail, their lives are in danger, so even common shrews are quite violent.

A shrew is a creature that bites everything it sees.

-dump.

When the guys’ hunt is over and the raccoon has collapsed from the paralyzing poison, the guys lose their minds and rush at the raccoon.

“Hey, you little devil. Startle me and chase me upstream.”

-Kissit!

When I told them that the demon was getting closer to them and let out a roar of anger, they were startled and ran back upstream.

In a very strange way.

“Huh!? Little Dragon, look at them! They look strange!”

“Little Dragon, what is that!?”

Seol-nu and Hwa-eun looked amazed at the sight of the guys running away together.

That’s because the guys started moving one after another.

Since common shrews have poor eyesight, when they have to move with their young, they move tail to tail like that.

It’s like playing with trains.

From the looks of it, their eyesight didn’t seem to be that bad, so I figured they weren’t adults.

It feels like a group of newly independent chicks.

That would be the case, since it seemed to be coveting human food, and it seemed like it was trying to have a comfortable meal.

If he were an adult, he wouldn’t have done such a reckless thing as coveting human things.

“Originally, croakers move like that, tail to tail. This is because they can’t see well. But these guys are probably still young and hungry, so they’re doing this to save energy.”

“Huh… Is that so? Then, there really isn’t much left?”

Sister Seol smiled happily at my words.

As I was chasing the guys again, even with the raccoon they had captured, I heard a loud noise from ahead.

Not far from our campsite, two guys were licking one of them and making a whining sound.

Maybe one of the guys was just tired.

-Tsk tsk!

-Cheers!

A guy lying down with a very tired look on his face.

He handed the wolf’s carcass he had brought to his sister and said:

“Take this to the Seol sisters and talk to them about it.”

“Oh, I get it! Ha, I’m nervous.”

Seol’s sister slowly walked forward with the carcass of a large wolf hanging around her neck.

When the distance between them was short, the sharp warning sounds of the other two guys were heard.

-Squeak!

-Tch!

It felt like he was being told not to come near, but Seol’s sister threw the wolf she was carrying around her neck in front of him.

-thud!

The guys flinched in surprise but couldn’t do anything, but Sister Seol crouched down behind the wolf’s corpse and spoke in a gentle voice.

“Hey guys, are you hungry?”

-What?

-Huh?

The guys are startled by the sudden affectionate voice and the sight of a wolf corpse in front of them.

The drool started flowing from the guys’ mouths,

Looking at those guys, Seol Nui made a cautious suggestion.

“If you follow me, I can make sure you won’t go hungry from now on. Won’t you follow me? Your younger sibling next to you needs to eat too.”

The two guys look at each other at Seol’s words.

Sister Seol took a knife out of her bosom, cut a large piece of the wolf’s flesh, and held it out to the front.

“Okay, since we’re in a hurry, let’s feed my little brother first.”

Sister Seol is very skilled, perhaps because she has handled many animals.

The two men looked blank as they stared at the blood-dripping chunk of meat.

After a while, a guy steps forward as if possessed.

The sight of that guy made the other guy give a sharp warning sound.

-Tch!

Then the guy flinches and steps back.

But the guy who had sounded the alarm looked at my brother panting on the floor, and then he cautiously approached me and snatched the meat from my sister’s hand.

And when I put it in the mouth of the panting guy, miraculously, the guy who was almost dead got up and started to eat the meat greedily.

Other guys are watching with their drool dripping down their faces.

When Sister Seol approached and cut the meat and placed it in front of the boys, only then did the other boys start eating.

I feel like it’s all over.

‘I guess I can consider it all over now?’

It was disappointing that the newly caught creature happened to be a furry mammal, but I did get some points from Seol’s sister, so I thought it was a reasonably satisfying catch.

Hwa-eun, who was watching the scene, looked at the guys and shouted.

“Ah! I remembered the names of those kids! They are definitely Blood-Eyed Green-Haired Grass Fish!”

The name seemed to have something to it, so I had that thought.

‘Why not try getting a little interested in hair?’