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196
Now that the pre-tuning is over, he spoke to Ji-ryong, Tae-heo, the elders of Kun-ryun, Seol-nu, Hwa-eun, and O-ryong-sambong in a very confident voice without resting.
The idea was to piece together the information to get a rough idea of what kind of guy he was.
“First of all, it’s clear that the Odokmun guys are raising some kind of poisonous or toxic creature, so we need to guess what kind of poisonous or toxic creature it is.”
The elder of Kunlun asked with a surprised expression as he spoke in the guise of a skilled expert.
“Oh, you can guess?”
“Yes, it’s not perfect, but we have a lot of information.”
“Information?”
“Are you saying there is a lot of information?”
The elders of Taeheona and Kunlun didn’t seem to understand what I meant by having a lot of information, but even without any trace of the guy, we had more information than we thought.
Even what has been said so far in Kunlun contains quite a bit of information.
It’s because I passed it over trivially, no, because I didn’t look at it from an expert’s perspective, but it’s actually more substantial information than you might think.
“Of course. Don’t we already know what he eats? That alone is a lot of information.
The disappearance of a person or a camel could mean that the creature is a carnivore, either large enough to eat people or camels, or small enough to eat them, but in large numbers.
But they will be small and not numerous.”
Because we can infer so much information from just one piece of food.
“I understand that he is a big guy, but how can he not be small? How is that so?”
Tae-heo tilts his head and asks questions at my explanation.
He answered, wiggling his fingers as if to tell me to listen carefully.
Because you can’t hear such a great lecture anywhere else.
“One person and one camel disappeared every day… If you think about it as a case of a small number of guys running towards one goal, it doesn’t make sense.
The merchants will surely gather together and sleep soundly, but will they all rush towards one goal without moving aside?
“It is absolutely impossible.”
The Kunlun elder nodded at my confident answer.
“Oh, that’s true. Even if trained soldiers were to charge toward the castle, they wouldn’t be able to move in such a coordinated manner. That’s true. Let alone a small creature···.”
There were some words in it that made me feel a little uncomfortable, but I nodded anyway.
Among insects that live in groups, the ones that are good at leadership are, of course, bees and ants.
However, no matter how well-controlled the group of ants or bees is, when hunting or fighting occurs, each individual moves at their own discretion.
This means that when the order to attack is given, the surrounding area is attacked indiscriminately, and no one is targeted.
So if there are a lot of small entities, it’s impossible for just one person to disappear at night or something like that to happen.
Because I’ll just randomly run towards anyone nearby who looks delicious.
If you think about it for this reason, the other person is a very big guy.
It would have been just one guy.
“Also, a person or a camel disappears without a trace at night? It must be a poisonous one. If bitten, you lose your life or consciousness in an instant… Otherwise, there is no way others would have noticed.”
“I see. If it’s a poison with that kind of venom, then it could kill someone in an instant without anyone noticing, and then disappear after biting them?”
“Yes, that’s right. And the bigger one has more venom than the smaller one, so the bigger one is more suspicious than the smaller one.”
Two inferences based on trivial information.
The opponent is a big guy and he has poison.
The smart Seol sister looked at me and asked.
“Are you talking about a big guy with poison?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“So, what did you find out?”
“No. I need to look into the remaining information.”
“What information is left?”
We figured out two conditions, but these alone weren’t enough to identify the guy.
So, it was necessary to go through a process of inputting additional information, and for that reason, the next task was to find out about the guy’s ecology and habits.
First of all, we decided to mark on the map the places where people and camels went missing.
I heard that the Kunlun School did a lot of research, but it wasn’t systematic.
It was limited to sending people out to gather information.
The information was just piled up as data, without any organization or anything.
So, the first thing we did was to mark the locations of the missing people on the map, and figure out whether the poisonous creatures suspected by the Odokmun were territorial or wandering creatures.
“Can I ask Elder Ji-ryun and Taoist Master Tae-heo a favor?”
“Of course. Just ask and I’ll help you with any request you may have.”
“Of course, Sohyeop.”
The two nodded their heads with bright faces, as if they liked my explanation.
I asked Ji-ryong to take out the map.
“Ji-ryong, could you please bring out the map of Cheonghae Castle?”
“Oh, I understand.”
I lit several lanterns in the slightly dark building to make it brighter, and placed a thin piece of paper on top of the dragon’s map.
And after drawing the map appropriately, he spread it out in the middle of the table.
“The first place where the Western merchants lost people and camels is a day’s journey from Delingha. That would be about it. Centered around there, could you mark on a map the locations in Kunlun where people, sheep, camels, and the like have disappeared as much as possible?”
“Ah, in that case, Tae-Heo would be more helpful than me.”
“I will help you. Sohyeop.”
When the elders of Kunlun stepped down, it was Taeheo who took up the brush.
He started putting dots on the map one by one.
“They said it was about a half day’s drive north from here, so where would be a good place to go….”
“Then, let’s do it here. This distance is a day’s journey, so I can just take half of it.”
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“Okay.”
Tae-Heo, Ji-Ryong’s friend, had a better memory than expected.
He started marking fairly accurate locations here and there on the map, remembering stories he had searched or heard from people.
Also, with Ji-ryong by my side, I was able to create data that was ambiguous.
“This is all we could find out before the desert nomads came rushing in.”
A map examined after Taeheo stepped down.
Let’s take a look at the marked location. Something a bit unusual caught my eye.
Oddly enough, the dots were only concentrated in the northwest of Cheonghae.
“There are dots mostly in the northwest?”
“Oh, there is a reason for that.”
Tae-heo nods his head at my words.
He came towards me, picked up his brush again, and drew two long lines across the border of Cheonghye in the north and the middle of Cheonghae.
It felt like it was indicating a mountain range, but when I heard the explanation, it was indeed a mountain range.
“There is a high mountain range to the north, and the middle of Cheonghae Province is also a mountain range. So I think that’s why things didn’t happen only in this northwest.”
It is said that this only happens in the desert between two mountain ranges.
He asked, pointing to a place.
“But what is this place? What is there here too?”
“No. It’s just a desert there. I guess it’s because it’s in the middle of a desert.”
“okay.”
A circular shape in the northwest, with no dots on that side.
It was a fairly large, circular space with nothing in it, and I nodded when I heard that it was in the middle of the desert.
To be honest, there are many creatures living in the desert, but it’s not in the middle of a completely barren desert, it’s in a place where they can get some moisture and food.
“What did you find out?”
The elder of Kunlun urged him from the side, but he could not answer right away.
First of all, what we know from the dots is that the distribution of dots is somewhat ambiguous for a territorial animal, so it seems to be a wandering creature rather than a sedentary one.
This was because the distribution of the points was quite wide.
But it was clear that the guy was managing the mess, so we couldn’t be sure about this.
Because it’s being carried by people’s hands.
‘First of all, he looks like a guy who wanders around without building a home… No, let’s think about what the Odokmun guys have done so far.’
It was obvious that what the Odokmun guys were raising was either a spirit or a larger version of some poisonous creature.
Considering all the army ants, bedbugs, and weirdos they’ve shown us so far, that’s a good chance.
However, it was more likely that they had grown larger, which was their specialty, rather than being a spirit.
Since I’m at my level, I have to bring along all these spirits, because the Odogmun guys have a long way to go before they can keep up with me.
Moreover, eating a lot of rice made me feel more inclined towards the negative side rather than the positive side.
So, for now, I erased from my mind whether it was sedentary or wandering, and thought of a creature that, if it grew in size, could kill a person in the desert with one poison.
Among insects and arthropods.
The reason I thought of insects or arthropods, excluding lizards, is because, even in the desert, if it was something like a lizard, you would have found at least footprints while searching.
The fact that Kunlun couldn’t even find footprints meant that it was clearly not a normal trace of movement.
That’s why the most likely species were spiders or scorpions, which leave behind only dots or scratches, rather than footprints.
‘The suspect must be a scorpion or spider with strong venom···.’
Venomous desert spiders and venomous desert scorpions.
Two poisons from my dictionary of poisons came to mind.
One type of spider and one type of scorpion that, if they grew large, could instantly poison and kill a person.
But there’s one guy you can’t see here.
Because Africa is the guy’s hometown.
I eliminated one guy from my mind.
The one I eliminated was the Six-Eyed Sand Spider, a spider that hunts by hiding in the sand of the desert.
It is a reclusive spider that lives in the sands of the remote deserts of Africa. Although it is only 5 centimeters long, it can kill a person.
It is a spider that has a powerful necrotic venom, and if the bitten area is not cut off immediately, the venom will spread throughout the body and cause necrosis, resulting in death.
Although insects from other continents have been found here, it was more suspicious that they were located here.
What exactly is that?
It’s Deathstalker.
A scorpion nicknamed the Death Stalker.
Deathstalker is a general term for scorpions of the genus Leiurus, which are distributed throughout India and Central Asia, so there is a very high probability that they will be found in the Cheonghae region.
It is not a lethal poison in itself, but it is certainly small.
The venom of this guy, whose toxicity fluctuates between level 1 and 2, causes terrible pain to people even when he is small, and occasionally causes death. If the Odokmun guys had grown in size, they would have released enough neurotoxin to kill a person instantly, so they were the most suspicious.
‘Scorpion. This will probably be resolved sooner than expected?’
He gathered his thoughts in his head and looked around the room as he spoke.
“Hmm… Thinking about it with the information I have so far, I think it might be a giant hull.”
“omg!?”
“Wow… Is that right?”
“Wow. A dragon?”
Deathstalkers can burrow underground to escape the desert heat, and like most scorpions, they are nocturnal.
There is a poison with strong venom there.
“Yes, Hulls can dig burrows and hide underground, and they can also burrow into the sand, so they can survive well in the desert.
And when I think about what the Odogmun guys have done so far, I can’t help but wonder if they’re really raising the bar.
“Not all spirits are like this, but many of them don’t eat food and instead eat energy, so it’s a bit strange that they eat this much food.”
Hwa-eun and Seol-nu nodded at my explanation.
Both of them seemed to think that what I said was very credible since they had experienced the same amount of misreading as I had.
“I think what Xiaolong said was definitely not wrong.”
“Really. But, if it’s a guy hiding underground, wouldn’t it be hard to find him?”
But the question from Seol’s sister is heard at the end of those words.
The question was whether it would be difficult to find a guy who was hiding underground.
But I really had no worries about this one.
That’s because we have three experts at finding scorpions.
As our meeting dragged on, I said this while stroking the heads of Bin and Cho, who were sleeping with their heads resting on my thighs.
“Don’t worry, our beauties are very good at finding the hull.”
“Are you talking about Cho and Bin?”
“Chorang and Bin?”
Cho and Bin, who had just woken up, were wiggling their antennae as if they didn’t know what was going on, but our daughters were experts on scorpions.
Scorpions are animals that have fluorescent substances in their skin that are invisible to the human eye, but emit blue-green fluorescence when exposed to ultraviolet light, while civets are animals specialized in distinguishing light in the dark with their antennae.
Although it may not be able to find other animals, the civet has an uncanny ability to find scorpions.
“Yes, scorpions emit a blue light that is invisible to the human eye in the dark, and this blue light is very visible to these two children.”
I thought I should go out with the kids tomorrow to look for fluorescent scorpions in the night sky.