“Since we added two more today... that makes how many total now?”
It was the fifth day of searching.
While I was tallying up the peaks we’d already searched and the ones still left, Gun Hye-rin came over with a pheasant she had just roasted.
“M-Master, here. Please take a look.”
“Is it done? Let me see...”
She hesitantly held out the roasted pheasant in her hands.
As I examined it closely from all angles, she watched me nervously and swallowed hard.
It wasn’t because she was hungry—she was clearly just anxious.
“The roast looks great. Let’s see if the inside’s cooked.”
“R-Really?”
Her face lit up when I complimented the outside.
I pulled out a dagger and cut the bird open. A plume of hot steam escaped as the white, well-cooked meat was revealed inside.
It was perfectly cooked, both inside and out.
A triumph ten days in the making.
How many burnt-to-a-crisp pheasants and rabbits had there been before this?
One of them was even so fresh it nearly ran off the fire alive, or so the joke went.
Who would’ve thought teaching someone how to roast a simple pheasant or rabbit could be such a struggle? I gave a solemn nod.
“Today’s is excellent.”
“R-Really?”
“Yes. You’ve earned that praise.”
“See? Didn’t I tell you I could do it?”
As soon as I praised her, Gun Hye-rin tilted her chin up with a smug expression.
Worried it might go to her head, I shook my head sternly.
“Hey now, it’s just one success. After ten days of teaching, even Cho could cook like this. Actually, forget ten days—Cho could do it in one.”
“W-What nonsense is that?”
“Are you sure about that? If I teach Cho for one day and she ends up cooking better than you, what will you do?”
Apparently hearing her name, Cho raised her head from nearby and, finding a good stick, brought it over to the fire.
Like the saying goes: even a school dog can recite poems after three years. Watching us closely all this time must’ve taught her a thing or two. She mimicked the motion of grilling meat over the fire—with surprising skill.
—Sssrrr. 『Dad, I can do it too! Like this, right? So it doesn’t burn. Use the heat, not the flames?』
“Of course you can, Cho. Look at you. So smart, my little one.”
Watching Cho copy the motions, Gun Hye-rin seemed to realize that if Cho really did cook better than her, her pride would take a serious hit. So she awkwardly changed the subject.
“L-Let’s just eat the pheasant.”
“Wise choice.”
The reason Gun Hye-rin brought the pheasant she roasted was because she’d been receiving “lessons” from me.
What kind of lessons?
Lessons on how to be human.
If I told someone that, they might ask, “She’s not a beast or spirit creature, so why teach her that?”
But for Gun Hye-rin, this kind of training was essential.
She’d been raised like a princess as the Little Heavenly Demon in the Heavenly Demon Cult—treated with reverence—but outside of martial arts, she literally didn’t know how to do anything.
Traveling with her meant either she or I had to handle food and laundry.
Laundry, sure, you just scrub it. No big deal.
But food?
At first, I cooked everything. Then she insisted she wanted to try. So I let her.
And we nearly starved.
How could she be so bad at the simple act of grilling meat over fire?
Why did it take ten days to teach her this? It’s not some complicated gourmet technique—it’s literally just cooking over fire!
In my previous life, when I was picking someone to help manage the poisonous beasts with me, a few older ex-soldiers gave me some advice:
“When hiring people, don’t look for the most skilled. Just avoid the wrong ones.”
Because skilled people are rare and hard to find—but screwups are everywhere. The best hiring strategy is just avoiding the screwups.
And they specifically warned me about people like Gun Hye-rin.
People who don’t know how to do anything—but are overflowing with enthusiasm.
They say, “Leave it to me!” then go mess everything up.
If they just sat still, at least they wouldn’t do damage—but they’re too eager.
Back then, I didn’t really get what they meant.
But after traveling with Gun Hye-rin, I understood it all too well.
The first day she cooked, the outside was charcoal and the inside raw.
The second day, the rabbit she brought looked like it crawled out of the underworld.
The meat had carbonized and {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} sparked like a lump of coal.
We skipped a few meals. Sometimes we’d catch something late and eat well past dinnertime.
Every time, I had to step in and redo everything myself.
Just thinking about all the dishes Gun Hye-rin had “cooked” for me gave me a headache.
So today, for once, the fact I didn’t have to re-cook anything made me quietly grateful.
Just as I was about to bring a juicy cut of pheasant to my mouth from a large leaf platter, Hwa-eun’s voice came through the group channel.
『“So-ryong, are you there?”』
“Yes, Hwa-eun. I was just about to eat.”
“Ah, I see. Then listen while you eat. I need to speak quickly.”
“Go ahead.”
Normally she’d wait until after I finished eating. So this must be urgent.
Sure enough, she got right to the point:
『“The official fast courier has finally arrived.”』
The one sent to the Martial Alliance carrying the imperial edict.
I asked:
『“So what happens now?”』
“It says that as soon as the decree is received, all martial artists must retreat thirty li from the border within three days.”
Thirty li... that’s around 12 kilometers.
The distance from the border to the Beast Palace was about 60 li, or roughly 30 kilometers.
So this meant we had to retreat to about halfway between the palace and the border.
Which also meant the Ten Thousand Great Mountains now fell within the danger zone.
Some parts of the mountain range stretched inside the Daewol Kingdom’s border.
Martial artists from the Alliance had been maintaining patrol lines along these areas.
Now, they would all have to fall back.
Then Hwa-eun asked:
『“So-ryong, do you think you can finish the search in three days?”』
She was basically warning me: finish the search in three days before it becomes too dangerous.
But that was absolutely impossible.
We were searching for a mountain with a water source.
That was the description we’d gotten from the map we seized from the Five Venoms.
We were targeting mountains that matched those criteria—and there were a lot of them here.
On top of that, frogs don’t stay in one territory outside of mating season, so we had a massive area to cover.
I turned to Gun Hye-rin.
“Lady Gun, how many peaks have we searched so far?”
“We’ve searched thirteen as of today.”
“And the rest?”
“About twenty more remain.”
In total, we’d marked thirty peaks as search targets.
Thirteen down in five days, and that’s with little sleep.
Even so, twenty remained.
It was absolutely impossible to finish the search in three days.
『“There’s no way. Honestly, the area is so vast, it’ll probably take another month at least.”』
There was no reply from Hwa-eun for a while.
Was she thinking it over?
Only after enough time passed for a cup of tea did she finally make a proposal.
『“So-ryong, then let’s do this instead.”』
“How?”
“Ji-ryong says even if he pulls back the forces, he’ll secretly station a few martial artists near the Ten Thousand Great Mountains. If there really is a spirit beast there, the Five Venoms will move, and if we tail them, we’ll be able to discover the spirit beast easily.”
“What about the imperial decree?”
“The decree forbids large groups of martial artists from gathering near the border. If they’re spread out in small units, it technically doesn’t violate the order. That’s the plan.”
It was true that if we could find the spirit beast first, that would be ideal. But a handful of us couldn’t possibly search the entire area.
If we just waited, and the Five Venoms made a move, we could tail them and be led straight to the spirit beast.
If they didn’t make a move, that meant there was nothing here—no spirit beast, no wasted effort.
The downside was we didn’t know how long we’d have to wait, and there was always the risk they might get to it before us.
Still, I decided to go with Ji-ryong’s plan.
『“Let’s go with that.”』
Despite the risks, I agreed for one reason:
This fiery Fabre never came back empty-handed from a poison creature expedition.
But for the past few days, even though we’d been combing through the area, my instincts—my “collector’s sense”—hadn’t stirred.
Normally, whenever I went on an expedition, I’d get a strange tingling feeling, like I was about to find something.
But here, the mountains were beautiful, the environment perfect—but no hunch, no reaction.
That waning sense of anticipation made me more willing to accept Ji-ryong’s suggestion.
『“Then, So-ryong, please head to the Princess right away. We still haven’t gotten any response from the imperial side, and we need to find out what’s going on.”』
“Understood.”
After finally finishing the perfectly roasted pheasant that Gun Hye-rin had made for the first time, I gathered Hwanji, Hwana, Baekhwa, Heukhwa, Hyangi, Hongdan, Cho, Yeondu, Yo-hwa, Sister Jeokwol, and Gun Hye-rin.
“We’re going to have to cross the sea now. So, Hwanji, Hwana, and Yo-hwa... I think you’ll need to head back.”
Crossing the sea meant it would be difficult to bring Hwanji, Hwana, and especially Yo-hwa.
Hwanji and Hwana nodded obediently—but Yo-hwa was the problem.
—Ksshh. 『Me too?』
“Yeah, we’re going over the ocean.”
—Kshhh. 『I really don’t want to feed on anyone else's yang energy though...』
Honestly, I brought Hwanji and Hwana along because of Yo-hwa.
Yo-hwa refused to feed on anyone but me, which meant I had to take her along, and to transport her, I needed one of the big ones.
But Yo-hwa clearly didn’t want to go back.
Seeing her sulk, Hwanji and Hwana spoke up.
—Shu. 『Just take us with you, So-ryong-nim.』
—Shhi. 『Yeah, we can cross the sea too.』
—Shuu. 『Don’t worry, Yo-hwa. We’ll take care of you.』
—Shhiie. 『Yes, we’ll come with you.』
They’d apparently crossed the sea before.
Surprised, I asked:
“You’ve actually crossed the sea before?”
—Shuuu. 『Of course. We’ve even spent over a month in the ocean before.』
—Shh. 『Naturally.』
“Hm... then I guess we can all go together.”
Snakes are excellent swimmers, after all.
So the sea itself wasn’t the problem.
The concern was that salt water wasn’t ideal for Hwanji and Hwana. They weren’t sea snakes, so their ability to handle osmotic pressure was likely poor.
That’s why I had planned to send them back.
But if they could survive in the ocean for a whole month, it should be fine.
Our route was to travel down the Zhujiang River to the area that used to be Hong Kong in my previous life—now Xiangxiang—then take the sea up the coast to the Zhushan Archipelago where Botam Hermitage was located.
Since we wouldn’t pass near any populated areas, it wouldn’t attract attention.
So we decided to travel together.
“All right, let’s go together then.”
At my answer, Yo-hwa looked visibly relieved.
***
We exited through the Zhujiang River between Hong Kong and Macau and followed the coastline toward the Zhushan Archipelago, where Botam Hermitage was.
About two days into the sea journey, I heard a request from Juhwang.
—Skaa. (Вrother, if you’re passing near Iju, could you check on my younger siblings and see if they’re doing well?)
“Oh, your siblings?”
Apparently, when Juhwang heard we’d be sailing near Iju, he wanted me to check on his younger siblings—the spirit beasts beloved by Seol-noona—to see if they were doing okay.
Since it was on the way, I nodded.
『“Sure. We’re passing by anyway, so I’ll swing through.”』
—Skaa. (Thank you, Вrother.)
As I accepted Juhwang’s request and adjusted our course along the coastline, we turned east out into deeper waters.
The sky began to darken.
—Swaaaa!
Then raindrops started to fall.
—Swa-wa-wa.
The raindrops thickened. The wind picked up.
Waves began rising high—even above our heads.
I thought it was just a passing shower, but the sea was acting strange.
“What the... a typhoon?”
Sea spray was now splashing over Yo-hwa’s head as she rode on Hwanji and Hwana’s backs.
I thought we needed shelter from the rain, and tried to ascend into the sky to look for an island—but then the lightning started.
—Rrrrrrumble!
At this rate, we were going to get hit by lightning. I couldn’t even rise into the air.
Just then, through the haze of rain, I spotted a small island in the distance.
