Chapter 89: The Twenty-Four Poison Branches (4)

Translator: bjgoofy

Since the location of the Flying Celestial Serpent was identified, I thought we would immediately begin the capture operation, but departure couldn’t happen right away.

As it was said to be the highest-ranking among high-grade venomous creatures, we needed to make a variety of preparations.

Therefore, the very first thing we prepared was realgar.

It had protected people even from the immense poison of the Zhen Bird, so this was a kind of insurance that we absolutely had to secure.

What we used as realgar was something made by obtaining what's known as mineral realgar and mixing it with medicinal herbs and the Tang Family’s secret techniques. Grandfather said he would make it before we departed.

-Bubble bubble.

Watching the medicinal herbs boiling in the decoction pot, grandfather said.

“They say the reason it isn’t counted among the Ten Great Venomous Creatures is because its poison is weak, but still, we mustn’t let our guard down.”

“Of course, Grandfather. No matter how much we emphasize safety, it’s never enough.”

I was impatient and eager to go capture it quickly, but Grandfather wasn’t wrong about anything.

Especially for me, who died in a past life from a snake bite.

Well, in my previous life, I never could have imagined a snake appearing in a hotel room, but capturing a venomous snake is inherently dangerous no matter how cautious you are.

Living creatures all have their own personalities, so even if you respond according to the average behavior, unexpected things can happen.

So, while Grandfather prepared realgar for each person to carry with them, I was assigned a task too, and that was the sack.

“Even if we catch the thing, the problem is where to keep it.”

“Snakes can escape through even the tiniest gap, so normally, we keep them in sacks.”

“Our Tang Family does the same.”

Preparing realgar was something I could leave to Grandfather. The problem was the sack.

Since snakes can escape through the smallest openings, in the wild, people usually put them into a pouch immediately after catching them.

And after that, they place the entire pouch into a box or cage, that’s the usual method.

Reptile experts all use similar methods, and there’s a reason for that.

If you don’t put the snake into a pouch and instead directly into a box or cage, it may escape through even a small gap, and when opening the lid, it might suddenly leap out and bite you, this happens quite often.

Even reptile experts with decades of experience frequently suffer poisoning accidents this way, which is why this method is used.

Because of that, a pouch to hold the snake was absolutely necessary. However, since the Flying Celestial Serpent was almost certainly a spiritual creature-grade snake, the material of the pouch was the issue.

Any ordinary fabric would be easily shredded by it.

“A regular fabric won’t work, right?”

“Probably not, right? Don’t you have any good ideas?”

“Uh, me?”

“Aren’t you the expert?”

“....”

I suggested going to the Tang Family estate to bring back something useful, but Grandfather said that even the Tang Family didn’t have anything suitable for capturing that creature.

He said there used to be something, but it was too old to be usable now.

So, I needed something strong and tough that even a spiritual creature-grade venomous snake couldn’t escape from. In my previous life, we had things like carbon fiber and other various advanced textiles, but this was not my previous life, this was the Central Plains.

‘What I need is something stronger than steel, with high elasticity and strong durability.’

While Grandfather was diligently making the realgar, I was agonizing over how to make the pouch to capture the creature.

And I happened to solve that problem purely by chance.

Surprisingly, a raw thread that was stronger than steel, more elastic, and highly durable had been right near me all along.

“Young Master Soryong! The Coin Trapdoor Spider has disappeared!”

One warrior came to report that the spider had vanished while checking on it in the morning, not realizing that it had dug into the ground.

I hurried over and found that the creature had already built its nest inside the small jar.

It had been placed into a jar filled with soil, and according to its nature, it had burrowed into the ground and built a trap.

Trap spiders like the Coin Trapdoor Spider dig vertical burrows into the ground, build sock-like homes with spider silk, and live inside them.

This must have happened because the people who captured it and those who were managing it were different. A little mishap.

I quickly dug into the center of the jar and pulled out the sock-like home made of white spider silk that the creature was in.

Then I tore it open and showed the warriors that the spider was indeed inside.

“Here, take a look. This Coin Trapdoor Spider is the kind of spider that digs into the ground like this and builds a silk home to live in. It was just hiding inside, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Wow, it was so seamless that I completely fell for it.”

One of the Venomous Creature Squad warriors let out a breath, patting his chest in relief at my words.

Thinking that I should hold some seminars and do some training about venomous creatures later, I continued.

“Well, that can happen. These guys have big appetites, so if you feed them daily with something like grasshoppers or crickets, they’ll eat well. And be sure to clean up the trash they throw out of the burrow from time to time. Ah, and don’t forget to lightly spray water once every morning.”

“Understood, Young Master Soryong!”

After passing along a few care instructions about the Coin Trapdoor Spider to the warrior, I turned to head back to my quarters with the shredded spider silk home, which now looked like a torn rubber balloon.

‘If only a pouch was made in this shape... Huh? Wait a second. Why didn’t I think of that before?’

A sudden thought flashed into my mind as I looked at the torn home of the Coin Trapdoor Spider.

I quickly ran toward Yohwa.

“Yohwa! Yohwa!”

-Kisssit?

Yohwa had chosen a rock in the center of the first circular grassland, where all the giant army ants had died, as a temporary shelter. When I ran below and called her, Yohwa quickly came down, climbing down the rock pillar.

Showing her the torn spider silk of the Coin Trapdoor Spider, I said,

“Yohwa, can you maybe make something like this?”

-Kisi?

The reason I asked Yohwa to make me a pouch was.

Spider silk, that is, spider thread, is known to be twenty times tougher than steel of the same weight and four times stronger than the special fibers used in bulletproof vests.

Is that all?

Unlike synthetic fibers, it causes no rejection response in the human body, and it has excellent elasticity, being able to stretch up to fifty percent of its length. That’s spider silk.

And on top of that, Yohwa is a spiritual creature and one of the Ten Great Venomous Creatures. Need I say more about its strength?

Just the fact that the thread tied around my waist didn’t break even amidst the swarm of army ants was proof enough, this was clearly one of the strongest fibers in this era.

‘I could probably make a bulletproof vest with this!’

As Yohwa tilted her head at my question, I began gesturing and even drawing on the ground to explain.

“I’d really appreciate it if you could use your silk to make a large pouch shaped like this.”

-Kisit!

“You can!? Ohhh!”

At my request, Yohwa pushed her belly forward and swiftly began spinning silk with her spider legs.

The ends of a spider’s legs are hook-shaped, all designed to let them climb along their web.

As Yohwa’s legs moved, the silk she spun started to take on the shape I had envisioned.

And shortly after.

-Kisssit?

Yohwa asked if this would be good enough.

At the tip of her leg was a large pouch, shaped just like the one I had described.

Since Yohwa had made it, the finishing wasn’t perfect.

When I tried to tidy the messy ends with my flying dagger, I found that even the blade couldn’t cut through it, and when I pulled on it, it stretched like a spandex material.

Just as I expected, the elasticity and durability were no joke.

On top of that, it was even slightly translucent, thin enough to see through.

“Oh, amazing, Yohwa!”

At my praise, Yohwa brought my hand up to her head, it clearly meant she wanted lots of praise, so I quickly began patting her head.

She definitely deserved praise today.

After all, she had made the perfect pouch to contain the Flying Celestial Serpent.

“Good job! Good job!”

-Kisisi...

“Thanks to you, Oppa’s burden just got lighter. Now, I’ll show this pouch to Grandfather and say we should depart tomorrow!”

Something I had been worrying about for days was resolved in an instant thanks to Yohwa.

Now I ran again, this time toward Grandfather, who was still making the realgar.

And when I arrived where the realgar was being made, I shouted toward Grandfather.

“Grandfather! I made it!”

“Hm? What exactly did you make?”

“The pouch! I made a pouch with Yohwa’s thread, and it’s so tough it can’t even be cut with a blade!”

“With Yohwa’s thread? Let me see....”

Grandfather examined the pouch I handed him for quite a while, then spoke with a surprised expression.

“Oh-ho! This is a rare item! In that case, we can set out as early as tomorrow!”

“Then I’ll get the warriors ready for departure tomorrow!”

With the biggest problem now solved, we were ready to move out immediately.

***

Though not widely known among people, flying snakes existed even in my past life.

I had once introduced them on my broadcast in my previous life. Some people responded by saying things like, “Where on earth are there flying snakes?” “Stop lying” “That’s nonsense” but they really did exist.

There were even five types of them.

They belonged to the Chrysopelea genus, five species of snakes that live in tropical jungles. Strictly speaking, they glide rather than fly, but there’s a reason they’re called flying snakes.

Snakes of the Chrysopelea genus feed on lizards, frogs, or small birds that dwell in trees, and their habitats are jungles filled with extremely tall trees.

To move quickly through such an environment, these snakes evolved to glide.

“Today’s broadcast: Introducing Flying Snakes.”

“These guys glide. Isn’t that amazing?”

‘Ah, I knew it.’

‘Fabre, this bastard is peddling nonsense again.’

‘A venomous creature streamer doing baiting again?’

‘Fabre, you dumb bastard, calling gliding flying just to bait viewers.’

That’s what I heard from viewers swarming in after seeing the title I posted, but there was a reason I introduced these snakes as flying snakes.

Because calling what they do “gliding” doesn’t quite capture it.

Why is it ambiguous?

Because one of them, known as the Paradise Tree Snake, can glide up to 250 meters.

2.5 meters? No. 25 meters? Nope. 250 meters.

That’s roughly the length of two football fields strung together, an enormous gliding distance.

It’s not just a few meters of hopping. These snakes don’t crash-landing after 250 meters either - they nearly move horizontally through the air.

That’s why they’re called Flying Snakes, not Gliding Snakes.

If something can glide horizontally for 250 meters, not just 2 or 20, that’s practically flying.

‘No doubt, 250 meters counts as flying.’

The reason this Chrysopelea genus can glide like this lies in their unique physical characteristics. When they fly, they first climb to the top of a tree, stretch their body slightly into a J-shape, and transform their body.

(TL Note: See this documentary video on YouTube to understand more. Note: do not watch if you have a fear of snakes. https://youtu.be/16aGSx9gFO4?feature=shared))

These snakes can flare out their ribs like wings. Instead of a typical round snake body, they use their ribs as a frame and their skin like paper, shaping their body into a concave, flat form like a glider’s wing.

It forms a structure that can generate maximum lift.

Then they leap off the tree, shaking their head side to side as they fly toward their destination. That’s their glide, and their flight.

So I figured the flying snake here would be similar.

After all, nothing in the universe escapes the laws of physics, does it?

Sure, it had a grand name like the Flying Celestial Serpent, but considering how primitive this world was compared to my past life, it made sense that people here would call a gliding snake a flying one.

It was called the Flying Celestial Serpent, and it was said to live in Gorge Water Valley, a deeply sunken valley. I figured it used the wind blowing through the valley to generate lift and move between the cliffs.

But…

After waiting two days for the creature at the bottom of the narrow gorge in Gorge Water Valley where it occasionally appeared.

‘But why is that bastard actually flying?’

There, above the valley, we spotted the Flying Celestial Serpent swimming leisurely through the sky, circling between the cliffs like a sea snake swimming through the ocean.

“As the records said, it truly does fly.”

That was the voice of Grandfather, the Man of Ten Thousand Poisons, murmuring in awe as he nodded after spotting the creature.

I felt like my brain had short-circuited and asked again.

“Isn’t... isn’t this kind of strange, Grandfather?”

“What do you mean?”

“No, I mean, the snake is flying.”

“That’s why it’s called the Flying Celestial Serpent.”

“Ah, right… that’s why it’s called that…”

Lately, everything feels hard to understand.

Nunim, who had been gazing up at the sky, gently patted the centipedes and said,

“You all become dragons quickly too, so you can soar through the skies like that someday.”

-Tsuru!

At that, Cho let out the loudest cry of them all in reply.