Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang Novel - Chapter 80

Chapter 80

A vast valley floor, covered in a thick, scarlet carpet.
As the dying sun washed the terrain in its fading light, the armored plates of the ants gleamed, catching the rays like polished steel.
It looked as though a legion in full battle gear had assembled to claim the basin.
At its heart, a churning crimson sphere expanded, tumbling forward like a growing avalanche.
The ants were constructing their nightly bivouac.
Many linked their forms together, assembling a provisional stronghold—a living, moving citadel of limbs and jaws.
That was the moment of realization.
All the bizarre events leading to this point—this was the explanation.
If these creatures had moved through the territory, it was no wonder nothing else remained.
I recalled learning about such ants in my former life.
Any place they traversed was stripped of all small creatures and bugs, resulting in an unnervingly barren environment, as if scoured clean.
Oddly, certain native tribes had celebrated their coming for that exact purpose.
These ants devoured more than one hundred thousand insects each day.
They were, in the truest sense, a wave of consumption.

[So-ryong, do you know what these are? The archives of the Tang Clan hold no record of such a thing, and I have never encountered them.]
Grandfather’s mental transmission carried a unusual hint of anxiety.
I gave a slight nod and whispered in response.
A kind of ant that migrates rather than establishing lasting nests.
Enormous, hostile, and perpetually traveling.
There was only one possible identity—
[Yes. I have never seen them on this scale, but they are unmistakably Army Ants.]
[Army Ants?]
[They do not create permanent dwellings. They march as a unified force, journeying to find sustenance.]
They did not always migrate.
Typically, they existed in a stable habitat.
But when their population swelled too greatly and resources grew thin, they would commence their advance.
They must have originally inhabited the Venomous Creatures Valley, but their numbers exploded, compelling them to venture out for nourishment.
[Is that why no other life remained?]
[Yes. Anything in their way would have been utterly devoured. We must pull back now—these things are profoundly aggressive—]
Before I could complete my sentence—
—Crack!
The sharp report of a snapping branch.
I spun around.
One of the warriors had trodden on a dry stick and was now gazing at it in terror.
—Crack. Crack. Crack…
The noise propagated rapidly, resonating throughout the basin.
‘Oh, no.’
Army Ants do not locate their prey by sight.
They sense motion—vibrations.
And now, the very sound that had lured us here was being replicated.
—Sssssssss!
That sound—what we had misidentified as bamboo rustling in the breeze—
It was not the wind.
It was them.
The noise of countless ants moving as one.
Horrified, I watched the entire seething mass ripple, turning as a single entity like a tide.
Then—
I spotted them.
The bigger ones.
Those possessing enormous, serrated pincers.
The Soldiers.
Their chitinous jaws clacked together in a sinister, rhythmic beat.
—Snap! Snap! Snap!
A cacophony of clicking mandibles saturated the air, merging with the rustling of countless bodies.
A chill ran down my spine.
Silence was no longer an option.
I yelled.
“We have to fall back—NOW!”
“Retreat!” Grandfather bellowed.
I turned and found the warriors paralyzed, completely overwhelmed by the immensity of the spectacle before them.
As my urgent cry faded, the ant swarm rushed forward like a scarlet deluge.
—Ssssssssssh!
A tsunami of living, breathing demise.
And it was headed directly for us.
The instant I turned, I fled.
Everyone did the same.
There was no pause.
No one required a second command.
To be engulfed by that red tide meant immediate death.
—Crunch! Snap!
I burst through the jungle, branches whipping across my face and arms.
Scratches stung my skin, but it was irrelevant.
‘If I slow down—I’m dead!’
I drove my body onward, sprinting at my absolute limit.
Army Ants were not swift, but neither were they slow.
They didn’t need to be.
They never ceased.
“The river! Get to the river!”
The one thing I had observed was that they had not crossed the water.
We had to reach the river.
I swerved toward it, and without a second thought—
—I leaped.
The moment I plunged into the water, a cold shock penetrated to my core.
I broke the surface, gasping air, and paddled desperately.
One after another, the others jumped in behind me.
And just like that—
The pursuit ended.
—Snap. Snap.
The ants assembled along the bank, clacking their jaws.
But they did not follow.
Whether it was the current or some innate hesitation toward deep water, they would not cross.
And then, just as abruptly—
They turned away.
As the final remnants of sunlight disappeared, they withdrew, melting back into the basin.
Collapsing onto the riverbank, a unified sigh of relief filled the air.
“Hahh…”
“Haah…”
“I… I believed we were finished.”
Lying back on the sun-warmed river stones, I felt a familiar squirming weight inside my robe.
Cho.
Dripping wet, my little O-Gong crawled out and began licking the water from my face.
—Tssssrrr…
“Cho, are you alright? O-Gongs dislike water… Don’t fret, Dad will get you dry.”
I stripped off my soaked outer garment, wringing it out before tenderly drying Cho.
As I did, Grandfather and Gu Pae settled beside me.
“…What monstrosities,” Grandfather murmured.
“So-ryong, that was… astounding. That sound… I could feel it in my marrow,” Gu Pae added.
Both appeared deeply shaken.
Even Grandfather—who had never feared any adversary—wore a look of genuine disquiet.
“This Mandok Shingun has never feared a mortal fight.
Yet for the first time, I experienced something akin to dread.
That such tiny beings… could evoke this feeling in me…”
“Indeed. These things consume everything in their way. They do not halt. That is what makes them so perilous.”
After I finished drying Cho, I looked around.
The warriors were strewn along the riverbank, completely spent.
Meanwhile, the sun had vanished below the edge of the world.
Darkness descended.
I let out a breath and spoke.
“Well… Now that we’ve made it through—”
I turned to Grandfather and Gu Pae with a wide grin.
“—We should see if it’s possible to raise them.”
They both went still.
“…You wish to what?”
“You are saying… test if they can be tamed?”
When I proposed checking if these Army Ants could be cultivated, every eye went wide.
Gu Pae, still reeling from our brush with death, clung to a desperate hope.
“Y-you cannot be serious… w-we go back in there? We just got away from those horrors—s-surely not…”
Beaming, I pointed toward the far side of the river.
“The sun is already down. Let’s slip in and grab a few.”
Some varieties of Army Ants were poisonous, which technically classified them as venomous creatures.
And if that was true, then I, Spicy Fabre, could not possibly overlook them.
Gu Pae mutely turned to Grandfather with a pleading expression, as if begging for intervention.
I sealed his fate.
“Grandfather, you’ll be joining us, won’t you?”
***
“Huff… Huff… T-this… T-this is insanity! I never imagined I’d be doing something this deranged twice in one night! I—I assumed when So-ryong said to go at night, it meant they slept, like the Golden Wasp Kings!”
Gu Pae was panting with fear.
His whole body quivered as if he’d soaked his clothes.
That was understandable, considering a giant worker ant had just clamped onto his back and we’d only just escaped.
Army Ants never release their bite—not even if you decapitate them.
Unfortunately for Gu Pae, one had been perched on an overhanging branch… and it snapped shut on his robe.
“Ahaha… Well, Army Ants don’t sleep.”
Research from my past life indicated that Army Ants do take periods of rest—approximately every twelve hours, they would pause briefly.
But they only slept for about eight minutes at a stretch.
And since different groups rested at different times, the colony as a whole never ceased its motion.
From a human standpoint, Army Ants were virtually sleepless.
“But look! We were successful, weren’t we?”
I gestured triumphantly toward our bounty.
Gu Pae shivered, his trauma clearly intensifying.
But I was elated.
In this single midnight foray, we had secured four of the six primary castes of Army Ants.
Aside from the Queen and the Males, we had successfully gathered:
Giant Worker Ants (comparable to soldier ants with enormous, scythe-like mandibles).
Secondary Giant Workers (equipped with powerful, crushing jaws).
Medium Workers (accountable for all colony labor).
Small Workers (specialized in caring for the Queen).
Army Ants were born into four separate worker castes.
The Giant Workers possessed large, scythe-like mandibles for slicing prey.
The Secondary Giants had mighty jaws for crushing and dismembering victims.
The Medium Workers managed all general tasks within the colony.
The Small Workers were dedicated solely to attending the Queen.
And now…
We had secured one of each.
As we arranged them near the campfire, Gu Pae finally recovered his wits and asked:
“So… can you train them?”
I shook my head.
As I had suspected, they were untamable.
The small worker ant we had captured—roughly the size of a fist—showed no response to any of my attempts to communicate.
— Click. Click-click.
It merely moved its mandibles vacantly.
If we could somehow access the Queen, perhaps there was a possibility.
But gazing at that red ocean across the river, the notion of reaching the Queen—and negotiating with her—seemed ludicrous.
And even if I managed to speak to her…
Could I truly command an entire colony of Army Ants?
Unlike bees, which possessed strong individual memory and intellect, Army Ants relied wholly on collective instinct.
Their individual memory lasted… about three days.
Certainly, these were not ordinary ants.
They were mystical, possibly even intelligent relative to their mundane cousins.
But most Army Ants were blind, depending on vibrations and pheromones to interact.
Without direct contact with the Queen, controlling them was impossible.
“So… this was all for nothing?”
Gu Pae’s voice was thick with weariness.
“Nothing? What do you mean? Look at these magnificent specimens! Think of how impressive they would look, perfectly preserved and exhibited in the Grand Hall of Ten Thousand Poisons!
Look at this mandible! This is the very one that bit your robe, correct?”
He did not appear persuaded.
In the dancing firelight, Gu Pae’s face looked somewhat pitiful.
‘If only I had chosen another member of the Venom Blood Squad for this task… He looks permanently scarred.’
As I chuckled inwardly, Grandfather spoke.
“So then, if they cannot be trained… what is our next course of action?
Should we seek other venomous creatures in a different area?
We could travel west to Seoryeo or south to Seosangpanna—both regions possess denser jungles.”
He was proposing we relocate now that we had acquired sufficient samples.
But I just smiled.
“No. We are going to get ahead of the ants.”
“…I beg your pardon?”
“You want to… overtake them?”
Everyone stared at me in disbelief.
I explained.
“Correct. If we move ahead of them, the creatures in their path will panic and scatter in every direction.
That provides us with a perfect chance to capture a diverse array of insects and venomous creatures.
It will require some effort, but…”
The reason so many birds and predators followed Army Ants was precisely because their marching swarm flushed out prey.
I was merely proposing that we… emulate them.
“Doesn’t that sound enjoyable?”
For some reason…
Everyone looked at me as if I were mad.