Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang

For long-distance travel, excluding horses and wagons, martial artists typically use three main types of carrying tools.

Since they don’t need to prepare large amounts of food and are both faster and more durable than horses or wagons, martial artists mainly rely on their own two legs.

Because of this, they generally use three specific carrying methods.

First, there is the geup, a bamboo backpack.

It’s a rectangular box made of bamboo, filled with supplies, and worn like a backpack.

It even has shoulder straps, so aside from being made of bamboo, it functions just like an actual backpack.

The character geup (笈) originally referred to a bookcase, commonly used by scholars to carry books.

However, martial artists often use it to carry clothes and food.

If you’ve ever seen a Chinese film where scholars walk around with a square bamboo bag on their backs—that’s a geup.

Another method is using a large reed or bamboo basket with shoulder straps, serving as a substitute for a backpack.

This method is typically used by market vendors carrying vegetables or goods, but martial artists also adopt it frequently.

It’s easy to make and holds a lot of supplies.

Lastly, there is the simplest method—cutting a length of bamboo and attaching baskets on either end, or tying up supplies directly to it.

This was something I often saw in Southeast Asian markets in my past life.

It resembled the way people carried water yokes or how ancient soldiers slung their belongings vertically over their backs.

Currently, we were using bamboo baskets we had brought from Yunnan as makeshift backpacks.

When I took a closer look at the cause of the warriors’ commotion, I saw that, just like before, holes had been gnawed through the corner of one of the baskets.

The warriors from the Beast Palace could repair the baskets, so that wasn’t the issue.

The real problem was that this had now happened three days in a row.

At this point, I decided it was best to consult an expert on the matter.

When faced with a problem, the best solution was to call in a specialist, wasn’t it?

“Seol!”

That’s right—Seol was the one to ask.

If I was an expert on insects, reptiles, amphibians, and, more specifically, venomous creatures, then Seol was the authority on furred animals.

Even though we weren’t in Yunnan, she might still be able to identify the culprit based on the traces it had left behind.

The Beast Palace’s knowledge wasn’t limited to just Yunnan’s beasts—Seol was well-versed in all manner of creatures.

Since this clearly seemed to be the work of some wild animal, if we could determine what it was, we could either drive it away or prevent it from approaching again.

That was why I called her over.

“Hm? So-ryong, what is it?”

With slightly drowsy eyes, Seol tilted her head before scurrying over to me when I beckoned.

Still half-asleep, she leaned against me, and I pointed at the damaged basket.

“Can you tell what kind of animal did this?”

“This?”

“Yes. I hadn’t mentioned it before, but for the past three days, our food has been getting stolen.