# 012. The Era of Great Awakening (5)
[Earthlings! Your planet has finally earned the qualification to participate in the Final Festival. Congratulations! Congratulations! Congratulations! (❁´▽`❁)*✲ﾟ*]
A system window that Jaehee had seen in the tutorial appeared sparkling before his eyes. While Jaehee was reading, new text appeared.
[Now that all Seekers have finished the tutorial, shall we start the main game? Yay! I’m excited! ( ๑˃̶ ꇴ ˂̶)♪⁺
The Final Festival, Choose the King! Dear Earthlings. To survive on Earth now, you must have a King. Let’s live comfortably under the King’s protection! (๑・‿・๑)
Kings can be bestowed by heaven, but they can also ascend to the throne themselves! Here is the first trial for Earthlings!
♢ Global Mission: Become a King, or become a subject. ♢
Basic premise: The King protects the subjects, and the subjects must have a King.
All Earthlings must belong to a King. Where might the King be? Or perhaps I’ll take this opportunity to become the King myself? Become a King or become a subject!
(*) Conditions to be King: Being heaven-sent (Royal Road) or being crowned by others.
Reward: Survival
Failure: Death]
Jaehee alternated between looking at the spider and the text before his eyes. The content wasn’t difficult to understand, but he couldn’t grasp what it all meant.
All Earthlings must have a King? King? Was Royal Road related to this? The situation was urgent, so he didn’t have time to read slowly and think. He closed the system window, thinking he would check it again later. Then a new message flashed.
[ ♦Personal Mission Arrived♦
Shin Jaehee, you are a Royal Road. You have the duty to gather subjects and protect them from the harsh world. Please defeat the ferocious spider, Cheonsan-jiju, for the first time! Royal Road! ٩(๑❛ʚ❛๑)۶
Success: The first step as King! Activation of King’s skills (´•᎑•`)♡
Failure: Death ( ˃̣̣̥᷄⌓˂̣̣̥᷅ ) ]
“W…what is this now? I can’t stand bugs!!!”
While Jaehee was distracted by the system window, the spider was slowly extending its legs inside.
Jaehee took a deep breath and tried to control his mind.
Right. He had seen countless spiders like this when living at his grandmother’s house. They weren’t this size, but…
Yes… it’s just bigger in size, but it’s still just a spider, right? It’s fine. …But. When catching small spiders, he used insecticide, but would that work on this spider? He barely managed to stop himself from getting distracted by these thoughts, which were just an attempt to escape reality.
Meanwhile, the spider was tearing at the door. Finding its body too large to fit through the door, it was trying to tear the door off with its legs. The spider grabbed the door with its legs and ripped out the entire doorframe, throwing it aside.
“J-Jeongwoo. If that thing comes inside, aren’t we at a disadvantage…?”
“Shh. Come here….”
“Huh?”
“From what I can see, it doesn’t seem very intelligent and its eyesight isn’t good either. Come here.”
Jeongwoo spoke quickly in a low voice and pulled Jaehee along. It was a storage room on one side of the convenience store, filled with the musty smell of dust.
“W-wait, Jeongwoo.”
“Don’t move and stay still. It senses through vibrations. Shh.”
Suddenly, Jaehee found himself sandwiched between Jeongwoo and the door. Jeongwoo held Jaehee close. A dim reddish light came through the round window above the storage room door.
“J-Jeongwoo….”
“Shh. Just a moment….”
Their bodies were completely pressed against each other. Because they were facing each other in the embrace, Jeongwoo’s breath, who was taller than Jaehee, tickled his ear.
Jaehee’s heart pounded loudly and his face flushed red, but he couldn’t tell if it was because of Jeongwoo right in front of him or because of the spider prowling outside.
Jaehee turned his head with his reddened face. Even if he tried not to be conscious of it, he couldn’t help but notice Jeongwoo’s scent brushing against the tip of his nose.
Amidst the silence, there was a tak, tak sound. It seemed to be the footsteps of the spider. Because of its large size, it made such sounds.
The spider seemed to be knocking over items as it wandered around the convenience store, as the sound of objects falling could occasionally be heard.
Jaehee and Jeongwoo hid in the dusty, narrow storage room, embracing each other until there was no sound from outside for quite some time.
“I think it’s gone now. Fortunately, it seems to have left right away. Spider species usually aren’t that intelligent. It probably thought we weren’t here because it couldn’t see us and left. Spider species aren’t particularly strong monsters, but they are tricky to deal with in many ways.”
“Oh… I see.”
An awkward silence fell. Jaehee fidgeted and moved slightly away from Jeongwoo’s embrace. Even though the storage room was so narrow that there was nowhere to go even if he tried to move away, Jeongwoo’s body heat against him was burdensome.
Jeongwoo said that he had pretended not to know because spiders were tricky monsters, but Jaehee clearly remembered what Jeongwoo had said before.
Hadn’t he definitely averted his gaze while saying, “I’m also not good with bugs”?
“Are you afraid of bugs?”
“Huh? No. I just dislike them, I’m not afraid.”
“Hmm….”
When Jaehee looked at him with a curious gaze, Jeongwoo hurriedly avoided eye contact.
Jaehee disliked bugs, but he could catch them. He had seen too many of them while staying at his grandmother’s house in the countryside. Bugs were one of the reasons why Jaehee disliked the countryside.
“I’m afraid of bugs, so I’ll have to rely on you from now on. You’ll catch them all for me, right? Even cockroaches?”
“I just dislike them, I’m not particularly afraid of them.”
“By the way, you said earlier that we should go to a shelter, right? Where is the shelter?”
“Let’s first go near home. And on the way, let’s try contacting our parents. Shouldn’t you also contact your father? He must be very worried.”
“Huh? Oh…. Yeah.”
At the mention of his father, Jaehee flinched and then nodded. He had never been particularly close with his father, but things had become even more awkward after his father’s remarriage.
“Oh, by the way, Jeongwoo. When the spider appeared earlier, I got a personal mission. It says ‘Failure: Death,’ but what happens if the spider just leaves like this?”
“What? You got a personal mission? Ha, then we can’t just leave. Did the spider’s name appear as well?”
“The spider’s name? Let me see…. Oh! It was called Cheonsan-jiju.”
“Damn. If it’s a spider with a name, it’s not an ordinary spider. Think of it as a boss mob. And if it came as a personal mission…. We can’t just leave like this.”
Jaehee’s face also darkened at Jeongwoo’s ominous words. Although he had hunted rock bugs and wolves during the tutorial, he couldn’t bring himself to face the spider he had seen earlier. Sensing Jaehee’s feelings, Jeongwoo quickly continued with a slight smile.
“Why that expression? Don’t worry. I’ll weaken it first, and then let you deliver the final blow. Since the mission appeared for you, you need to end its life to complete the mission. I was trying to avoid it just because I didn’t want to get tired, not because I couldn’t catch it. Oh, and….”
Jeongwoo thought about something for a moment, then took something out from the air.
“Jaehee, you said you’ve shot a bow before, right? Actually, a bow isn’t an easy weapon for beginners to handle, but I remembered you saying that you’ve shot a bow before…. Besides, since it’s a spider, ranged is better than close combat.”
Jaehee had done archery as a special activity in middle school. It was something all students had to do, so it was partly voluntary and partly mandatory, but he liked archery itself. It was one of the few things he found enjoyable when recalling his middle school days.
He felt mixed emotions as he accepted the bow and arrows Jeongwoo handed him. It was both welcoming and unfamiliar.
“Spiders have poison not only in their mouths but also in their fur. Since you’ve taken Moon’s Grace, you should be fine with the poison, but be careful of the silk the spider spits out. Once it touches you, it’s not easy to remove. So it’s cleanest to shoot the bow from a distance. But spiders move faster than you might think, so after shooting once, you need to quickly change position. Since it appeared as a mission, it’s highly likely that you’re being targeted. Even if I draw the aggro, you need to evade well. Understood?”
Jaehee nodded as he strung the bow Jeongwoo had given him. It was the first time since graduating from middle school, so it had been three years, but after stringing and unstringing the bow a few times, it soon became familiar to his hands.
In the middle of speaking, Jeongwoo suddenly frowned and hugged Jaehee tightly. Before Jaehee could even make a sound of surprise, Jeongwoo carried him outside. Right after they left, the ceiling and walls were torn apart with a loud boom.
“Puhah, ptui, ptui, w-what is this.”
The ceiling materials and dust fell together, making it impossible to see. Sand, dust, and unidentifiable things settled down. When he looked up, he saw Cheonsan-jiju wiggling its black legs over the cleanly torn, gaping ceiling.
Cheonsan-jiju tilted its head and waved its legs. As if searching for Jeongwoo and Jaehee.
