Chapter 16
Even the host was stunned for two whole seconds.
After hosting so many years of this competition, this was the first time he had ever seen the audience screaming nonstop before the preliminary round had even begun.
At first, the spectators below the stage were simply surprised. Some of them had even assumed that the tiny “little flying ram-man” on the big screen was a mascot specially designed by the organizers, meant to surprise them in this way. Only after they took out the shopping guide map and failed to find any matching merchandise did they turn back toward the stage in disappointment.
…Was that really a contestant?
Seeing that the atmosphere had already been stirred up, the host promptly cracked a joke to pull the audience’s attention back, then smilingly continued introducing the rest of the contestants.
Above the stage were the entrances to the different caves. Each contestant, according to their assigned number, went to stand before the cave entrance with the matching number and prepare.
There were many contestants in the preliminary round. Yomi kept close to the person in front of him as he climbed the stone steps.
By now, the host had already introduced all the contestants and had begun explaining the characteristics of each cave.
The other contestants, eager to reach their caves as quickly as possible, no longer bothered lining up in order. Each of them charged toward their own target, taking two or three steps at a stride.
Yomi could not keep up at all. Even taking one step at a time, he still had to run and hop together to manage it. Those tall Snaran overtook him with ease. Their movements carried gusts of wind, and every time one of them rushed past him, Yomi’s hair and the hem of his clothes would instantly go flying.
Very quickly, Yomi fell all the way to the rear of the group.
Seeing that the host was about to reach the explanation for his cave, Yomi hastily sped up into a sprint. Before the host spoke about Cave Number Five, he finally managed to plant himself firmly at its entrance. Breathing a little fast, he gave a small nod toward the camera.
Yomi had absolutely no idea that from the moment he started climbing those steps, countless eyes had already fixed on him.
The tiny horned figure was effortlessly left behind by the other contestants, yet still fought his way forward with all his strength. He looked just like a pitiful little lamb, staggering its way out through a host of towering opponents
The contrast was too strong.
When he finally made it to the cave entrance in time, even the audience could not help letting out a relieved breath for him.
In the VIP area of the audience seats—
A man whose face was tightly concealed sat unmoving, his gaze in the shadows fixed intently on Yomi’s back.
Not long ago, Ansius had clenched his finger bones until they crackled, only barely resisting the urge to go up and personally deliver Yomi to the cave entrance.
The moment he stepped in, it would inevitably affect Yomi’s competition.
At that moment, the people in the audience were all leaning close together, chattering nonstop, and naturally, the focus of their discussion was that tiny little Number Five contestant.
“My god, my god! Th-that’s…”
“So small! Standing among that group of contestants, he looks completely like a little lamb surrounded by wild beasts! Ahhh, somebody save him…”
“I’m thinking… wouldn’t it obviously make more sense for the organizers to make him the mascot?”
“Come on, just say it—he looks exactly like a lifelike doll made to scale, okay?”
“Hey, speaking of lifelike dolls, why does he feel kind of familiar…”
But amid all the pity and amazement, there were also some other voices.
“I think he’s just here to make up the numbers, isn’t he?”
“He’s so tiny. I’m honestly scared those little thin legs of his are going to snap the moment he turns a corner!”
“Wife! Why do you keep taking pictures of him? What’s so worth photographing? Didn’t we come here to support our son? Hurry up and take more pictures of our son!”
“…Have some people forgotten this is a cave-crawling competition, not some cute-creature pageant?”
“What? What did you just say? Who said cute creatures aren’t allowed to compete? My god, I’m going to file a complaint that you’re discriminating against cute creatures!”
“……”
“Cut it out already. Sure, being smaller does give you some advantage, but that still depends on whether you’ve got enough strength to crawl all the way out! He’s only that tiny—does he really even have the stamina? Aren’t you afraid he’ll get hurt, or fall to his death, once he gets down there?”
“Ahhh, shut up! Why would you say something that awful about him?”
“W-who said something awful? I’m just objectively telling you all about the contestant’s condition…”
“Hey, you all better not start fighting… I didn’t come here to watch boxing.”
“……”
Sitting behind this whole group, Kurt felt like he was about to be driven to death by the noise.
—Kurt, a rising director of the new generation.
Not long ago, in order to prepare the new show It’s Okay to Be Different, he had led his team all over the place, racing from one wasteland to another to select participants, until he was practically exhausted to the point of collapse.
The show was sponsored by Prince Joseph from the royal family. The staff on that side were not industry people at all; they only proposed the theme. Naturally, all the rest of the work had to be handled by Kurt’s experienced reality-show team.
Kurt himself had once also been a cave-crawling enthusiast. Later, after being injured on the job, his body was no longer able to support him in doing that kind of sport, so he changed from a former participant into a spectator. Whenever there was a related competition, no matter how busy he was, he would still buy a ticket and come watch—especially when work pressure was high. For him, this was practically the perfect cure for physical and mental exhaustion.
And lately, he had been in an extreme state of stress.
The selection process for those Snaran from outside the main city district had not gone smoothly at all.
Prince Joseph, who cheerfully issued work assignments, seemed completely unable to imagine how difficult the process really was: the dangers faced while traveling to different regions; the exhausting effort required to persuade those people to come to the main city after selection was over; the ones who, after finally reaching the main city, still wanted to go home because the food did not suit their tastes; and Jim, the secretary, who kept nitpicking every distant guest who had traveled thousands of miles to be there…
And even after solving all those problems, one still had to figure out how to keep those lively, unpredictable guests of all different body types from causing trouble during filming and to prevent production accidents…
As for the other side, the guests had long since been decided: members of the royal family, nobility, and prominent people with money, power, or prestige in their respective fields…
All of them had been selected in advance by Prince Joseph’s people, for the sake of creating contrast.
Only yesterday, Jim had told him that this show was absolutely going to be a huge hit. Some of those Snaran from outside would become popular too, changing their fate from then on… Jim told him to work hard, because they were not merely doing a job, but helping those people as well. All in all, it was practically no different from charity!
But those words only made Kurt, already exhausted in body and mind, feel worse. He knew very well who the true focus of this show was, and he also understood exactly what kind of conflict Jim wanted the program to produce.
If Prince Joseph was to become a hero who saved the weak, then someone in the show was bound to be made the clown.
The moment he thought about how some of those Snaran, who had traveled from far away carrying hope and longing, would end up leaving burdened with ridicule or even infamy, he felt miserable.
Yet this work opportunity was simply too important. He truly could not give it up over nothing more than a twitch of conscience. He was no saint. He, too, hoped that this show would become a smash hit and, through that, change his own standing in the industry…
Before coming to the competition grounds, all Kurt had wanted was to release his stress by watching the event to his heart’s content. After that, once the competition was over, he would devote himself wholeheartedly to making the show and stop thinking about anything else… But he had never expected to see, here of all places, a heaven-sent guest—
Contestant Number Five, Yomi!
Such a tiny body, such beautiful proportions, that perfectly lovely face… a little thing that was enough to make people unable to look away just by standing there!
It was practically, practically a born star’s face!
The competition was about to begin. No matter how excited Kurt was as a spectator, he had no way of approaching a contestant. The only thing he could do was film.
Through the lens, the boy’s side profile was smooth and flowing, like white porcelain. His face was gentle, his features striking, like a carefully crafted doll, perfect to the point of seeming unreal.
But what Kurt cared about even more right now were those eyes.
Beneath thick, fan-shaped eyelashes, those black pupils reflected his own tiny shadow beneath the sun. It was as if Yomi were looking at him, and also as if, like a blade of grass, he were simply carrying out photosynthesis in pure sincerity… His life, at this moment, was being released in a silence so still it was almost sacred.
Like an artist trapped in a creative bottleneck finally encountering his muse, Kurt could no longer feel even the work pressure that had already been thrown far behind his mind. At this point, he could not even seem to hear what the people around him were saying.
He could not describe that feeling. He only felt his tightly drawn heart begin to ripple uncontrollably, like seeing a flower bloom in a snowy winter field.
His passion for work rose up spontaneously.
Kurt made up his mind: no matter what, he was going to invite this person to join the show.
He had an intense premonition—
His career might undergo a tremendous transformation after this.
On the other side, the moment Ansius heard someone questioning Contestant Number Five, he suddenly stood up.
At the same time, Karl instantly caught the pressure being released from the Crown Prince’s side. Luckily, he had long expected that Ansius would be fiercely protective. Fearing that the other party might reveal his true form on the spot and cause chaos, he immediately sprang into Plan A for preventing the Crown Prince from erupting—
He leapt to his feet together with the guard unit beside him, raised glow sticks high, and began shouting at the top of their lungs:
“Go, Number Five! Go, Yomi! Go, go, go! Go, Number Five Yomi—!”
In an instant, both the audience and the contestants all turned to look.
The guards shouting along with Karl had also never imagined that one day they would become a cheerleading squad. But the moment they cried out “Go, Yomi!” and saw Yomi widen his eyes and look back toward them, they became completely unable to stop.
The whole group shouted with all their might as if competing against one another, their faces flushed red, all just so that the tiny contestant would be able to see them clearly.
The plan really did work. Ansius, whose face had been dark and grim, sat back down.
Karl let out a sigh of relief. But in the next instant, he saw that His Highness the Crown Prince had somehow also produced a glow stick carved with the name Yomi on it…
“……”
The organizers did not forbid this sort of thing. After all, there had always been many shops outside selling glow sticks, and in the past, audience members had bought them too. Usually, though, they only waved them a few times at key moments. It was rare for anything like today’s situation to happen.
So when the companions of the other contestants saw this, who still had time to gossip about other people? Afraid that their own side would fall behind, they hurriedly followed suit, shouting their relatives’ and friends’ names and numbers to cheer them on.
For a time, the entire venue of the Yuanqi Star preliminary cave-crawling competition was filled with waving glow sticks and banners printed with numbers. It looked like a sea of flame, surging with overwhelming momentum, more hot-blooded and exciting than any previous competition had ever been!
And yet, the competition had still not begun.
Standing before the caves, the contestants turned their heads in confusion to look back at the audience, with no idea at all why everyone had suddenly become so enthusiastic.
Some contestants even thought some famous cave-crawling star had arrived at the venue, and were overjoyed inside, preparing to perform especially well in a moment…
Different contestants were matched to different caves according to their size. Yomi was the smallest of them all, and so the cave assigned to him was also the smallest one.
However, the caves used in the preliminary round were always of the most basic difficulty. Never before had any contestant been injured at this stage. What this round tested was only speed and proficiency.
Standing before his own cave, Yomi had already spotted where Ansius, Karl, and the others were sitting. He waved vigorously at them, then, as a mechanical countdown sounded, quickly turned around.
The competition was about to begin.
At that moment, the giant screen was split into countless small frames, each showing the real-time feed of one contestant.
The audience, the judges, the host, the commentators… everyone was staring fixedly at those little frames.
At the very moment the countdown ended, the contestants in the screen’s little frames all leapt down at once. Some descended in flashy, cool poses, some were precise and cautious, and some even showed off by going down in the most difficult positions possible… After all, many of the contestants were not first-timers. Some were seasoned veterans who had fought countless rounds before; for them, a preliminary like this was no challenge at all, and there was even less reason to feel nervous.
The last one to set off was that tiny little Number Five.
He first reached up and firmly pressed down on his ram horns, then leaned forward and peered inside. After that, he suddenly dropped flat like a penguin, stuck his little backside toward the camera, and softly slid his way in…
