GJ Bu - Volume 1 - Chapter 21

Chapter 21: Spider

A certain day at the clubroom.

Everybody had gathered up to enjoy tea and cake when-

A spider appeared; quite a large one at that.

Its body alone was the size of a 500 yen coin(1). With its legs spread it was about the size of someone’s palm.

Wherever it had appeared from, the spider was now strolling down the round table they all sat at.

“Gyaaaah! Aaah!”

Before anything else, Mao screamed. Then she flipped her chair upside down as she went to hide behind Kyouya.

“K-kill it, kill it! D-do it. Come on, do it!”

She repeatedly urged him.

“B-bu-bu-but I don’t want to get near something this big either!”

Kyouya stepped away from the table too. The spider had CD sized enormousness.

Holding his ground without running already took all of his might as a young man. To actually oppose it was too much.

“Do it! Do it! That’s a p-presidential order!”

“N-n-no way! What if it’s poisonous and it bites me!?”

“Huntsman spiders are not poisonous.”

Shion said, tilting her teacup.

The genius of games always kept her cool, no matter what happened.

“They’re not even a native Japanese species, they’ve been entering Japan since the Edo period. It’s what they call a naturalized species. Being hunter predators who don’t even make nests, just move around, these spiders inhabit human households and feed mainly on insects. After shedding 8 to 10 times, the adult’s size can surpass 10 centimeters.”

“Shi-Shion-san! Shion-san! Kill it, please!”

Kyouya left it to Shion.

However, the girl, using the same exact same tone as before-

“For ages, spiders were seen as useful creatures by the Japanese; in recent years however, due to their unsightly external appearance, they’ve started to be treated as undesirable harmful beings. Now, places that sell pesticides like home centers even sell pesticides specifically for spiders.”

She was in encyclopedia reciting mode. In other words, she was panicking.

This one was a lost cause already.

Kyouya’s eyes searched for someone reliable.

The GJ club’s sleeping lion, the ever eating lady, Kirara!

Kirara had her eyes wide open. The meat fell down from her mouth.

“Spider! Danger!”

In the blink of an eye she jumped back about 3 meters.

It was unimaginable that the girl who was usually just lazing around had such agility.

“Spider. Has. Poison.”

“T-this one’s not poisonous! It’s not, right? Right, Shion-san!?”

“Its poison is composed of substances such as proteases, hyaluronidases and esterases. These are actually digestive enzymes it uses on the insects it will eat. There’s no confirmation of them being toxic for humans.”

“See? See!?”

“Kirara. When she was four. Bitten by spider. Almost died. Dangerous.”

“Are you from South America or something!?”

Kirara, who was speaking a lot more than usual, stood on all fours, her eyes glittered and her hair stood on end. It was the posture of an animal completely prepared for battle.

“Who cares about that? Somebody just do something already!”

“You do something then. You’re the president after all! Bite it! Bite it good!”

His shout echoed.

Pushing forward and being pushed forward, nobody wanted to take the lead.

“What’s all this commotion for?”

That’s when Megumi appeared.

“Me-Megumi-chan! A sp-p-pider! There’s a spider over there!”

“Stop! Stop! It’s dangerous! Run away!”

He and Mao screamed.

“Oh, you’re right. Hello mister spider.”

Megumi said in a completely tranquil voice. She faced the spider and greeted it.

“Come on guys, it isn’t nice to mister spider if you look so frightened.”

She stretched out her angelic hand towards the spider.

After slightly touching it with her forelimbs, the spider started climbing Megumi’s hand, going all the way up to her elbow.

“Kyaah!”

They all hugged each other and screamed.

Megumi took the spider to the corner of the room and was about to release her there, but then, following Mao’s shriek, she unwillingly opened the clubroom window and conducted the spider outside.

“Bye, bye.”

It wasn’t clear if that was a wave the spider did with its paw in response to her angelic smile.

The peace had returned to the clubroom.

QUICK FACTS:

The Clubroom

A classroom from the old school building which being used exclusively for the club.

Antique furniture fills its spacious 30 tatami interior(2).

It also has lots of personal belongings. Toys and tea tools are particularly abundant.

TRANSLATOR’S NOTES

(1) 26,5 mm in diameter, roughly one inch.

(2) Tatami is not a precise unit of measurement, but 30 tatami should be something between 50 and 70 square meters.