Mira noticed the girl’s stare and looked up to look back at her, which at first made the girl avert her gaze slightly, but then after a deep breath the girl looked at Mira and opened her mouth.
「Umm…could you be the Spirit Queen?」
The girl said with a weak voice, though her face was brimming with expectation that her guess was correct. It was the same way a person would look if they ran into a celebrity in the street.
(Ohh…so now even children know about me, I’ve become famous!)
In the previous city of Gran Rings there were some dubious rumors about her, but they were still enough to spread. Here even a young girl had been able to identify her, showing how much more the rumors spread.
Mira quickly realized all of that, and while she was internally beside herself with joy, she tried to compose herself as she turned to the girl with a calm look.
「I believe that’s what people have started calling me, yes.」
Mira did her best to act like it was all the doing of other people, though she did not really mind one way or another. Her response made the girl’s face lit up with happiness though.
「I knew it! Something told me it had to be you!」
The girl was so overcome with joy that her voice quickly raised in volume and was full of excitement, even though she was so timid earlier. At the same time, the boy who was watching from a distance away twitched and began to tremble as he heard that exchange.
When the girl knew that Mira was the Spirit Queen, she quickly said, 「It’s a pleasure to meet you,」 as she quickly ran over to the chair next to Mira’s. Then she leaned forward, her eyes filled with even more expectation as she added 「You fought together with Sero, right?」
The person she mentioned, Sero, was likely the same Sero who led Écarlate Carillon.
「Yes, we fought together.」
Mira was slightly puzzled as to why she was asking about Sero now, but she still replied with a friendly smile and a nod. Soon after Mira realized what the girl had really been interested in.
All her following questions were all about Sero, starting with pretty basic questions like what food he liked, or what type of girls he was into, moving onto more oddly specific questions like what he smelled like, how Mira referred to him, and things like that. In the end it was a barrage of dozens of questions like that.
In the end, the girl was not really interested in Mira for being the famous Spirit Queen, but in a person she knew, Sero. The way the girl spoke really made her sound like a young girl lost in her dreams, but Mira could feel something more, a dark presence looming behind everything.
And so when the last question came, 「What kind of relationship do you have with Sero?」 Mira could barely stop herself from shaking as she replied, 「We’re just two adventurers that happened to fight on the same front.」
While Mira was still encumbered by that obsessive girl, the apprentice spellcaster boy’s number was called at the counter. As he walked by, he saw Mira being cornered by that girl from closer, which seemed to awaken something new, which was firmly engraved into his mind as he went to the counter.
Meanwhile there were many other children gathering in the waiting area other than Mira and the Sero fangirl.
All of them were sitting a considerable distance away from Mira and that girl though, talking to each other in whispers.
「Is she new here?」 「I’ve never seen her before,」 「She’s cute though,」 「I wonder if it’s her first time here?」 「It seems so, poor thing.」
All of them spoke about that, as they knew who that girl was, the yandere of the waiting area. Known for gushing on and on about her obsessive love if she managed to take hold of someone.
But if she had already caught someone, then everyone else would be safe. They could discuss adventurers without having to fear her intruding to talk about Sero.
So they thanked Mira for her sacrifice as they began discussing the adventurers they liked the most.
「I see, that’s incredible.」
(Please…please call me already..!)
Mira prayed desperately as she clasped the ticket in her hand, barely able to parse the girl’s words as she let out vague responses. Once she had run out of questions about Sero, she had simply moved on to talking about how much she loved him.
It was clear that something was not quite right with her mind from the way she spoke, and she seemed to be living in complete delusion.
(Being famous definitely has its issues and drawbacks…)
The girl kept on rambling on and on, her eyes looking like a pitch black abyss. Such an intense and maniacal love was clearly abnormal.
Everything had started because Mira had fought alongside Sero before, but if she had gone out to eat with Sero, or was close friends with him, or had been in a room alone with him, Mira was terrified of what would happen.
Mira had to watch every word she said to not trigger any dangerous reaction, so she only replied the bare minimum and let the girl babble on endlessly.
Eventually the moment Mira was praying for finally arrived, as her number was called to the counter.
「Oh, that’s me. I’m sorry but I have to go now.」
Mira quickly stood up, interrupting the girl as she finally had a good reason to get away from her.
「Awww, there’s still so much more I wanted to tell you though.」
Mira’s whole objective there was to sell her Magic Stones, which was something the girl could not do anything about, and she had to let Mira go.
「See you then.」
With that short goodbye, Mira ran off to the counter to escape her, while Martel’s voice echoed in her mind: ‘Excessive feelings are also a form of love.’
As soon as Mira left, only the girl and the group of children a distance away were left, and all of them dead silent. Just a moment ago they had been talking about their favorite adventurers, but they knew that if the girl noticed that, she would run up to them to spread the gospel of the one true best adventurer, Sero.
But keeping perfect silence was always difficult, especially for children, so they did not last very long like that.
Eventually one of them could not stand it any longer and spoke up. Though the conversation was not about adventurers, but instead the Phantom Thief Fuzzy Dice, who had become a quite popular topic of discussion lately.
It seemed like the righteous thief had also become popular amongst the younger crowd. He was a thief that always punished the corrupt, making him look like a hero fighting evil for the boys, and a chivalrous hero who rescued the weak for the girls. Their impression of him was slightly different, but both celebrated his actions, and soon they were talking happily like earlier.
But then, everyone felt a cold sweat form in their backs, as they heard a certain voice interrupt their conversation about Fuzzy Dice saying, 「But Sero has helped wayyy more people.」
All of them shuddered when they realized the girl had infiltrated their group. And soon she forced the discussion to be centered around Sero and would not stop talking about him, so all everyone could do was endure and pray they would be called to the counter soon, just like Mira earlier.
Meanwhile Mira was oblivious to the horror unfolding in the waiting room as she received an explanation at the counter. When she mentioned it was her first time selling things there, the clerk behind the counter told her how everything worked in detail.
To start, the client had to show a proof of identity, like an adventurer permit. Since most of the clients were adventurers, they just showed those.
The appraisal of items would be conducted in a different room after that, where the value of Magic Stones would be assigned not by their size, but by the amount of mana they contained.
