“Just keep in mind that I still have a mission to complete before I can take over as bodyguard. Is that alright?” After agreeing to watch over the Oracle, Mira blurted that out.
She had been moved by the Oracle’s young determination and agreed to help, but she did not forget that her main mission was to find Meilin, a mission she had to complete before taking up a new one.
“Ah, I almost forgot! What do you need to do?! I’ll help with anything I can!”
Alma looked really thankful that Mira had agreed to be the Oracle’s bodyguard, and declared that without hesitation. Esmeralda followed soon after, saying, “Me too, I’ll help if there’s anything I can do.”
“Ohh, I’m glad to hear that. In that case, there’s actually something I’d like to ask…”
In reality, those words were exactly what Mira wanted to hear from them, so she pounced on the opportunity, replying, “Then could you show me the entry forms from the tournament participants?”
“You want the entry forms?”
That response was not exactly something Alma had been expecting, as she could only wonder what Mira wanted to find in those forms, and her eyes were starting to fill with curiosity.
“If that’s all Mirako wants, then I guess we can let her, right?” Esmeralda did not mind giving Mira access to those forms, but just like Alma, was intrigued by the reason behind that request.
Esmeralda offered to assist her further, mainly driven by her curiosity, as she was essentially asking Mira to reveal what she was looking for so they could help as well.
“Yup yup, we’ll help with anything!”
Alma was also on board with that. Their insistence was slightly overbearing for Mira, but she also understood that she would need help to check the forms. ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs, ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ᴠɪsɪᴛ novel✶fire.net
“I’ll have to take you up on that offer then.”
Mira replied to them, continuing, “I’m actually…” and explained the reason why she was in Nirvana in the first place. It did not take long to tell them her mission this time, as they already knew about her search for the Nine Wisemen.
Simply saying she was tracking down Grasping Meilin, one of the Nine Wisemen, was enough for them to connect the pieces.
“Oh, did Mei come too then?! Ah, actually, she probably did. Everyone has heard about this tournament by now.”
Surely enough, Esmeralda instantly figured things out. It was a surprising realization, but a bit of thinking made it obvious. Either way, she was happy to hear that, as the Nine Wisemen and the Twelve Apostles had an oddly tight friendship, which manifested especially strongly between Meilin and Esmeralda.
“I see, I see… Someone like Meilin would definitely come here, you’re right. Okay, I’ll arrange for it right away!”
Even the reason why Mira wanted the entry forms was obvious to Alma and Esmeralda now. So Alma agreed to get the forms ready for search within the night, so that they could work on the search the next morning.
That also concluded their discussion about missions and bodyguards, so their conversation devolved into a chat between girls(?) as they enjoyed the rest of their tea.
Overall it was a pleasant time, as they talked about the game times, what they had done ever since arriving to this world, and various funny and weird stories.
“I’m still blown away by the scale of this tournament of yours. Just how much did all of this cost to organize?”
Mira suddenly began to wonder about that.
She had heard that the winner prize for the free for all tournament bracket was five billion Rils, which was already an outlandish sum, but there was also a wealth of legendary weapons and other rewards. On top of that, the enormous venue and all the surrounding attractions which made it look almost like an amusement park also had to have cost a considerable amount.
A country like Arkite would never be able to afford organizing something like that, so Mira was naturally curious to know how much it had cost to prepare such a big event.
In response, Alma began to grin before casually saying, “Around two trillion.”
“Two tri…trillion..?”
That was a number with a dozen zeroes behind it, so large that no mere person would ever see something like that. Not even a large country would mobilize such quantities without heavy consideration.
Arkite’s entire national budget was a similar sum, and here it was being spent on a single event.
(I guess the rank two player country really is on a whole different level…)
If a smaller country like Arkite ever tried to organize such an event, it would be the last party before the country would run into the ground.
“I’ve gotta hand it to Nirvana. Not every country would be able to casually dump that kind of money for a single event…”
Mira replied that, still baffled by how different the two countries were. And while Alma remained smug about it, Esmeralda just stared at Alma in disbelief.
“Alma, really? There’s nothing to be proud about. Now listen here, Mirako, we might be a bigger country, but we don’t just have that kind of money sitting around. We were only barely afforded all of this after piling up all of our personal savings.”
Alma let out an awkward groan when Esmeralda revealed the truth.
Esmeralda continued explaining what had happened. The festival had only been theorized for some time, but some time into the current year, they were forced to accelerate things and put it into action.
The reason for that was a change in Ira Muerte.
They noticed that the organization had been suddenly weakened from a different source to the Oracle, and they had to put the tournament plan into motion to take advantage of that.
But that had happened after the national budget for the year had been decided, and there were not enough funds left to deploy that plan with such short notice. So on top of having to go over budget, all Twelve Apostles also had to empty their savings.
Which happened to be savings they had kept since back in the game. All spent in a matter of months.