The combination of dyed hair, vanity glasses, and a new outfit made Mira impossible to identify as the Spirit Queen. Theresa also felt at ease seeing Mira leave the Magical Knights’ booth like that.
The search for Meilin resumed after that. Mira mostly checked the places where crowds gathered to watch stage fights play out. But after an hour or two of searching, there was no hint of Meilin anywhere.
That made her check other fights as well, just in case. There were plenty of hot blooded adventurers gathered there, so it made sense for brawls to break out everywhere, and the guards had their hands full trying to keep things in order.
“Hmm…I guess she isn’t in those fights after all.”
After checking around ten brawls, she decided those were not the place to search. As much as Meilin liked to fight, she also had a background in martial arts, making her value honor and proper manners, not mindless violence.
So with her priorities straightened out again, she focused on stage fights and smaller tournaments again.
All imaginable types of fights were being conducted on those, some being boxing matches, purely kicking based fights, swordsmanship contests with wooden swords, and even stranger ones like snowball fights.
She spent the next few hours looking at those. At times a famous adventurer would join them, sending the audience into a frenzy, but Meilin was nowhere to be found.
Time passed like that, and before she realized, the sun had set and the moon was shining bright in the sky.
Soon, everything began to shut down for the night, and some of the stage platforms that had been so crowded earlier were being disassembled. The visitors also began to leave one after another, so Mira decided to give up her search until the next day too.
(I’m certain she’s here…I just didn’t account for the size of this place.)
While it was true that she was constantly getting distracted and taking detours, searching the entire place at once was not realistic either way.
There was an enormous plot of land dedicated to the tournament and all the miscellaneous events nearby, making it essentially a large amusement park, with various attractions on different stages.
It did not matter how predictable Meilin was, there were way too many places where she could be at any given time. So Mira had to think of something else.
At least, walking around had shown her how effective her disguise was. No one had even thought of the Spirit Queen when seeing her, but on the other hand, she was now seen as an easy target for men.
Before, the possibility of her being the Spirit Queen had made her a beautiful girl surrounded by a powerful aura. But now, she was nothing more than a beautiful girl passing by.
“Hey, you! We’re about to get dinner, wanna come too?”
“I’ve got somewhere to be. I’ll have to pass.”
She was constantly being hit on by men like that, and she always had to walk faster to get away before they could stop her. At least it was something she was used to by now.
She had also given up on her search for the night, so she strolled around there until she got to the exit. Signups for the tournament were still on-going, with plenty of people moving around.
(How should I search tomorrow, hmm…)
Realizing the scope of the search area, she knew continuing searching the same way would be futile, and she needed to think of a new plan for the next day.
“Huh? I also have to write down where I’m staying? I don’t know… All the inns I checked before were packed so I haven’t found a place yet.”
“Ahh, in that case allow me to introduce you to an inn sponsoring the tournament. Take this card and show it to the owner and you should be able to get a room.”
Mira overheard that conversation, happening between an applicant and the clerk taking in signups.
(The place they’re staying at…is written there?)
That gave Mira an idea, and to make sure of it, she approached a nearby staff member. First, she asked what all the required information to sign up was. The staff member replied by examining Mira’s appearance with a bit of confusion, but then explained everything she would need.
There were various requirements, starting with the applicant’s name, age, class, and the place where they were staying.
Mira asked why they required that last point, and he replied that it was to have more information on how business was going for the various inns.
There were tens of thousands of participants and visitors coming to the city for the tournament, so they wanted to know how the inns were being managed, the places preferred by the visitors, whether they were being guided around properly, and so on. That was why they required that information.
(I see…so if I get my hands on the application forms, I should be able to find where Meilin is staying at.)
Knowing Meilin, the first thing she had done in the city was complete her application. She always had the habit of getting such procedures out of the way as soon as possible, and Mira was certain that Meilin would be taking part in the tournament.
Mira quickly made up her mind with that knowledge. She would check the application forms and figure out where to find Meilin.
As obsessed as Meilin was over martial arts, barely ever thinking of anything else, she had to know how much weight her name carried, so it was likely she had signed up with a fake name.
But Mira also knew her enough to know she would use a very simple name like Meimei, Linlin, or at most Linmei. Mira just had to look for names on that vein and Meilin would show up soon enough.
Her age was something a bit less reliable, since it was hard to know whether Meilin had been keeping count properly or not.
Then there was the class, something Mira believed would essentially pinpoint Meilin. Even if by some miracle Meilin had come up with an unpredictable fake name, the way she wrote her class would be a strong hit.
There was something Mira and Meilin had talked about way back in the past, during one of the times when Meilin was mentoring Mira. It was just a random comment, that since Meilin came from a family of martial artists, she might as well be a Martial Sage. Somehow, Meilin had really liked that, and began calling herself a Martial Sage from then onwards.
In her own words, that was a representation that she would take both martial arts and sage arts to the utmost level.
Mira recalled that exchange, and she was convinced that Meilin would also enroll as a Martial Sage for the tournament. It did not matter how many sages took part, that detail alone would single out Meilin.
The only issue was the application forms themselves. The clerks would obviously refuse to let her look through them if Mira asked. But this was Nirvana, so maybe there was a different way to get to them.
“By the way, it seems like you’ll end up getting piles of documents this way. Are you sure nothing will get misplaced?”
Mira decided to prod around a bit, and received exactly the response she wanted. The staff member she was talking to replied that the committee formed to run the tournament was directly archiving the applications for safekeeping, so there was no need to worry about anything being misplaced. In other words, Mira just needed to find that committee and she would get what she wanted.
“That’s reassuring to hear. Sorry for taking your time.”
She had gained the information she wanted, and now she knew where to go next, so she thanked the staff member and left.
The whole tournament was the biggest national event so far, so the committee running it had also been formed and was overseen by the government.
With that in mind, her connections would do the heavy lifting.
(I don’t like having to say that I’m me, but it seems they already found out, so I might as well endure a moment of shame.)
She would need the committee’s permission to look through the applications. The fastest way to accomplish that was by talking to high ranking officers in the government, and Mira just so happened to be friends with someone like that. Then, there was the fact that she had been preemptively restricted from taking part in the tournament, being instead invited to be a commentator, which overall meant that someone there had realized that Mira was Danbulf.