Surprise in the Magazine

"This kind of ad again. So annoying."

Laki felt about these ads much the same way Rhode had once felt about software splash-screen ads. They were novel at first, but after seeing them too often, they became tiresome.

She said mysteriously, "Flip a few more pages. There's a surprise~"

"A surprise?" Rhode flipped ahead as instructed. The section after the ads was the news section he had wanted to read.

Obviously, this was not the surprise Laki meant, but Rhode still gave it a glance.

"Raid Entertainment Company's Popular Star's Boyfriend Exposed"

It claimed to be an exposé, but there was only one photo showing the couple from behind. Rhode did not recognize the popular actress, but he thought her rumored boyfriend looked a lot like a handsome guy from the guild.

"Council Decides to Intensify Its Crackdown on Dark Guilds"

It looked like an official article, but it had nothing to do with Rhode—he had already asked around indirectly, and Fairy Tail really was not a Dark Guild.

"Fairy Tail Mages Wipe Out the Bandit Mountain Bandit Group in One Fell Swoop"

The headline was normal enough, but the article seemed to include a line saying, "The bandits were exceptionally vicious, and the battle was extremely fierce, reducing the pine forest on the mountainside to ashes."

Laki said this was a magazine from a few weeks ago. Rhode could not even be bothered to guess who had done it.

After turning past the news section, Rhode finally saw the surprise Laki had mentioned.

"Th-this... isn't this..."

Wasn't this Mira? That distinctive white hair, styled just as it was now, with her bangs gathered into a bundle and swept up over her head.

Her smile was somewhat different from the one he had seen before, more alluring than usual.

The important part was that Mira in the photo wore a sea-blue swimsuit. She stood naturally on a beach, one hand posed as if she were brushing back her hair.

There was not much fabric on her upper body. It was the kind of outfit Rhode could not tell apart from underwear.

Even if he tried hard to drag his gaze away from places with enormous gravitational pull, it would still be drawn to her smooth shoulders and delicate collarbones.

Her lower half was covered by a long skirt with a high slit, or perhaps simply a large piece of cloth casually tied into a knot and draped diagonally over her waist and hips, freely displaying a waistline that would make countless girls jealous.

Mira's right leg was completely concealed by the long skirt, while her left leg was exposed to the air through its slit.

—It was the first time Rhode learned that Mira's guild mark was white, printed on the outer side of her left thigh.

"Pretty, isn't she? Did you get so mesmerized you forgot how to speak?"

"Yeah... huh?" Rhode nodded instinctively at first, then felt something was wrong and shook his head in denial.

But that still felt wrong. Saying Mira was not pretty would have been far too dishonest.

"Really?" Laki looked disappointed.

"I have all of Weekly Sorcerer from the past year. More than twenty issues have Mira's photo shoots in them... Rhode, do you really not want to see them?"

"No..." Shame made Rhode say no, but he felt like he would regret refusing.

With a conflicted expression, he said, "I only wanted to borrow the magazines to learn more about this place. But after you asked me that, it feels weird whether I borrow them or not!"

"Ahahaha..." Laki could not help laughing. One hand held her waist while the other slapped the counter. "Just like Kana said, Rhode's reactions are too funny!"

He was unlike a completely oblivious blockhead like Natsu, and unlike shameless dirty old men like Macao and Wakaba.

Only someone like Rhode, who understood the things he should understand but was still so shy about them, was fun to tease.

"Kana..." Rhode remembered that alcoholic "bad woman"...

Even though Mira said she was a good person, Rhode wanted to write this down in his little notebook.

Laki laughed for quite a while, only finally stopping when Rhode was about to run away.

"Mira started getting invitations to be Sosara's featured model last year. Her photo shoots became hugely popular from the very first one."

"Mira has appeared on more magazine covers than they have." Laki pointed at the boy band on the cover.

"By now, she should be the best cover girl among all the mages in Fiore, and she's our guild's poster girl too."

So she was the face of the guild...

Rhode felt he had figured out Mira's role. "Mira's amazing too."

Fairy Tail truly had hidden dragons and crouching tigers. Those who could fight, like the S-Class Mages, were exceptionally strong, while those who could not fight, like Mira, were famous in other fields too.

It seemed Fairy Tail had become one of the most famous guilds in the country not merely because of its exceptional talent for causing trouble.

Although he had been teased a little, Rhode still ended up borrowing the magazines.

Weekly Sorcerer was priced at 300J per issue.

That was roughly the price of two of the cheapest beers. If it came out once a week, Rhode could afford to buy it.

Still, buying old issues would be a little troublesome. It was better to borrow someone else's copies and buy the future ones himself.

Laki had already agreed to bring them tomorrow. In her words, they were useless just sitting there anyway, and clearing out space would let her store another collectible.

She seemed to bear quite a grudge against this magazine.

Sosara claimed to introduce high-quality newly released magic products, yet she had never once seen any of the torture devices she liked most featured in it.

"Yeah, that's too much. It's practically false advertising." Since she was lending him something, Rhode decided to agree with her.

"Exactly, false advertising." With Rhode's "support," Laki became completely convinced it was the publisher's fault. She clenched a fist.

"I'm going to denounce them in this week's reader survey!"

Watching her serious expression, Rhode felt he might have said something wrong.

"Um... how about being a little more decisive about it?"

"Decisive?" Laki thought for a moment, then nodded firmly. "That's right, decisive. I need to make them understand my attitude!"

Rhode: ...

Did I say something wrong again?—

"Well, I only went to try it because I happened to receive an invitation. Afterward, it became a little hard to refuse."

Mira herself was not especially interested in being a model, but neither did she have any real objections to it.

After all, she and Elfman had lost their younger sister last year. For quite a long time afterward, both of them had been immersed in grief.

They had even been almost unable to take on any mage work at all.

If not for the income from photo shoots and a little savings from before, the siblings might have ended up in debt like Rhode.

That was also why, even though she did not really need the income now, Mira did not want to refuse the magazine's invitations.

"Leaving that aside, how has your training been going, Rhode?"

"Not bad. I feel like in a few days, I'll be able to try summoning new monsters."

"Monsters?"

Rhode nodded. "Yeah, it's the general term for all my summons."

Did Poros count as monsters? Close enough, anyway.

"Then do you want to find someone and try some real combat?"

"Real combat? With who?"

"Well..." Mira tapped her chin with a finger.

"You know there are plenty of battle-crazy people in the guild. Just pick one at random. For your first time, choose whoever you dislike the most."

Given Mira's mischievous personality, Rhode suspected she was trying to stir things up.

But that was fine. Training alone all the time was no good, after all. He pointed at a handsome guy in the tavern.

"The one I find most unpleasant to look at is obviously him! Loki!"

"Huh?" Loki, who had just been fed a sip of alcohol by a beautiful woman nearby, raised his head in confusion.

Mira's photo shoots... go look for them yourselves; even including an illustration would never pass review.