Chapter 20 - Gamer’s Gathering 2

I finished off my vanilla ice cream, and Beth decided to use a blindfold to control Durion. He managed to calm down and became somewhat human-like. Maybe Beth should add a leash on him.

We headed into the Westfield and began looking around. There were shops everywhere, ranging from clothing stores to cafes and jewellery stores.

“What should we do?”

“How about we find something to eat? You haven’t eaten anything for breakfast yet, right?”

“Indeed.”

Food. I wonder what I should eat? There were so many options.

“Let’s eat some burgers. There’s a fast-food restaurant over there.”

We entered a restaurant with a large yellow M. After sitting myself down in a couch seat; Beth asked what I wanted to order. I've never eaten at a fast-food restaurant before, so I'll let Beth take the lead.

“I don’t know. Anything is fine.”

“Alright, I’ll order a happy meal. How about you, Bella?”

“I don’t need food.”

“I see, a big hamburger.”

“Wait! No!”

Beth happily ignored Bella and went to order the food. I looked around and saw a few kids my age in another room with a colourful building. It looked like a playground.

“Do you want to go play in the playground?”

“No, it’s fine.”

Jack asked if I wanted to play in the playground, but I didn’t really feel like it. After some time, Beth returned with some food and drinks.

“Young miss, let me test this for poison.”

“It’ll be fine. I doubt this has poison in it.”

“But..”

“You can go ahead and eat your food as well.”

“O-okay.”

Ignoring Beth's piercing glance, I opened the bag and took out the burger. I've never eaten any burgers from fast-food restaurants since my mom said they were unhealthy, but this looked pretty tasty. I went in for a bite, and…

“Amazing!”

It tastes pretty good, not as good as mom’s cooking, but still good.

“You’ve never eaten a burger before?”

“I have, but not in a fast-food restaurant.”

“I see.”

Beth had a slightly scary look in her eyes whilst murmuring something about fetishes, but I ignored it. This group seemed nice, but they were definitely weird. Maybe this is normal, and my standards were too high.

Anyways, I got a toy with a red shelled, green creature. There were also some chips, but they weren’t as good as mom’s chips; the chips were soggy. The drink tickled my throat at first, but I got used to it, and it tasted super good and refreshing.

After we finished eating, we went around for a little before entering an arcade store. There were so many games. I went on a spending spree, playing almost every game and getting a few hundred tickets. I exchanged the tickets in for a teddy bear and gave it to Bella as a gift for her hard work. She looked fairly emotional when I gave it to her. I wonder why.

After exchanging in my tickets for a teddy bear, I was pulled out of the arcade store by Beth, after desperately trying to play some more. Just let me play for one more hour!

I eventually gave up after a few minutes of struggling. Why are you looking at me with pity instead of helping me, Bella! We went shopping for clothes afterwards with Beth whilst sulking a little bit.

“Oh look! A costume store! Let’s test out some costumes.”

I followed Beth into the costume store and saw several familiar-looking things. There were witches, noble princesses, and goblins. Do goblins exist in this world too?

“Oh! Let’s dress up Charlotte!”

Beth instantly turned around and looked at me with scary eyes. I have a very bad feeling about this.

---

After dressing me up in many exotic costumes, like sailor uniform, noble dresses, maid uniform, soldier uniform, and so forth; Beth was having a nosebleed, Jack just looked at the sky and Durion was heavily breathing despite being blindfolded. Scary. Bella was also trying to hold in her laughter. Useless.

“One last costume. I’m also buying everything.”

Holding up a witch’s costume, with a black cone hat, and a short one-piece black dress reaching around my knee, Beth began buying everything with her card. I wanted to interject, but I had a feeling I would be ignored either way.

I entered the dressing room, exhausted, and changed into the witch’s costume.

{Bang!}

When I finished changing, a loud bang erupts and screams soon follow. What happened? I quickly exited the dressing room and saw Bella rushing towards me, trying to protect me, whilst other people in the store began running and screaming.

Beth and her friends had a panicked look. A few men in black entered the began talking with Bella. They were my hidden bodyguards. What's happening?!