For the rest of the day, Maria invited the top 16 rankers into her virtual space and distributed the competition’s in-game and IRL rewards to them. Since most of the people who entered were her artistically gifted fans, she decided to hold a short Q&A session for them later when she invited them to her virtual space.
Naturally, she didn’t answer any questions that were too personal and were okay with any requests like taking photos and selfies with those who won. The remaining top 50 contestants were given in-game prizes but weren’t going to be invited to Maria’s virtual space. The rewards were sent to their in-game mailboxes along with a randomized greeting card that could be used later in the future that could be used to enter her faction’s territory.
She didn’t have the time to entertain too many people because she still had a game to play right after. After all was said and done, people couldn’t help but be amazed at how extravagant the rewards Maria handed out.
The top 16 received quite the generous rewards but the top 3 rewards were the heftiest of them all. Even her long-time fans and viewers, in addition to the people who were only keeping an eye on Maria, couldn’t help but be in disbelief at how large the amount of money and in-game currency each participant received.
The winner of the entire competition won quite the sizable piece of land within Maria’s faction as well as a Count rank nobility, and 10,000 Gold. The nobility rank only held status within Maria’s faction but since she was planning to take over the whole planet of Vanhal, the title would hold more value in the future.
Of course, no one was able to reach Maria’s world yet, but the rewards would still stand and can be claimed by the first-place winner once they arrived on planet Vanhal. As for the IRL monetary rewards, she directly gave the winner, Sfayte, an electronic bank check of 100,000 dollars.
Naturally, it was her father who backed up most of the monetary prize rewards. Initially, Maria only wanted to make it 1,000 or 10,000 dollars but somehow it became 100,000. The entire prize pool wasn’t announced since she didn’t feel the need to―or more like, she forgot―but it would have definitely attracted even more people to watch her stream.
Maria didn’t need the clout because she was doing all of this for fun. Without her announcing the prize pool, the event she held was already so big which was out of her expectations.
Moving onto second place, which was her faction’s people, they didn’t receive any IRL money but a special reward that Maria would privately hand out later.
As for third place which was LV, they received only 25,000 dollars which was still quite a lot even for their standards. She went down the list and handed the rewards to the rest of the participants. Fourth, tenth, and sixteenth place were all NPC winners so they would receive their rewards later together with second place.
The top 3 winners were given rather astronomical rewards for their placings but the rest of the top 16 still received hefty rewards. In the eyes of the common masses, the rewards Maria gave were rather nonsensical and amazing for just something as simple as designing a dress for her to wear.
Of course, she thought that it was way too extravagant but it was her father that sponsored the competition after he heard about it so who was she to deny her dad’s help?
It was the first and largest player-held Unitale event and because of this moniker, Maria received lots of attention. This caused people to try and reach out to her for offers, interviews, and collaborations but once again, she wasn’t aware of most of them as they would have to go through David’s filtering first before they reached her.
Most of them were denied since he was given specific orders to make sure his lady’s IRL identity wasn’t leaked so any that required Maria to show her real self to the collaborator was tossed out without hesitation.
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Before, because of a fluke, Maria had caught the attention of Unitale’s staff and her video was used by them as an advertisement. Now, for the second time, Unitale’s staff made use of her again to promote their game, just like they did with so many other streamers and players. The content did belong to her but as the company that created the game, they had all rights to use any player-made content for advertising.
Of course, said players would receive compensation for this so it was a win-win situation for both sides except for Maria since the first time Unitale used her as an advertisement, the game was still in its infancy so she wasn’t compensated or anything.
However, for the second time since the game’s release, Maria had again become the face of Unitale without her knowing it.
******
Back inside the game, Maria finally ended her stream and was now distributing the rewards for the NPC winners. She was being secretive about it because she was going to give the NPCs the [Dire’s Blessing], a faction exclusive skill that empowered NPCs.
The buff gave the NPC’s random boosts to their stats and skills while also giving them a large boon to their LCK stat. Maria didn’t know what the NPCs could use the LCK stat for but apparently, that was the most enticing reward.
She granted each winner a piece of land and a deed to a building inside her city as well as a few thousand gold coins. As for what they did with the rewards, it was all up to them.
In the end, it would still circulate back when they purchased or built an establishment so she was still enriching her faction’s economy despite giving such extravagant rewards.
The team that took second place which was led by Ash was given the [Dire’s Blessing], a large sum of gold and a large piece of land which would be divided between each person in the team, a raise in their salaries, and the right to attend Duchess Bathory’s ball alongside Maria.
The quest allowed Maria to bring a few people with her, in fact, she could bring as many people as she wanted, but this secret reward was reserved for the NPC/s who placed highest in the competition.
After the rewards were given out, Maria ordered her people to begin storing away all of the dresses in their castle’s special storeroom while the top 10 winning outfits would be placed inside Maria’s personal wardrobe.
The top 3, however, Maria wore around the castle while taking snapshots of herself which she would later upload to her SNS accounts. David was also following her around with the droid camera to take pictures of her from other angles.
When she was finally satisfied, Maria stopped goofing around...and got back to work. The amount of money, land, and deeds she had given out as rewards was a logistic nightmare for her people...and for herself.
She had spent the previous few days enjoying herself and the past few minutes reaping the glory of her competition, but now she was placed back on her seat behind her desk while Ash and a few of his assistants began piling up documents on her table.
Seeing the large stacks of documents, Maria cleared her throat and said, “...Ash, in the next―”
“My Lady, I’ll be using the exclusive “Free Pass” card today,” Ash quickly cut her off and said.
He left behind a gold card on Maria’s table before disappearing in a wisp of smoke. The rest of Maria’s people also began placing golden cards on her desk before quickly disappearing from the room.
Maria’s eyes twitched in anger as every clink of the golden cards placed on her desk caused her immense psychological pain and grief. She was now regretting that she had, for even a moment, decided to become generous. Maria had stupidly given out a free pass to her sla―subordinates―so they could use it on any day when they needed a break from work.
She was feeling elated and recklessly decided this when she was giving out the rewards earlier. Maria had broken character and karma instantly struck as her generosity was rewarded with mutiny.
Seeing the piles of documents on her table that her people left to her to manage, Maria immediately exploded and cried out in anger after the last person left.
“YOU’RE ALL DEAD TO ME!!!!!!!!”
Maria’s cursed-filled incantations and screeches of rage rang throughout the castle for the rest of the day until she logged out and the next day until she finally finished all of her work.
Naturally, Maria was only using her [Scream of Pain] and her other skills and spells because she wanted to raise their proficiencies but her subordinates didn’t know that. They began fearing for their lives and they instantly regretted using their free pass like this.