Maria went towards Discordia’s Central Business District where all of the city’s famous and most frequented establishments were located outside of the Colosseum District.
This was the second most popular place in the city and it was rightfully so since all of the players and NPCs that were finished playing around in the Colosseum would come here to spend a little downtime with their friends and guildmates.
Discordia’s Dawn Pavilion, the largest and most successful establishment in the city since the players had arrived on the planet because it was a restaurant that had a bar, casino, spa, and theater. Many people came here because it had almost everything of entertainment, all in one place.
The prices of items and services in this place had spiked since the players arrived and frequented it so only the more wealthy players in the game could come here and despite the ‘wealth restriction’ it was still pretty packed throughout the entire day and night.
On the top floor inside a private booth, Lizzy, Emily, and a few others from her guild had gathered together in wait for Maria who just messaged them that she was on the way. The others in the booth didn’t wait for Maria and were already eating.
They had tagged along with Lizzy and Emily since they were going to the same place and were one guild. Lizzy and Emily had already booked a private booth ahead of time and with the place packed, they had to reluctantly take the others with them.
Lizzy and Emily didn’t mind it too much since Maria probably wasn’t one to care about such things. They never did say the meeting was a private get-together.
“Jeez, Mary’s so late…” Lizzy whined. There was a large steak in front of her that she hadn’t touched yet because she was waiting for her friend.
“Chill. She just finished streaming and is on her way here. Just be patient,” Emily replied.
“Yeah...man, I haven’t seen her in-game for a long time…”
“Mhmm.”
Maria had just arrived at the pavilion and when she wanted to go in, she was stopped at the door and asked if she had a reservation already since the place was packed. She didn’t know anything so she quickly sent Lizzy a message.
“Oh! She’s at the pavilion already!” Lizzy exclaimed when she saw her message asking for help.
Lizzy quickly bolted for the door and rushed downstairs immediately. When she arrived, she saw an 8-winged Angel wearing a black cloak ‘sitting’ on the air just outside the pavilion’s open doors.
“Mary!”
“Oh~ Liz!”
Maria quickly floated over to Lizzy before she was pulled into a hug by the latter.
“Haha! It’s been so long since I’ve seen you in-game!”
“Don’t exaggerate! We see each other every day IRL!”
“Yeah, but somehow this feels different!”
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After saying a few things to the pavilion’s staff, Lizzy led Maria up to the private booth that she had booked. Along the way, she was quite intrigued by Maria’s new way of ‘walking’. She was constantly floating around, even as she was talking so she wondered if Maria was practicing some kind of new skill or magic but her friend quickly told her it was an item effect.
“So the mantle’s effect is this?”
“More or less, since I’m constantly floating, things are a bit easier now since anything I touch also gets the floating effect for a few seconds.”
“Really?” Lizzy said as she placed a hand on her. “Hey! How come I’m not?!”
“You didn’t let me finish... Apparently, it only works on inanimate objects. Like my Calamity, for example,” Maria continued explaining as she pointed to her weapon that was floating closely behind her.
Ever since she acquired this new ability, Maria’s been keeping Calamity floating around her and not storing it back in her inventory. It was always a hassle to pull it out from there so this was very convenient.
“Is that so...bummer, I thought I’d be able to float,” Lizzy said with a regretful shrug.
“Haha~”
Maria laughed at her and the two continued chatting until they arrived at the private booth. Once they entered, Emily saw Maria and quickly went to greet her.
“Yay, Mary’s here again~” Emily hugged her while saying that a bit emotionlessly. That was just how Emily’s character was, so while other people may see it as sarcasm, Maria didn’t. She knew that her friend was genuinely happy to see her.
“It’s great to see you in-game, Em~”
“Yup.”
The others in the booth just stared at Maria, none of them present knew her from back when she was still in the guild because the Fallen Angels had a few personnel changes ever since Maria left. These people only knew Maria from her streams and the system announcements that always proclaimed her incredible feats. They also only heard tales of her being the guild leader and vice guild leader’s friend but a few of them didn’t actually believe them.
At least, not until Maria actually showed up before them and was hugging their bosses so intimately. Maria looked around and noticed that the others in the room weren’t anyone she knew so she ignored them before asking her friends, “Amanda and Zack, they aren’t here yet?”
“Not yet. They’re still busy managing our HQ at the starting planet.”
“Ah, what a shame.”
“Well, let’s eat now?” Liz asked.
Liz and Emily sat down on their chairs while Maria set aside hers as she simply ‘sat’ on the air before taking off her hood.
“Phew...that’s much better…”
The others in the room could only stare at Maria and be amazed that she looked much better in person than on a screen. The person in question ignored their gazes while she happily ate and conversed with each other. While they were enjoying their in-game meal, Maria brought up the Colosseum Arena for their conversation which greatly excited Emily and Liz. Maria wanted to form a team with her friends so that she could play the Battle Royale or Team Battle mode in the Colosseum.
She only needed 2 more Arena Levels to unlock the Ranked Match mode so she wanted to use the time before then to party up with her two friends and play the other modes so she could get accustomed to them. Playing PvP was fine and all, but all of the players Maria fought earlier were too weak in her opinion. They couldn’t even last a few rounds of her skills before Maria defeated them in quite an easy fashion.
So she thought that maybe, the other modes would give her a little bit more thrill. Once she brought up the topic and explained what she wanted to do with her friends, Lizzy and Emily were more than happy to go along with her whims. They too had been entranced with the Colosseum Arena’s PvP aspects and were going there for at least 2-3 hours every day while the rest of their time online was spent looking for clues for their faction’s quest.
“Speaking about the faction quest, what do you guys even do?”
“Us? Well, most of the quests are PK-related so we’re always fighting the other faction’s players,” Emily answered.
“Hmm, and yet in the city, there are surprisingly no conflicts popping up,” Maria said with a bored look.
“Wow Mary, you sound like you wanna see some conflict!”
“A little, at least that way maybe the penniless goddess will give me something to do…”
She said this with a mumble so her friends didn’t catch what she said.
“What’s that Mary?”
“It’s nothing...but I guess all the conflict is contained within the Colosseum Arena, huh?”
“Yeah...but it’s also because of the Goddess Faction’s guards patrolling the city. They’re all surprisingly super strong and have question marks for levels, meaning―”
“Meaning the strongest of us can’t even compare with them,” Lizzy cut in and finished Emily’s words.
“Yup.”
“We’ve seen them in action already and it was harsh. Once they acted and killed you, you’d be respawned in a prison for 7 in-game days with no bail!”
“That’s...pretty harsh, huh?”
“You said it...anyway, when are we going to the Colosseum to team up for the Battle Royale?” Lizzy asked.
“Tomorrow when I stream. It’ll make for some good content,” Maria replied.
“It’s settled then.”
Maria acquainted herself with the rest of the people in the booth before it grew late and she had to log out of the game because of the newly imposed curfew her father gave her.