Maria and the girls arrived in Rome after only a few hours of flight since they lived on the same continent as the place. Naturally, it wasn’t just them as Gerald, Mikael, and the Heltania family’s butler, David, had come along as well. Mikael and David were there to act as everyone’s chaperone. Obviously, Maria’s father wasn’t going to just let her go unattended. He assigned their butler and her eldest brother to watch over her and her group of friends.
Gerald was also here with his friends, but their father had not assigned anyone to chaperone him. It was just Maria. Maria wasn’t pleased with this but Lizzy was stuck to Mikael’s side like glue as she was swooning over her handsome older brother.
“Mary, do something about that idiot. She’s making your older brother uncomfortable,” Emily said as she pointed at Lizzy who was pestering Mikael with many questions like what he liked, what he’s been doing lately, etc.
Maria was aware that Lizzy somewhat idolized her older brother to the point where it seemed like she actually liked him─in fact, she did actually like him but was shot down immediately by Mikael. If Maria had to describe her older brother Mikael then she would say that he was a heartless demon. Her older brother was a demon that didn’t hesitate to shoot down any man or woman that tried to make advances on him with a smile.
Their family even thought that he was gay at one point but Mikael denied that and explained that he just didn’t have any time for relationships since he was busy with his career and studies. The last relationship her brother had that Maria was aware of ended quite horribly as Mikael’s lady friend dumped him and he didn’t even bat an eye when it happened. He simply accepted it and quickly moved on with his life.
Neither side was at fault as they each had their own priorities to chase after so things just didn’t work out between them. Although this time it was her best friend that was trying to make advances on her brother, Maria could only shake her head because Lizzy had been rejected by Mikael before, but she kept it as she was quite persistent.
“Leave her be. She’ll at least be distracting one of my chaperones.”
“Well, she hasn’t changed one bit, huh?”
“Nope. Even after being frankly rejected she just goes stupid once she sees my brother.”
“Pfft.”
“Anyway...I think that person holding a signboard is the chauffeur the committee sent to fetch me…”
Maria lightly pointed at a person in the distance as she covered her face with a hand out of embarrassment. Emily and Amanda looked over and nearly keeled over in laughter when they saw the signboard. On it read the words ‘Queen of the Dire, Maria the Fallen’. Maria wanted to find a hole and jump into it as the title was so...so freaking cringe. Gerald soon noticed it as well and he began calling out to Maria to tease her.
“Hey, Your Majesty!”
Maria rushed at him with inhuman speed and began kicking her older brother.
“Shut it! Just shut it!”
“Ow! Ouch! Stop it! Please stop, Your Majesty!”
“ARGH!!!”
They quickly went over to the person and the man holding the sign quickly recognized Maria after she pulled back her hood and showed her face.
“Y-You must be Her Ma─I mean, Miss Maria. Please come with me. I will drive you and your friends to the hotel you will be staying at.”
“Th-Thanks.”
Gerald began snickering because the man almost called his sister ‘Her Majesty’. The guy probably heard him earlier when he was teasing Maria.
“Idiot, it’s your fault!”
“Pfft, I didn’t say anything. He was the one that nearly slipped up!”
“Tch.”
“It would have been so hilarious if he did call you that. Hahaha!”
“You’re lucky that I’m not in the main event! If we met, I would shove my Calamity right down your throat!”
“Ohhh, Your Majesty, you’re being so scary~”
The two bickered nonstop until they arrived at the hotel. Maria’s suite was provided by the committee but Gerald and everyone else paid for their own rooms. Maria didn’t want to brag or anything, but her family was rich and so was the rest of her friends’ families so they didn’t have any problems checking into the hotel. Maria noticed that the hotel had many advertisements of Unitale everywhere and it made her feel giddy for some reason.
“Wow, I can’t believe we’re here in Rome just to compete in a VR game’s tournament. Pretty weird, right?” Lizzy asked as she rolled around the bed in Maria’s suite.
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“Times have changed, now it’s not just normal sports that are getting worldwide attention. Even games are getting so much attention, especially in our generation,” Amanda replied.
“I’m glad I was born in this era, hehe~”
“I hear most of the participants are male players so we have to keep our chin up when the time comes!”
“Just because there are more guys than girls, it doesn’t mean they or us have an advantage or disadvantage. Everything will be decided based on the skills and strengths of ourselves and our characters,” Emily said as she was browsing the internet on her phone using the hotel’s WiFi.
“Hey, look, there are actually many famous people here that were invited to attend the event. I guess Universe Games really did pull all the stops to make this international event as big as possible.”
Lizzy’s interest was piqued so she asked, “Really? Who did they invite? Any well-known celebrities and internet icons? Any professional gamers?”
“All of the pro-gamers are obviously attending the tournament’s main event. Why are you even asking about them?”
“Oh yeah...my bad. Well, what about the rest?”
“Well, there’s─”
“Never mind, it doesn't matter.”
“I feel like slapping you so let me slap you.”
“No~”
Emily walked over to Lizzy who was laying on the bed with her face up and slapped her anyway.
“Ow!”
“Tomorrow Mary’s going to attend the pre-event meeting and get a chance to meet with these people. How are you going to dress, Mary?” Amanda asked as she turned to her friend who was watching TV with popcorn in her hands.
“Huh?”
“You sure aren’t nervous at all, huh?”
“Nervous? About what?”
“The meeting tomorrow. You’re going to attend it, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Uhhh, shouldn’t you feel even a little bit concerned? Like what you’re going to wear and everything?”
“...No?”
“Huh?”
“I’ll be wearing a hoodie and jeans. I don’t want people to see my face.”
“Even if you try to hide it, you’ll have to show it at some point,” Lizzy got up and said as she rubbed her cheek that was slightly red from her friend's slap.
“I’d rather not if I can help it. I don’t want people to know that I look exactly like my in-game avatar…”
Emily sat next to Maria and began taking a bit of popcorn before saying, “You do you, Mary. Just don’t try to stand out if you want to keep your face a secret. Will you be bringing anyone?”
“David will come with me. He is my stream’s moderator so he’ll know what to say and what not to say.”
“Have fun tomorrow. We’ll be touring around Rome while you’re at your meeting~”
“No fair!”
******
The next day arrived and in the morning at around 10 o’clock, Maria left the hotel to attend the pre-event meeting at the Stadio Olimpico, the venue that the IGC committee had booked for the tournament. At the same time she left, her friends, brothers, and the others that had come with her had left the hotel to tour around Rome.
The committee had partnered up with the Italian NOC to host the tournament, so they were able to use this football stadium for the entire duration of the IGC. It could be seen that Universe Games had been planning this far ahead since they launched Unitale because they managed to convince the NOC to acknowledge the tournament as an official sport, or e-sport in this case.
The chauffeur from the airport was the one driving Maria and David to the venue. The committee was placing great importance on Maria though she didn’t know this. It was only natural that they would since from the start of the game’s launch, she had become one of Unitale’s icons even though she wasn’t completely aware of it. It was even more so now after her in-game appearance had experienced a lot of drastic changes.
Upon entering the venue, a few people from the committee’s staff greeted her and after she gave them her identity, they led her to one of the large halls in the stadium where the meeting would be held and she saw a few people already waiting inside. The meeting was supposed to start at 10:30 so they were a bit early. There was still 10 minutes before it started so Maria and David found a place to sit and quietly kept to themselves so they wouldn’t draw any attention.
However, what they did was actually the opposite. From the moment Maria had stepped foot into the room, many people’s eyes were on her. It was only natural because a properly-dressed gentleman who was wearing a suit and tie was following after a young lady that was only wearing jeans and a large white hoodie. This young lady had her face obscured by her large hoodie and seemed ordinary but was definitely far from it. There was no way an ordinary person would have an attendant following after them closely.
Maria felt the stares and sunk further into her chair. A half hour soon passed before everyone invited finally arrived and the meeting started a few minutes afterward.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming today,” A man in a tuxedo said after stepping onto the podium in front of the hall, addressing everyone present.
“You all have been invited to the first IGC of our game, Universe Tales.”
The man said a few things for formality’s sake and the reason why everyone was asked to come here. After the main points were given, it turns out that the IGC committee wanted the invited participants to rehearse a little bit for tomorrow’s event. Since their events were going to be somewhat like the filler events in between the IGC’s main matches, they needed to distribute the schedule for everyone and what events they would be participating in.
They wanted the invited people present to also test run the equipment they were going to be using and the events they were going to participate in so that when tomorrow came and the tournament started, there wouldn’t be any surprises or mishaps on their part.
Maria got the gist of things and when she received the document of what events she would be in and their descriptions, she was a bit surprised because there were actually 3 events that she was included in.
First was the Obstacle Course event. It was basically a marathon-like race with obstacles placed on the course. Of course, these obstacles weren’t ordinary ones as they needed to be challenging for the players. The course was divided into 3 areas, the first being a forest, after that an ocean, and finally, a canyon. The participants needed to move through the course while avoiding the obstacles that were placed to obstruct them.
The first area would be done on foot while the second area obviously required the player to swim or dive through it and lastly, the third area would be completed by flying through it. The goal was to complete all three courses in the shortest time possible. It was a pretty simple and straightforward event. The committee didn’t share any details of the courses as they would be generated randomly through the AI's algorithm.
The second event she was participating in was the Boss Hunting event. The Boss Raid event that was already included in the tournament’s main events was a little different. The Boss Raid event was a team event so a team of players would be fighting against a boss and competing against other teams to see which team defeated the monster the fastest. This event, the Boss Hunting event, was different as it required the player to solo a boss monster by themselves. The scores will be tallied by how quickly the player wins against the boss or if they lose, the damage score will be the calculator of their performance.
Maria and a few other hidden rankers had inspired this event as they continuously soloed boss monsters that the devs thought were unable to be defeated with the power of only one player. These players proved the devs wrong so they decided to make an event for that. Naturally, they upped the difficulty for the boss monsters by copying some of these players’ play styles and adapting them to the AI’s algorithm.
Now, it would be like they’re playing against an actual player but have boss-level stats and skills. Of course, these player AI-driven bosses are only applied to the bosses in the IGC and not in the normal game. It’d be unfair for the players that weren’t rankers to have to deal with these kinds of overpowered bosses.
Maria thought that this event was quite interesting since she might be able to go all out. The last time she went all out was during her sparring matches with Odin though she wouldn’t have been able to win in any kind of scenario. The last event she would be participating in was something called the Allstar Match. Basically, it was just a 10 vs 10 battle between 2 opposing teams. Each team consisted of 8 people who were from the main event or those the committee had invited and an additional 2 people from the audience.
It was an event where 4 lucky people from the audience could come on stage to participate in a friendly battle alongside the pros and celebs.
“Heh...looks fun.”