The next day felt like it arrived very quickly for Maria. After eating last night, she went to sleep again and was woken up the next day by Lizzy who was particularly excited as she shouted, “It’s opening day, it’s opening day! Get up already you lazy hag!”
“S-Shut up…”
Maria’s bed hair was quite the sight to see as she did look like a hag whenever she woke up since her hair was so long.
“Get ready already. We have to be there when the opening ceremony begins!”
“...Ugh...Fine…”
After she got ready, her friends and everyone else were already waiting for her in the lobby. They were surprised to see her as she was only wearing a white hoodie and a pair of jeans.
“Y-You’re going dressed like that?” Gerald asked in surprise.
“Yeah. No one knows my real face and I’d rather not show it. Right now, they think my real appearance and my in-game avatar look completely different. It’d be embarrassing if people found out I didn’t make any changes to my avatar when I created my character.”
“...I think most people would be happy to know that.”
“Hmph.”
“Suit yourself,” Gerald said as she shrugged.
A few cars pulled up in front of the hotel and everyone separated into groups as they got on. Lizzy, Mikael, and the rest of Maria’s friends entered one car while Gerald and his friends entered another. Maria and David had to get into a separate car because the chauffeur would drive her to a different entrance than the others. However, the cars drove together to the venue.
Maria had already seen it yesterday, but it was unlike today. Today, the once empty stadium was completely packed with people as many were waiting in crowds outside of the entrances and lining up to enter. They thought that they had arrived early but there were so many people here already. The stadium staff had only just opened the entrances to accept people inside but even before it was opened, so many were already gathered.
The atmosphere of the entire venue made everyone so excited as they alighted from their cars. Maria saw her friends off as they made their way to the VIP gate before she and David continued to a different entrance that had been exclusively prepared for invited personnel like her.
Before getting out of the car, she made sure to put on her mask, tied her hair up, and covered her head with her hoodie. Some people loved the fame, but Maria didn’t. It was enough that her game character was well-known. She just wanted to remain anonymous if possible. For now, only those people in her school knew about her being the person behind her game avatar but no one dared to spill out her true identity since everyone knew how powerful her family was, and distributing information about her would likely result in severe consequences.
When Maria alighted from the car, David escorted her into the entrance and despite there being other people there as well, she didn’t move to greet them as she just silently entered.
“David, I don’t feel like talking to anyone so keep them away.”
“Yes, Miss.”
Maria just waited in the lounge as she dozed off a little while David stood next to her and kept people from disturbing her. She was suddenly awoken by the loud rumblings from the audience and it surprised her since the opening ceremony had started. She moved from the lounge towards the sitting area that was prepared for her. She moved through the people that were already there and sat down in her seat as she watched the event finally begin.
“Ladies and gentlemen, let’s dispense from any further formalities and speeches! I hereby announce the start of the IGC! Universe Tale’s First International Grand Colosseum!” A handsome middle-aged man wearing glasses said into the microphone he was holding.
Maria had missed the entire opening ceremony as the CEO of Universal Games announced that the tournament had officially started.
“That’s the CEO of Unitale’s gaming company, right?”
“Yes, that is correct, Young Miss.”
“Hmmm, no wonder he looked familiar. Did I miss anything important, David?”
David had been awake and was listening to everything that was happening while she was asleep so he thought for a moment before shaking his head.
“They called the names of a few celebrities and rankers to the stage to share their words but that’s all. There were a few formal speeches as well and sponsor greetings but you didn’t miss anything too important, Miss.”
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“...Okay.”
“You would have found it quite boring.”
“Heh, you know me well.”
“Of course.”
Right after Unitale’s CEO moved down from the stage, the MC took over and began hyping out the crowd before they finally got to the main focus of the tournament, the matches.
“Alright, folks! Those that are present here in the stadium and those tuning in at home or inside the game! We’re going to start the first session of the IGC, the individual battles!” The MC roared into the mic as the crowd screamed back in excitement.
The first battle was against a top 50 ranker and one of those people that had qualified the prelims. Maria didn’t know any of them but the grand introduction the tournament organizers had made for each player as they made their way onto the stage was quite amazing. A video was played on the big screens suspended in the center of the stadium that showed clips and footage of their battles and adventures in Unitale.
The videos were edited so well that even Maria couldn’t help but grow interested.
“Wow, that’s pretty cool.”
“The organizers had requested the use of the participants’ in-game footage and other video clips to make these intro videos.”
“Did they ask for my consent as well?”
“Yes, but I already took care of the intro video for you, Miss.”
“Oh? Okay.”
“I obviously won’t allow them to access your in-game feed since there are likely many sensitive things that you wouldn’t want to show, so I made it myself after carefully picking out the right things to show.”
“That's good. Thanks again, David.”
"I'm only doing my job, my Lady."
The two players walked onto the stage and shook hands before they entered the booths that had the gaming capsules waiting inside. There was a changing room inside those booths so the participants could change into the clothes that were required to be worn to use the capsules. During this time as the participants were changing, a few more clips of their in-game adventures and battles were played before finally, the two entered the capsules and dove into the game.
The participants had been briefed about this in the waiting rooms before the event started so they knew what to do, however, many were excited because this was the first showcase of the new VR gear and they were able to use them for this tournament. The big screens transitioned to show the battlefield inside of the game where the two contenders were now in as they stared each other down. Maria noticed that the field they were on wasn’t a ring or anything. Instead, they were in the middle of a forest.
“So they’re not fighting in a ring...that’s nice.”
Fighting inside of a ring was cool and all, but it would greatly restrict the adaptability that players had as they would only fight each other in a head-on battle. It wouldn’t be interesting to watch as the participants only threw skills at each other. Of course, it was fun for most of the people but Maria would rather see how the players used the terrain to their advantage as they adopted a more thoughtful battle style than just simply slugging skills and spells at each other.
They started once the counter fell to zero and against everyone’s expectations, the battle ended quite quickly as the ranker dashed forward and appeared right in front of his opponent before pulling out his sword and slashed at their neck. There was a reason why this player was in the top rankings and this disparity in skill and stats was shown immediately as the ranker took down his opponent very quickly without letting them defend or counterattack.
It was quite one-sided that Maria felt pity for the loser who had been kicked out of the game after losing and was getting out of his capsule with a forlorn look on his face. The ranker got out of the capsule and waved to the crowd as he stepped down from the stage as the audience roared and cheered. It was a quick fight that had little to no flare but it was action-packed and this was what the people came to watch.
“...I knew they were strong,” Maria said as she leaned forward on her chair and began analyzing the earlier battle as the MC began saying a few things and announced the next two participants.
Unfortunately for the guy who lost, his journey in the individual matches stopped here as he walked down the stage with a dejected look. Not every qualified player had joined the 1vs1 PvP event. The qualified players had the option to choose between a few events that were categorized between solo and team events. The solo events were the PvP matches, the Free-for-All Battle, the Item Creation Event, and the Demon-Slaying Stage.
The team events were the 5vs5 Team Battles, the Battle Royale, the Boss Raid Event, and finally, the Monster Wave Stage. There were 8 events in total with 4 in each category and the players could at most only participate in 4 out of these 8 events. The rules didn’t allow a single player to participate in any more. This meant that if a player were to win every one of the events they participated in, they could win only 4 gold medals at most.
Lizzy had chosen to participate in the PvP and Demon-Slaying event for the individual category while in the team category, she chose the Boss Raid and Monster Wave events. She didn’t choose the 5vs5 team battle or Battle Royale despite them likely being her favorites because she would then have to cooperate with a team of players to take out another team of players which really wasn’t something she wanted to do as the players in her team would be total strangers.
Lizzy wasn’t keen on that idea as it seemed a little flawed since it would have been better if her team consisted of players she normally played with instead of a haphazardly put-together team that was decided moments before the event. The tournament’s organizers needed to work on this part because the team category seemed less appealing to many of the players as they would have to party with strangers and disclosing sensitive information such as their stats and skills was risky but necessary if they wanted to perform well and synergize together as a team.
As for the 2 other team events, they were alright since players on the battlefield would normally find themselves cooperating with others to take down a powerful boss or endure a monster wave emergency event while playing the game. Since this event didn’t have any drops, it would be easier to cooperate as everyone’s goal was to defeat the boss. The calculation of the rankings afterward would be based on the players’ performance.
Were they active in the hunt? Did they deal a lot of damage, healed, inflicted debuffs, and protected their teammates, tanked the monster’s damage, etc. Many factors would be taken into consideration so everyone would have to try their best to get that first rank even though they were technically cooperating. Of course, the teams for both the Boss Raid and Monster Wave events would be allocated randomly according to each participants’ class but there would only be 5 players in each team.
Maria checked the schedule and noticed that each event would be played out until the quarter-finals before moving on to the next event. The semi-finals and finals would commence only after all of the events had played out until their quarter-final series. The semi-finals and finals would be held on the last two days of the IGC period when the excitement had reached its peak. There would naturally be interludes throughout the IGC period, especially during the team category events to let the teams gather together and strategize before they had to get on stage.
During these interludes would be when the side events were carried out to entertain the people as they waited. The entire tournament might take even longer to carry out than what the organizers had predicted with the sheer number of players participating in the tournament but they had prepared themselves well for this eventuality. Maria continued watching the battles until finally, it was Lizzy’s turn to fight. She had been invited to the tournament due to her status as one of Unitale’s most prominent guild masters and she was matched up against a top 50 ranker.
Lizzy had confidence in herself and since she was one of the few female players participating in the tournament, many people cheered for her when she got onto the stage. Maria was a little worried because her opponent was a ranker but that worry was unfounded. Lizzy’s opponent was ranked 11 on the leaderboards but the battle that people expected to play out...didn’t quite play out as they predicted. Sure, her opponent was a few levels higher but Lizzy had been at the forefront of the game’s first world’s main quest and she was still among the leaders in the second world’s main quest.
She had many power-ups, unique skills, titles, rare equipment, and pets hidden in her arsenal. She never publicly showed her might as she was always commanding but she was the Fallen Angels Main Force’s damage dealer.