Universe Tales: Virtual Log of the Fallen One

Chapter 110: Judging Before Getting Lost

Maria started walking and the camera moved alongside her. She came up to the first dress, stopped by for a moment, and let the video of its description play out. Coincidentally, the dresses to the entrance of the throne room were all player-made.

Only the last 5 were made by her faction's NPCs. There weren't that many people in her faction that had the talent to make clothing. As far as Maria knew, there were only 2. She didn't know where the remaining 3 came from since only one dress was allowed per entrant.

She passed through so many dresses, all of which were very beautiful and pleasing to the eye. Her audience couldn't help but be amazed at the level of artistry and effort the people who entered her contest put into each set of dresses.

After all the player-made ones were shown. The final 5 NPC-made dresses were displayed. Unlike the player-made ones that were made using the themes and aesthetics of the real world, the NPC dresses were unique since they followed the fantasy aesthetics of the game.

The previous dresses were indeed beautiful, but the final 5 were just breathtaking. There was a reason why Maria's people had placed these dresses at the very end and it wasn't just due to bias or anything.

The quality, effort, and craftsmanship put into these dresses warranted such treatment. The best was naturally saved for last and as Maria got to the first NPC-made dress, her eyes glistened brightly at the beautiful blue-white dress in front of her.

Holmer, the Master Tailor of her faction, stepped forward from the side and began his long introduction of the dress.

"Your Majesty, this dress that I've put all my effort and more to make is called 'Angelic Layer'. The materials used to create the"

Maria wasn't listening, only the audience was. She was currently captivated by the beautiful set of clothing in front of her. In her personal chat logs, Maria's friends, Lizzy, Amanda, and Emily were all spamming her with chats that wanted her to share some of the beautiful dresses that they saw on stream with them.

Maria giggled in delight before replying to them smugly.

<I'm a genius!>

<Yeah, yeah. Share with us a few okay?!>

Maria giggled at Lizzy's demand.

<I wonder what should I do~?>

<Mary!!!>

Maria could already picture Lizzy's whiny face. She nearly laughed out loud but held it in before replying.

<We can have our own private outfitting session when you guys get here! I'll be saving all of these dresses in my castle so hurry up~>

<I gotta step things up now!>

<Hold up, Liz. We're still exploring the minor world that we acquired, don't go giving us more things to do! Also, judging from Maria's description of the planet, it's probably one of the main scenario planets. Rushing won't get us anywhere since all main scenario quests are locked until someone discovers the opening quest!>

<Then we'll focus on finding that! Have our people gather all the clues we found from the previous main scenario quest and see if we can>

Lizzy began a long spiel in their group chat and Maria smiled before turning her attention back to the NPCs who were introducing their dresses to her. All of the materials used were rare and extremely expensive. If she had to buy these things, she didn't know just how much it would cost her.

Of course, she prepared compensation for those that entered and a reward for the ones who won the top 3. Maria was rich enough to do this only with her in-game money which she converted into real-life currency.

All of the money she earned since she started streaming and posting videos on Switch was also put into the budget. This way, she was able to give back to the 4th to 16th placing participants of her contest.

Naturally, all of the outfits sent to her within the competition belonged to her now and she was allowed to wear them as custom in-game skins. There were even some she saved that didn't make it to the final judging.

A nurse outfit, an Idol's costume, and many others that she thought were interesting and worth keeping made it into her castle's treasury. Naturally, she may or may not use these but they weren't there just to collect dust in her wardrobe. She could use them as rewards for her subordinates.

Seeing Alexa in an idol's costume was going to be quite the treat for her and her audience's eyes. Or the bunny costume she got which was rather inappropriate for the competition, she wanted to see how her head maid looked in that.

Maria and her viewers were all enjoying the competition in their own way and finally, the last dress finished its preamble and the judging forms were sent and pinned into the stream's chat.

"Alright everyone~ the introductions are over! Now, I want you all to open the forms and pick your favorite 3 outfits! The voting time will end in 1 hour! I know this may sound long, but I'm sure that there are some friends out there who are busy and aren't ready to vote so I'm giving everyone an hour to submit their votes! Sounds fair, yes?

Also, just a heads up, but members of my channel have their votes counted twice! If you're not a member, maybe you should join now to let your favorite dress win? Now, get to it and vote fairly!"

After giving her audience that announcement, Maria also opened up the form link and she got a piece of paper in-game which she could write her votes down on. She looked at the camera and said, "I'm also voting so no peeking! David, move the camera away!"

The camera panned out and it began showing the dresses once more except this time, without the introductions. Maria sat down on her throne and began writing down which one she liked the best.

The first one was something that surprisingly, Ash and everyone in her castle had made for her. It was a black-red battle dress that could also serve as a normal dance dress that could be worn at a ball.

She really liked this one because of how fitting it was to her taste and style. In a way, her subordinates were cheating because they entered while knowing Maria's taste.

Maria didn't know what to do while waiting for the full hour until the votings closed. She moved to the side and began swinging her scythe absentmindedly while deep in thought.

She occasionally switched her Calamity back to its ax form before carving up the ground of her castle. Ash who was at the side had a smile on his face that was dripping with blood, the expenses needed to repair the castle wasn't small and Maria would occasionally do this whenever she was thinking about something.

"Maybe we should renovate the castle and use magic-repairing bricks instead"

"My Lord, the expenses would be"

"It's better than having to constantly put out expenses to repair the castle...it'd only be a one-time deal."

"Well, since we are hosting this competition and providing rewards directly from our budget"

Ash quickly cut off the official's words and asked, "Who said that we were using our faction's budget?"

"Huh? But then who would sponsor this event?"

"Our Queen already said that all expenses would be coming directly out of her pocket. Use the faction's budget to renovate the castle. It's a perfect time since our Queen will be leaving for a few days. Get it done."

"Yes, my Lord, as you wish," The official complied with a bow.

Seeing that Maria had finished casting her vote, David panned the camera over to Maria who was still unconsciously destroying her castle's floor.

"Hmmm"

Maria didn't notice the camera and walked out of the balcony before calling out to Ash, "Ash, I'll be out for a bit!"

"My Lady, wait"

Maria jumped off the balcony and this caused her newer viewers to gasp in shock. Her older viewers were already used to Maria's spontaneous actions, whether they were dangerous or not.

As she was falling, Maria opened her wings and stopped her descent. She looked around before shooting in a random direction while humming. Nobody could tell what she wanted to do, but Maria was simply just bored from thinking about waiting for an hour doing nothing.

She decided to spend the hour killing monsters before going back to the castle. None of her viewers would notice her sudden disappearance since the camera was still showing the dresses, or at least, it should have been.

Maria still wasn't aware that David was following her every move with the camera so when she landed at a nearby hunting ground just outside of her city's walls, she remained oblivious and began attacking the monsters nearby.

A group of goblins appeared in her vision and she immediately rushed at them. Her speed was quite fast and it appeared as if she had teleported in the middle of the goblin group.

She flourished her scythe and swung it a full 360 degrees before flying up and searching for more prey to kill. Down below, the goblins still weren't aware of what happened but blood began spurting out of their bodies before they collapsed into pieces.

The bloody sight was a first for a lot of the people watching but that wasn't over. Maria began terrorizing the monsters in the plains nearby, all of which were at a level higher than hers.

Maria did this all with ease and by herself. She just sped through the area killing any creature that she saw, her scythe was bloodied by the monsters' blood and her appearance struck fear in all of the monsters she encountered.

Thanks to the many extermination titles that Maria possessed, it invoked fear in the monsters she was hunting. They let out cries of fear before trying to run away but Maria didn't spare them.

She just threw her Calamity at them or shot her feathers into their backs. She did all of this with a slight smile on her face as the EXP rolled in. Once again, the fans were reminded that this girl's cutesy appearance was all just for show. Her true nature came out whenever she was swinging her weapon on the battlefield and it wasn't something normal people would be able to tolerate.

Most of the player base had pixelated the blood and gore but Maria didn't do that so the gruesomeness of the battlefield was shown for all to see. Naturally, it wasn't that Maria was a sadistic psycho that loved to bathe in the blood of her enemies and she didn't change the settings or anything. In fact, she had it changed but it was her weapon, the Calamity, which had a default battle animation that enforced the carnage and butchery so even if the settings were turned off for her, the viewers would see differently.

A few people left, especially those that couldn't handle the bloodshed, while others stomached it and continued watching her. It went against Switch's Terms of Service, but she was granted a concession because it was the game's doing and not her own.

She had previously been contacted about this, but David was the one that dealt with it himself. Since it was the game's fault, she wasn't banned from streaming. Many other video games were the same but they didn't warrant the streamers playing it to be banned.

It was the same in her case and David had already contacted Universe Gaming Company to help lower the Calamity's default setting so that it wouldn't be so bloody. Switch's team tolerated Maria's stream because the game's developers already reached out and said that they would resolve the 'bloody' issue.

While Maria was playing around, she noticed something following her and threw her scythe at it. Just before Calamity could split the camera that was following her in half, Maria quickly realized and stopped her weapon.

The edge of her ax was right on the screen and the viewers nearly had a fright from seeing the weapons nearly smash into the camera lens.

"Uwah! I'm so sorry~ I didn't think there would be a camera here"

Maria retrieved her weapon and apologized. Since she wasn't out here alone, Maria decided that it was time to head back. Now, that's where the problem began.

"...Where am I?"

<LOL!>

<Did she just>

<She's lost!>

<Our little angel's lost!>

<Hahaha!>

Maria looked left and right but she couldn't see where her castle was at.

"Strange...I thought I only flew to the plains just outside the city walls" She said while scratching her head in confusion. "Uhhh"

She looked at her map and groaned, "...uhm, so if the camera was behind me all this time and I just walked in a straight line then that means the castle should be that way, right?"

Unfortunately for her, she didn't walk in just one direction. Whenever she saw a monster group she would immediately rush in to attack before walking straight in a random direction.

This continued for a while until she finally realized that there was a camera following her.

"Let's just head that a way~"