Universe Tales: Virtual Log of the Fallen One

Once the system kicked Maria out of the guild, what ensued were naturally the numerous pings and messages from her friends and former guild members whom she had grown close to.

<Maria! Why'd you leave the guild?!>

<Little Sister, what's the meaning of this?>

<Mary? Is something up? Why'd you leave?>

<Mary...>

<Maria..!>

<...>

<...>

The incessant amount of messages she got was annoying her so she just dismissed and muted every single one except for the ones that came from her best friends.

Maria opened up the chat window with Lizzy and was about to reply to her message but then her voice chat began ringing. When she saw who the caller was, she immediately answered.

<Mary? Why did you suddenly leave?>

"Sorry, Liz! I don't know why but the system suddenly kicked me out!"

<Huh? How's that possible?>

Judging from how flustered her friend looked, Lizzy deduced that Maria wasn't lying at all. It was already on her friend's track record to be screwed over by the system so Lizzy wasn't all too surprised by what Maria said.

<...I just tried inviting you again, but for some reason, the system said that targeted player can not be invited...it really is the system...>

Lizzy let out a frustrated sigh at this.

"W-what do I do now?"

<You don't need to do anything. I'll just send a complaint to the devs about this. It has to be a bug.>

"Alright."

<Where are you right now? By the way, what was with that [World Announcement] from earlier?>

"Hm?"

<It reported that 'Player Maria', which is you without a doubt, has defeated the World Boss Monster, Asmodeus, the Devil of Greed.>

"Oh? Well, I did beat a monster that called himself Greed. It was pretty stupid but good thing I got Ash on my side!"

<...Because of what you did, the game is going into maintenance.>

"What's that?"

<It means that the game won't be playable because it's being updated. The new update has everyone scrambling just so you know!>

"Really?"

<...Anyway, we should meet up. Come over to the Guild's HQ after the maintenance.>

"Alright~"

[Announcement: Maintenance will commence in 01:29:04!]

Maria went through her [Log] and checked further up and saw the announcement from when she had finally struck down Greed.

[You have accomplished the amazing achievement of destroying Asmodeus, the Devil of Greed. You have been rewarded: 5000 World Reputation Points, 10 FSP, 500 Gold, Advanced Weapon Enhancement Stone (x10), Advanced Equipment Enhancement Stone (x10)]

Maria quickly opened up her [Inventory] and saw the unfamiliar items that she had just acquired. She picked up one each and inspected them.

[Advanced Weapon Enhancement Stone

Rank: Heroic

Item used to enhance Heroic Rank weapons and below.]

[Advanced Equipment Enhancement Stone

Rank: Heroic

Item used to enhance Heroic Rank equipment and below.]

'What's an enhancement?' Maria thought to herself. She shrugged and just tossed the stones back into her inventory.

She turned towards Lilah and said, "Lilah, bring us back to the city!"

"Alright, Master. Follow me..."

With Lilah leading the way, Maria and Ash followed after her in the direction of the Neutral City that housed the Fallen Angels Guild's HQ.

They were flying so it wouldn't take too long before they would arrive. However, even then it would still take a while so just before they could arrive, the timer on the maintenance had reached zero, and Maria was forcibly logged out of the game.

*****

Back in the real world, Maria quickly took off the VR equipment on her head and began stretching her body.

"I forgot about the maintenance. Too bad I couldn't reach the city and log out there..." Maria mumbled and continued to stretch.

"Huah, alright, let's go eat!" She said after checking and seeing that it was almost dinner time.

When she arrived downstairs, the family butler was just about to go upstairs to inform her that dinner was ready so he was quite surprised that the young lady was already out.

"My Lady, dinner is ready and everyone is already in the dining room. They are only waiting for you now."

"Alright, thanks, David~"

David led Maria down to the dining room and the food was immediately served. While they were eating, Gerald, who was active in Unitale immediately opened up his mouth and asked Maria about her recent activities.

Just like he thought when he saw the World Announcement earlier before the maintenance, it was indeed her little sister that did something. It was honestly quite surprising to him that many of the recent World Announcements and hot news were all something that revolved around his sister.

"Sister, because of you killing that Devil or something, UT's AI decided to quickly implement the Currency Exchange and new expansion update. Now, more people will be looking to play UT."

"Currency Exchange? What's that Gerald?" their father asked.

"Ah, it might be a good business opportunity dad. From the patch update that I just read, the Currency Exchange is an in-game function that will allow you to trade real money for in-game gold and vice-versa!"

"Oh?"

"Since gold will be obtainable inside the game, it'll be a new form of cryptocurrency! I'm not sure about the exchange rate, but it'll be a great investment, don't you think, dad?" Gerald happily explained.

"Hmmm... I've been receiving a lot of requests lately from gaming companies and groups for an investment. I didn't really see the need since it was only a game, but if it's like this then it might be worth looking into," Corinthos said with a thoughtful expression.

"It's definitely a venture you should look into dad! In the future, the VR world will dominate the markets since people can work in the comfort of their own home while also enjoying their time playing a game! You should invest dad, how about starting with my guild?"

"...I'll think about it."

"The clock's ticking dad! You have to be quick about this before other companies start investing ahead and claim a bigger slice of the pie!"

"Alright, alright... I'll give you an answer tomorrow after the Currency Exchange goes live inside the game."

"Awesome!"

Corinthos shook his head at his enthusiastic son and turned to look at his only daughter who was 'elegantly' scarfing down the food in front of her.

"What about you, Mary. Are you still enjoying the game?"

"Hrmm?" Seeing as her father was directing a question at her, Maria quickly swallowed down her food before answering. "It's fun and something interesting just happened. Anyway, you don't have to worry about me! If anything, think about investing in Lizzy's guild! We're currently the top guild in the dark faction~"

"Hehe, you're sounding more like your brother lately. Anyway, just play and have fun. You don't need to worry about all that stuff."

"M'kay~"

*****

After the meal, Maria went back to her room and went to do some research about the game. She read through the new expansion patch notes and the updates that were going to be implemented before continuing to try and find information about world traveling since she needed it for her quest with Ash.

While she was looking through the information, she inadvertently stumbled upon information about factions and affiliations. Maria remembered that her affiliation had just changed so she clicked on the topic and looked through it.

"Eh? What the hell is this?!"

[Affiliations and Factions

In Universe Tales, there are divisions among the game's NPCs. The known divisions are split between 4—...]

As she continued looking through the page, Maria grew more and more dismayed by what she saw. Apparently, the affiliations were split between 3. The Light, Dark, and Neutral Factions, then there was the fourth affiliation which was having no faction at all. This was the division that Maria was in.

What it meant to have no affiliation was that the player was a standalone, having no relations with any of the 3 factions and would also be shunned by them if they were ever to go into any of the 3 factions' territories.

'Shunned' in the game had a rather broad meaning. For one, it meant that the player with no affiliation would no longer be able to trade with any of the factions' shops or merchants. They wouldn't be able to access any of the cities, towns, or villages and the guards and NPCs would immediately kill the player on sight. This worst part had to be that Maria, who now had no affiliation, would be viewed as a monster by all of the players.

In other words, having no affiliation indicated that she would be in the same league as a player with a red or PK status. Even then, a red player would be more fortunate than her since only the heinous of criminals would lose their status as a member or citizen of a faction.

If a red player accumulated enough PK points, they'd be banished from their present faction if they were a Dark or Light faction player and they'd be forced into the Neutral Faction by default. Then, only the dumbest or bravest of red players would continue to accumulate PK points to the point where even the Neutral Faction would no longer accommodate them and kick them out.

When Maria read up to there and gave it some thought, she couldn't help but widen her eyes in shock and exclaimed, "Doesn't this basically mean that I'm some sort of heinous criminal?!"

Maria could only confirm whether this was true or not once the game had finished updating. She didn't want to do any more research and quickly went to bed.

*****

The next day, Maria logged on into Unitale and she appeared in a leveling area close to the Neutral City that the Fallen Angels' Guild HQ was at. She looked around and noticed more and more players logging in.

It was relief that the log out was due to maintenance because if she had logged out in the wilderness, she might have been killed by some monsters. Of course, she didn't need to worry so much about it since she had Ash and Lilah to guard her body.

"Oh no... It is true..." Maria mumbled to herself.

"W-what the hell? Guys, there's a red player here!"

"She's alone! Hurry up and attack her! Don't let this bag of money escape!"

The players that had logged in around her quickly took notice of Maria's status and immediately tried attacking her. Maria scoffed and quickly pulled out her scythe, but Ash had made his move first.

"My Lady, please let me handle this rabble."

"...Make it quick. We still got to head into the city and find Lizzy. Hopefully, the situation will be straightened out after I find her..."

"Yes, My Lady," Ash replied with a polite bow.

He turned towards the players that were rushing at them and his lips arched into a sadistic grin.

"You're all courting death for daring to attack my Mistress."