Universe Tales: Virtual Log of the Fallen One

"My true goal was always this world. It was never limited to just this small mountain range!"

The mountain range she was on was anything but small. It was the southern mountain range that separated her area from the core area of the Blood Continent. It was why she was safely able to expand her forces without meeting too many hindrances along the way.

"This small war will be a test! Those who want to stand by my side as we walk together to claim everlasting glory, fight! Survive! And evolve! Evolve to become the most powerful weapons at my disposal!"

Even though Maria's speech subjectively called out to her soldiers asking them to become destructive and fanatical weapons of war, they all roared and cheered at her words. Most of the ogres were stupid and didn't understand much of what she said, but what they did understand was that she would throw them into a battlefield, constantly.

The blood ogres, or at least, that's what everyone in the chat called them, lived and died for battle. Hearing that their new chieftain was going to frequently bring them to war, they didn't need any more convincing.

The vampires were brought along with the mood so they also cheered, but thanks to their training, they were already being groomed as Maria's first platoon of fanatical soldiers. Now, she just hastened the expansion and practically made 80 percent of her faction's total army become fanatics.

<She could start her own religion at this point, lol!>

One of the people in the chat said this and it snowballed into something rather stupid and hilarious. The fans who were only joking around began putting up suggestions on what to call their new 'cult' and what they should call themselves.

All of this eluded Maria since she was too focused on the game and not reading the chat. In the game, her soldiers' morale was at its peak and they were all ready to march. All they needed was Maria's orders.

"Now go forward! Bring me victory! For the Dire!"

"For the Dire!" Ash echoed raising his weapon, a rapier.

"The Dire!"

"The Dire!"

"DIRE!!!"

Orh'bankhur's bellow was also heard and everyone in the army began chanting the faction's name. David, Maria's butler who was now in charge of directing the camera and viewpoint of her stream, made sure to pan out and let the audience see the entire army as they chanted.

The chat was hyped seeing the grand view of an army of monsters chanting in unison. Their bellows reached towards the heavens and their stomps caused the earth to shake. With Ash taking the lead, he split off and led his army away.

Orh'bankhur was next and he led his army away as well. All that was left was Maria's army. The young girl flew up towards Berserker's shoulder and sat down. She left her weapon floating next to her and asked, "Shall we go?"

"GRAAHHH!!!"

Berserker roared and began moving. He seemed like he was about to go on a full-on sprint so Maria made sure to smack him on the head with Calamity to calm him down a bit.

"Guh?"

Being smacked on the head with her ax, Berserker looked at his master with a questioning face.

"Go slow, we don't want to exhaust our people before we get into the actual fight," Maria plainly said with a slight smile on her face. "Go."

Berserker grunted and began walking. He roared to indicate to the rest of the army to follow him and match his pace.

Alexa flew up with her bat wings and followed behind Maria who was sitting on Berserker's shoulder. Lilah was already perched on her master's shoulders with an excited look on her face.

It was the first time she and her master were setting off on a grand campaign. She was also trying not to think about the massive expenses that she would later have to calculate since their army's soldiers have increased by a substantial amount.

<This is going to be great! I can't believe a player is actually going to wage war with an entire monster species!>

<This has got to be the greatest content out there for UT right now! While everyone is still middling around with quests and leveling, we have our adorable little angel here setting off to conquer the world!>

<I've found the name for our cult! We'll call ourselves the Dire, just like our Queen's faction!>

<That's a good name!>

<+1>

<+2>

<...>

As the three armies marched on towards their intended battle zones, some of the surviving ogres whose villages were attacked by Maria in yesterday's campaign finally found refuge in the ogre villages.

They were only lucky to remain alive because Maria attacked the ogres within the villages and didn't bother sweeping the area for any lucky ogres who just happened to be out of the village during the assault.

News about the attacks quickly traveled to the ears of the Blood Peak Ogres, the ogre tribe which dominated and oversaw this part of the Blood Rock Mountain range. This ogre tribe was the very rival of the Mountain Blade Ogres that Orh'bankhur led.

When the chieftain got word of the Mountain Blade Ogres brazenly attacking and conquering the surrounding ogre villages under his control and protection, the chieftain, Huzah'kahn, grew enraged.

"Round up warriors! Go to war!"

"War!"

"WARR!"

As expected of a race full of warriors. The blood ogres, the term Maria's chat referred to the Vanhal ogres, immediately grew ecstatic when their chieftain raised the banner to war.

It would take a while for the Blood Peak Ogres to rally and organize themselves but that time alone was enough for Maria's armies to conquer a few more villages. The only problem would be that Maria was currently unaware that the enemy ogres knew about her presence now.

Before, she had the element of surprise, but now that her enemies knew of her dangerous presence and were ready to defend themselves and their village, things would take a much harder turn for Maria and her soldiers.

A frontal assault would cost them a few soldiers and it would be a loss to their fighting force. Of course, the ogres that they raided and conquered would forcibly be assimilated into their ranks and put on the very frontlines to prove their loyalty...or cowardice.

When Maria arrived at the village she was going to attack, she didn't hastily give out the orders to assault the village. She immediately felt something was wrong when she saw the barred-up gates and the fortified walls around the ogre settlement.

There were patrols on the walls and soldiers on the watchtowers. It didn't look like a village anymore, but a small fortified fortress.

"Were they expecting us?" Maria frowned and asked no one in particular.

Lilah was also observing the settlement and quickly arrived at a conclusion, something that Maria was hoping she didn't have to hear.

"Master, apparently, the ogres are aware of our presence within the mountains."

"...Figures, it's no wonder the village suddenly look as fortified as a small castle or keep..." Maria looked around the settlement and tried to find a weak point, but it was pretty well fortified. Not even a full 24 hours had passed since Maria's presence within the Blood Rock Mountain range was made aware to the ogres and yet they were able to create fortifications around their settlements.

The cause of this eluded Maria but it didn't change their previous objective. Just that now, it was going to take a little bit more effort than before. Maria pondered for a moment before asking aloud, "Is it the same for the others I wonder?"

Over at Orh'bankhur and Ash's side, they too were faced with a similar situation. The villages that they were going to attack had all been fortified and the changes seemed to have happened overnight.

Maria thought that the game was supposed to be super-realistic so she couldn't understand how the villages had become fortified so well after not even a full 24 hours had passed. She attributed it to the system doing this to bring a certain balance back to the game.

Things would have been too easy for her if she used her massive army to overwhelm the villages one by one. She didn't think deeper and attributed this to the inhabitants of the village, the ogres.

Ogres weren't just a race consisting of mindlessly powerful warriors that only knew how to fight, fight, fight, and fight. No, even the blood ogres knew about the importance of weaponry and armor.

Each ogre had to forge its own weapon and armor. They didn't have any blacksmiths to make it for them so they had to take things into their own hands. This was why not only were the blood ogres, or rather, the ogres in general, were a warrior race but they were also a race of rather skilled crafters.

Naturally, their crafting knowledge and techniques paled in comparison to the dwarves and gnomes, but since every ogre knew how to craft their own weapons and armor, it wasn't a surprise if all the ogres pitched in together to build strong fortifications for their settlement within a night.

Maria had to think long and hard about how they were going to siege this small village that was surrounded by walls much taller than the ogres themselves. They didn't have any siege weapons and it wasn't like her faction's craftsmen could craft siege weapons at the moment.

They didn't have any blueprints for that so they couldn't make it. Maria needed to raid dungeons or defeat high-leveled bosses to have a chance of acquiring them from their drops and rewards. Anything related to war within the game was always hard to get.

Even waging a war itself was hard. Normal players who had become nobles needed a war order from the lord they were serving to launch a war with another player or NPC guild or faction.

Just being able to launch a war was already that hard, what more acquiring the weapons needed to wage the war. Accrue ballistae, trebuchets, cannons, gate rammers, siege towers, and many other weapons of war were extremely difficult to get. You either had to be extremely lucky to find one through a quest reward or a monster's drop or have an insanely large amount of faction contribution points to trade for even one of those expensive war machines.

Maria was the leader of her own faction so she didn't need a war order, but the war weapons, this was rather hard for her to get. She didn't have a faction contribution shop, instead, she had a Faction Leader's shop which directly showed her what she could purchase.

She could use the faction currency to buy these items, but the amount was just insanely large that it seemed better for her if she tried her luck raiding high-leveled bosses and dungeons.

"We don't have many archers or mages...it'll be difficult for all of these ogres to scale the wall without experiencing too much damage," Maria pondered aloud.

Thankfully, she had the habit of voicing her thoughts so the audience watching her seriously think and contemplate didn't grow bored of just watching her scrunched-up face. They were also able to follow along with her thought process and try to give her suggestions.

Too bad though, Maria didn't have the chat window opened so she was left to think about it on her own.

Eventually, she thought up a great plan which used the ogres' greatest advantage against them. Just like her ogres, the ogres in the village did not wield any long-ranged weapons. They all used axes, blades, polearms, hammers, and other close-ranged weaponry.

The only long-ranged fighter they would have would be their village's shaman if they had one.