Universe Tales: Virtual Log of the Fallen One

Maria and Lizzy began inspecting the loot they found.

Lizzy had already decided to let Maria pick 5 of the drops for her own since she did most of the work. She did mess up a little, but the girl had the most contribution and played the most crucial role in this boss raid and in the end she had managed to retake their boss kill and their entire guild was once more broadcasted in the World Announcement.

It was already discussed earlier beforehand, so the rest of the guild members inside of the room already prepared themselves. They could only hope that Maria would leave some of the better drops behind for them and the guild.

Without the guild, Maria wouldn't have been able to take down the boss by herself so she didn't have any thoughts of keeping the loot to herself.

"Okay Mary, despite you making a few blunders in the raid, you're also the person who made the most contributions! So we've decided to let you choose 5 items from the loot for yourself! Go ahead, no need to hold back," Lizzy said as she pushed her friend forward.

Maria was a little surprised as she didn't expect to receive such a nice reward after being scolded. She didn't hesitate and began looking through the list of drops from the Abyssal Golem.

[Abyssal Shard x100

Abyssal Core x1

Abyssal Mithril Ore x5

Orichalcum Ore x10

...

...

...

Spell Book: Terra Lance

Skill Book: Rupture

...

...]

There were a lot of things on the list that looked very eye-catching, but one thing was for certain, she wanted that Spellbook! That was already on her list so she needed to pick 4 more. Too bad the [Rupture] skill book was a Knight and Warrior class skill.

It sounded cool and if she could, she wanted to learn that skill.

[Rupture Lv.1 (0/10,000)

Rank: A

Ruptures the earth with a strong blow dealing 500+(0.5 x STR) DMG and inflicts stun for 1 second on enemies in a 5 meter radius around the impact zone.

Cooldown: 45 seconds

Rage Costs: 70 Rage

Learning Requirements: Warrior or Knight]

She didn't have rage since it was a Warrior, Knight, and Thief class exclusive resource. She only had Stamina and Mana. Everyone in the game had Mana and Stamina so it could be said that those 3 close combat classes had unique resources only available to them.

She didn't have time to lament on this so she quickly picked the other 4 items that she wanted.

"I'll take the [Terra Lance] Spellbook, Abyssal Core, the Abyssal Earrings, the 'A Journey through the Mountains' book, and the 'Enoch Unique Recipes' Book!"

Once she picked out all the items she wanted, some of the players in the room were looking at her weirdly. They could understand why she chose the Spellbook and the accessory, but they couldn't understand why she wanted the Abyssal Core, a crafting material, and 2 books which could probably be found in a city's library.

Lizzy already knew how eccentric her friend could be, so she didn't question her choices, instead she picked out a necklace from the pile of loot and tossed it over to Maria.

"Mary, catch!"

"W-woah!" Maria clumsily caught the item that was suddenly tossed to her, when she saw that it was actually the Abyssal Necklace that she had given up on earlier, she immediately tried returning it back to Lizzy.

"L-Liz, what's this for?!"

"Idiot, the necklace and the earrings are a set! If you take one, you have to take both!"

"O-oh...I-I'll return one item then..."

Lizzy immediately took out the book 'A Journey through the Mountains' and the Abyssal Core. She weighed it on her mind for a bit before she tossed the Abyssal Core back into the pile of loot which was a huge shocker to everyone in the room who wasn't a close friend of Maria's.

"S-she just threw away the Abyssal Core in favor of that book?"

"You could probably find that in the library!"

"...Just like leader said, she really is eccentric and apparently, she really loves books. That's the library's goddess for you!"

Maria carefully stored her book inside her [Book Keeping] Inventory. It was kind of funny when a small bookcase suddenly poofed into existence in front of Maria and she placed the 2 books she just got into the case.

She also remembered that she was level 35 now so she could finally learn both [Slow] and [Dark Ray], her first unique class exclusive skill!

She took down the two skill books and immediately patted it on her chest. She learned [Slow] normally, but when [Dark Ray] was patted on her chest, a large dark ray of light penetrated the sealing and enveloped Maria before a large silhouette of the Death God materialized in the air just above the girl.

"W-woah!"

"What the hell?!"

The Fallen Angels players began backing up and even Lizzy was startled at the large cinematic.

<Child, would you like to take the test?>

The large silhouette asked Maria.

Warning signals began ringing inside Maria's head. Mind you, this wasn't the game's doing, but it was more of her own instincts screaming at her that 'This is bad! This equals imprisonment! No go, abort! Abort!'

Maria immediately began to shake her head frantically from side to side. She did NOT want to get imprisoned inside a quest again. She had just escaped so she wanted to revel in her freedom before being forced into another one of those stupid quests.

She now loathed doing any quests and if she had the option, she'd immediately decline it with the exception of a quest from Miss Hella. She was the only NPC who hadn't given her a quest that locked her up somewhere.

<I see...What a shame. Please call upon me again, child, if you want to learn [Dark Ray]>

With her declining like that, the silhouette of the Death God immediately faded away. Maria heaved a relieved sigh knowing that she had just escaped a bullet.

"M-Mary? What was that?"

"Uhh...the Death God...he was just about to trap me inside a stupid quest, I could feel it."

"But, that was triggered from you using that black skill book, right? Can I see it?"

"Oh, this thingy?" Maria said as she waved around the [Dark Ray] skill book, "It's just my unique class' skill book."

She was about to pass it over to Lizzy to show it to her, but suddenly a system message popped up.

[Item unable to be transferred! Bounded to player: Maria]

"Eh? Aw, too bad, I can't show its contents to anyone. It's bounded to me."

"It's alright Mary, I was just curious. It must be a pretty powerful spell if you need to complete a quest in order to learn it."

"Yeah...but I'm not going to be doing any quests any time soon! I love my freedom and I'm not going to let some stupid NPC take it away from me...again!"

Hearing the word 'again', the other players in the room couldn't help but gawk at her. So being trapped in some area due to a quest wasn't a first for her.

Lizzy immediately dropped her curiosity about the skill book to the side and turned her attention towards the floating book case next to Maria.

She saw the girl put the black skill book onto the small case, and everyone could see that there were other books on there. There was an additional 6 black skill books present on the case as well as 4 other books including the new book she had just gained earlier.

There was also another book strapped to the girl's waist and they couldn't help but think that the clumsy girl in front of them was one bookworm. She had books everywhere. She even picked a book over a high grade crafting material item as a reward.

Before Lizzy could ask about that bookcase that poofed in and out of existence, Maria cheerfully asked to be dismissed, "Well, since I've picked my rewards, the rest are for the guild! I'll be going now Liz, I wanna hunt!"

"Eh? Oh, sure Mary. Are you going to be partying up with anyone?"

"Hm? I guess not."

"How about you help power level some newbies?"

"Sure~ as long as they don't get in my way!"

"Hahahahaha, they won't, just make sure you don't do anything too crazy, alright? Make sure you contact me if you're ever in trouble or if you need help with something!"

"M'kay~"

"Go wait by the guild building's entrance, I'll send the group over. They'll be players around the same level as you, so take good care of them!"

"Yes sa~"

Maria exited the room in high spirits. She came and went like the wind.

"Alright, now that my friend's rewards are over with, send the rest to the guild warehouse and let all the participating members have first dibs on picking the items. Also, tell squad 12 to meet up with Maria at the entrance and make sure the captain goes along. I need someone to watch over Maria. She gets lost way too easily."

"Y-Yes, boss."

"Alright, so let's get to the main point today. We're now at war with..."

******

As Lizzy continued her meeting with the guild's core administrative members, Maria had flown down from the building's top floor to the Guild HQ's entrance. She waited for the players that would be grouping up with her and while she did so, she took her time to appreciate the sight of her guild's HQ.

It was a large courtyard with the main building being 3 stories high which also signified the level of her guild. The more floors a Guild HQ had, the higher their level. From the info Maria saw about her guild, they were only a sliver away from being able to promote to a Level 4 Guild.

The HQ also had left and right wing buildings that were connected to the main building and from what Maria could see, the left wing was the crafting players' area while the right wing was where players would gather together to form parties, hawk items with one another, and accept guild quests.

It didn't take long before a group of 11 players approached Maria while she was curiously looking at the right wing building. As usual, she had her feet off the ground and was floating in the air with her wings.

"Uhm, Miss Maria?"

"Hm?"

The captain of the party called out to her. When she turned to look at the person, it wasn't anyone she recognized.

"Hello?"

"Ah, we're the party that's supposed to be going with you."

"Oh! Okay, let's go then~"

"Uhh, let me invite you to the party first. Would you like to be the leader?"

"Up to you~"

"Alright."

[GrimWing has invited you to a party! Accept? YES/NO]

Maria quickly tapped [YES] and joined the party.

[You are set as the PARTY LEADER. Select PARTY LOOT DISTRIBUTION

1. Leader

2. Free

3. Roll ]

Maria immediately pressed on the [Leader] option since that was the only one she was familiar with. It was the configuration used the last time she joined a party with Lizzy and the rest from a while back.

"Alright, let's go!"

"Where are we going?" GrimWing asked.

"I dunno! You tell me!" Maria replied instantly.

"Eh?"