Fantasy Realm – Infinite Worlds Adventure

December 25th, 1994, 07:43 PM

Alex stands in front of the Great Hall, waiting for his date. He’s wearing a formal, black, dress robe, which usually looks like a weird mix between a wizard’s robe and a classical suit. Thanks to the Hogsmeade store of Gladrags Wizardwear, Alex easily ordered a suitable dress robe that essentially looks like a regular suit, just a tad longer and more classic-looking.

Why did I even decide to attend this event? I guess I was curious. However, I hate dancing, I hate parties, I hate formal occasions, I hate… well, no time for that. Hopefully, Menchi won’t let me down.

While waiting for Menchi, Alex sees countless familiar characters enter. Viktor Krum, who is apparently accompanied by a random female Beauxbatons student, is wearing a weird dress robe—if it can even be called that.

That looks like a damn mix between a Prussian uniform and a tiny bit of Soviet communism. What a total clown.

Even worse than that, Bartemius Crouch Jr., disguised as Alastor Moody, is wearing a weird Scottish-looking dress robe with a traditional kilt.

Even worse… the only one who could rival them is probably…

Alex notes Ronald Weasley, without a partner, wearing his inherited dress robe that looks as stupid and even more distasteful than the other two he noticed before.

The only decent-looking people are actually the women. Cho Chang is wearing a cheongsam, while the Patil sisters are wearing traditional Indian dresses. Where’s Rishi, by the way? He told me he was busy and couldn’t be bothered… Tereza and Jewel entered the hall earlier. If Menchi doesn’t show up soon, I’ll just spend the evening with them. Since they made up, they’re actually pretty comfortable to hang around with.

Annoyed, Alex takes a look at his [Destiny Watch] and notes that it’s 7:55 PM—just five more minutes before the Yule Ball starts.

“Master!” Alex hears Harry say with a happy voice. Harry is wearing a dress similar to Alex’s, just slightly more traditional and longer, resembling the Hogwarts robes but looking way more elegant and eye-catching. The standout feature of the robe is its green color.

Hermione wears a stunning dress that could only be described as almost faery-looking. It’s made of expensive-looking blue material, extremely frilly, floaty, and strangely breathtaking.

Hmm, this is so weird. Some details don’t match with the books, and some do. This world is like a weird cross between all media. Is the Realm confused and throwing a bunch of stuff together to create some sort of makeshift balance?

Both Harry and Hermione smile at Alex, who immediately notices that Hermione finally used magic to fix her large front teeth.

“You look good. It’s only a few minutes until it starts. You’d better get in… I might bail because it looks like I’ve been ditched!” Alex complains.

“Why? Anyway, I thought you were asked to attend for security reasons?” Harry asks, looking a bit confused.

“Security? With Dumbledore around? You’re joking. This is just a gesture of respect towards us. Frankly, they shouldn’t have invited us in the first place,” Alex complains, suddenly regretting the idea of attending the ball.

“Who did you invite? I heard from Tereza that she’s attending with Jewel… wait, so that only leaves…” Hermione says, trailing off.

“Me! Of course!” a voice behind them suddenly calls out.

Alex turns around and sees Menchi in a majestic-looking royal-blue dress, decorated with beautiful golden and silver ornaments, with a gigantic wide skirt—easily four times as wide as her body.

“Nice color. You look gorgeous. It strangely suits you, though I expected you to go with green,” Alex says.

“Just because my hair is green doesn’t mean I have to wear a green dress,” Menchi says, lightly bonking Alex on the head. “You look fine as well. Let’s go in—it’s about to begin.”

The group hears a loud commotion inside, and everyone is looking in a particular direction of the beautifully decorated Great Hall, no longer resembling its former stale and unimpressive atmosphere. Now, it looks way more appropriate to host this special event.

“Are they handing out stuff for free? Nah, probably just looking at one of the champions. Probably Krum with his silly military uniform,” Alex jokes.

“Let’s check it out,” Menchi says, grabbing Alex’s arm and dragging him toward the crowd, Harry and Hermione following.

“Miss… Řezník, right? I’m certainly happy to welcome you and the other mercenaries, who boldly risk their lives to protect us, to our ball. But this is a little… I’m not quite sure this is appropriate!” Alex hears Dumbledore’s voice from behind the crowd.

“Did she wear a slutty outfit and get scolded?! No way! I need to see… strange, this isn’t Tereza’s style. She doesn’t value fashion all that much, and she never dresses obscenely,” Alex mumbles.

“Tereza doesn’t dress provocatively. Maybe I do, but she certainly doesn’t,” Menchi says, agreeing with him.

As soon as the group approaches the scene, Alex immediately facepalms and realizes the problem.

Tereza is indeed dressed rather conservatively, wearing a simple black dress that looks strangely normal—easily acceptable for any gathering. She’s sitting on one of the chairs on the side of the hall. The problem, however, is the spider sitting next to her on a nearby table.

“This is crazy. I’ve never seen something like this—such a waste of jewelry!” a student next to Alex says.

“Oh my god, she’s so cute! I wanna pet her. Do you think she’d allow me to?!” a female student says, clearly excited.

Jewel is wearing what can only be described as a spider dress, crimson in color, adorned with hundreds of white sparkling diamonds and around a dozen huge purple amethysts. The dress, which is more akin to a long cape, is indeed stunning and sparkling, strangely even overshadowing Menchi’s dress and the other beautiful dresses.

As the two pairs approach, Jewel immediately looks at Alex in a proud way, twirling around.

“Hey, there you are! How do you like our Princess’s new dress? We created it in just a few days!” Tereza says proudly.

Dearest Soulmate! All these peasants are jealous of Princess Jewel because she immediately grabbed the attention of everyone, clearly overshadowing these poorly dressed peasants, not able to contend with Jewel’s excellent royal dress. They have come to kick me out! Please help Jewel!

“Mr. Potter, Ms. Granger, and oh—it’s your new acquaintances,” McGonagall says, sounding displeased, staring at Alex with a stern face. “It looks like we are ready to start the event now… you there!” she points at Alex. “Please control your pet. I acknowledge the effort you put into a stunning dress for it, but please don’t cause chaos. This is an important event, not only for our school, but for our country as well. Pets aren’t usually allowed in the first place!”

A bit annoyed that they’re seeing Jewel and her cute princess dress as a distraction, Alex responds, aggrieved and honestly offended that they’re making such a huge issue out of this small thing: “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure Jewel doesn’t cause any more problems, but I fear it’s already too late because she obviously looks the most stunning out of everyone tonight. I thought for such a prestigious event, the attending witches would try a little bit harder.”

❤️❤️❤️

Dumbledore laughs. “Calm down, everyone. This isn’t a competition. Let’s start the ball. Thank you for attending,” he says, glancing at Harry and Hermione, seemingly satisfied with what he’s seeing. Despite his laugh, Alex can see that Dumbledore looks very tired and even slightly older than usual.

What’s wrong with the old guy? Rishi joked about me unleashing the ‘plague’ on him. Did Rita’s articles really cause that much stress? We didn’t even get to the best part yet! However, it might not be smart to weaken Dumbledore… he isn’t our enemy in this mission. It was just meant as a distraction. Maybe Rishi is really planning to take him down. He doesn’t really share what he’s doing with me, aside from learning. Well, let’s wait and see.

Finally, the ball is officially opened, and Alex watches as the champions dance with their partners. Overall, thanks to their Nen training, both Harry and Hermione manage to dance quite successfully despite their obvious lack of experience.

Alex can’t help but glance to his side, staring at Menchi in her dress.

Blue always was one of my favorite colors. It fits her well.

Despite his infatuation with Menchi, he can’t help but stare at Jewel, who is constantly waving at him, and sighs.

This silly spider….

Thanks to being distracted, Alex misses most of the champions’ dance and sighs.

Finally, he looks at Menchi and says, “Do you want to dance?”

Menchi looks at Alex with a wide grin. “Let’s see how you can handle a woman like me on the dance floor.”

“...”