This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist

After watching the Burn Cup Moon Emperor, who was in a good mood, leave, Nivalis waited for a short moment before following him at a distance.

She notified Rita in her mind: "I've sold you to Burn Cup Moon Emperor, but you're in his hands now. Have you figured out how to escape?"

The next moment, she felt the air around her ripple with dandelion seeds. Immediately, she saw the Burn Cup Moon Emperor stop in his tracks.

The mood indicator above his head switched from "Good Mood" to "Disbelief."

The dandelion seeds vanished in less than a second.

Nivalis understood that Rita had used her Illusory Shift to escape. She immediately abandoned her pursuit of Burn Cup Moon Emperor, returning to her pet space, then reappeared, landing directly on Rita's shoulder.

Nivalis handed over the diamonds: "I've checked these. I didn't find anything wrong, but I can't be completely sure about their authenticity."

Rita took the diamonds and opened the ladder rankings. Her expression turned strange. Her points had increased to 3476, just 500 more than before.

This meant that half of the diamonds were fake—how had Burn Cup managed to pull that off?

But the good news was that she had successfully "illegally profited," gaining a new languages of all races, and Nivalis had too.

Though Rita was surprised that Nivalis had managed to trick a Moon Fox, she wasn't concerned about Burn Cup finding her through scent. Her perfuming and alchemy had been mostly ineffective here due to a lack of materials, and many things were impossible.

Of course, if things went badly, it wasn't a big deal—she hadn't planned on going back to check on Burn Cup.

Instead, she used the time to transform into more types of treasure and had Nivalis continue her scheme.

She planned to focus on the fraud game until it was done, then think about thievery. This way, if anything went wrong, she'd at least be able to escape, unlike getting cornered with no way out… or worse, getting caught.

This was all just a bit of criminal experience.

With Nivalis's growing expertise, Rita quickly got sold five times. She even went to the store to check out treasures worth over 5000 diamonds.

As Nivalis became more skilled, the treasures Rita turned into became more expensive.

Thanks to Survive Until the End, Rita's diamond count soon exceeded 10,000, and all five fraudulent trades were completed, giving her five new languages of all races.

However, on her sixth trade, despite the illegal gain, she didn't obtain a new language of all races. Perhaps it was a restriction of this particular market area.

If she could truly gain languages of all races without limits, Rita would have abandoned this Divine Game entirely and stayed in this market area to farm for more languages.

This kind of restriction was clearly designed to prevent players like her from exploiting the system.

Still, even without new languages of all races, Rita and Nivalis didn't stop.

This place felt like heaven. After getting a taste of the sweet success of trickery, neither of them wanted to go back to mining.

Even though Rita and Nivalis were causing trouble, they didn't stir up much chaos in this market. Players here had their own ways of cheating, and everyone was desperate to complete their quests. No one could avoid trading.

Even Rita's method of playing people for fools sometimes led to "fair trades," meaning she got nothing at all, and the diamonds she collected turned out to be completely fake.

After many trades, Nivalis had become addicted to this game of deception. She asked Rita, "How about we stay here until the Divine Game ends?"

Rita was tempted but still felt that the Divine Game wouldn't be this easy.

By the fifth hour in the game, Rita had already accumulated 20,000 diamonds and had reached rank 37,621.

But there was a problem—the number of players in this special market zone was rapidly increasing, and there were already 5,781 people online.

She and Nivalis nearly collided with other players as they walked down the street. Continue your adventure at My Virtual Library Empire

This made her feel uneasy.

Though Rita's luck was at full capacity, she rarely relied on her sixth sense. Most of the time, she made decisions through rational analysis, weighing the pros and cons of her next move.

She squeezed out of the crowd and stood on a street corner, observing the players passing by from the sidelines. She noticed that most of the high-level players she saw had similar emotional states indicated above their heads.

"Unease," "Restlessness," "Frustration," "Doubt," "Apprehension," "Nervousness"...

The players entering the Divine Game were all lucky ones, favored by fate. There were few unlucky ones, and the signs of luck were often reflected in sudden emotional shifts like these.

Rita spoke to Nivalis in her mind: "Something's off. No more trading. Pack up and get ready to leave!"

Nivalis didn't understand why, but immediately shrank her form again, gripping Rita's ear tightly: "Okay."

As they passed by the mineral shop, Rita went inside once again, found B80234615, and led it to the trading room. She took out the World Graveyard - Ace of Spades and asked, "Do you buy this?"

B80234615 responded, "Of course. However, it doesn't hold much value for us. If you want to sell, we can offer 20,000 diamonds."

Rita asked, "If I don't want diamonds, what would you offer?"

B80234615 replied, "What do you want?"

Rita thought for a moment before saying, "Information, intelligence, rule decryption, languages of all races, or a piece of advice from a friend—anything will do."

B80234615 was silent for a long time. The light in its eyes flickered several times. Finally, it said, "I can offer three prices for this World Graveyard: an important piece of information about diamond miners, two rule decryptions, or… an ill-intentioned piece of intelligence."

Rita placed the card down but didn't let B80234615 take it away. She said, "I'll take that ill-intentioned intelligence."

B80234615 spoke slowly, "I've heard that recently, the Y-series numbered mechanical race has been responsible for transporting a valuable item that cannot be sent through any form of teleportation. And this battlefield just happens to be their required route. During the 13th to 15th hours of this Divine Game, you might encounter them."

Rita was ready to use Master Thief Dragon to reverse time and trade again, but before she could act, B80234615 spoke first: "Dear friend, to deceive time is also to deceive me."

It even spoke English—Rita wasn't surprised it had figured out she had time manipulation powers. Perhaps there was even information about her above her head.

Rita smiled, picked up the Ace of Spades card, and without hesitation, used Master Thief Dragon.

She could deceive them!

Time reversed.

Under the influence of the mystical power, time rolled back five minutes.

She and Nivalis were back to the moment they first entered the shop.

And Rita had triggered divine retribution.