This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist

Two minutes later, two pieces of information nearly simultaneously rang out in Rita’s mind.

[Ding——The number of online players in Special Commercial Area #1211 has reached 6666.]

[Special Event Triggered in Special Commercial Area #1211——Inspector’s Arrival.]

[Congratulations, Player, Task Completed—Fraudulent Game.] Read latest stories on NovelBin.Côm

[You have completed 37 unfair trades and gained an improper advantage 37 times. Your overall score ranks 687th on the Historical Fraud Leaderboard of this commercial area.]

[You have earned the 5th-tier title ’Heaven’s Wrath.’ This title grants you a special title skill.]

[You have received a game reward—The map of District 10 mining area has been unlocked.]

[Special Commercial Area #1211 has been sealed.]

The next moment, Rita felt an invisible hand poke her, and she was ejected directly from the tunnel. Just as she left the tunnel, the stone ceiling above quickly sealed shut, even severing a small strand of her hair.

Rita immediately flew into the air, checking her surroundings to make sure there were no other players before she started reviewing her rewards.

The 37 instances of unfair trade—it turned out her and Nivalis’s mining thefts were counted as such.

It made sense. A no-cost deal was still a trade, right?

But if it was a trade, then why didn’t her dozens of failed thefts count as losses? Was it because the loss wasn’t significant enough, or because the health points she lost didn’t benefit the other players? Or maybe, each failed attempt just didn’t qualify as a completed transaction?

It seemed that the [One-Person Party] theft skill was much stronger than she had initially realized.

This made Rita feel a little regretful. Her cautious and conservative nature had allowed her to avoid many potential risks, but it had also caused her to miss out on quite a bit.

But soon, she brushed that regret aside, focusing on reviewing her rewards.

First was the title.

When she opened the leaderboard, she saw that her name was now associated with a title.

28977. Rita | BS · Human | 6th-tier Player | Heaven’s Wrath.

It lacked any real flair, but what she cared about was the title skill.

After equipping the title, she sensed a new skill added to her abilities—[Sinful Deed].

[Sinful Deed]: Each time you commit an act that harms others for your own benefit, you gain a layer of lightning protection. This shield warns you once if you’re about to be ambushed, and it can stack up to 10 layers.

How should she describe this skill?

It was tailor-made for her.

She didn’t even want to classify it as a mere shield skill; she considered it a "bad deed" skill.

Harming others for personal gain? That was easy.

Every time she used [I Just Want to Improve So Badly] on other players, wasn’t that harming others for her own gain?

This skill was perfect. And to think it was just a 5th-tier title skill! If she earned higher titles, wouldn’t she unlock even stronger abilities?

If she encountered another special commercial area like this again, she would make sure to steal everything from start to finish!

Rita opened the map, and a small section that had previously been pitch black was now lit up. It contained a dense, clear network of roads and even marked the locations of the minerals.

However, the area was tiny, only a small square, about one-thousandth of the total map. It was also far from Rita; after the area lit up, her avatar appeared on the map, now located in the lower-left corner, while the newly illuminated area was in the lower-right corner.

Rita didn’t waste too much time on regrets or missed opportunities. After confirming her rewards, she continued her mining journey with Nivalis.

However, while they were looking for resources, both Rita and Nivalis couldn’t help but periodically open the battlefield chat channel, hoping to catch any updates from Special Commercial Area #1211.

This was normal gossip... no, it was necessary intelligence gathering. It wasn’t a waste of time.

When Rita and Nivalis found their first diamond mine, the battlefield chat channel was flooded with messages about Special Commercial Area #1211.

With 6666 players, it was already an enormous number.

Having participated in two rounds of Divine Game, Rita had visited several safe zones, most of which had fewer than 1,000 players. But Special Commercial Area #1211 had gathered 6666 players.

Players who weren’t good at fraud had gotten stuck because they hadn’t completed the five unfair trades, while those skilled at deception, perhaps driven by greed, had decided to push their luck and try to deceive even more.

After all, earning diamonds through fraudulent trades was much faster than mining.

Rita could spend an hour mining to make only a few thousand diamonds, but through fraudulent games, she could rake in tens of thousands of diamonds. Who could resist that temptation and difference in speed?

Plus, there was the carrot dangled in front of them: "The more unfair trades you complete, the more valuable the blessings you get when you leave the area."

And there were no punishments mentioned on the game monument.

All these factors combined meant that, although many players like Rita were careful, aware of their limitations, and sensed the abnormality, they still chose to complete the game tasks and leave as quickly as possible to avoid getting caught in the chaos...

But they couldn’t leave fast enough to outrun the surge of players in Special Commercial Area #1211.

The battlefield chat channel, which originally had messages from players in various safe zones, had been overwhelmed after the brief closure of Special Commercial Area #1211, and now it was completely filled with posts from there.

[Marmang·Eel Snake]: "Amazing, there’s still a special event. Didn’t the safe zones always warn us about these beforehand?"

[Blazing Flame·MoMO]: "No, I’ve encountered one before, but the conditions were very harsh."

[Lania Kaia·Fat Goose]: "Can someone who was caught speak up? What’s the penalty like?"

[Ridge Tea · NineNine]: "Yeah, speak up!"

[Tingo·Green Bean]: "It doesn’t matter if you speak, you can’t escape. I got lucky, only half of my diamonds were confiscated."

[Winter Sea·Whale Full]: "My divine talent was sealed for 100 Star Sea Days."

[Ridge Tea · Ikyo]: "I got ten more game rules."

[Blazing Flame·A-Pie]: "They took two World Graveyards from me."

[Lania Kaia·Fat Goose]: "This is too scary! How about we team up and take down that inspector? There are so many of us!"

[Blazing Flame·MoMO]: "Fat Goose is great, Fat Goose, you lead!"

[Ball Li·In Time]: "Fat Goose is great, Fat Goose, you lead!"

[Black Spring·Mud Bears]: "Fat Goose is great, Fat Goose, you lead!"

Rita couldn’t help but wonder if there was some copy-paste function in the battlefield chat channel she hadn’t noticed, because how could so many players be so eager to repeat the same message in such perfect sync?