This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist

Almost as soon as Rita transformed into diamonds, the shadows of the mechanical race appeared at the well’s mouth.

They exchanged a few glances, silently communicating, before quickly leaving.

As a lifeless object, Rita had no sensory perception of the outside world. This was the biggest flaw of the skill she had used.

When she had turned into a gemstone to deceive others earlier, Nivalis had communicated with her through the mental connection granted by the pet contract, allowing them to share information. This was a form of soul-to-soul communication.

But now, after using this skill, Rita had lost all her senses—vision, hearing, smell, and taste. The only sense left was touch. If someone picked her up or attacked her, she could still feel it.

At this moment, Rita wasn’t exactly bored. In her mind, she could still see her character’s status screen.

She checked the cooldown times for her skills, using them to track time. She planned to stay hidden for at least half an hour before making a move.

Finally, she had a moment to process everything that had happened in the last ten minutes.

First, her right eye—she hadn’t looked in a mirror and didn’t yet know if it had changed color again. But her character panel showed no major changes. Rita had gotten used to this by now. Your next read awaits at NovelBin.Côm

However, based on what B80234615 had said about the "First Moon," she had already decided that from now on, whenever she entered a world battlefield, no matter what appeared in the sky, she would definitely try to cut a piece of moonlight.

Next, the secret she had stolen.

"I wonder if all the races know that the gemstones they sell might contain skill tablets inside. I wonder if they would cry when they find out."

The reason Rita didn’t immediately use the self-destruct skill was 20% because of the effects of Mysterious Power, which prevented her from leaving. But the other 80% was because of this secret!

She couldn’t leave, and she didn’t want to.

According to Mistblade, she had never played a repeatable game before, which meant she would probably never encounter this kind of diamond mining game again.

Of course, gemstones might appear in another form in Divine Game, but nobody knew when or how it would happen. She had no idea how long she would have to wait to encounter them again.

Even though the secret came with the word "maybe," implying the gemstones didn’t always contain skill tablets, she didn’t want to miss out on such a huge fortune.

All she had on her was the gemstone she had exchanged for Cyber Roasted Goose, and a few others she had used during the Refurbish skill on Y128. Now, she only had 38 gemstones left, and that was nowhere near enough!

She had to go back and get more. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to sleep peacefully.

Using her skill cooldown as a timer, Rita waited for half an hour before cautiously lifting the Survive Until the End effect.

The little spider looked around the well’s mouth. Not seeing any shadows of the mechanical race, she began to slowly climb up.

When she reached the top, she realized that the marketplace was as quiet as a graveyard. The silence made her reluctant to act carelessly.

Having lost her qualification as a Divine Game player, she no longer needed to follow any game rules, but the problem was, she also couldn’t receive any mission notifications.

Rita didn’t dare transform into a bird to scout. Instead, she slowly crawled up the well, one step at a time, until she reached the roof of the nearest building.

Although spider legs were short, her attributes were high enough that she could run with afterimages, moving swiftly.

When she reached the high ground, she saw that all the players were gathered in the center of the marketplace.

Nearly a hundred mechanical race units, now in combat mode, surrounded the group of players, with more standing by.

In the middle of the player group stood a figure encased in full metal armor.

Rita wanted to see who it was, but the area was filled with nearly a thousand targets, all of whom had a line of text above their heads. It was like entering a city in a game, with player IDs everywhere. The sheer volume of information made her dizzy.

This was another flaw of the skill she had used.

Deciding not to look further, Rita confirmed that most of the mechanical race units were distracted by the scene and started to formulate her next plan.

She was heading to a nearby shop to steal more gemstones.

The gemstone purchase shop wasn’t far, and after observing the store exterior to ensure no mechanical race units were guarding it, Rita went inside.

On display were all sorts of gemstones, one of each kind. There weren’t many of them, arranged neatly to look aesthetically pleasing, but in total, there were at least a hundred.

Rita called out to Nivalis.

Nivalis immediately looked around warily.

Rita handed her the Refurbished Y128 antenna along with all the gemstones she had, saying, "Keep these safe."

Even though B80234615 had said that she could be killed by the mechanical race and respawned in Snow Town, if the items were in Nivalis’ space and Nivalis was in her pet space, the mechanical race wouldn’t be able to reach them.

Besides, it felt safer to have Nivalis store them in her space, and of course, it was best not to die.

Since the skill was active, she was using Mysterious Power to consume the energy anyway, so it didn’t matter.

Nivalis took the items, hiding them away, and looked at Rita suspiciously. She said, "You’re up to something again, aren’t you?"

Rita whispered, "I’m going to start mining now. I’m not sure if it’ll trigger an alarm. If it does, I’ll give you the gemstones, and you keep them safe in your space.

"The usual deal—if I tell you to go back, you do it immediately. If you feel something’s off, get out of there fast. The most important rewards of this game are in your hands. Keeping you safe means keeping them safe. Understand?"

Nivalis’ eyes brightened as she looked at the gemstones on display and lowered her voice. "Got it!"

Rita opened a Temporary Pocket in her inventory and decided to hide a few gems for herself as well.

She planned to return to BS and figure out how to replace her Fate’s Gear, using Death Mimicry to obtain a space-related talent.

At BS, she didn’t need Fate’s Gear for cover anymore, and modifying luck didn’t really help in the world battlefield either.

The talent had reached the point where it was no longer useful.

Rita took a deep breath and asked Nivalis, "Ready?"

Nivalis nodded.

The next moment, Rita charged toward the central display case!

As soon as she grabbed a gemstone from the shelf, the store’s alarm blared.

Rita didn’t care. She kept taking one after another, tossing some to Nivalis while hiding others for herself.

Nivalis asked, "Have you thought about how to self-destruct and leave?"

Rita had already explained the current situation to Nivalis when she had turned into diamonds earlier.

Rita: "Not yet."

Nivalis: "?"

Rita was a bit helpless. Her plan had seemed perfect at first. She thought there might be a security system in the store. Maybe if she took one gemstone, the system would trigger and attack her.

Then, she’d manage her health to 0.2%, wait for the mechanical race to kill her, and self-destruct to leave. It would have been perfect!

But the situation wasn’t following her script...