This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist

After memorizing the ingredients for advanced invisibility potions, Rita headed straight to the nearby herb shop and bought six slots' worth of herbs. She would have liked to buy more, but the game's rigid inventory system prevented her from stacking items or saving space by combining different things in storage boxes. She had to leave some slots free for the auction house.

Rita was racing against the clock.

Her disguise time was down to just 23 minutes.

She rushed to the auction house, and while passing a restaurant, she quickly upgraded her cooking skill to intermediate, learning over a hundred new recipes.

At this point, she had 4,286 gold left.

Standing in front of the auction house, she entered a keyword: "Chávez."

Nothing.

Without wasting any time, she tried another keyword: "Bag."

She spent 800 gold to buy two 36-slot bags, which were the largest capacity bags she could find.

As soon as she paid, a game notification popped up in her mailbox about the new bags. She clicked to retrieve them, and they appeared in her inventory. While quickly reorganizing her items into the new bags, she continued her shopping spree.

The Thief God's talent meant she could choose any profession—strength, agility, or magic-based—but there wasn't enough time to be picky. Naturally, she had to go with skills she was already familiar with.

Then, she spotted a skill that captivated her attention: **[Phantom Shift]!**

**[Phantom Shift] (SS-class):** After use, you can teleport to any place you have previously visited. The teleportation distance depends on the caster's intelligence stat. (No cooldown time, casting time 0.1 seconds, each use consumes 1% of mana.)

10,000 gold! And it was the only skill book of its kind in the entire auction house...

This skill book—this skill—struck Rita right in the heart.

No cooldown and an extremely short casting time.

This meant the skill was almost impossible to interrupt, and as long as she had mana, she could use it as many times as she wanted.

Her obsession with "no one in the world can catch me" was almost ingrained in her bones.

She immediately abandoned all her original stockpiling plans. She **had** to get this skill!

In her previous life, she had never even heard of this skill. Even Rick's group, with all their power and resources, had to obediently rely on transportation to get around in dungeons.

However, Rita only had 16 minutes left of her disguise.

She spent 200 gold on a blue-tier necklace with only one effect: reducing cooldown times by 15%.

In her previous life, 200 gold could have bought a level-10 blue-tier item with three attributes; now, Rita felt like she was living large.

Next, she searched for the skill **[Phantom Cloak].**

**[Phantom Cloak] (C-class):** After use, you will be invisible to the naked eye. (No cooldown, consumes 10 mana per minute.)

"Invisible to the naked eye" meant it could be detected by skills or items, but for now, it would do!

Invisibility potions were useful, but their cooldown times were too long. Relying solely on basic and intermediate invisibility potions wasn't enough.

**[Phantom Cloak]** was only a C-class skill because it was pretty useless after level 10, as everyone had their own detection methods.

But in the current real world, it was extremely useful. Rita bought the skill book for 120 gold.

Finally, she spent 50 gold on **[Sleep Spell] (C-class),** which could put someone to sleep briefly, and a sleeping potion that would knock someone out for 6 hours.

After buying these four items, Rita immediately dashed out of the city.

She barely made it out of the Undercity and back to the graveyard where she had logged in before her disguise ran out.

Rita retrieved the items from her mailbox, learned the skill books, equipped the necklace, and then logged out of the game.

This time, her phone didn't turn into black smoke. But when she logged out, two bags, one black and one white, appeared on the ground—her new 36-slot bags. A cold necklace materialized around her neck, and she gained the knowledge of how to use the two spells in her mind.

Rita used **[Phantom Cloak]** on herself and felt a cool sensation, as if ice-cold water were sliding over her skin, before her body vanished from sight.

Time was precious. She drank a phasing potion and returned to Rick's room.

Rick was awake, crouching on the ground, repeatedly trying to power on his broken phone.

Seeing how irritated he looked, Rita felt a bit uneasy. Was this the power of a protagonist? Even after losing half of his manhood and being bombarded with obscene messages, he was still in the mood to play with his phone?!

As she was thinking this, she saw Rick walk over to his suitcase and start searching for something.

Rita's sharp eyes caught sight of a tablet and laptop inside his suitcase.

Damn! She had overlooked the tablet!

Fine, if that's how you want to play it.

Without hesitation, Rita cast **[Sleep Spell]** on Rick. This skill was originally prepared for him. She was about to leave the hotel for a long time and couldn't keep an eye on Rick.

As Rick collapsed to the floor, Rita walked over and poured the sleeping potion down his throat. After making sure he swallowed it all, she left the hotel. **[Phantom Cloak]** consumed 10 mana per minute, but by chewing on meat jerky, Rita reduced the mana drain to just 5 points per minute.

This way, she could stay invisible for 20 minutes before running out of mana, but a single basic mana potion could restore 60 points.

With the combination of **[Phantom Cloak]** and invisibility potions, she could now stay invisible for extended periods, without needing to hide while waiting for potions to cool down.

Rita immediately dashed toward the Lopez family's estate.

Where was there a lot of gold? Other than banks, it had to be in the Lopez family's vault!

All the secrets that couldn't be exposed and the valuable assets that needed protection were stored there.

Rita knew this because the evil ritual that could strip someone of their divine blessing was in that vault.

It was now 7:13 AM.

With the cooldown reduction necklace equipped, **[Disguise]**'s cooldown was reduced to five hours and six minutes, meaning she could use the skill again at 12:12 PM.

The second beta test would end at 13:06.

She had only four hours.

At 12:12, whether or not she had acquired gold from the Lopez family, Rita would find a safe place to re-enter the game, reapply her disguise, and return to the city. While she was willing to adjust her plans for **[Phantom Shift]**, she wasn't about to become fixated on it.

Originally, she had planned to stock up on items and then head into the wild to level up. Now, she would just swap that time with running the Lopez family dungeon.

Running all the way to the Lopez estate was impossible; it was a two-hour drive from the city center. Last time, she barely survived running from the White family estate to the city.

She called the gunman who had failed to shoot Rick, asking him to find a fast driver willing to make some extra cash and have him pick up a double-door refrigerator in the alley next to the XX Hotel and deliver it to the suburban villa district. If they made it in an hour and a half, she would pay 50,000; for every minute earlier, she would add 10,000.

Although the gunman charged 50 pounds of gold per job, he knew plenty of brothers with principles and boundaries—guys who didn't want to get involved in bloody work but didn't mind bending the law. After Rita repeatedly assured him that there was no body inside the fridge, he immediately took the job.

Ten minutes later, a black pickup truck pulled up at the alley. Two men got out, scouted around, and quickly found the fridge their employer mentioned. Together, they loaded it onto the truck and sped off.

At 8:45, the fridge was dropped off in the woods outside the villa district.

Rita, who had hitched a ride with the fridge, stowed it back in her inventory. Following her usual routine, she put on a swim cap to ensure no hair would fall, donned a mask and gloves, and then reactivated **[Phantom Cloak]** before sprinting toward the Lopez estate.