This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist

Bringing **Samuel** and **Scarlett** along to the restaurant turned out to be the right call. During their meal, Scarlett took pictures of the food and shared them in their family chat, prompting Rick to generously transfer some gold coins to cover the bill, claiming the meal was on him. Rita didn't spend a dime and managed to scout the restaurant thoroughly.

After dropping the emotionally drained Samuel and the ever-cheerful Scarlett back home, Rita went to bed early, planning her next move.

At exactly 2 a.m., Rita woke up with her mission in mind. As usual, she layered on a **Disguise** skill, followed by **Phantom Cloak**, then used **Phantom Shift** to teleport to the Lopez family restaurant. Using **Phasing Potion**, she slipped through the walls into the kitchen.

There were eight identical iron pots. Rita couldn't distinguish between them by appearance—after all, they were clean, well-maintained, and the rust had long since been cooked into the meals served to customers. Without hesitation, she packed all eight pots into her storage box and stashed them in her in-game inventory.

She wasn't about to leave behind a few replacement pots; the fewer traces she left, the better.

With eight pots in tow, Rita made a smooth escape, though she felt a tinge of regret that the Lopez family wouldn't realize what they had lost immediately. Inspired by this thought, Rita **Phantom Shift**ed outside the Lopez estate and transformed into a small bird, heading straight for Zoey's villa.

Landing by the window, Rita shifted into a small spider and crawled inside. As expected, the villa's security systems were no match for a creature weighing only a few grams—none of the pressure-sensitive alarms were triggered. However, navigating as a spider proved tedious, with what would normally be a few steps for a human taking her several seconds, and climbing stairs was an arduous task.

Thankfully, Zoey had invited her to this new house before, so Rita knew exactly which room belonged to Zoey and Rick. Without wasting time, she scurried directly into the master bedroom. Crawling under the bed, a familiar sense of satisfaction and security washed over Rita. This hiding spot felt like home.

Tonight, Rita wasn't targeting Zoey—her sights were set on **Rick**. Activating **Another Happy Day**, she reduced his luck stat to 1 before attempting a triple steal.

Nothing.

But Rita had all night. She retreated to the bathroom, shifted back into human form, and consumed a meal that would regenerate her health over time. Under the effects of her three-times critical hit buff, she recovered 600 HP per minute. Once her health was restored, she transformed back into a spider and returned to Rick's side, stealthily continuing her theft attempts.

The process was slow, but Rita was patient. She alternated between stealing and sneaking to the bathroom for regeneration. As she munched on her steak by the toilet, she mused to herself, "Rita, you really have to stop being so sneaky next time!"

By the end of the night, Rita had successfully stolen 3 pieces of gear, 1 item, and 3 attribute points from Rick. As she flew away from the villa in bird form, she glanced back at her sleeping brother, deciding she would return tomorrow night for another round.

---

Rick, despite being from the **Wilson** family, had the highest stat in intelligence. The three attribute points she stole were all in that category. Rita's current stats were as follows:

- **HP**: 350/350

- **MP**: 800/800

- **Strength**: 17

- **Constitution**: 15

- **Intelligence**: 21+3

- **Agility**: 25

The equipment she had stolen wasn't particularly impressive, just low-level green gear she planned to sell off. However, the item she snatched was intriguing:

- **God of the Culinary Arts' Magic Ladle** (Grade B): A ladle used by the **God of the Culinary Arts** to taste their dishes, imbued with their aura after years of use. When used to eat, it can reveal the flaws in the dish.

Although it wasn't part of a set, it seemed to pair well with the **Gourmet's Bib** she had acquired earlier. Rita decided to search the auction house tomorrow for other items from the **God of the Culinary Arts** series.

---

By the time Rita returned home, the sun was rising. She made herself a cup of self-made tea to boost her mental energy and got to work. After preparing several bowls of food for the backyard cats, she began cooking eight dishes in the iron pots, all of which had health-restoring properties. She planned to continue using the pots daily to ensure their power remained active until the game's invasion.

With her plan set in motion, Rita headed back to **Ranaya Kaia** to attend her usual lessons with the undead alchemy tutor. Today's session was shorter, only 40 minutes. Afterward, she went to the auction house to search for any **God of the Culinary Arts** items.

Unfortunately, she found nothing. She tried searching for **Thief God** items as well, but again, nothing came up. On a whim, she searched for **Water God**, and to her surprise, something interesting popped up—a ruby button.

- **Water God's Truly Disgusting Thing** (Grade A): A toy of the Fire God. When equipped, if someone tries to drain your HP and fails, you will drain 1% of their HP in return. If they succeed, they will suffer from **Burning**, losing 1% HP per minute for 5 minutes.

It was expensive, priced at 998 gold coins, and the use case seemed narrow. Rita had only encountered one vampire-like skill so far—**Sanchez's Water God** ability, **Vampire**, which had a 20% chance of draining 1% of an opponent's HP.

Still, Rita didn't hesitate to buy the button. After all, she was amassing wealth to deal with these very enemies. She quickly used a **Binding Stone** to bind the item to herself and attached it to her pocket watch chain.

Given how tightly she was managing her **Disguise** skill's cooldown, Rita also searched for other disguise abilities. Unfortunately, most of them came with limitations or flaws. Nothing compared to the versatility of **Thief God's Disguise** skill. Sighing, she used her remaining **Disguise** time to **Phantom Shift** to the outskirts and begin her daily level grinding.

Before ending her session, she tried searching for **Zoey's Holy Light** ability but came up empty-handed. Instead, she stumbled upon something even better—a skill called **Emerald Feast**, one of the rare percentage-based healing skills. Even better, it was **S-rank**.

**Emerald Feast** (S-rank): Instantly restores 50% of your HP and regenerates 10% HP per minute for 3 minutes. Cooldown: 10 minutes. You can also extract life force from plants to store up to 500% of your max HP. Using stored life force doesn't trigger the skill's cooldown.

This was an absolute healing powerhouse. In terms of sheer healing, it was on par with **Zoey's** strongest healing skill from her previous life. But the key advantage of **Emerald Feast** was its ability to store up to 500% of your max HP, meaning Rita could use it to sustain herself for 25 theft attempts without taking any damage.

The price? 12,999 gold coins. Rita didn't even flinch—she bought it immediately.

Lately, the auction house seemed to have picked up some bad habits. Prices were always ending in 99, 999, or 9999, like they were running a clearance sale. It gave Rita the false impression that she was getting a bargain instead of spending a small fortune.

She strongly suspected this was **Shadow.Q's** influence. There was no proof—just a gut feeling.