This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist

Chapter 12: A Bit of Interest

After restoring her health to full, Rita used her disguise skill to transform into Zoey's appearance. She didn't expect this low-level deception to be particularly effective, but it was better than using her own face.

She donned a baseball cap over her swim cap, took out a hatchet, and drank a basic invisibility potion.

Cautiously emerging from beneath the bed, she approached the bedside.

She had intended to decapitate Sanchez, but seeing the black metal collar around Sanchez's neck stopped her. This collar was something Sanchez had worn in her past life. Given Sanchez's abilities, it was unlikely she couldn't acquire a necklace-type item. This collar must be an item, and a high-grade one at that. How had she missed it?

Even if it wasn't a collar, with her current 7 points in Strength, Rita couldn't guarantee a single blow would sever this high-quality metal collar along with Sanchez's neck.

Without hesitation, she aimed for Sanchez's right arm. Leaping high, she brought down all her strength with the hatchet.

So, the God of Assassins, huh?!

The hatchet swiftly severed Sanchez's right forearm, all in less than a second.

Blood sprayed onto Rita's face, revealing her disguised Zoey eyes, locking with Sanchez's terrified and vengeful gaze.

In almost an instant, Sanchez used her skill to merge with the blood on the bed, leaving only an arm behind.

Rita had abandoned her initial plan to decapitate Sanchez after realizing how difficult it was to kill her. With abilities like merging into water and healing over time, Sanchez was nearly invincible. Even if Rita had struck Sanchez's heart or knocked her out first, Sanchez would have had several seconds to escape.

It seemed that divine talents of S-rank were not to be underestimated.

Leaving behind an arm, specifically the right forearm, was still a benefit.

Once the body data was processed, though severe injuries could heal with health restoration, missing body parts couldn't be recreated from thin air. With an arm or leg severed, unless the parts were recovered and reattached, the character would remain disabled.

With Sanchez's lost arm, Rita considered it merely an interest.

She stored the severed limb in her game inventory. Before anyone outside noticed her presence, she used **[Chávez's Eyes]** to change her character panel information. While the basic invisibility potion was cooling down, she used a mid-tier invisibility potion. Both potions had different cooldown times, and the parts of her that had become visible due to blood were once again concealed.

After consuming a phasing potion, she walked through walls to exit the room.

Through **[Chávez's Eyes]**, she could see all the information of everyone in the mansion.

There were no players, not even Sanchez's brothers were players at this time.

They probably first entered the game during the second beta test with Sanchez's help.

Rita escaped the estate before her invisibility potion wore off.

With her Agility at 18, she ran faster than the quickest sprinter. Even before her invisibility potion ran out, she had exited the villa district, not returning to her own villa but heading straight to a nearby lake. Maintaining her Zoey disguise, she washed off the blood at the lake, burned her clothes by the shore, and then scooped up the ashes along with the dirt into the lake.

Becoming invisible once more, she ran toward the city.

Having been stained with Sanchez's blood, Rita wasn't sure if Sanchez could track her through the blood. Divine talents were far beyond the norm. For example, after acquiring the **Thief God** talent, her initial Agility increased from 5 to 11. Even without using skills, she could steal a person's phone while brushing past them without being noticed.

Her hands had also become incredibly nimble and soft due to the talent's effects.

Since **[Water God]** could control water, Rita didn't want to gamble on whether Sanchez could sense her blood through it.

The entire day, Rita was busy, almost as if she were running from danger, without returning home. After her disguise wore off, she wandered around in a hat and mask, once again acting as a street lurker.

Whenever she encountered a crowd, she slipped in and out, and once her disguise cooldown ended, she changed into another outfit, disguising herself as a man and heading to a no-ID-needed cheap hotel for a quick shower.

Finally, she took a black cab to a neighboring city.

During the trip, she received a call from her new agent, who wanted to discuss upcoming work arrangements. Rita casually mentioned she was traveling and asked him to wait three days.

She wasn't sure if she was outsmarting the air, but she didn't want to take any chances. She preferred to act as though she were clueless rather than return to her hideout immediately after doing something shady—that was a survival instinct honed over years of evasion.

Moreover, with her luck at maximum value, sometimes intuition felt like guidance from luck itself.

As it turned out, Rita's gamble paid off.

After Rita left, Sanchez shifted forms and, after drinking a basic healing potion, was flown to the hospital by helicopter. This kind of injury couldn't be treated by a family doctor.

On the helicopter, Sanchez constantly sensed her own blood, which had been scattered outside the estate. Despite her small sensing range, she managed to detect the blood's trail up to the lake. After stopping there and having her arm patched up and the bleeding controlled, she continued searching for the scent of her blood with the helicopter.

By the time Rita left Los Angeles, the White family had already traced the scent to the city.

The helicopter hovered visibly over the city; the White family's influence allowed them to fly without needing flight permits.

But the scent was too scattered. Sanchez had only had her talent for less than a week, and reaching the city was as far as she could go.

She clutched her wound, which was impossible to staunch with the pain overwhelming her. Her right arm was only half intact.

Sanchez's eyes burned with rage.

She remembered those eyes. She would find her and make her pay!

...

In Aiken City, Rita stayed busy, fearing she might collapse from exhaustion if her character data weren't digitized.

She was in Aiken City for a highly sought-after item.

Post-game invasion, some objects on Earth had a chance of mutation. She even heard a starch factory's equipment had mutated into an S-Class item capable of producing starch sausages that increased strength by +2 for five minutes after consumption.

She wasn't interested in such trivial items. Though she didn't plan to reveal the game invasion to everyone, she wouldn't touch items clearly intended for battlefield use by the authorities.

What she wanted was a cat bed from a pet hospital. This cat bed had been there since the pet hospital opened, where all the stray cats that passed by could rest. The doctors regularly cleaned it, and after the game invasion, it triggered a mutation chance, becoming an S-Class item.

**[Meow Meow Inn] (S-Class):** When placed at the doorstep, it has a chance to attract stray animals. If the animals stay and are treated with sincerity, they will leave behind one of their favorite recent collections as a gift.

Even though it was vaguely described as "a recent favorite collection," being an S-Class item meant the collection wasn't ordinary rubbish like mice or stones.

In her previous life, this pet hospital quickly rose to fame because of this cat bed. However, the pet hospital had many people, and the bed's existence was no secret. It was soon discovered, and within a night, the hospital and all its animals were wiped out.

This was why she had come early to take the cat bed.

She truly had a good conscience.

Rita patted herself on the back: despite her stealing and lurking under beds, she was still a good person.

Alright, she admitted that even if the pet hospital hadn't been wiped out because of this cat bed, she was still determined to take it.

She wanted it, and she would get it.

She hadn't come back to be a moral paragon.

The cat bed was outside the pet hospital, left out in all weather conditions except for strong winds and rain. Even if the hospital was closed at night, the old gray cat bed remained outside.

After dark, using her disguise skill, Rita set up two luxurious cat tents, one on each side of the pet hospital's entrance. She then tucked the cat bed under her arm, returned to her rented car, and tossed the cat bed into the passenger seat. She then moved ten boxes of premium cat food to the hospital's entrance and placed a sign saying, "Free food for all stray animals."

She opened ten cans on-site and placed them in a line at the hospital's entrance.

The next day, she disguised herself as someone else and went to the hospital to donate two million dollars.

It was a classic case of strong-arming.

As she left the hospital, she could hear staff lamenting the disappearance of the cat bed, noting how they had become attached to it.

Rita feared this outcome. Even if she could wait to take the cat bed after the game invasion, some things, once they became emotional attachments, were prone to binding.

Once bound, such items could only be used by the one they were bound to. Even killing the person would not unbind them.

With the cat bed in her possession, she purchased materials for making bandages and ingredients for cooking recipes, then returned to her small villa. She planned to spend the next week leveling up **[First Aid] (Beginner)** and **[Cooking] (Beginner)** to intermediate levels, preparing for the second beta test on June 6.

On the morning she returned to Los Angeles, Zoey showed up again at the Wilson family estate