This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist-Chapter 1276: Coincidence and Chance

There were seven Starsea days left until the next Divine Game. Rita planned to fill another hundred World Sigh entries before then, to see if she could unlock any useful skills.

Compared to Starsea skills, what she wanted now were higher-tier world skills.

But someone else was even more impatient.

Before the ship had even left Lania Kaia, Dawn Cicada messaged her in private.

"Dawn Cicada: Where are you going? Hurry up and invade Dawn!"

"Rita: ...Aren’t we already invading?"

"Dawn Cicada: Do any of your leaders have time? Can someone enter Dawn through a dungeon? That gives a bonus to invasion progress and can boost it instantly."

"Dawn Cicada: If a few of you invade together, you can push it to 5% immediately and trigger final descent. If not, just send Smoke Tune over. Let her act as leader. You can remove her after."

"Rita: Why don’t you tell Smoke Tune that?"

"Dawn Cicada: She told me not to rush. Said the Bell just ended and a day or two doesn’t matter."

"Rita: She’s right."

"Dawn Cicada: Don’t you want me to rename myself BSCicada sooner and piss her off?"

"Rita: ......Did you hear the ’you are being watched’ notification?"

"Dawn Cicada: I did. If she’s spying on our chat, that’s her problem, not mine."

"Rita: You’ve changed."

"Dawn Cicada: The moment I decided to become BSCicada, I stopped caring."

Rita actually found herself speechless for once.

"Rita: How do you think she even noticed our chat? We didn’t mention her name."

"Dawn Cicada: Probably picked up on ’BSCicada.’ I’d be annoyed too if I heard that, let alone her."

"Rita: Makes sense."

After closing the chat, Rita decisively reassigned Smoke Tune and Avery.

Avery was rank two on the level leaderboard, commander of the First Legion, and held multiple key roles in BS. With all that stacked together, if she led Eclipse Vanguard into the invasion alongside Smoke Tune, both would boost invasion progress significantly. By the time Rita arrived after collecting World Graveyard, she could break through the dungeon instantly and trigger final descent.

Avery, who was busy organizing all kinds of oddly shaped cookies, suddenly saw a pop-up.

"Epic Quest: BS Adjudicator orders you to personally invade Dawn" 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"Reward: The Adjudicator’s tolerance and appreciation"

Avery: "..."

If it’s just a business trip, then say it’s a business trip. What kind of useless reward is that?

After dispatching her own aunt, Rita sorted through the resources Dawn Cicada had sent in advance. She kept what she needed in the BS Adjudicator’s warehouse and placed the rest into the BS Honor Shop, asking Y128 to design a proper exchange system.

These were resources she had secured herself. Dawn Cicada’s decision was based on her, not anyone else. At times like this, Rita had no intention of pretending to be fair. Humans came first.

Other races could still exchange for these items, but at least triple the price. Some key resources were restricted to humans only.

Mistblade, Crab, and Pine Bloom said nothing about it.

Rita even felt a little disappointed. Why not come argue? If they did, she could bring up raising the "peace tax."

She spent two days on the River of Time with her dragon, robot, and six cats, collecting World Graveyard.

After the Bell ended, the wars didn’t stop. They escalated, moving even faster than before.

Between collecting World Graveyard, Rita continued ferrying Maple Syrup to different worlds to bake cookies. She also built cookie houses in various worlds herself.

The ship stopped at a worn-down dock. Watching Rita pick a golden apple at Tiger Ear’s harbor, Maple Syrup glanced at her clean, unmarked brow and suddenly asked,

"Is this how you wanted the game to go?"

Rita carefully wiped the golden apple in her hand. Ever since that night she sat alone and decided to act, her divine talent had advanced to 50%. It had kept rising slowly, but after reaching 60%, it stopped.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she asked,

"What about you? Have you reached the fourth season yet?"

Maple Syrup replied,

"No. I got stuck after unlocking Autumn."

Spring, Autumn, and Winter were already awakened. The rest was just steady progress. Only Summer remained completely out of reach.

She pressed on, stubborn and unwilling to let it go.

"Is this leading to the ending you want?"

Rita quickly finished the apple, didn’t even bother going back to the captain’s cabin, and instead used Maine as a pillow and lay down on the deck.

Maple Syrup: "..."

The ship sped off and soon stopped at another world’s dock. Cheese, with a pacifier in her mouth, pulled it out and said,

"Passenger, you’ve arrived. Please disembark."

...

Foolishness found Deceitful Bloom in a flower field, where she was cultivating Sir Camellia again.

In just a few days, Sir Camellia had already taken root.

After watching silently for a while, Foolishness commented,

"I’ve always thought Flower of Deceit and Sir Camellia are natural enemies."

Deceitful Bloom smiled faintly.

"How are they enemies? I can easily deceive Sir Camellia."

"You can deceive it into taking root. You can deceive it into sprouting. But if you want to keep deceiving it long enough for it to bloom... how do you tell whether you’re deceiving it, or it’s taming you?"

Deceitful Bloom only curled her lips slightly and let out a soft sigh. She neither agreed nor refuted. Catching the hint of a smile on Foolishness’s lips, she said,

"You did something again, didn’t you?"

Foolishness tapped the air lightly. A chat record appeared in front of her.

"Boiling Orange and Ashveil sent this to me. Looks like they didn’t dare show you themselves."

So they sent it to someone who definitely would.

Deceitful Bloom read it in silence, gripping her gardening tool. Then she asked,

"If I go tell them that spying on their private chat wasn’t me... will they believe it?"

"Dawn Cicada will pretend to believe you. BS Rita will laugh loudly just to annoy you."

"..." Deceitful Bloom pinched the bridge of her nose. "They both know it wasn’t me. They’re just messing with me, right?"

"You can think of it that way."

She put away her tool.

"I’m going to kill Boiling Orange and Ashveil."

Just as she turned to leave, Sir Camellia, which had already rooted itself and sprouted a pale blue bud, suddenly pulled its roots out of the soil, jumped up, and drifted away with the wind, leaving behind a burst of strong, rhythmic music.

Deceitful Bloom and Foolishness watched it go.

"I remember the last time your Sir Camellia left... we were also talking about her."

"Just a coincidence."