This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist-Chapter 408 The Divine Game: Kart Racing 12

The first time Rita leaves early, she only needs to pay a parking fee of 5 kart coins, but the second time it costs 10. She knows that her visits to the gas stations and her progress aren't the same as other players', so this change in parking fees isn't exclusive to her.

It could either be random or depend on how much time has passed in the game.

Either way, she has to set aside some kart coins for this…

Otherwise, she might be forced to stay at a gas station.

What if she's delayed there and suffers divine punishment every minute? She can't take that risk.

Over the next five hours, Rita and Nivalis visit the gas station four times. They spend one minute restocking, three minutes repairing the kart, and the rest of the time is spent stealing kart coins, specifically from vending machines.

It's not because they're particularly morally upstanding, but because there's a limit to how often you can steal. What if other players have more valuable items to steal later? If a vending machine can be robbed, it's the first choice.

After a few successful thefts, they stop just before the vending machine powers back up. This strategy allows them to make the most of the situation, especially when players start fighting. If a player accidentally hits the vending machine with a skill, it could wake the machine up, giving them a chance to set traps for other players.

With each heist, Rita and Nivalis cover up the mess they've made, leaving the area just before the safety zone turns into a combat zone.

Using the 83 kart coins they started with, even without staying in the safety zone to play the game, they manage to scrape by on their theft skills to buy fuel and parts for the kart.

Nivalis even manages to craft two ice mirrors, attaching them as rear-view mirrors to their kart.

During these five hours, Rita and Nivalis' mood swings are extreme.

They occasionally receive system notifications warning them for violating game rules, and divine punishment begins to be dispensed.

Since the start of the game, they've lost 59 attribute points, one B-rank skill, one C-rank skill, 1% of their max HP, and 1% of their evasion rate.

Rita can't help but think about Mistblade's 45 rules. She can't even imagine how Mistblade managed to get through it all...

Every time they break a rule, Rita immediately reviews all her guesses.

By chance, she gets one right. During a battle, the green blood of an alien player splashes onto their kart.

[Rule 17: Your kart hates the color green.]

At that moment, Rita didn't phrase it like that. She guessed it was either "no painting the kart" or "no painting the kart green." After a few more guesses, she essentially communicated that the color green was forbidden, and the system accepted her reasoning.

These rules continue to give Rita and Nivalis headaches. It feels like they're just waiting to get caught.

Along the way, they encounter other players who block their path.

As long as there are no more than three players, Rita sets up a sniper position. Using the [Midnight Exile] skill, she can push one player back, and then she relies on her driving skills and the [Absurd Story] and [Bedtime Tale] skills to get through the rest of the conflict. She never considers stopping to face multiple opponents at once.

Sometimes, they run into player groups, but these players are usually just temporarily "teaming up." Rita throws a bottle of fuel into the group, tearing a hole in their formation, and then uses her stealth and other skills to escape.

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The fuel isn't something she bought herself. After filling her kart with her own fuel, she leaves the bottle behind and replaces it with the fuel she stole from Ridge Tea Cloud and Blazing Flame Qingy.

She's already mixed the fuel from the two players, and though she isn't sure how many different kinds of fuel it contains, she won't risk using it herself.

Rita also hunts down other solo players. However, anyone who gets hit twice by her will quickly speed away, unwilling to stay and fight. Just as Rita and Nivalis can dodge player attacks with their driving skills, so too can other players speed up using boost fuel and block her shots with skills to escape.

The racetrack is full of intense battles for survival, while the gas stations have descended into chaos.

It's only Rita who doesn't spend much time in the combat zone. After causing the vending machine to go berserk, she notices that in the last ten minutes of each game, players will rush to wake up the vending machines.

It seems she has opened a door to a new world for them.

The chat channels in the battlefield are filled with curses.

Not every vending machine will attack players just by being awakened.

One particular vending machine, No. 29, has an attack style that's simply outrageous.

When the vending machine wakes up, it targets the players who disturbed it. After scanning their expectant faces, it issues a deduction notification:

— "Because you awakened Vending Machine No. 29, we will charge 80% of your remaining kart coin balance as compensation."

Now, Rita isn't the most cursed person in the chat anymore; she's past her peak. The one getting the most curses is now Marmang-Crab.

This crab is the main player responsible for waking up Vending Machine No. 29, and he shows no signs of stopping. Whenever he enters the safety zone, even if he doesn't plan to play there, he always makes sure to use his crab pincers to wake up a vending machine before leaving.

Besides Vending Machine No. 29, there are other vending machines that aren't easy to deal with, such as those capable of electrocuting karts from a distance or ones that can consume nitro fuel.

There are also a few vending machines, like No. 17, that throw items at players, but there are only three of these so far.

There are a number of players, like Marmang-Crab, who enjoy triggering the vending machines, and some who go to great lengths to wake them up.

As the game nears its end, players who realize they're about to lose team up to awaken the vending machines, intending to die together.

The scariest part is that, so far, no player has successfully destroyed a vending machine.

Rita quietly spies on the screen, but when someone in the chat asks, "Has anyone else noticed that some vending machines are too easy to wake up?" Rita doesn't dare to reply.

By the 10-hour mark, Rita enters another gas station. This one has a slightly different parking lot. Most of the spots are cleared, but in the corner, there's a pile of broken-down karts stacked together.

She's down to just a few kart coins, which she stole from other players and vending machines during her last visit.

Nivalis is inspecting the karts for fuel and parts, and occasionally, she sneakily checks out the passing karts.

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While Rita heals Nivalis, who has taken damage from her theft skill, she hits the brakes and watches the games in the safety zone.

During her previous visits to the safety zone, Rita had studied the game plaques.

Though she has one game left to play, she doesn't want to stay until the very end. If she encounters a low-risk game with a cheap parking fee, she'd definitely stay and play, but so far, none of the games have been suitable. The parking fees are high, and the game mechanics aren't in her favor.

The only good news is that the parking fee is random, not increasing as the game progresses.

Now, Rita faces a dilemma as she looks at the game available in this safety zone.

— [Game: Kart License Test]