This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist

The next night, Rita returned to her familiar spot—Zoey and Rick's bed. At this point, sneaking under their bed felt as comfortable as returning to her own home. Tonight's haul wasn't great—just a few pieces of trashy gear and no attribute points.

Even though her success rate varied, Rita still felt lucky overall, as she had been consistently getting more attribute points than gear or items, which she knew were far more valuable in the long run.

Rita continued stealing until 3 a.m., but instead of leaving right away, she stayed. She had noticed something odd earlier. Over the past few days, **Chávez's Insight** had been in constant use in energy-saving mode. Zoey had returned home with her usual 100% health yesterday, but tonight, when Rita entered the room, Zoey's health was at 99.8%.

At first, Rita didn't think much of it—after all, it was just a tiny fluctuation. However, after seeing an open sanitary pad in the bathroom during her meal break, she realized Zoey was on her period.

But several hours later, Zoey's health was still at 99.8%. Shouldn't it have automatically regenerated by now? Rita had experienced periods herself—though there would be slight fluctuations, players' health would automatically recover based on their constitution stat. With Zoey's high constitution, even the heaviest bleeding wouldn't prevent her health from regenerating fully.

Suspicious, Rita flew to the bedside table, shifted back to human form while activating **Phantom Cloak**, and carefully drew blood samples from both Zoey and Rick using a syringe. With her work done, she headed to her next target.

Her next stop was a private school owned by the **White** family. She snuck in, uprooted a statue of one of their ancestors (who happened to be **Sanchez's** great-grandfather), and stashed it into her in-game inventory. According to its in-game lore, this ancestor had been a philanthropist. However, Rita didn't care much about his good deeds—she wasn't a saint herself.

After the game's invasion, the statue would undergo a transformation, granting powerful buffs to any team that carried it. In her previous life, the **White** family had been mocked for lugging around the statue during dungeons, but in reality, everyone was just jealous of the advantage it gave them. Zoey had been among the envious ones, complaining about it many times.

Rita decided that until the game's invasion, the statue would stay in her possession. Once its in-game features unlocked, she'd put it up for auction and force the White family to buy it back if they didn't want it falling into someone else's hands.

After a long night of mischief, Rita returned home just as the sun was rising. Realizing she hadn't slept again, she grabbed a quick bite and went to **Ranaya Kaia** for her daily alchemy lessons. By the time night fell, she had already received the results from the blood samples: both Zoey and Rick were infected with **HIV**.

Rita's eyes gleamed with satisfaction. Not only did their health no longer regenerate, but she wondered if there were any other long-term effects. She also hoped that when the game's invasion occurred and the player stats officially updated, the infection would show up on their health panels.

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After all, Rita really didn't want to be collateral damage if Zoey decided to take out her frustrations on Rick.

The only thing that disappointed her was the thought that **Rick** and **Sanchez** hadn't started their affair yet. In fact, Rita now doubted if Sanchez would even be interested in Rick in this timeline, especially now that Rick had lost the **God of the Culinary Arts** title.

Sanchez wasn't a fool, and neither were the other two women who orbited Rick in the previous life—Zoey, Sanchez, and **Camila Taylor**.

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Each of them had their own personality flaws: **Zoey** was arrogant, **Sanchez** was violent, and **Camila** was venomous. But in the grand scheme of things, they were all intelligent, rational women. They didn't need to pretend or play nice in front of someone like Rita, but to the outside world, they were shrewd, powerful, and highly respected figures within their respective families.

In contrast, many male heads of households were simpletons, but not a single female leader was someone to be trifled with.

Rita often reflected on her past life and questioned whether those three women truly "loved" Rick. Probably not. Love couldn't be shared, but interests could.

As she lay in her backyard, surrounded by her playful cats, Rita began plotting against the **Su** and **Liang** families. Just giving them an incurable disease seemed too simple. She wanted something more.

But before that, there was another matter to handle. If she remembered correctly, this was around the time when Rick would meet his second "best friend," **Aaron**.

Aaron was another thorn in her side. In the past life, he had taken on the role of a so-called "faithful admirer"—but not of the three female protagonists, of Rita herself.

This guy was an absolute scumbag.

It seemed that nowadays, any random stray could claim to be a devoted love interest.

Aaron was supposedly Rita's devoted admirer, a clingy, love-struck puppy. But in reality? He was even more two-faced than **Julian**. At least when Julian realized Rita wasn't interested, he gave up quickly. Compared to Aaron, Julian seemed like a man of real integrity.

Aaron had relentlessly pursued Rita, and the more she rejected him, the harder he tried. Everyone around them knew Aaron "loved" Rita, but when the Lopez and White families pressured and exploited her, he turned a blind eye. After the dust settled, he'd come back around pretending nothing had happened, still proclaiming his love for her.

Modern men at least had the decency to send flowers when courting a woman. But after the game's invasion, Aaron's idea of a gift was casting a buff on her. Equipment, gold, skill books—she never saw any of that from him. He was the ultimate cheapskate.

Even Rick, in his effort to gain her trust, would occasionally voice his "honest" thoughts, telling Rita that she was heartless for ignoring Aaron's deep affections.

Rita knew that if she hadn't been hunted down in her previous life, she probably would've died from sheer frustration if she had stayed in that miserable place.

Aaron had only become a player after the game's official invasion, so he had been late to the party. But of course, his **Divine Gift** was S-ranked, an injustice that made Rita's blood boil.

So, she decided she would track Aaron down in the next few days by following Rick's movements.

It wasn't that she was bloodthirsty. Aaron hadn't committed any major crime. All he had done was "fall in love" with her, and there was nothing wrong with liking someone, right?

Aaron hadn't done anything seriously wrong—aside from telling her to just "endure" whenever she faced hardship, aside from professing his love while watching everyone criticize her for rejecting him, aside from being secretly in love with Rick but being too cowardly to admit it, so he used her as a tool to perform his fake acts of affection.

When Rita found out about his secret, Aaron had the audacity to get on his knees and beg for forgiveness. A few days later, rumors spread that Rita had accepted his proposal, with the condition that Aaron would give her 1,000 gold coins and a full set of level 20 blue gear.

It was infuriating.

But that was all in the past. Rita figured she could settle the score by gouging out Aaron's eyes. That would make them even.

After all, he had been blind when he shouldn't have been in the previous life, so it was only fair to let him be blind for good this time around.

In her mind, it was a merciful end for him.