This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist

At that moment, a familiar voice came from the helicopter behind Rita: "Nivalis-sama, if you keep flying forward, we'll be leaving Rita's homeland. Could you please fly a little to the left?"

In the next instant, Nivalis's left wing gently lowered, and the dragon made a graceful arc in the air.

"Perfect! Nivalis-sama! When Rita wakes up, she'll surely praise your flying skills!"

"Let's continue, Nivalis-sama, and to the still sleeping Rita, welcome to Texas! It's a great honor to show you both the beauty here. This is the Southern Gem… the natural scenery and the local culture…"

"The food here is…"

Rita: ...

She often questioned Shadow.Q's mental state.

Recalling the messages from Shadow.Q earlier, Rita opened the chat channel.

[World Channel]

"No past, no past!! That's our dragon, don't even think about it!"

"Western Dragon? LOL, dragons don't care about East or West, the Earth is round, okay?!"

"And this dragon came from Zelan, it's not East or West."

"Look at the pet leaderboard, the dragon's name is Nivalis."

"Exactly, not 'Picture Blue'!"

"…Can someone remove the game speech bubble from the comments above?"

"Black Jade? So what if Black Jade is the master? That's voluntary from our side, it's just a play!! Mind your own business!"

"Yeah, once Flood Dragon evolves into a dragon, we'll have a second one."

"Yeah, Rita is the dragon's master, Rick is the dragon's heir, so what?"

Everyone was chatting away, each person speaking their own mind.

Rita switched back to her private chat.

[Domestic Channel]

"Lol, I just used machine translation to check the world channel's foreign languages. Myanmar and India are both welcoming Nivalis and Rita."

"Nivalis is flying ahead, and the Special Affairs Bureau is trailing behind."

"At 5 AM, the Special Affairs Bureau's plane even brought food for Nivalis, I took a picture!"

"Great, Ice Dragon's nationwide tour~"

"Oh my god, pictures of Rita sleeping have surfaced, which station manager is so skilled?"

Rita: ???????

How did they even get a picture of her sleeping?

After seeing this message, Rita's first thought was to play it up! She immediately messaged Rick to ask how he was doing.

As a good sister, of course, the first thing she had to do was check on her little brother.

While waiting for Rick's response, Rita opened her private chat with Shadow.Q.

[Rita]: Xiao Zhao, I'm awake, are you doing okay?

[Shadow.Q]: ...

[Rita]: What's wrong? Xiao Zhao, I have to tell you, you can't let personal emotions affect your work.

Shadow.Q took a long time to respond.

Rita lay back on the dragon's back, unable to suppress her laughter. She remembered how, before time rewound, Black Jade had asked for dragon blood and how Shadow.Q had gone silent at that moment.

But business is business, and personal feelings are personal. Shadow.Q had made it this far because of her own abilities. Rita didn't hold a grudge about Shadow.Q's silence, especially since when Special Affairs Bureau had proposed using Nivalis as a spokesperson, Shadow.Q had discreetly warned her about it.

Rita had never fully trusted Shadow.Q or Special Affairs Bureau. She wasn't angry or upset about Shadow.Q's silence. But, she still enjoyed teasing Shadow.Q a little.

[Rita]: How's my brother doing?

[Shadow.Q]: He's not as cheerful as before.

[Rita]: I think you're pretty lively though.

[Shadow.Q]: You should take a look at the planes behind us.

Rita propped herself up lazily on the dragon's back and looked behind. She locked eyes with Shadow.Q in the helicopter. The expression on her face was full of resentment.

Well… they had started the raid at 5 AM yesterday, only to run into the Black Jade contract reversal issue, which completely ruined their schedule. Shadow.Q probably hadn't slept all night. After all, she was the one most familiar with the raid and had been overseeing Zoey's cooperation. Dealing with Black Jade couldn't be done without her.

Then, because of their good relationship and the several times she'd communicated with Nivalis, after the Black Jade issue was resolved, Shadow.Q had been sent to follow them, just in case Nivalis and Rita were about to leave the country.

Under Shadow.Q's gaze, Rita quietly lay back down.

[Rita]: So, how's Black Jade and my brother being handled?

[Shadow.Q]: For now, they're getting along peacefully. There's no other choice. What happened that day can't be hidden.

[Rita]: An insider?

[Shadow.Q]: There are too many bizarre Divine Gifts outside, and this incident has gotten so big that everyone wants to know why the Beast became the master.

[Shadow.Q]: And your brother is quite clever. Don't be fooled by how quickly he kneeled. After the contract reversal, he immediately started recording. Our people noticed his hand movements.

[Rita]: …

So sneaky, even in such a collapsed state, he's still trying to stir things up.

Rita wasn't worried about the potential leak of those recordings. She had been prepared for the worst. Even the wine hidden in the magician's dentures had been concealed with a storm summoned by Nivalis to prevent any prying eyes. After all, there were Divine Gifts that could access memories. Who could guarantee that those images wouldn't be discovered? Especially if someone analyzed them frame by frame. She had come from the entertainment industry; she knew how to protect herself.

[Shadow.Q]: Does the combo skill with Nivalis have serious side effects?

[Rita]: Random attribute -2 permanently.

[Shadow.Q]: That's pretty serious, especially considering it only lasted for less than five minutes. Your journey continues at empire

[Rita]: Mm.

Neither Shadow.Q nor Rick responded after that. Rita closed the chat screen and accepted the food Eleanor had sent for the day: oil pancakes and dumplings?

She climbed to the dragon's head and ate with Nivalis. She would eat one and toss another into Nivalis's mouth.

Nivalis: "Grandmother's cooking is the best."

Rita: "I'll give you the whole box when we get back."

Immediately, Nivalis changed direction and flew toward home.

On the way, Rita checked the game forum again to see the reactions from various parties.

Even though it had already been a night, everyone was still talking about Black Jade.

Even members of the <Nameless People> forum couldn't help but join in, posting that if it weren't for The Lopez Family's incredibly tempting offer, they almost kept that Flood Dragon for themselves.

People were analyzing Black Jade's Divine Gift, wondering why this Flood Dragon ended up under Rick's ownership, and speculating whether this was a blessing or a curse for Rick.

There were rumors that the Flood Dragon had originally been meant for The Lopez Family's eldest daughter, but in the end, the son-in-law had betrayed them and stolen the dragon. They hadn't expected the betrayal to backfire so badly…