This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist

Rule 5: In 233 Restaurant, any unlocked skills can be traded, stolen, or seized; every entity that enters 233 Restaurant must have one of their unlocked skills undergo a change.

All the teammates, including Sea Pony, screamed in unison, "This must be changed!"

The five unlocked slots, whether for divine blessings or regular skills, were carefully chosen to be the strongest and most useful.

Perhaps divine blessings truly had a deep connection with one's personality and soul fire, because, even when faced with stronger and better skills, everyone would still be more attached to their own divine blessing.

Both Octopus Bucket and Marmang-Crab could accept trading, but they would absolutely not accept the possibility of their skills being stolen or seized.

For Rita, the same went. Even though she knew that divine blessings, after being transformed by Divine Game, would never be weak, she couldn't bear the thought of losing [I Just Want to Improve So Badly].

Not to mention her recent favorite skills, [Bedtime Tale] and [Mysterious Power].

If [I Just Want to Improve So Badly] could steal skills, Rita might accept it—trading back and forth, taking risks. But since it couldn't, how could she be happy about that?

Rule 6: Any entity entering 233 Restaurant can challenge the restaurant's original employees for a competition.

Modes of competition:

[Chef] – Food Wars

[Cleaner] – Guarding Food Street

[Cashier] – The Big Wealthy Game

The loser of the competition will be marked for a violation, and will be forced to leave 233 Restaurant.

Rule 7: 233 Restaurant prohibits waste.

Rule 8: 233 Restaurant employees may not refuse reasonable requests from customers more than three times.

Rule 5 needed to be changed, along with Rule 2, 3, and 8. Three slots were immediately used up.

As for Rule 8, it had to be changed as well. The concept of "reasonable requests" was too vague. No one knew what kind of beings the customers were, and the word "reasonable" was too dangerous.

They all stared at the rules, feeling troubled. The players here were all high-level, skilled in making sacrifices. But licking feet? That was pushing it.

After a long silence, Rita suddenly said, "I have a really nasty idea. Not sure if I should say it."

Sea Pony had a bad feeling: "Maybe you should keep it to yourself."

The evil Rita nodded, "Alright, since you agreed, here it is. If we chop Sea Pony's feet off and make them into a soup, and we drink it, wouldn't that not only fulfill the rule but also make anyone else who enters the restaurant violate it?"

Without feet, how can they lick?

Octopus Bucket's eyes instantly lit up, and Marmang-Crab was excited too: "Genius! That works!"

In the underwater world of Marmang-Crab, breaking limbs wasn't even a big deal.

Sea Pony stared at Rita in shock: "...How cruel!!"

Rita grinned, extending her thumbs and forefingers to hold Sea Pony's two little hands and shook them: "What do you want as compensation? Just say it. Marmang-Crab definitely won't disagree."

Marmang-Crab: "..."

After Marmang-Crab promised a huge amount of pocket money, Sea Pony tearfully agreed to sacrifice itself.

With that, it casually removed its two feet as if taking off shoes, tossing them toward Rita: "Here, make foot bath soup with them, you bugs!"

Hurrying, Rita grabbed the two horse-feet, which looked like freshly cut toenails, and immediately headed for the kitchen to start cooking. Marmang-Crab and Octopus Bucket followed, continuing to discuss how to modify the rules.

If the rules were too strict, no one would dare to enter.

This "closed period" gameplay was both a crisis and an opportunity. Since they had received such a good opening thanks to the cooking competition, they couldn't let it go to waste.

Moreover, the final rewards of this Divine Game depended on revenue, and if it looked like they could make money during the closed period, they had to try.

They decided to modify Rules 2, 3, 5, and 8.

Rule 2: To enter 233 Restaurant, each entity must purchase and consume at least one dish.

Rule 3: No entity may spend more than 30 minutes during dining time in 233 Restaurant, excluding official employees.

Rule 5: In 233 Restaurant, any unlocked skills can be traded. Trades must be mutually agreed upon by both parties, with no concealment or deceit. Every successful trade requires the submission of 1% of each participant's wealth as a service fee to the restaurant.

Rule 8: 233 Restaurant customers may refuse reasonable requests from restaurant employees no more than three times.

Once all the rules were modified, the beast hide scroll flew out of the restaurant and hovered in front of the door.

Rita had already started preparing the soup while writing two menus. The first menu consisted of dishes based on the ingredients in the fridge.

The prices were outrageous: "One random skill," "One World Graveyard," or "One random item."

Of course, there were also normal currencies, but those were even more absurd—1%, 2%, 5% of the cash carried.

The second menu, however, had only one dish, [MarmangSea Pony's Seafood Soup], with a flexible price: "A piece of rag," "1g crab shell powder," "1ml octopus slime," or "One trash talk." This one was clearly for their own team.

For safety, MarmangSea Pony had to drink it too.

B80234615: "Do I need to drink it too?"

Rita: "What do you think? Later, just soak in the bubbles as if you've drunk it."

Marmang-Crab and Octopus Bucket went to adjust the restaurant layout, turning the roadside stalls into a small food court, while Sea Pony focused on watching Rita cook its foot soup.

At this point, there were only 2 minutes left until the closing time.

As they became more familiar with each other, Sea Pony couldn't hold its tongue anymore and asked Rita: "What kind of entities do you think will come to our restaurant?"

Rita shook her head but spoke with certainty, "They definitely won't be players or cosmic wanderers who didn't get the restaurant rights."

Sea Pony was surprised: "Why?"

Rita: "That's not fair. Our restaurant's rules apply to everyone who enters. We can modify 4 of them, and this is a reward we got from triggering a special plot and then going through the cooking competition. If all of this hadn't happened, and the rules had been public and unchangeable, the employees and non-employees would be on equal footing."

Sea Pony was a bit confused: "Huh?"

Rita: "This kind of fairness, where everyone is on the same starting line, is unfair to the winners of the cooking competition. That means the outcome of the competition would have no meaning. That's not reasonable."

Sea Pony understood: "So you're saying, those who lost the cooking competition, including cosmic wanderers, will not only lose the restaurant rights but also face punishment?"

Rita explained: "Exactly. Otherwise, what would be the point of losing the restaurant rights? They'll either face extremely harsh rule restrictions or game tasks, or there will be dangers targeting them on Food Street. And… even without the [Is this your restaurant? Who gave you the permission to open it?] special plot, the closing period would still exist, right? If we hadn't re-teamed or had the cooking competition, then the divine players would be employees, and the cosmic wanderers would likely leave before the street closes. How could we operate during the closing period then?"

Rita felt her unease grow stronger, and couldn't help but ask her electronic pet, "In the world battlefield, besides the mechanical race, cosmic wanderers, and Divine Game players, are there other entities?"

B80234615: "Of course, there are the gods and demons who created the game."