This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist

Sweet Pomelo tapped open one of the GIFs.

Under a storm of skill effects, a toppled gacha machine was slowly crawling across the game field, shrugging off everything thrown at it. Any skill that touched it either rebounded or disappeared entirely the moment contact was made.

One of the GIFs had been captured from a very tricky angle, low to the ground. It showed a tiny Blocks player flying just above the surface, lying flat with the gacha machine strapped to their back. Her arms and legs were tucked in tight behind the two shoulder straps, only her head poking out to see the way ahead.

Every so often, she conjured a lightning-filled Cheers goblet and lazily rolled it forward, making a soft "whoosh~" sound with her mouth.

Whenever an area-of-effect skill skimmed across her tile, she would yank her head and limbs back in.

The group chat went completely silent.

No one had expected this. Not even close.

It had been countless years since any of them had been pushed to such extremes. Naturally, none of them had ever considered this kind of tactic.

Even now, watching it unfold, none of the gods and demons currently playing the Defend the Gacha match would ever resort to something like that.

It was impossible. On the World Battlefield, everyone had people they cared about—there were lines they wouldn't cross.

Winning or losing was just a game, but disgrace lasted forever.

[Drummer]: Sweet Pomelo really undersold that gacha machine

[Deceitful Bloom]: …Yeah

[Captain]: Are we still selling gacha machines?

[Captain]: Not selling would be unfair… unless we can take it back from BS-Rita. But that would be unfair to her

[Deceitful Bloom]: Raise the price. Tier 10 and up have to pay 80% of their current Blocks inventory in game items. For those below Tier 10, it depends—either item-heavy trades or proportional to their past six-game yield. If a player's just a lucky amateur, don't sell. Also, ban purchases from pets and temporary God Game players

[Drummer]: Disable the size-adjustment function for future gacha machines

[Captain]: Fine, but can you do that now?

[Deceitful Bloom]: We can't modify it remotely. Drummer and I made it too well—no skill works on it. We'll need to personally update it

[Deceitful Bloom]: Drummer and I will send projections. Until we finish the updates, halt all gacha machine sales

Once that was settled, the chat began buzzing again. Now they were debating what to do about the gacha machine in BS-Rita's hands.

But no one could reach a conclusion. The item had already been sold. They couldn't just swoop in and change things because a player had found a new use for it.

If overpowering gameplay was enough to revoke an item, Divine Relics wouldn't exist. Nor would any system that allowed players to modify skill and item descriptions.

Besides, it would be unfair to BS-Rita.

[Captain]: That gacha machine doesn't have any more tricks up its sleeve, right?

A few minutes passed.

[Captain]: Drummer?

[Captain]: Deceitful Bloom?

[Captain]: …

…

Rita had no idea she'd just single-handedly driven up the market price of the gacha machine.

She was trudging across the grassy field, gacha machine strapped to her back like a turtle shell.

From the moment she stepped onto the game board, she'd been bombarded with all kinds of notifications—clearly from the nine other players who entered the match with her.

Asset Transfer had been canceled the instant she entered.

Luckily, most of these item effects followed a sort of fairness principle.

It was like using a one-cent coupon—whatever discount came out of the player's pocket would be reimbursed by the God Game system.

Take Verdant Whisper · Windrush's Asset Transfer, for example. The prerequisite was a prior use of Common Prosperity, which technically benefited Rita.

Sure, she lost the ability to choose which matches to enter, but she didn't have to pay for entry anymore. If Verdant Whisper · Windrush exited the game, she'd be dragged out too, and she even got a 20% share of that player's game earnings.

It just so happened that Rita was a Tier 9 Suffering-class player forcibly invited to March Theme Park—so the "benefit" turned out to be a burden.

Still, to take something from another player via item effect, the caster had to pay a price.

Someone used Mixed Blocks on her—randomly exchanged a set of their Blocks with equal weight from hers.

Rita nearly died laughing. Most of what she carried were from February Theme Park.

Another used Item Swap—which would exchange each player's currently held item.

Too bad Rita wasn't "holding" anything. It failed.

One even used a variant of Common Prosperity, where they'd be dragged into any game she entered, and pay both their own admission fee and five times that amount to Rita.

It was called Help Me Queue Up.

Rita was genuinely impressed. She was starting to wonder where all these busted items came from…

Every minute, as new players entered, she got another round of notifications. It was like clockwork. And it was getting dirty.

She crept forward. Starting early had its advantages—no players or Gacha Defenders occupied the next eight tiles ahead of her.

Four minutes later, the fifth wave entered, and she had reached tile five.

The other players from her wave were already dead. She was the only one left in her lane.

Two Gacha Defenders appeared ahead.

Clearly, they had been placed specifically to block her.

Only about 30 players had died so far, yet two of the three defender slots had been assigned to Rita's path.

She was starting to feel like the zombie king in some rhythm game.

Standing in tile five, she stared straight at the duck feet of the defenders ahead, not even bothering to tilt her gacha machine and look them in the face.

Let them wait. With the current chaos of area-of-effect spam flooding the board, these players might want to kill her, but they were still going to spam damage for Blocks elsewhere too.

No skills could break through her setup. But those skills could kill the Fat Ducks in her way.

Rita's strategy was simple—hide under the gacha machine and outlast everyone.

She casually rolled a freshly conjured Cheers goblet toward one of the ducks.

"Upon player death, 5 Blocks are dropped and awarded to the last attacker."

So Rita had been flinging Cheers goblets like grenades the whole match. With few players on the field, a lucky hit might net a reward.

Drummer looked down at the goblet that rolled under his belly. "…?"

He nudged it back with his foot.

Rita: …

She quietly lowered her flight altitude, reached out a claw, and gently tapped the goblet forward again—this time, exploding it immediately.

The lane had stalled. Rita waited. When she ran out of mana, she'd just use Moment Reversal on a nearby player to swap values.

Just as she prepared to outlast the Fat Duck ahead, a small dialogue box appeared on the grass beneath her.

It was a light gray, flat on the ground like a towel.

—"Having fun with the gacha machine? (Touch the speak key. Whatever you're thinking will appear here.)"