After the killing notification, Rita immediately focused on her arm, but to her disappointment, unlike the closed-shop time, this skill didn't transform into a skill icon!
This blocked all players from using the number of skill icons to reduce the chance of losing top-tier skills, effectively blocking one of Rita's plans.
However, it wasn't all bad news. The skill was usable. A description of Mango Pomelo Sago appeared in her mind.
It was a healing skill that didn't recover much health—each use only restored 50% of her health—but it had a short cooldown time of only 3 minutes. Unfortunately, it didn't have a World Graveyard either, just like when she killed the pot plant.
After using the skill to restore her health to full, Rita suddenly felt an invisible wave of force hit her from the side, and her health dropped by another 30%.
It wasn't aimed at her specifically. As she was knocked back from the skill impact, she noticed other invisible black-market players also being pushed back, and they accidentally collided.
"Damn it! Who's casting random area skills here?!"
Can't see them? Then, does that mean it's a free-for-all?!
Rita swung her fists and kicked her legs, clearing the risks on both sides. Her foot connected with a black-market player she had bumped into on the right.
B80234615: "This is street dance."
Rita almost twisted her waist, even though she was in an invisible state. She blushed and looked around, annoyed, "…Shut up!"
Had she known the black-market world would be so lively, she would have brought all her AoE skills out!!
The food street below was bustling, and the black-market world was just as chaotic—except it was eerily chaotic.
Rita grabbed a beast bone from her backpack as a weapon and started smashing it into thin air, hitting whoever it landed on!
She occasionally threw in a spinning kick.
The game was blind hitting!
Not only were her skills and weapons invisible, but her sounds were also muted...
She realized Rabbit 4 was wrong—black-market players weren't hiding and avoiding giving formal employees an advantage. They were too busy!
B80234615: "…You seem quite excited."
Rita: "Yeah, I need to earn back some skills, at least the losses from my first nine deaths. If I can get some divine gift skills, even better."
Unfortunately, even with divine gift skills, they couldn't be used for her death penalties.
When she was killed by Pine Bloom, her first instinct was to look for the Fishing Master divine gift skill she got from killing MarmangDun Dun.
But that skill was gray. Not just Fishing Master, even the Master Thief Dragon she got from Nivalis was gray.
These divine gifts she obtained through various rewards and scrolls turned into regular skills when they reached her.
However, the divine gift skills she had snatched using I Could Just Steal It were still considered divine gifts and could be used as resurrection costs.
Since they were truly divine gifts, even if some were incomplete, they were still real divine gift skills.
Rita took out a pancake that could restore health, chewing it as she continued to strike out randomly, flying and attacking, never staying in one place for long.
Although most of the black-market players here were eliminated from the previous game due to lack of strength, there were also many strong players who had intentionally sought out the Inspectors and been killed by them.
Rita was hit several times during this, getting whipped and hammered.
The hammer strike was most likely from Pine Bloom, as she smelled the familiar fragrance on her. It was the only thing that hadn't been muted.
Rita immediately flew farther away.
[Ding——The first round of elimination begins!]
At that moment, the world seemed to go silent. Rita felt paralyzed, as though she and the world had been paused.
In front of her, an oversized leaderboard appeared, showing the current game rankings in real-time.
At the top, there were four categories: Chef, Cashier, Cleaning, and Supply.
The left side displayed the rankings, and under each job title were the players' names.
Ever since becoming a black-market player, Rita had wondered what would happen if, during an elimination round, the number of employees in any position dropped below 8000.
Now, she saw the answer.
It was as if an invisible hand was sliding the leaderboard down. At the bottom, there was a notable shortage of Supply employees—this risky yet free job seemed to have entered the black-market players' domain.
[Detected a large number of employees died in service, end of the elimination round, and a change in the rules: the bottom 10% of employees from the remaining staff will be forced to be eliminated.]
From the bottom of the leaderboard, red "×" marks appeared over players' names.
[A surprise egg is now open, lucky employees will be selected.]
The leaderboard spun like a slot machine, and players' names instantly blurred to the point where they were unreadable.
After a few seconds, the list stopped, and the names of the lucky players appeared.
Rita thought it was over.
But after three seconds, the list disappeared, and in its place were the skill icons lost by the players.
Next to each icon, the skill name and grade were listed, with most being SSS-level skills.
The list stayed for at least 3 minutes, then changed to show the prize list.
Mid-level gift box: 50 attribute points, Golden Tree branches, SS-level skills, Origin World Graveyard, pet eggs, fairy wings, owl feathers, race talent change, 3-star weapons, 3-star accessories...
High-level gift box: 5-star weapons (custom-made), Golden Tree fruits, skill modifications (ten words), SSS-level divine gift skills, divine gift skill upgrades, 10-star-sea year courses (self-selected), 200 attribute points, and more...
Rita was tempted to draw.
But the end of the list showed how many players won the surprise gift boxes. 529 players got the mid-level gift box, but only 2 players won the high-level gift box.
Rita's anxious heart was immediately squashed.
[First round of elimination ends. We hope everyone continues to strive and make the food street bigger and stronger.]