With most of her tasks wrapped up, Rita sat on the couch, spinning her revolver—Dull Game—waiting for midnight to arrive.
In her mind, she cycled through a stream of thoughts: "This Divine Game will be easy." "This Divine Game will be hard." "This one favors me." "I should join." "I shouldn't join."
Then she raised the gun, aimed it at herself, and pulled the trigger multiple times—until that familiar voice spoke:
"The choices you make by instinct will shape your destiny."
She felt one of her thoughts being quietly pulled away.
The thought: "I shouldn't go to this Divine Game."
Rita stared at the revolver in her hand, a look of pure awe in her eyes.
Foolishness—a bullet that filters out flawed thoughts. It didn't just judge right and wrong; it could, in a roundabout way, predict the future.
Because how else would the bullet know whether a thought was wrong unless it had foreseen the outcome of the Divine Game?
And yet, when she used her own foresight-based skill to predict anything related to the Divine Game, the results were... murky.
[Teacher, Please Wait a Moment] (SSS): Simulate the outcome of a given event. Costs 20% mana. Cooldown: 6 hours.
It was a skill she'd grasped during Deceitful Bloom's class.
She cast it now, and a vision appeared in her mind.
She saw herself sitting on the same couch, spaced out, expression unreadable, lost in memory.
A few seconds later, future-her suddenly buried her face in her hands.
Then, not long after, she collapsed back onto the couch, limbs flailing, twitching wildly.
...What the hell? Sudden seizure?
But it didn't look like despair or madness. And the helm and lantern were both still nearby.
There was no sound in the vision. She couldn't hear any announcements. She couldn't move from her own POV to observe other players. Nivalis and B8017913 just stared at her, clearly confused.
Vague. Incomplete. Totally unlike her previous simulations with gacha crafting.
When she used this skill to simulate complex theories for gacha machines, she could see full lab procedures, detailed results, everything. But with Divine Game? She couldn't even peek at the mechanics.
Rita twirled the revolver looped around her finger, wondering what kind of twisted gameplay awaited.
Still, it didn't matter. No matter what kind of game it was—Rita wasn't going to sit it out.
If it turned out to be something easy, she could always dip out early. And if it was another heavy-shuffle like Chaotic Restaurant or Blocks and Me, then she definitely had to be there.
She put the revolver away and got to work.
Using Wasted Time Guide, she entered time-stop mode and prepped food, potions, and supplies.
Thanks to the gacha machine, her crafting skills could now support her gaming perfectly. Everything she made could be brought into the game through the machine.
At 11:45 PM, she recalled her two pets to their storage space, then pulled out her World Graveyard as her Divine Game access token.
The fee window popped up.
She slid in a single playing card-style World Graveyard—but got slapped with a new notice.
[Nightmare-tier players must now pay one Origin World Graveyard or twenty non-Origin World Graveyards per entry.]
Thankfully, one of her event loot boxes had given her twenty-four. Only one was a Mahjong set. She tossed in twenty bizarre ones without hesitation.
Darkness swallowed her.
But this time, there was no familiar sound of the system scanning her entry pass.
Instead, a voice asked her:
"If you could only keep three skills for the rest of your life, which ones would you choose?"
Rita didn't waste time on nonsense like why are you asking me this? It was clearly tied to the Divine Game.
Had this just been a regular match, she might've chosen something from the Midnight Exile series.
But the question used a very specific phrase—"for the rest of your life."
So she gave a thoughtful answer.
"I Just Want to Improve So Badly, Moment Reversal, Mysterious Power."
Then, thinking about the Divine Game's usual nonsense, she clarified, "The version of I Just Want to Improve So Badly that costs 5% HP per use."
A skill that let her build from nothing in any situation.
A skill that doubled as both attack and defense, allowing her to re-optimize traits with every reversal.
And finally, the ultimate survival tool—one that made her nearly impossible to kill.
"BS-Rita detected to possess two Divine Relics. Carry-in item capacity revoked."
Just as she was starting to wonder what kind of twisted mechanic they'd throw at her next, a voice rang out—clearly not from the usual game system.
[You may not bring the gacha machine.]
Rita clutched the device close and snapped, "Why not? Did I break a rule?"
[No. But you simply may not bring it this time. If you agree, the Divine Game will offer compensation.]
[If you do not agree, you cannot enter this match.]
The tone was calm—but the choice it gave her wasn't.
Either accept the tradeoff and play... or get kicked out.
Rita wasn't reckless. She asked, "What compensation?"
[For this match, your Divine Relics may be stored inside your body.]
Rita narrowed her eyes. "That's not a fair trade. The gacha machine lets me protect my Divine Relics. If I could bring it, I could carry tons of food, potions, and tools."
"If everything I painstakingly earned is taken away just because I know how to use it better than others... then isn't that punishing strong players for being strong? Isn't it rewarding people who coast and do nothing?"
She kept her tone calm, but her words were laced with genuine frustration.
Deep down, she didn't believe Divine Game was actually unfair.
Everything she'd seen so far—the constant shuffles, the punishments for AFK players, the challenge ramps—proved that Divine Game wanted people to improve. To fight. To change their fate.
[You simply cannot bring the gacha machine into this match.]
[Very well. In addition to housing your Divine Relics inside your body, you may select one additional skill as compensation. This is the limit.]
That alone showed how unusual this match was.
Rita's wariness spiked.
If Divine Game's handlers were offering her another skill slot—when they knew she had an Ultimate Art—that meant those high-level arts wouldn't even function in this round.
Her only tools would be the few skills she personally selected.
Thinking fast, she posed a different kind of question.
"Will I still be able to use my professional skills in this Divine Game?"