This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist

**[Immortal] (SS-Class)**

*You are Death itself.*

**Skill 1: Wait for Me, I'll Be Back:** Upon death, your body will randomly appear in an underground coffin and resurrect after seven natural days. This effect can only be triggered once every 365 days.

**Skill 2: Only the Dead Obey:** You can control any creature that has died by your hand. The duration and number of controlled creatures depend on your mana.

**Skill 3: Death Mimicry:** Choose a target that you have killed and mimic their divine talent. You can only mimic one target's talent at a time. Switching targets will cause the previous mimicked talent to disappear.

**Skill 4: I'm Not Crazy, Just Twisted:** When using dark-side skills or items, all effects are increased by 50%.

**Skill 5: Return of the Fallen:** When on the battlefield, this skill allows you to resurrect all dead members of your race to continue fighting for you. Cooldown: 90 natural days.

This talent was practically designed for warfare. Skill 5 alone explained why that Undead could become a city lord and why this divine talent was rated as SS-Class.

Unfortunately, both Skill 4 and Skill 5 were grayed out, indicating that the theft hadn't been fully successful.

But Rita was more than satisfied, especially with Skill 1. Staying alive was paramount—no matter how long the cooldown, it was the skill she was most pleased with. Her life was now remarkably resilient.

Rita's mind flashed through the names of her many enemies.

Her potions, weapons, and gold were all still in her inventory, and she even retained the Undead race's talents due to a bug exploit. If she still managed to lose with such a powerful start, she would have no one to blame but herself.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door in the next room, followed by startled cries.

After quickly taking a shower, Rita left her room, acting as though she hadn't noticed the shocked and panicked expressions on Samuel and Scarlett's faces. She clutched her forehead and said, "I was so happy about a new endorsement yesterday that I came home to have a drink with Rick. I'm off to work now. Could you make him some hangover soup?"

Without waiting for a response, she left. Before leaving, she tried using her Thief God skill on both of them, only to find it didn't work. She recalled the skill's description: "You cannot steal from beings with a lower life level than yours. The Thief God doesn't bully the weak." Perhaps they weren't considered players, so their life level was lower than hers?

Would the same apply to players who were lower level than her?

Deep in thought, she stepped outside and realized that she no longer had her phone.

So, she donned a mask and took her ID to get a replacement SIM card. Although she worked in the entertainment industry, she was only a minor third-tier celebrity. Walking down the street, she might get a few photos taken, but nothing that would cause a crowd to form.

After buying a new phone and inserting the SIM card, she soon received a call from Amelia.

Feigning ignorance of the anger in Amelia's voice, Rita immediately requested three days off.

Amelia was so taken aback by her confidence that she stammered, "Do you not want to work in this industry anymore?!"

Rita sighed. "Give me three days, okay? I'm really exhausted. Let's have a drink together in three days?"

The final sentence left Amelia speechless. Knowing she would likely have something to report to Robinson in three days, Amelia suppressed her anger and said, "Fine, rest up. Don't keep things bottled up."

Rita made a few noncommittal noises before hanging up and driving out of the city.

Discovered by a talent scout in her sophomore year of college, Rita had been in the entertainment industry since she was 20, and she was now 26. Although she was only moderately popular, the industry was lucrative, and she didn't have any particularly extravagant hobbies. Even after giving her parents and brother over 70 million yuan over the years, she still had more than 80 million in her account.

Even if she never worked again, she wouldn't lack money. This cash would soon lose its value once the game's invasion began. As time passed and more monsters and dungeons appeared, in-game currency like gold, silver, and copper coins would quickly replace real-world money.

Within six months, gold coins would become the primary currency for transactions involving items, weapons, and armor among players.

She knew Samuel and Scarlett had their eyes on that 80 million. In her previous life, today was the day she had nearly been forced into bed with a bald-headed executive by Amelia, yet still felt obliged to check out a villa for Rick. Later, a dungeon entrance even appeared in the basement of that very villa she had bought for Rick...

If real estate symbolized wealth now, then owning a hidden dungeon entrance after the game's invasion was like owning a gold mine.

Dungeons were essentially the time-space gates used by the vanguard forces of the otherworldly races. Having exclusive access to a dungeon's resources was like having exclusive access to all the loot the otherworldly races dropped—what could be more valuable than that?

Today, Rita had only one task: to buy that villa she had previously gifted to Rick and put it under her name.

She skipped the house tour, and by dinner time, she had completed the purchase.

Without even eating, she headed to the pet market to buy a thrush, then grabbed a few takeout dishes from a nearby restaurant and returned to the villa she had bought for herself with her own hard-earned money.

Upon entering, she deleted all the fingerprints and facial recognition data for Samuel, Scarlett, and Rick from the security system.

After sitting down and opening the takeout boxes, she twisted the thrush's neck.

Then she activated her skill **[Only the Dead Obey]**. Almost instantly, she felt a connection form between herself and the dead bird. With a thought, the thrush, whose head had slumped to the side, took to the air. Its head righted itself in an eerie motion, as if an invisible hand were supporting it.

When she closed her eyes and concentrated, she could "see" everything the thrush saw: the large living room, and a woman sitting cross-legged in front of the sofa.

She checked the time and commanded the thrush to fly circles around the room.

After finishing her meal, Rita tidied up the house. She hadn't stayed in the villa yet, preferring to live with her so-called family when she had time off.

Then she drove out to buy clothes and toiletries, all while keeping the thrush flying above her car, under her control. Before going to bed, she gave the thrush an order: keep flying and don't stop.

The next morning at 7:00 AM, she checked her mana—she had 20 points left.

It had taken 80 mana points to keep a dead thrush flying for 12 hours. What if she were controlling a human?

That day, Rita brushed off Scarlett's comments about how Rita already had a house and Rick still needed one. She organized her inventory, packing her firearms, bullets, and explosives into three identical large storage boxes. These boxes were stacked in one of her inventory slots.

If necessary, she could pull out the storage boxes and rummage through them.

She kept one loaded gun in another slot.

She didn't plan to store healing potions and mana potions in the same way. These were items she needed quick access to—every second could be the difference between life and death. She filled one slot with each until they were maxed out.

She ordered a traditional Chinese medicine cabinet and, for an extra fee, had it delivered the same day. She labeled each drawer with the names of the herbs and filled them accordingly. The excess healing and mana potions were stored in the bottom row of drawers.

This left her with five occupied slots out of 30 in her game inventory: **[Basic Healing Potion] x99**, **[Basic Mana Potion] x99**, **[Basic Invisibility Potion] x3**, **[Crude Shotgun] x1**, and **[Storage Box] x3**.