This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist-Chapter 316: High Tower · Seven Years

This always happens, and Rita often suspects that Sanchez is using these moments to enjoy herself, insulting her just to get some satisfaction.

Rita noticed that Sanchez was more like a typical male protagonist than many male leads in novels. If anyone insulted her even once, she’d immediately want to kill them. Originally, this wasn’t Rita’s concern, but Sanchez, who must have received some order at home, would kill anyone who insulted Rita whenever they were on a mission together.

The problem wasn’t just the killing; it was that Sanchez would repeat the insults to Rita with uncanny precision. Even though Rita had told her more than once that it wasn’t a big deal and they should focus on the task at hand, Sanchez would only smile and make that gesture, a playful motion where she’d pinch her pinky, and say, "You’re the benefactor of The White Family, so I can’t get mad at you."

Rita, however, was furious inside: The most annoying, most despicable person is you!

Nivalis, sitting atop Rita’s head, was listening and laughing. Sanchez truly had a knack for getting under Rita’s skin. Explore hidden tales at novelbuddy

These years, Rita had never shown Sanchez any kindness. Sometimes when Sanchez wanted to spar with her, Rita would mercilessly beat her down, even to the point where Sanchez, no matter how much health she had, couldn’t get back up. Afterward, Rita would quietly keep score in her mind, muttering about how she’d pay her back tenfold.

Sanchez, though she was frustrated, couldn’t help but admire Rita’s skills. She might have a temper, but because Rita was so much stronger, Sanchez, although grumbling, respected her. The faster Rita defeated her, the more Sanchez idolized her. Despite her own progress, she still couldn’t catch up to Rita.

Rita had started to wonder whether she should ask for payment every time she beat Sanchez. Though it was satisfying, Sanchez’s reactions left Rita feeling like she was being scammed.

In a way, Sanchez and Nivalis were quite similar: if someone was stronger, their bad temper was understandable, it was the personality of someone strong. But if someone wasn’t as good, then their generosity was just weakness, their retreat a sign of fear. Because Rita was strong, Sanchez now saw her caution not as being overly timid but as "overthinking things."

Still, despite all the personal grumbling, Sanchez did her part, and when work needed doing, she didn’t slack off.

When they returned to their hideout, Rita immediately told Shadow.Q, "Next time, I’m requesting solo missions. I don’t want to team up with her anymore."

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Shadow.Q just smiled, handing over fifty-two different materials. Rita shut her mouth immediately; this was the last batch of materials for Spring Not Late and Gold-Class Assassin. With these, she could finally refine them both.

Sanchez, who followed behind, picked up a new fist blade from Shadow.Q and glanced at Rita with the same childish, confused look. She smiled and shook her head. — This kind of behavior? Nivalis had definitely taught her that.

Rita took a deep breath, eyes closed, and slapped Nivalis’s head, who was mimicking the same action, "If you keep smiling and shaking your head at me like that, I’m going to twist your head off."

Nivalis grinned, "Ah, is it that exciting?"

Without warning, Rita grabbed Nivalis by the tail, turned, and spun in place seven times before throwing Nivalis out with all her strength, "That’s it, go away! Pikablue!"

She had been enduring this kind of life for seven years, and frankly, it was enough.

However, in these years, she had gained several new skills.

The missions Shadow.Q gave her primarily focused on skills related to shooting and ones that could boost her own stats. If the client couldn’t provide those, she’d request magic potions and metals instead.

On the other hand, Rita’s side missions were undertaken under a different identity, where she focused on close combat skills.

Her five years of battlefield experience in Savorleaf still lingered, and on the battlefield, whenever a weapon was destroyed, she had to use whatever weapon she found. She didn’t like being limited to a specific weapon, preferring to collect skills that could provide instant stat boosts or ones that worked with any weapon.

But good stuff was hard to come by. After seven years, they had spent almost half their time evading assassination, with only a small portion of it spent on actual tasks. Most of the skills she acquired were C-class, with just four B-class and one A-class skill. S-class skills? She hadn’t even seen one.

There were many sources for skill books in the High Tower. Some were from the spirits who had died in the Tower and stripped their own experiences to create skill books. Others came from foreign races that had entered the Tower, leaving behind lost skills upon their death.

Characters formed from the memories of other life forms couldn’t create skill books, like Peach Crown. While he was still alive outside the Tower, the Peach Crown inside the Tower, although realistic, could not separate his true self to offer anything.

But Rita discovered that these memory-formed characters weren’t any less real or rigid than the spirits trapped in the High Tower. Memory, it seemed, was like a vast web. The more famous a spirit was, the more strands of memory they had woven into them, making them feel more alive. Characters from memories known only to a few dozen people were fuzzy, but also freer. Their lives had no must-do tasks.

Each had its pros and cons, and Rita couldn’t decide which was better. The High Tower had become a world that could function on its own. It was more than just real; after these years of collecting Essence of the Moon to strengthen her abilities, Rita suspected that the Tower might even be hiding fragments of the Forest Sea. After all, how could it contain so many dead spirits from ages ago? But it was just a suspicion—she hadn’t found solid proof.

Now, in the year 7206 of Ruin Core, Rita and her companions had stepped out of the Oak Owl perspective, observing the invasion from the side. Over the years, they had come to understand much.

At the beginning of the dungeon screens’ appearance, Lania Kaia’s progress was indeed slow. This period felt like a beginner’s welfare phase for the Oak Owls. Once the dungeon screens unlocked and high-level foreign races entered the Forest Sea, the speed of progress would accelerate.

The Forest Sea’s "newbie welfare phase" lasted for five years. Most of their dungeons were surface-based, with spores creating visible dungeon barriers. This allowed them to clear dungeons as soon as possible.

Blue Star, however, was not so optimistic. While the closed beta had allowed many people to get their Divine Gifts early, the biggest difference between Blue Star and Forest Sea was that Blue Star’s ocean was vast, and many dungeons were hidden beneath the sea.

If things didn’t progress smoothly, it was possible that Blue Star’s survival time might not even last as long as Forest Sea’s.