Nivalis, who had been quietly watching from the side, immediately perked up. The tiny dragon's eyes glimmered with curiosity as she stared fixedly at Rita.

Rita's expression didn't change, but the dark shadow that had been playing on the arcade suddenly set the console aside and walked over. It reached out, covering Nivalis's ears with both hands—and then, just to be safe, slid its fingers up to cover her eyes as well.

Nivalis said flatly, "..."

A second later, the shadow released her. Rita's grip on the skeletal hand had already loosened.

Nivalis looked conflicted. "How is that any different from letting me hear the answer?"

"It makes you happier this way," Rita replied lightly, giving the hand bone a flick.

No new skill appeared, but the three SSS-tier skills she had lost earlier reappeared in her panel, still grayed out.

Soul Catcher seemed to be sulking—demanding she make up for all the games she'd missed, yet hesitant to push too far. It practically spelled it out for her: as soon as she completed the missed rounds, her skills would return to normal.

Rita didn't take its little tantrum seriously. As long as it wasn't truly unresponsive, she didn't mind. After all, she needed it for the next two Divine Games anyway.

[Pay Raise] (1/1): Use to increase your current savings or the result of any single task or job by 20%.

If she ever had a poor run, this could be her ace in the hole.

After putting Soul Catcher away, Rita moved on to deal with The White Family's affairs.

During the war, Jameson had burned through a massive amount of the equipment she'd asked him to handle. Now he'd mailed her the proceeds in gold coins—along with several months' worth of the family's profit share.

Three hundred thousand gold. He must have rounded it up again just to make it a clean number.

Once she had tied up all her loose ends, Rita finally looked up at Nivalis.

The little dragon, who had been scratching her head and fidgeting ever since hearing Rita's earlier line—"It'll make you happy"—was now staring blankly at the floor, lost in thought.

Rita said softly, "I've set special permissions for you on both arcade machines. You can enter them anytime. Go there when you're bored—use them to train."

Nivalis blinked. "Oh… Does that mean you'll take me with you next time you enter a game?"

Rita didn't answer right away. Instead, she said, "You've read the battlefield chat. You should understand the situation I'm in."

Two divine relics exposed. The wager between Lania Kaia and BlueStar made public. A player who rose to Tier 12 in just a few games.

She wasn't just dangerous—she was now the biggest threat on the entire Divine Game battlefield.

No one would sit idly by and let such an opponent continue to grow.

Her own life was precarious enough; her companions would only be in greater danger.

But when Nivalis opened her mouth to protest, Rita changed tone. "Still, I'll bring you. As long as you want to come with me into the game, I'll keep you by my side—until the day you no longer wish to enter the Divine Game."

Nivalis felt her anxious heart calm instantly. She lifted off the ground, tail curling with excitement. "Alright, I'll go train then!"

But just as she reached the doorway, she hesitated.

Through the veil of golden rain, she saw Rita setting brushes, paints, and drawing paper neatly on the table, her brows faintly furrowed in concentration.

She had grown up.

The Rita she once knew had a mysterious past, but her heart had always been simple. Her loves and hatreds were clear-cut; her life was about becoming stronger, about vengeance. Simple, pure, passionate.

But since yesterday—since the Rita who had returned from "Card Swap"—she had felt something different. Something more layered, more distant.

Now, that complexity carried a quiet weight.

Rita must have sensed her lingering gaze. She looked up through the golden rain, her lips curling into a soft, gentle smile. "What's wrong? Want me to teleport you there myself?"

Nivalis froze. She had never seen that kind of smile on Rita's face before.

It wasn't something you could label as happy or sad.

It was beautiful—but not in a way beauty alone could describe. It was a smile full of stories, of emotions she hadn't hidden quickly enough: regret, hesitation, melancholy, worry, tenderness.

An adult's smile.

One that carried a thousand unspoken tales.

For a moment, Nivalis felt herself drowning in it, as if she could see the story behind that expression—of someone trying to hold the world together while still stopping to look at her, still answering her with patience and warmth.

Then the antique lantern at Rita's side—the one holding a fragment of the moon—floated closer, its light swaying softly by her ear.

And just like that, the beauty shattered into sadness.

In that flicker of gold, Nivalis thought she saw the birth of another Wrathful Moon—and Rita, quietly locking herself inside it.

That was the price of being BlueStar's Judgment.

She belonged to no one, yet she was still trapped.

Nivalis didn't reply. She just shook her head and fled, wings beating in a fluster.

Rita watched her go, then turned back to her paints and brushes.

She was trying to master a new SSS-tier skill—Scratch Card.

It could serve as a fun reward for BlueStar's players, a way to encourage them to level up or improve their professions, and maybe ease their constant tension.

She began painting—Bridge Lake's shore, the candy house and scrap alley of Asaein, the tree towers and lakes of Moonlight Marsh, Lightchaser's cottage…

No notification popped up, but her brush didn't stop.

She drew a tiny elf perched on the cottage chimney, a Moonbear fishing by the lake…

Two-thirds of the paper became a vivid landscape, and the bottom third she filled with rows of crumpled little letters—scratch zones.

[Congratulations, player BS-Rita has learned SSS-tier skill—Scratch Card!]

Scratch Card (SSS): Create a Scratch Card. Insert one gold coin and specify the type of equipment or weapon you wish to win. Scratch off the coating. If any revealed symbol matches your choice, you will obtain that item at the highest level your stats can support. The time shown beneath the icon indicates how long the equipment will exist after materialization. The icon's color determines its grade, up to World-tier. Each card costs one gold coin to create. Cooldown: 1 minute. Cards persist until fully scratched.

It was similar to the skill she had mastered in Arisentna, but now she could choose not only weapons but equipment too.

Rita didn't rush to craft one immediately. Her skill [Waste Guide] had just come off cooldown.

Ever since her return, she'd been using it with precise timing—every six hours on the dot—giving her an extra 96 hours in a single day compared to everyone else.

Activating [Waste Guide], Rita slipped into time-stop mode, walked into the backyard, and began practicing combat techniques under the falling golden rain.

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