By the end of dinner, Zoey still never mentioned that she was already a player.
She only said that if she learned anything new, she would definitely tell them.
And if Rita ever entered the game again, she had to inform her too.
Zoey still needed to return home and strengthen the Lopez family's security systems.
Recently, another one of her attribute points had disappeared.
Her older brother said it was probably temporary instability caused by the game.
But Zoey did not think so.
Otherwise, why had neither of her brothers lost any stats?
After escorting Zoey to her car, Rick returned to the private room with a slightly cold expression.
Rita asked with concern,
"What's wrong?"
Rick shook his head and lowered his voice.
"She's definitely a player. She's hiding it from us."
Samuel frowned.
"What makes you think that? Do you have proof?"
Rick pressed his lips together.
"Her ear. Her entire right ear was gone. She still had it on the sixth. Then when I saw her again on the fourteenth, she'd changed her hairstyle. No bandages. No medicine. Nothing. She probably used something from the game."
He paused.
"That healing potion... does it regenerate injuries after drinking it?"
Rita spread her hands.
"I only had one bottle. You drank it. I never tried it myself."
Rick sighed helplessly.
"You should've bought more."
As he said that, he even felt emotional inside.
He really had started seeing Rita as one of his own.
You motherf...
Did you hear yourself?!
I swear I'll hire someone to cut off the other half too.
Leave you with four and a half centimeters.
Rita maintained her smile and angrily gulped down a mouthful of cola.
...
After dealing with Zoey and Rick, Rita did not rush back to the villa to continue studying.
Zoey's monocle had given her an enormous sense of crisis.
The Chávez Mask no longer made her feel safe.
Sure, for now, no item below S rank could see through its disguise effects.
But what if?
What if someone just happened to luck into an S rank Insight item during the first beta?
Logically she knew that should be impossible.
In her previous life, the best Insight item she had ever seen was only A rank, the same tier as the Chávez Glasses.
But she did not dare gamble on it.
Just imagining someone inspecting her talents made her restless.
Weren't Insight items supposed to be incredibly rare?
Then how the hell did Sanchez pull an A rank one during the first beta?
And now Zoey got another one during the second beta?
Rita did not even want to imagine it.
Somebody activates an S rank Insight item.
The next second, her personal status panel pops up glowing over her head.
And they stare at it only to realize she has almost as many Divine Gifts as she has attributes.
Rita tossed and turned until midnight.
She could not sleep.
At all.
So she simply got up and started packing.
Tomorrow, she decided, she would go test something with the male lead's third woman.
The Chávez Mask was with the main heroine.
The glasses were with the second girl.
Maybe the final piece of the set was with the youngest one.
Of course Rita knew who she was.
The youngest girlfriend only lost because she appeared later in the story.
Her family's influence was no weaker than the Lopez family or the White family.
The Taylor family controlled B City.
During the second year after the game invasion, several major families joined forces and forced them out of B City.
That was when they retreated to Los Angeles, where they had already laid groundwork years earlier.
Honestly, Rita wanted to ask:
What was Los Angeles?
A recycling center for failed aristocrats?
You can just pack up and relocate here whenever you lose?
But it was still before dawn.
And after coming home tonight, Rita still had not completed her daily coin crafting.
So she transformed into a goblin and created today's three gold coins first.
Then she activated invisibility and headed beneath Zoey's bed.
Except...
Nobody was there.
After searching around a bit, Rita gave up.
Fine.
Zoey's two brothers would work too.
A thief should never leave empty handed.
Lately, Rita's courage had grown dramatically.
After realizing the Lopez family only used beginner grade revealing mist, she occasionally drank Advanced Invisibility Potions and wandered around their estate freely.
She slipped onto the floor where the two brothers stayed.
She had considered stealing from them before.
But one was a domineering CEO type, the other a professional athlete.
Neither spent much time at home.
Tonight, though, the second brother, Theodore, was actually there.
This was the first time she had seen him home since the second beta.
In her previous life, Theodore followed the archer route.
Even before the game invasion, he had already been a top tier competitive archer.
After becoming a player, he rose to become one of the Lopez family's strongest combatants within just one month.
And what was a live in son in law protagonist story without bullies?
Theodore was the Lopez family member who loved humiliating the male lead most.
He constantly stepped on Rick whenever possible.
Romance novels had evil sisters in law.
Live in son in law stories had nightmare brothers in law.
Before the marriage, Theodore maintained basic courtesy.
Afterward, though, he looked more annoyed every time he saw Rick.
But because Zoey protected the male lead, Theodore could not bully Rick too openly.
So instead...
He targeted Rita.
Rita still thought he was insane.
What did any of this have to do with her?
Sometimes Rick would bring Rita along to Lopez family dungeon raids.
He called it "repaying his sister."
Now, though, Rita increasingly felt like he had simply pushed her forward as a lightning rod.
Whenever they fought monsters, Theodore would order her to lure enemies.
Sometimes his arrows would even "accidentally" miss.
The shots looked easy to dodge.
But dodging them would force her into monster attacks instead.
It was not like Rita had no temper.
Back then, after almost every raid, she would tell Rick not to invite her anymore.
Sure, the Lopez family distributed materials and equipment according to contribution.
The rewards were valuable.
But she could always spend more time earning things herself.
Every time she said that, Rick would hand over his own share of loot and apologize.
He would say he only wanted to help his sister.
That he desperately wanted family around him.
Then he would complain about Theodore.
Talk about Theodore's skills and personality.
Warn her to avoid him.
Back then, Rita had mostly felt touched and helpless.
But she had also been angry.
You suffer humiliation yourself and now want me to suffer too?
Are you marrying into the family or am I?
But now that she fully understood Rick's nature, those strange behaviors looked different.
A terrifying thought surfaced in her mind.
Could Rick have been intentionally trying to make her hate Theodore?
Trying to guide her into impersonating him and replacing him someday?
And after realizing she was not following his lead, he simply stopped bringing her to Lopez family events entirely?
Rita inhaled sharply.
Then another realization hit her.
The conflicts she later developed with the White family and Taylor family...
Could Rick have orchestrated those too?
Motherf...
If that was true, why didn't you just say so directly?!
She was not someone who proactively harmed others.
But she also did not exactly possess moral principles.
If he had simply asked and persuaded her properly...
She probably would have agreed.
Rita stared at the sleeping Theodore.
The more she thought about it, the angrier she became.
Anyway, the Olympics were already over.
The next one was years away.
That made things easier psychologically.
No guilt attached.
First, she used Wheel of Fate to lower Theodore's luck to 1.
Then she repeatedly activated:
[I Want This, This, and This]
Tonight she had no intention of sleeping anyway.
After dealing with Theodore, she would go check on Sanchez too.
Then head straight home, grab her car, and drive to the airport.
After over an hour of stealing, she obtained three points of Agility and one point of Intelligence from Theodore.
Satisfied, she finally stopped.
[Intelligence]: 11 +1
[Agility]: 18 +3
Her Agility stat alone already rivaled a level 2 player fully specialized into agility.
And she was still level 0.