This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist

By this time, some players had already logged in, and it was obvious that some of their worlds didn't have anything like karts, so they were momentarily stunned. But they weren't fools. As soon as they saw other players picking karts and getting in, everyone began to select their own vehicles.

Rita did the same. She quickly ran to a spot away from the other players and started choosing her kart. Without the time to check on the karts with Soros, she could only rely on her instincts and her basic knowledge of vehicles to start picking from the front row.

She noticed that the outer ring of the steering wheel on each kart was made of transparent material filled with blue liquid. Rita immediately chose a white kart with the most blue liquid in its steering wheel.

This kart was smaller in size, but the seat was spacious, and with Nivalis shrinking down, she could sit in front of Rita and even help drive if needed.

As the countdown hit 20 seconds, Rita hopped into the kart and started examining its structure.

The moment she was seated, the white kart lit up as though it had been activated. Its four tires began glowing white, and a glowing countdown appeared on the steering wheel: 3.

Suddenly, Nivalis, perched on Rita's shoulder, spoke up: "A player is coming for you!" Stay tuned to My Virtual Library Empire

Without turning her head, Rita didn't wait for the countdown to finish. She slammed on the gas pedal, and the kart shot off the starting line with a strong push-back feeling. In the blink of an eye, the kart zoomed hundreds of meters ahead, and it took another five seconds before it slowed down to a steady speed after Rita let go of the gas pedal.

During those few seconds, the blue liquid in the steering wheel had noticeably decreased by about 5%.

The track wasn't very wide, about 50 meters, with towering mountains on the left and an endless sea on the right. As she drove, Rita continued to explore the kart's functions.

The kart's structure was simple. Aside from the steering wheel and blinkers, there were only a few glowing data indicators on the top right of the steering wheel, clearly visible at all times.

BS·Rita

Kart Coins: 0

Speed: 200 km/h

Distance: 1.9 km

Fuel: 100%

Nitro Boost: 9.6/10

Kart Damage: 0%

The pedals on the left and right were for the gas and brake. The gas pedal controlled the nitro boost. Only when Rita pressed the brake would the kart stop; otherwise, the activated kart would continue at a speed of 200 km/h.

She tried flapping the orange-red wings to see if she could make the kart fly.

Sadly, while it could fly, the kart could only lift off the ground by about 30 cm. It became almost impossible for her to make it fly properly, and it was even slower than driving on the ground. This eliminated the possibility of flying races where certain races might cheat.

Embarrassingly, she could use the wind to Dandelion Wind, but once she left, both the kart and Nivalis stayed exactly where they were.

However, if she and Nivalis worked well together, this skill wasn't useless.

She also tried using her skill points to apply a Blood Shield, and with the help of her skill points, the casting time was reduced to ten seconds.

To her delight, she found that the shield applied directly to the entire kart. This meant that she and the kart were likely one entity, and the kart could also benefit from the Absurd Story skill effect!

At this point, the countdown hit zero, and the game officially began. Rita heard various sounds coming from the starting point.

Ahead, she saw a row of glowing boxes, all identical, with question marks written on all six sides.

This reminded her of a game—Mario Kart.

The world battlefield should be thankful that Nintendo's legal team hadn't joined the game yet.

Rita randomly selected a glowing box and crashed into it. As the box shattered, she immediately realized something was wrong! There were no bananas, no ink, no turtle shells, and no boosts.

Instead, the blue liquid in the kart's steering wheel instantly decreased by 50%!

To make matters worse, she had broken the rules and triggered divine punishment...

BEEP—You've violated a game rule. Divine punishment will be randomly applied.

Divine punishment completed: You lost 6 points of strength.

Nivalis also received the same punishment, as their fate was synchronized in this game.

But Rita wasn't too upset; she even comforted Nivalis. "This follows the law of conservation of luck. It's fine—better to get the bad luck over with early."

She realized that if she didn't press the gas pedal, the kart would move at a steady pace. She tried using Temporary Reset, switching around her attributes, but no attribute boost affected the kart's speed.

At this point, more than a dozen karts had used various skills to overtake her, and as they passed by, without exception, they threw a few skills at her, but Rita was able to dodge them by steering skillfully.

Another kart approached, accelerating to catch up with her. The player inside threw a huge black fireball at her.

Rita quickly turned the steering wheel, and Nivalis sprayed a dragon's breath at the fireball. However, she couldn't avoid the auto-tracking fireball in time, and it hit Rita's white kart, causing her health to drop by 30%.

The kart's surface immediately cracked, and the damage value jumped to 4%.

But thanks to Absurd Story's reflective damage, the attacking player clearly suffered the same amount of damage. Their kart appeared to lose control for a moment, and the player grimaced in pain.

Nivalis checked the player's health and reported back to Rita. However, the player had significantly more health and defense than Rita, so the retaliation only caused their health to drop by 19%.

In this back-and-forth exchange, both her and the attacking player's blue fuel tanks had noticeably increased by a small amount.

So it seemed that attacking another player's kart restored their boost fuel! No wonder the players earlier had been so eager to throw skills at each other.

Rita's eyes lit up. She immediately threw out several instant-cast attack skills at the player!

The player quickly realized something was off and slammed on the gas to accelerate.

Looking back, Rita saw thousands of karts chasing her. "Nivalis! Quick, hop into my lap and help me drive!"

Nivalis, who had been eyeing the position for a while, immediately enlarged herself and jumped into Rita's lap, grabbing the steering wheel.

Rita pulled out Dusk and Night and twisted her body, aiming behind her—Explosive Drummer.

The sniper shot combined with bullet-split explosions activated the skills.

The blue fuel in the steering wheel immediately filled up completely, and there was even some overflow.

Rita realized that not bringing her pocket watch into the game was both bad and good.

In the past, she would always hesitate, calculating the opponent's strength and level before deciding whether to engage, but now... with her eyes closed, it was time to go all in!