She had entered the game at seven, started fishing at eight fifteen, and now it was nine. Rita had not landed a single fish. When boredom frayed her nerves she would scratch a few cards to blow off steam, but nothing ever came out. The more she tried to relax, the more irritated she became, until she could not be bothered to scratch at all. Fine. It was not the Scratch Cards ruining her mood anyway. It was this. Oh oh oh, a Yummyfish. What rank was that again? Bristle Shark, eleventh on the rarity list. Glitter Strawberry Fish. The apprentices around her kept reeling them in one after another, and every catch ranked higher than anything she had seen. The match had barely begun, and people were already using everything they had. Rita made a little snowman, copied the skill in her cart called Crime Simulation into it, and used Crime Simulation to spy on the skills being used in the area. That skill targeted an area rather than a player, which did not violate the rules of this game. There was Enjoy Luck Early, which let you prepay a slice of future good fortune for the present. There was Good Children Die First, which briefly seized control of another being. NightFury had probably used that to make a fish bite. There was Craftsman’s Spirit, which temporarily forced a weapon up a tier. And there was one that held Rita’s full attention, Autumn Deer’s I Am Not a Muggle. I Am Not a Muggle let you make a wish that did not affect other players and gave it a chance to come true. It was similar to No Logic, but it did not twist reality so much as turn your own thought into fact. That was terrifying. Luckily it had a clear weakness. The chance scaled with difficulty, and if the wish was too hard, it would be adjusted to something feasible. Autumn Deer had landed a Glitter Strawberry Fish, but his wish would never have been for a fish ranked ninth. Everyone here wanted the same thing: the number one Blue-striped Bluru. So the two skills had their own strengths. No Logic was better suited for battle. I Am Not a Muggle shined in planning and everyday maneuvers. Unfortunately, to bring a skill over via Crime Simulation, you had to link to the player. That counted as using a skill on another participant. She could not do it. All she could do was watch. She sat on her little stool and kept fishing. Her bait balls got rounder and rounder and kept disappearing without a ripple. At some point, her bait had started to get sloppy again because she was rebaiting every few minutes. Now and then she did hook something, but none of it was the Blue-striped Bluru. It did not even match the Glitter Strawberry Fish. She tossed them all back into the sea. When the sun climbed and the heat settled in, she gave up shaping perfect pellets. She would snag a tuft off the bait ball with the hook and flick the line out. It was so smooth and practiced it hurt to watch. This was her third fishing spot. She had not even played four hours and a furrow already seemed carved between her brows. Lips pressed tight, she set her stool down again. There were other tools. A harpoon, a casting net. She had scratched those out. But dead fish did not count. Electrofishing and hitting fish with attack skills were forbidden. Fish here were too fragile. A touch of damage and they died. You could not even grab them by hand. It felt like only a hook was deemed acceptable, the one way that could guarantee a fish stayed alive when it broke the surface. She laid out her gear, then used a D-rank ice spell to pile a fresh mound of snow by her feet and tucked a cup of fruit wine she had just made with Wrong Season into the Snow Pile. She took out the four rods she had pulled so far and started all four at once. Bait, cast, bait, cast, four smooth snaps of the wrist. Then she raised the cup to her lips and took a solemn sip, the picture of a veteran angler at least eight years into retirement. At the elbow of an L-shaped pier, seven meters away in a straight line, Pine Bloom had watched from start to finish. What now. Moonlight Marsh Rita looks disgustingly professional. She cleared her throat and called out, "I heard you’ve been throwing your fish back?" Rita’s eyes were hidden under the brim of her hat. At Pine Bloom’s voice she tipped her chin lazily, confirmed the question was meant for her, and answered, "Yeah." Someone had already pulled a No. 7 Tutu Sunfish. To her, anything ranked below that was meaningless. Selling those fish would not even buy her a new Epic-tier rod. She did not lack rods or bait. After scratching her second Legendary rod she had actually flown back to the port. She had planned to sell the rod for cash and buy raw materials to mix her own bait using the recipes from the fishing journals. But the Scratch Card had already made a name for itself here. Every shopkeeper she went to insisted on paying in trade for Scratch Cards. At least the offers were not terrible, so she agreed. All in all, any fish that would not secure her the crown was useless. Back into the water they went. Sometimes she even tossed a healing spell after them. Maybe she could move the ocean god to pity and he would hang a Blue-striped Bluru on her hook in return. "Are you still selling Scratch Cards?" Pine Bloom asked. Tʜe sourcᴇ of thɪs content ɪs NoveI[F]ire.net It happened to be time to make one. Rita flipped a coin. It rolled from index to pinky and turned into a black-and-gold parchment in her palm. She pinched the card between two fingers and pressed it down against the brim of her hat. "Sorry. Shop’s closed." Pine Bloom curled her toes against the plank. She was not sure if Moonlight Marsh Rita felt awkward, but she definitely did. Her gaze slid helplessly back to the water. Wail spoke somewhere in the special seats. "Where did she get the aesthetic oil from?" GodDraw77 said, "..." "You taught her that?" "Lightchaser. It has to be Lightchaser. She loves that stuff." "Impossible. The worst she does is get chatty when she is mad. She would never do that." "It was not me either. You know me. I do not even wear a cape." If Rita had heard that exchange, she would have jumped to her feet and shouted that it was not oil. It was the soul of cool. But right now she was busy scowling at the sea. She still had one thing Pine Bloom did not. A way to pass the time. Scratch Cards. With School Rule No. 801, she could make about one hundred fifty to one hundred sixty cards per hour. That one-minute cooldown was not always perfectly clipped, a little time was always wasted. And for the last ten minutes of every hour, she would take a break and scratch. Like now. Scratching time again. She secured all four rods, checked that the bait would last, dragged out the big pumpkin, stacked a thick pile of cards on top, rolled up her sleeves, and pulled a coin. Footsteps pounded from every direction at once. She had grown used to it. Expression blank, she held the coin over the parchment and zoned out for a dozen heartbeats. In that brief moment, Raccoon slid into place on her left, then Cinnabar, then Crab. On her right sat Pine Bloom, Loath, and Pomango. Those were the closest and fastest. They pressed shoulder to shoulder. The raccoon might as well have been in Rita’s lap. Everyone kept one eye on her and one on their lines as they baited and cast with practiced motions. Pine Bloom urged, "Go on, scratch. Ignore us." Crab echoed, "Yeah yeah." Pomango echoed, "Yeah yeah." Raccoon chimed in, "Yeah yeah." Rita stared at them in silence.