CHAPTER 799: 799: DIVINE GAME: CARD SWAP 48

Across the streets, rooftops, and storefronts, new figures began appearing—different from the Pokémon NPCs. These were the other trainees entering the game one by one.

As Rita flew through the city, her mind was entirely focused on one thing: how to make money.

Going the honest route? That was never an option. Honest work didn’t pay fast enough.

She’d already understood that three years ago, when she and Mistblade and Fat Goose had been sitting around in ripped pants, scheming how to afford tuition.

With only three minutes left on the countdown, Rita landed in what seemed to be the center of the city. Towering buildings surrounded a large intersection, and in the middle was a fountain. At its center, on a raised platform, lay a sleeping... Cubone?

What really caught Rita’s attention wasn’t the Pokémon—it was the hundreds of glowing blue crystals piled in the fountain. Each was about the size of a gold coin, no bigger than her thumbnail.

It looked exactly like a wishing fountain.

Why was Cubone the lucky turtle playing the role of the fountain mascot?

Was Cubone considered that iconic?

She stepped into the fountain, bent down to scoop up one of the blue crystals—only for her hand to pass right through it.

Just as she suspected. These crystals had to be the game’s currency. Based on what she’d read, only items that directly affected final scores were protected from interaction before the match officially began.

She still didn’t get why Pokémon existed in this game world at all, or why Cubone, of all things, was stationed at the city’s center like a golden koi of wealth.

But her brain had already lit up with a perfect plan.

What could be faster than being the turtle in the wishing fountain?

The only problem was disguise.

Her skill [Not Real ID] only let her transform into "a creature you’ve had contact with for more than 24 hours."

But "contact" was loosely defined—it could include interactions, rumors, hearing about them, anything that established a connection.

She’d watched Pokémon before. That probably counted. Worth testing.

As soon as the countdown disappeared from the sky, Rita activated \[Waste Guide].

The moment Deep Blue Helm appeared, the recently awakened world froze again in suspended time.

Her first move was to pull out a snowball from her pack and carve out a chunk to use [Summer Snowman]—a tiny snowman creation spell.

This was a lesson from Lightchaser: no matter how urgent the situation, prep your lifesavers first. Always.

With a snowman that allowed one full-time rewind in her inventory, Rita returned to the game itself. She tried using [Not Real ID] to transform into Cubone.

Her silhouette shrank, her backpack morphed into a bone club, and just as the club started falling free, a hand—hers—reached back, caught it, and twirled it smoothly.

Success!

Rita couldn’t help but laugh out loud. She immediately leaned down to start scooping the blue crystals from the fountain.

Though her backpack looked like a bone club now, its functionality remained. The moment it touched a crystal, the crystal was absorbed into her inventory.

This really was in-game currency. When the first crystal entered her space, a floating blue number appeared over her head, displaying her current total.

Rita frowned at her reflection in the water.

That number was clearly visible in the reflection—which meant it wasn’t just visible to her. Every other player could see it too.

That was an unexpected complication.

She kept gathering crystals, running numbers in her head while she worked.

Hiding in plain sight using [Hide-and-Seek] might work. The skill wasn’t fully mastered, but it had proven effective enough back at school—even high-level students had trouble spotting her.

[Hide-and-Seek] (SS): When being observed, your presence becomes distorted. The more objects in the area, the harder you are to detect. Creatures will subconsciously ignore you. Costs 1 mana per second while active.

There was another possibility—\[Moment Reversal].

When the game was nearly over, she could locate the player with the most wealth and simply swap their number with hers.

It wasn’t a matter of cooldown. She had a cheat-level spell in [School Rule #801]—that let her alter cooldowns. In thirty seconds, she could cast [Moment Reversal] multiple times.

The problem was finding the top player among tens of thousands of contestants. It was too risky to rely on that alone.

Still, it made for an excellent backup plan.

She continued collecting until the last crystal was taken. Her floating number had passed 3,000.

Then she set off, planning to use the 24-hour time freeze granted by [Waste Guide] to explore the entire city and see if there was any better way to rake in cash than pretending to be a wishing fountain turtle.

Transformed as Cubone, she couldn’t fly—but she didn’t mind. If she needed to do anything sketchy, staying in disguise was safer anyway. And her body being gameified meant running wasn’t exhausting.

It took her nearly twenty hours to explore the entire city.

She found plenty of wealth inside the shops, and it was tempting. But [Waste Guide] had a clause: "Time freeze ends immediately upon affecting or harming other players."

Her detection skills showed that the Pokémon around her had levels, stats, and divine talent attributes—meaning they were, technically, players.

The city clearly had its own ecosystem: hospitals, schools, police stations. If she robbed a store, she’d be affecting the shopkeeper Pokémon. Time freeze would end. Too risky.

Eventually, Rita stopped outside a bank.

Perfect timing—an armored truck had just pulled up, mid-transfer. The security officers and Growlithes were carrying half the payload.

Her eyes lit up as she stared at the policewomen and their canine partners.

She had just found a better spot than the fountain turtle.

What better place for a would-be tycoon than the national bank vault?

She headed inside, following the trail left by the officers and locating the open vault door.

It was enormous—almost the size of a soccer field. Blue currency crystals were stacked in huge cubic piles, each one a solid mass.

A quick estimate told her that each cube was about 5,000 crystals wide per edge.

There were 57 of these in total, and Pokémon were in the middle of assembling the 58th.

Now wasn’t the time to grab them.

Stealing all that would throw the entire city into lockdown—great for messing with other players, but it would also put her on a six-hour manhunt.

She didn’t know the city’s crime response system well enough to risk it.

Better to wait.

She wandered around the vault a little longer, just to say she’d been there, then exited.

Her current Intelligence stat was 317. Her mana pool had reached 24,000.

With [Absolute Freedom], she could return to this vault any time she wanted.