CHAPTER 848: 848: DIVINE GAME CARD SWAP 97

Fat Goose glanced at Rita, his eyes full of inquiry. He knew this girl collected every scrap of information about the seas, no matter how useless it seemed, she would remember it. That was something he had noticed after attending countless SSS classes with her.

Rita once said, "Using your brain to remember things doesn’t cost money or attribute points, so why not?"

Not just Fat Goose, but Mistblade, Maple Syrup, and Motor also turned their eyes to Rita.

"Doli did do something..." Rita started, but suddenly cut herself off.

She tilted her head slightly, gazing at the small boat at two o’clock.

At the edge of that boat, a crab, a cat, and a sickle-wind beast were all stretching their necks, straining to poke their heads out, ears tilted in her direction.

Rita called out loudly, "Don’t you guys from the Twilight Library have your own brains to use? Why are you eavesdropping on Moonlight Marsh’s analysis?"

The three little creatures played dumb, heads still resting on the boat’s edge, unmoving.

Rita: "..."

She switched to the chat channel.

\[Rita]: During the 15th swing round, Doli and her teammates personally knocked a ship into the hole

\[Rita]: It wasn’t because of the cue strike, the swing had already ended. They blasted the ship into the hole using skills

\[Maple Syrup]: Other than Doli’s group, which ships managed to knock another ship into the hole?

\[Rita]: Pine Bloom from Dog Pasture, Yulu from Bug Marsh, JE from Lakebed Glacier, Banban from Gray Valley, just those few

They waited quietly for the 24th swing. Only when they became the cue ball could they adjust direction to the fullest.

No one wasted the downtime. After Fat Goose reeled in a few more fish, the cue finally lined up with their ship.

Rita and Fat Goose were once again brought in front of the cue, assigned to defense.

She had the agility and reflexes, while he had a load of defensive skills. Together, they were the perfect choice for the job.

Rita fixed her eyes on that cue, wondering if the striker this time was the same lousy one as before.

...

"Doll, go Doll, let’s go!"

"Doll won’t hold back, right? Is he close with BS-Rita?"

"Does getting choked by BS-Rita and used as a shield count?"

"...Stop it, Doll’s fired up!"

"Don’t be too mad, Doll."

The demon called Doll slowly turned his head toward Deceitful Bloom beside him, speaking in a low, eerie tone. "I just suddenly remembered. You still haven’t paid me for helping you fight BS-Rita last time."

Deceitful Bloom: "..."

"Huh?"

"Wait, mine too..."

"I never got paid either..."

"Yeah, I just remembered too!"

"Deceitful Bloom, we didn’t do all that for nothing, right?"

Deceitful Bloom: "...Keep your voice down. Is this something to brag about? The Captain’s here too."

The scene instantly settled down. Losing face was bad enough, but not in front of rivals.

Foolishness: "...This how you conned them last time too?"

Deceitful Bloom: "Mind your own business."

...

Once they had a target, the whole squad got busy.

Even when it wasn’t their turn, there were endless things to do.

Fat Goose and Rita, the most efficient at fishing, handled replenishing the ship’s fuel. Motor plotted routes, minimizing distance to close in on other ships. Maple Syrup and Mistblade handled ranged attacks, targeting ships with attack permissions open.

The sharper apprentices on the field quickly picked up on how this game worked.

As time passed, more and more cue-ball ships were destroyed.

Out of 17 cue-ball ships, 8 were sunk. Eight map fragments had already appeared on the field.

Rita’s team held one. The item description \[Treasure Map Fragment] confirmed their suspicions.

Now, they were about to reach the second fragment!

Under the impact of the cue, Ship No. 4 came barreling toward them. Hovering at its bow was one of the rarest creatures on the field, same as Moonfox—the wind whale JE!

This was the Lakebed Glacier’s ship.

Almost the instant the two ships collided and attack permissions unlocked, JE’s massive whale tail swelled to size, glowing with purple skill energy, then slammed down hard toward Rita’s ship.

Rita darted forward. The world sank into darkness, only a soft white lantern swaying in the void. Around her body shimmered a transparent bubble—\[Nebula Bubble]!

She shot upward, meeting the descending whale tail head-on, bracing herself to take the blow!

In \[Nebula Bubble] state, the danger wasn’t taking too much damage, it was taking too little. Absorbing too little would mean wasting the skill entirely.

Not only that, worried the whale’s raw force might knock her back onto the ship and damage it, she wove two unstable runes she had learned from White Bear into her palms as she braced for impact.

Boom!

Rita spread her arms, catching the whale tail and shielding her ship.

From the side, Maple Syrup shot forward like an arrow, stepped up, and leapt onto JE’s ship.

Their mission was to steal Ship No. 4’s map fragment and destroy the ship, turning it into another piece of the map.

The task was brutal, pitting the two of them against five of the Lakebed Glacier’s more notable apprentices.

And JE himself was one of the favorites for the Divine Game championship.

But Mistblade’s group didn’t have it any easier.

Their ship wasn’t the only one struck by Ship No. 4, and at this stage of the game, plenty of ships had unlocked attack permissions from collisions.

Even with Motor working hard to maneuver, they were facing not just Ship No. 4, but also three more ships, with twelve apprentices between them. Mistblade, Fat Goose, and Motor would have to hold the line together.

But knowing her teammates’ strength, Rita wasn’t worried. Just as when they handed the mission to her and Maple Syrup, they never once thought the two of them would fail.

As blades clashed, Rita suddenly remembered Lightchaser’s sigh.

"In team battles, the kind of teammate who makes you fight without a single worry, in solo and fun matches, will always turn into the opponent who gives you the biggest headache."