CHAPTER 953: 953 WHO TAUGHT YOU THAT BAD HABIT?!

Inside the private room of Worm Tavern, Rita sat with her three teachers. Lightchaser sat on her left, GodDraw77 on her right, and Wail directly across from her.

As they waited for the food, Rita frowned. "Isn’t this teacher’s banquet a little early? It feels like I’m being retired from the game."

A sharp smack landed on the back of her head.

Lightchaser said, "I told you, if you fail to get GodDraw77, I’ll hang you from the chimney."

Rita turned to her teacher with an overly serious look. "Teacher, you do realize angering me has serious consequences."

Lightchaser blinked. "What?"

Rita suddenly raised her right hand, holding up two fingers. She pointed dramatically at the center of the table. "Come forth—Lightchaser Sprite!"

She knew this dinner was a staged farewell. Lightchaser and GodDraw77 wanted a proper send-off—one last conversation before she pushed open GodDraw77’s gate and vanished from Arisentna for good.

But she hated this feeling—the quiet sorrow hanging in the air, the unspoken belief that this would be the last time they would ever sit together, eat together, talk like this.

It was too heavy. Too final. And yet everyone was pretending it wasn’t.

Honestly, they were all a little too confident in her.

A crown of moonlight shimmered on her forehead. Then, on the table, a tiny Lightchaser—barely taller than a wine glass—appeared. She wore the exact same outfit as the real Lightchaser, complete with a miniature dagger at her waist, no bigger than a toothpick.

The little Lightchaser crossed her arms, scowling at everyone around the table. "What do you want?"

Lightchaser froze. She looked deeply unamused.

Wail and GodDraw77 immediately leaned forward. The dwarf grabbed the little sprite by her cloak and lifted her up with pure delight. "Ever since I saw her on screen, I’ve been dying to do this."

GodDraw77, unable to beat Wail to it, stood beside her with a look of envy. "She’s a lot easier on the eyes like this."

Wail nodded. "Can’t argue with that."

Lightchaser’s fingers closed around the back of her student’s neck. Her voice turned dangerously calm. "Send. Her. Back."

"I refuse." Rita’s neck stiffened, her expression full of doomed defiance.

Lightchaser’s hand twitched. A dagger flew from her waist straight at the little sprite.

She was in such a foul mood she’d even kill herself if she could.

But with Wail and GodDraw77 joining forces to protect the tiny Lightchaser, the attack never landed.

Instead, Lightchaser found herself staring at three pairs of accusing eyes—and one cold smirk from her miniature self.

Lightchaser sighed. "That isn’t me. That’s just a sprite you summoned. Can you even make others like her?"

Rita cleared her throat and recited the skill description aloud.

Silence.

Exactly as she expected—Lightchaser was allergic to sentiment.

Well, she was the same way.

By the time the food arrived, Wail still hadn’t let go of the little Lightchaser. The sprite had been struggling nonstop, stabbing Wail’s hand hundreds of times with her tiny dagger, but not even managing to scratch her.

Lightchaser had decided to stop speaking to her student entirely. That left only GodDraw77 to bring the conversation back to something resembling a topic.

"Have you chosen your reward for the individual championship?" she asked.

Rita frowned and shook her head. "Not yet."

Since everyone at the table was family to her, she spoke freely. "I’m torn between Wail’s [Lucky Number] and Autumn Deer’s skill—the one that forces every skill into cooldown and freezes them. But I’m not sure if I can actually select the latter."

Both options met the championship reward condition: choose any skill that appeared in this year’s game and permanently acquire it.

It was a tough decision. Even GodDraw77 knew how overpowered [Lucky Number] was.

Sure, Maple Syrup’s [Self-Exile] countered it perfectly, but that didn’t mean [Lucky Number] wasn’t broken. Ninety-nine percent of skills had counters; most just hadn’t met them yet.

Even Rita’s own [Mystic Force] could be undone by [Temporary Betrayal].

The more she thought about it, the more frustrated she became. "Wasn’t I supposed to be her nemesis? Why do I always end up getting countered instead?"

Lightchaser frowned. "You’ve been classmates for years. Don’t tell me you still haven’t figured out [Temporary Betrayal]’s weakness."

"I have." Rita looked away, guilty. "It can only make the most recently used skill backfire."

In other words, easily countered—just use a buff or state skill after [Mystic Force], and you’re safe.

Lightchaser actually laughed in disbelief. "Then why in the world did you let her steal your [Mystic Force] during the fun match? You thought you wouldn’t choke, didn’t you? You just had

to enjoy the thrill of walking the razor’s edge, making everyone think you were doomed before turning it all around, right? Who taught you that terrible habit?!"

Rita held her chopsticks in both hands, looking up at her teacher with innocent eyes, perfectly quiet.

The meaning was painfully clear.

Lightchaser stared back at her.

GodDraw77 and Wail both fell silent too, watching her. The tiny Lightchaser perched on Wail’s head suddenly tilted her chin upward, staring intently at the ceiling.

Lightchaser froze with her fork halfway to her mouth, then sighed and decided to drop it. "Fine. Half an hour. No one talks to me."

Rita mumbled, "Okay."

Problem solved. Sort of.

A few minutes later, Wail dug around in her bag and pulled out a peculiar artifact. After fiddling with it for a bit, she tossed Rita a glowing scroll—[Lucky Number].

"Because you kept your word," she said simply.

Lightchaser muttered, a little sourly, "I begged you for that back in the day and you wouldn’t even show it to me."

A few seconds later, an identical scroll smacked her right in the head.

Wail slammed the now-petrified artifact onto the table and yelled, "Happy now?! The poor dwarf’s been bled dry! That was my last two zero-cost skill copies! Do you two even know how much this thing’s worth? Do you know how much a [Lucky Number] scroll could sell for?! You’ve sucked the marrow out of me!"

Neither teacher nor student bothered replying. They tore open the scrolls and learned the skill instantly—before Wail could regret her generosity and wrestle them back. It was exactly the kind of thing a dwarf would do.

With [Lucky Number] secured, Rita finally began the process to redeem her championship reward.

Even though Autumn Deer’s skill functioned like Maple Syrup’s [Faded Homeland]—and it hadn’t appeared in her skill shop when used on her—she still described it carefully to try her luck.

If that didn’t work, she’d try for Maple Syrup’s shadow-control ability from the sea of trees.

This time, the Divine Game’s system took even longer to respond than when she had chosen [The Wind Doesn’t Speak] in the fun match.

Then came the notification.

[Skill selection failed. Would you like to accept substitution?]

[Note: Declining substitution will immediately end the reward process.]

Rita stared at the message. "What the hell...?"