The first dice was a one.

It was a rather terrible start, but it must have meant all my luck went into the second—the other could be a six.

I leaned over in my chair and checked the second dice.

One.

A terrible pain ripped through my entire body. It felt like every bit of flesh on my body erupted into flames at once, and I fell off the chair, shrieking in pain. My voice shattered the intense focus of Wei and Yang. They sprinted toward me, both of them trying to hoist me back up.

I gritted my teeth together to hold back my cries. The pain traveled like seismic waves through my body, volcanic and explosive.

“Peijin! Are you alright?” Wei shouted in my ear. He quickly lifted me and gently placed me down on the chair. I could tell her was trying to say something to calm me down, but his face looked like a blurry mess. Yang was searching through the Azure Dragon store for something that could ease my pain.

Amelia stared at me with a horrified expression, the dire wolf nudging her cheek in a feeble attempt of comfort.

“I’m fine,” I groaned, reaching down and grabbing the dice. Sweat dripped down my face in thick beads, and I could taste the saltiness as they ran down the cusp of my upper lip and into my mouth. Parts of my body were flaking off in gold scribbles, and the pieces almost looked like short phrases. Those were all my future years slipping away.

If that was my luck tenfold, and the chance of rolling a sum of two was already incredibly low, how bad was my luck? It must have been nearly zero if a tenfold increase still turned out with the worst outcome.

But even with the tenfold increase, I wasn’t guaranteed to roll a sum over seven. Perhaps I’d just gotten unlucky—though I knew it was flawed logic in every sense. In part because I failed the probability assessment at school and because if my luck was that bad with the ‘Editor’s Pen,’ there would be no hope for me during a second bet.

Yue’s movements were becoming frantic as she struggled to reach the end. Beside her, puppet Yang used his staff to break through pieces of the maze to try and find the correct path while puppet Peijin scrambled with the maze ball. Yue wielded her spear, fighting off the creatures that were approaching from behind.

Puppet Yang slowly snuck up behind an unsuspecting Yue and lifted his glistening gold staff just behind her head, tensing his arm as he got ready to strike.

“No!” I screamed. “Yue!”

The staff sped right past Yue and pierced a humanoid creature in front of her, instantly killing it. Yue turned around, grateful and trying to hide her trembling. With a warm smile and quick pat on the shoulder, puppet Yang continued to fight the beasts.

My heart was racing now, and not from the pain. My hands trembled violently at the sight of Yue being so blatantly manipulated because of the trust she held with her own party. For once, I couldn’t take her for granted.

Wei’s hands were clamped firmly on my shoulder, but I gently pushed them off. If he was saying something, I wasn’t processing it.

I glanced back down at the two red dice in my white hands.

This was the only way.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I shook the dice, not bothering to read the ghost letter paper before rolling again. “Same bet, alright? I’m going to get it this time, you fucking ghost asshole,” I swore under my breath.

Divinity Supreme Commander of the Heavenly Hosts is begging you to stop!

Yang looked at me, his brows furrowed and creating stress lines on his forehead. “Peijin? Are you gambling?”

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The dice bounced on the carpeted ground before rolling to a stop. I scrambled forward to check the faces. My lips were tightly pressed together to form a white line.

One and one.

This time, I was prepared for the pain. It ripped through me once more, and it felt like a sword had been stabbed through my stomach before stirring and tearing into all my organs. I gripped the soft ground and cried out in pain as more gold phrases flew out from my body.

“Peijin! Peijin!” Wei’s face twisted with worry, and he foolishly tried to grab onto the gold phrases and contain them. He turned and saw Amelia’s tear-streaked face, and he hesitated, torn between sheltering Amelia from the sight and caring for me. He shared a brief glance with Yang and quickly moved to Amelia.

“Peijin, stop!” Yang shouted, gripping onto my shoulder and kneeling before me. His eyes peered straight into mine, and his expression was firm and unrelenting. I could hear Amelia wailing in the background.

I groaned and wrestled to stay conscious. My hair was strewn across my face, stuck to the beaded sweat on my skin. I didn’t have the energy to brush them off.

“Peijin,” Yang responded firmly. “You need to tell us what you’re doing. You can’t keep doing everything on your own! I don’t care if you’re a fortune teller or anything else!”

Ignoring him, I reached my hand out for the dice once more, but he quickly slapped my arm back. I shoved him back and crawled over to the dice, cupping them in my hand.

“Come on, Chance Sought Gold Serendipity. Do you offer discounts when I’m rolling this many times for one outcome?” I let out a strained laugh, my spit thick in my throat. “Fourteen years is really cruel, you asshole.”

[You have received a new review!]

POCKETRECORDS505 REVIEW: ★★★★★

Peijin is like a tsundere. She pretends she doesn’t care about her party members, but here she is convulsing on the ground and giving up her life span. Good stuff, good stuff!

Yang tackled me to the ground, his hands gripping my forearms. One of his hands pressed right against the tower tattoo before lifting me and slamming me on the ground, causing me to fall backward with a loud thud.

“Let go of me! You’re wasting our time!” I struggled against him before I kneed him between the ribs; he violently hacked, and his grip slackened. I got up in an attempt to run from him.

Yang coughed, struggling to catch his breath before grabbing my ankle and pulling me back. I fell to the ground, my forehead ricocheting off the floor as I tried to crawl away. I kicked him repeatedly in the head during the struggle, but he flipped me over and his long arms reached up, trying to pry open my hands which still held the dice.

“Do you not trust us enough to tell us what you’re doing?” Yang shouted over the chaos. “What the hell are you thinking, Peijin?!”

I pursed my lips and avoided his gaze—my focus was locked on breaking away so I could roll the dice again. If I told Yang or any of them my plan, they would have tried to stop me, and Yue’s death would have been certain.

A small flame burst beside my head, and another note appeared. Yang’s eyes quickly flickered to it. He let go of my hands and pounced for the note.

My shoulder pushed into the ground to propel myself forward, and I planted my knee into his lower back to stop him from grabbing onto the note. Looking over his shoulder, Yang shoved my head back and used the force to grab onto the note and quickly read it.

Zhige unsheathed himself and jumped out of my holster, darting over to Yang’s head to knock him out.

“Zhige, down!” I shouted, and the blade quickly halted mid-air before slowly returning to me like a scolded puppy. Practically crawling up Yang, I reached my hand out to grab the paper, but he had already read it.

He flipped over to face me, and my face was twisted into a distinct expression of frustration and nervousness.

Yang’s voice was considerably softer, and his brows furrowed. “Are you gambling years of your life away?”

I couldn’t meet his gaze and tell a lie at the same time.

“I’m not. Give me the paper back, or I’ll roll the dice right now.” Kneeling above him, I raised my hand up in the air and showed the dice, reminding him that he couldn’t stop me if I decided to roll now.

“If I give you the paper, are you going to roll the dice?”

“I’m rolling either way.”

His expression was complicated; his lips were pressed into a white line and the ends were curved downward as if he was trying to hide his offense or disappointment. “Let me roll. Please.”

“No. “Hand me the paper.”

“It says the penalty will decrease by one year for each of your rolls. Tell me, how many years have you already lost? Were those the gold words coming off of you?” Yang stumbled over his words.

“Hand me the paper,” I repeated firmly. What Yang had told me was most likely the truth, since he was able to deduce the penalty, but I had to be sure. I shook the dice in my hand as a threat.

Yang reached up and gripped the fabric of my shirt. “Peijin,” he whispered, “I can’t watch you kill yourself for any of us. You matter too much.”

I froze. My heart thumped in my chest.

[Scathing Reviewer activated!]

Admittedly, I was rather nervous to go through the pain again—having pieces of my life forcefully extracted wasn’t the best thing. But if losing my years could save Yue, I’d do it over and over again until I died, and even then, I’d come back as a ghost to haunt this shitty world.

“I’m sorry, Yang.” I brought up my hands and shook them one last time, closing my eyes and praying the outcome would be better.

A blue notification appeared before me.

Divinity Supreme Commander of the Heavenly Hosts is wiling to gamble with you.