Liyami sat on the sofa, nervously staring at the dice on the table in front of her. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the dice, shook them with both hands, and then threw them onto the table.
As the dice spun relentlessly across the surface, Liyami’s eyes remained fixed intently on them.
Finally, the dice slowly came to a stop, showing a total of six black dots on the top faces. Seeing this, Liyami couldn’t help but cheer loudly with excitement.
“Awesome! It’s really a six! Now not only do I avoid elimination, but I’ve also earned a lot of money! Hahaha! I’m going to win!”
With her triumphant shout, she moved her little figure forward six spaces. Meanwhile, the two others sitting at the table wore increasingly sour expressions.
One of them was carefully calculating the possibilities that lay ahead and desperately trying to find a solution.
The other person, trembling, picked up the dice from the table, shook them just like Liyami had, and threw them down. Unfortunately, she didn’t get a six like Liyami—just a single black dot, a one.
Seeing this, the dice thrower’s face turned ashen as she slumped back into her seat. She picked up her own token and moved it forward one step, landing on the skull symbol that represented elimination. And just like that, she was out of the game.
That’s right—Liyami was playing a game called “The Great Adventurer.” As the name suggests, each player takes on the role of an adventurer, experiencing various events on the game board and collecting different rewards. The goal is to see who can complete the greatest adventure.
In simple terms, it’s a competition to see who amasses the most money, fame, and personal ability—the player with the highest total wins.
Right now, Liyami was the player with the most money and fame. At this rate, barring any unforeseen circumstances, she would be the ultimate winner.
Besides the player who had just been eliminated, only one other player remained—and that player’s personal ability was barely higher than Liyami’s.
However, that player’s situation was not looking good. Within four spaces ahead lay nothing but deadly traps. Even though his personal ability was strong enough to prevent elimination if caught in a trap, it would completely eliminate any chance of challenging Liyami for first place.
So, if he wanted to compete for first, he had to roll a five or higher.
Carefully, he threw the dice, and Liyami couldn’t help but raise her hands in a victory pose.
The dice revealed four black dots—he had failed to avoid the traps.
While his high personal ability saved him from elimination, it couldn’t stop Liyami from taking first place.
Eventually, after Liyami rolled three sixes in a row, she arrived at the finish line without any doubt and claimed first place.
Seeing this, Liyami cheered happily, and the opposing player reluctantly clapped to congratulate her on yet another victory.
Indeed, this was her fourth win of the day and her fifth game played. To think she had just started playing this game today. She had no idea why, but after accidentally losing the first game, she’d been on a winning streak ever since. It was as if the goddess of luck was watching over her.
“This is impossible! Cheating! You must be cheating! How could you possibly win four games in a row? You must have used some dirty trick I don’t know about! This round is invalid!”
The player sitting next to Liyami shouted loudly, clearly refusing to accept the results. She kept accusing Liyami of cheating.
In response, Liyami simply smiled gently and said something that completely broke the other player’s defense.
“Cheating? If you mean that you mysteriously got eliminated five games in a row, then maybe I am cheating. After all, I’ve never seen someone that unlucky. Under those circumstances, anyone luckier than you would be cheating. Don’t you think so, unlucky little Syphnie?”
At this, Syphnie immediately lost her composure. She shouted, “How can getting eliminated be called unlucky? It’s normal in this game! Even five times in a row!” Then she added, “Next round! Next round I definitely won’t get eliminated!”
Liyami only replied lightly with, “Good luck,” and Syphnie immediately shut up, speechless.
At the same time, the other player seemed unable to bear the tension and told Liyami to say less of those things, then comforted Syphnie: “It’s okay, Syphnie. Being unlucky isn’t your fault. You don’t have to dwell on it. And look—your game stats are pretty high, aren’t they?”
At this moment, Liyami quietly added, “Yeah, pretty high indeed. Third place in the whole game! Ah, there were only three of us playing though. That means…”
Before she could finish, the opposing player shot her a glare. Seeing that, Liyami wisely shut her mouth.
But Syphnie, already mentally bruised by Liyami’s words, left a brief “I need a break” before staggering off to the restroom.
Watching Syphnie’s shaky retreat, Liyami couldn’t help but comment, “She was the one who wanted to play in the first place, and yet she’s the first to crack. Such a fragile spirit.”
In truth, Liyami had only joined the game because Syphnie had insisted on trying out this recently popular “Great Adventurer” game, and since Syphnie had been busy running around, Liyami had joined out of sympathy.
Unexpectedly, Liyami immediately fell in love with the game and became addicted. For some reason, her luck had been phenomenal, winning four games in a row and nearly breaking Syphnie’s spirit.
At this point, the other player—Colin—looked a bit helpless and said, “Alright, let’s stop with the accusations. Everyone has bad luck sometimes. Let her cool down.”
Hearing this, Liyami stopped pressing the issue.
Honestly, Syphnie wasn’t entirely wrong—although she’d been eliminated five times consecutively, she wasn’t that unlucky by this game’s standards.
After all, this game was filled with deadly traps—on average, you’d hit one every few steps. It was easy to get eliminated, and the only way to avoid it was by improving your character’s personal ability.
But if you spent too much time trying to increase ability, you’d lose out on gathering money and fame, and risk being surpassed by others. Even if you survived until the end, your overall standing could still be worse than players who had already been eliminated.
Liyami couldn’t help but wonder why this game was so popular despite the strong feeling of frustration it caused. Did players actually enjoy suffering? She genuinely found it puzzling.
So it was no surprise that Syphnie insisted she wasn’t unlucky—the experiences she’d had were all too common in this game.
But because Liyami’s luck had been so incredible, winning four games straight, Syphnie’s defenses finally broke down.
Especially since Colin, who they had both pulled in by chance, was doing well enough to almost catch up with Liyami’s purely luck-based victories.
Seeing how hard Colin was trying made Liyami think maybe she should reward him somehow.
She glanced at Colin, who was bent over the game board, analyzing it intently, and couldn’t help but entertain the thought.