Mrs. Feathers is still chasing me. How many hours has it been? Eighteen? Nineteen? I’m not sure how much longer I’ll last. It’s exhausting being chased by a quasi-immortal!

“The leading contestant has reached the seventh and last trial! If he succeeds, everyone will be expelled.”

Meanwhile, this one guy has been having the time of his life, breezing through an inheritance tomb in less than a day. What a lucky bastard. I shouldn’t be cursing him. Maybe it’s the foxkin; if I curse her, I have a feeling she’ll find out. The thing about beastkin is their intuition is much higher than a normal person’s, oftentimes developing their divine sense earlier. Thankfully, this phoenix’s divine sense is obstructed by this tomb; otherwise, I’d already be dead.

“You butthole-targeting, two-legged pest! Gah! This tomb, I’m going to burn it down once I get outside! I quit! Let me out of here, you dumb voice.”

Has…, has she given up? Really? It’s a good thing she’s a quasi-immortal; she doesn’t care about the items she might get from the tomb. And she really vanished! “Wait, so what happens to me?” Doesn’t that mean I cleared my first nightmare? Even if I didn’t kill her, I still survived a nightmare, didn’t I?

“Now, you’ll encounter your third nightmare!”

“Wait! Wasn’t I supposed to get a reward for clearing the first nightmare?”

“Ha-ha! This is your third nightmare: sweating blood and tears to accomplish something but getting nothing in return for doing so! Despair as you miss out on your rewards, and despair some more as you enter the third trial.”

…This fucking tomb.

“Welcome to the third trial!”

It didn’t even give me a chance to finish cursing it! According to the almanac, the third trial is an extremely simple one.

“Pick a box, any box!”

Three boxes appeared before me. One was wooden, another silver, and the last golden. The material of the boxes didn’t matter. Neither did their positions. The contents were all random, at least, according to the almanac—which I’ve recently learned isn’t infallible, but still trustworthy enough. But there are three outcomes: I get a treasure, I move on to the fourth trial, or I get a punishment. With how terrible my luck’s been recently, I have a feeling I’m going to get the punishment. Luckily, it’s not equal to death or a drop in strength, just some mental torture. And since it doesn’t matter which box I pick, I’m going to pick the golden one because, that way, I can exchange the box for a few nights stay at an inn even if I get the punishment.

“Open the box!”

Once I picked up the golden box, the other two vanished. Let’s see what my punishment is…. An armbrace? Wait, really? “I got a treasure?” Isn’t this the Despair God’s personal equipment? To think he’d actual give it away in the third trial…. I could sell this for at least fifty million spirit stones!

“Congratulations! You can exit the tomb with your treasure, or you may turn it in and proceed to the next trial.”

“I’ll exit the—”

“The Despair God’s inheritance has been claimed! Everyone will be ejected from the tomb.”

Wait! The treasure is fading! “Exit! I want to exit with my treasure, damn you!”

My vision turned black, and it felt like my body dissolved into a puddle. When I could feel my limbs again, the heavy weight of the armbrace was no longer there, and I didn’t even get to keep my golden box. What the hell! I mean, I guess it’s better than getting a punishment, but I was one word away from keeping the Despair God’s armbrace! My fifty million spirit stones! Who was it!? Which bastard took it away from me!?

“Look! The inheritor of the Despair God!”

“He’s so young!”

“He’s not even a saint!”

“Isn’t that Long Chen, the waste from the Long family?”

“A waste? Tell us about this Long Chen.”

“He used to be a genius when he was four years old, but his cultivation halted after he was poisoned.”

…The barkeep? The barkeep surpassed the quasi-immortal ancestor from the Despair Seeking Sect and obtained the inheritance? How? This makes no sense! He wouldn’t have even gotten past the first trial if it weren’t for the foxkin! Speaking of which, what the heck is the foxkin doing? Is she smacking the tomb with a hammer? There’s a gaping fissure all along the wall….

An old man rose into the sky, radiating out a gray aura. “Brat! Hand over the inheritance or hand over your life!” As expected, it was the old ancestor of the Despair Seeking Sect. Well, looks like the barkeep’s screwed. There’s no way he’s escaping from a quasi-immortal.

“Stay your hand, Old Man Despair!”

And I spoke too soon. A young man, the ancestor of the Slaughter Seeking Sect, flew up and blocked the old man’s fist inches away from the barkeep’s face.

“You slaughter-filled brat! Don’t get in my way!”

It looks like the old man is risking everything. When the next step to becoming an immortal is right in front of his face, why wouldn’t he? And with that, it’s time for me to leave. There’s nothing I’ll gain from a fight between two quasi-immortals. And I don’t see Gold Seeker or Money Grubber around. Did they exit the tomb earlier than me? Mm, it doesn’t matter. We set up a meeting spot for after the tomb exploration ended. I’ll head there, and if they don’t show up, I’ll hold a quick funeral for them and burn some paper money. What? I should expend more effort to look for them? Nonsense, the living have to keep on living. Expenses don’t pay themselves.

“You old and young bastards, I’d like to see where you’re going to hide now that there’s no water around!”

That voice, isn’t that the foxkin? I turned around just in time to see a massive hammer appear above the two quasi-immortals.

“Unrelenting Path of Slaughter: Breaking Madness Hammer Strike!”

And just like that, there was a booming sound, and the two people vanished. A shockwave washed over me, and people from the crowd were launched into the air from the impact. There was a massive crater in the ground, and standing over it in the air, the foxkin was squinting down with her hammer’s handle propped up against her shoulder, the massive head blocking the view behind her.

A figure shot out of the crater. “You—!”

“Hammer strike!”

And was instantly sent back inside.

“You’re amazing, Boss! Teach them to not covet your underling’s inheritance!”

The foxkin turned towards the barkeep. “Your inheritance? Don’t you mean our inheritance? I don’t know what you’d want my inheritance for anyway. Despair isn’t a good technique to inherit, but don’t worry, I’ll protect you from it.”

…I thought I was unlucky, but that barkeep’s bad luck is on a whole nother level. He must’ve slaughtered a country in his past life or something, jeez.