Cheat Awakening

Myne took a deep breath, attempting to calm his excited and nervous heart, and looked at the figure in the distance, waving his hand. He wanted to greet him, but suddenly Waffle, Ted, and Ocea flew towards him and surrounded him.

After the heart's destruction, no monster dared to approach the pit, so they no longer had to remain on guard and had come to check Myne's condition. Only after confirming that he wasn't going to die anytime soon did they breathe a sigh of relief. As for when he would die, they all knew that upon their return, except for Ted, everyone else would be greeted by grim reapers.

"Although I don't know who you are, thank you very much for what you did just now."

After dealing with Waffle and the others, Myne, who had first picked up the dead heart—surprisingly shrunk to the size of a normal human heart—was about to approach the mysterious figure to thank him. However, he found that the other party was standing several meters away, so he hurriedly greeted him.

"Thank you? No need," The man smiled softly and said. "Because this is a transaction, I never do business at a loss. Haven't you heard that there is no free lunch in the world? That saying applies everywhere."

Myne's eyes flickered, and a frown appeared on his face as the other party mentioned a price. He was very sensitive to that word, especially now that he was dirt poor.

"May I ask your name, sir?"

"You can call me a travelling merchant," The man answered with his trademark playful smile.

This caused Myne to raise his eyebrows. He had a feeling he was about to be cheated; the other party seemed far too experienced in this game.

Traveling merchant? Why does it feel like he's not going to leave empty-handed? Myne thought nervously.

"I see. What do you want me to pay?" Although deep down Myne didn't want to give a single coin, he knew that without the help of this mysterious man who called himself a travelling merchant, he would never have been able to kill that heart. Also, he had no power to refuse, given how incredibly powerful the treasure he carried was. God knew how the other party would react if he angered him. He had no intention of dying at such a young age.

The travelling merchant seemed to see through Myne's thoughts. He smiled and said, "You didn't want to pay, did you?"

"What? How could that be? Please, sir, I am a good person, alright? I have never cheated anyone. You might not believe me, but in my world, I am the richest person in my entire kingdom," Myne said without blushing or his heart skipping a beat.

"I have travelled through countless worlds. You have no idea how many people are eager to meet me and how many want to make a deal with me. Reading your thoughts isn't as difficult as you think," The travelling merchant said, narrowing his eyes.

"And you want to cheat me after using my thing and breaking it? And... don't try to take the heart of the ancient god. You don't have the right to own it, just because you landed the final blow."

"I didn't! Don't talk nonsense. I'm just holding it because I picked it up from the ground. And what the hell am I even going to do with this creepy thing?" Myne coughed and brought his hand, which held the heart, from behind him, wondering if this guy could really read his mind or something. Otherwise, how could he accurately guess his thoughts?

The travelling merchant raised his hat, and a mysterious pitch-black cane with a small skull on its top appeared in his right hand, along with golden-rimmed glasses in his other hand. He leaned his cane on the ground and put on the gold-rimmed glasses, looking like a true gentleman.

He said, "Fate is wonderful. I give everyone who can meet me a chance. After all, some people may never meet me in their lifetime. It's an interesting thing that a weak guy like you, for whom even calling 'weak' is a bit of an insult to truly weak individuals, can meet me at this level."

"I can consider my help just now as a free service since I gave you the knife on my own initiative, but if you want to take this heart away, you will have to pay a price." He said this with a dark-hearted businessman-like smile, which Myne was very familiar with.

Myne looked at the ancient god's heart in front of him. There was no information about it; his ability didn't provide him with anything as well. There wasn't even a { ? }, which only happens with worthless items.

Is this thing really special? Do I even need it? But I don't think it has any value for me at this moment. Even if I bought it, what the hell am I going to do with it? Use it as a decoration?

Although Myne, after thinking a bit, decided to give up on the heart since he had neither anything to exchange for it nor could he see its value, he still decided to listen. "So, what do you want?"

The travelling merchant smiled faintly and said, "That's quite interesting. Normally, I'm the one who asks people what they want when they see me, but now you're asking me the same question." He paused as if lost in good old memories.

"So, what do people who see you usually give you?" Myne, not in the mood to wait for him to daydream, simply interrupted his train of thought.

The travelling merchant gave a cold look, as if to say, "Are you serious? Can't you wait a minute?" before replying.

"A lot. They are all things that interest me a little: items of equal value you wanted to exchange, interesting pollutants, or... They will also exchange their lives, souls, and so on. In some cases, you can become my companion and fight for me in the arena. I am a significant shareholder of the Cosmic Arena and have many champions there who fight for me. Or, if I find someone with a special talent, I can also offer them a job cleaning worlds swallowed by the Abyss."

"But you can't earn much from that job, as I do this work for some old grudge and for charity, and there is no personal gain expected, except sometimes my workers find interesting things, like today when you got the heart of an ancient god. But at the end of the day, it's still a loss-making business for me."

"Compared to that job, I recommend people become my champion, shake up the Cosmic Arena by becoming a dark horse, so I can win thousands of times in betting and recoup all my losses in one fell swoop. But finding those kinds of people is very difficult, and you will only encounter one in thousands of years, and that's if you're extremely lucky. And believe me, my luck isn't that great."

Saying that, perhaps the travelling merchant thought he had talked a bit too much, so he quickly cut himself off and ended the topic.

"Anyway, tell me now what you want, and be quick. I don't have all day to waste here."

"I..." At this point, Myne was a bit hesitant. Despite knowing that the heart was something extraordinary—otherwise, the merchant wouldn't be showing such keen interest—he sadly didn't have chips or power to bargain with him. So, in the end, he did what he had planned.

"I am willing to give you this heart, but I have a small question and a request. I hope you can fulfil them," Myne said, moving the heart forward.

The travelling merchant took the heart and narrowed his eyes, but he didn't refuse Myne's requests.

"Speak."

"You mentioned that people who work for you have to clean these weird worlds swallowed by the Abyss, right? Then, do all those worlds have ancient god body parts that need to be destroyed to get rid of the pollution?"

"Hahaha, brat, you're thinking too much. How can there be so many body parts of gods lying openly? This one was a special case, and even it took me a lot of trouble to detect it, let alone for others. It's a miracle to encounter one in a millennium."

"I know what you're worried about, but fear not. I give my people very reasonable missions based on their strength, and they can handle them if they try hard. I am not a leader of a suicide squad who throws his people into the stomach of the Abyss for nothing."

Seeing that Myne was very interested in working with him, the travelling merchant, after giving a brief answer, snapped his fingers and resummoned his throne, and a random stool for Myne, and sat down.

"Sit and talk. It seems you are very interested in working with me. Although I don't usually accept weaklings like you, since you had the courage to kill an ancient god's heart, I am willing to change my rules this time," He said with a smile.

But what Myne didn't notice was that the travelling merchant's eyes were occasionally falling on the ring on his right hand's middle finger, which was none other than the Fate Ring of Mysteries, given to him by his succubus wife Gal (Chapter 308) when he was stuck in a small dimensional island created by a demon Albam and had saved his life many times.

"Well, you can't say I'm 'interested,' as you know, no one likes to work for others. But, well, as you can see, I came here accidentally from another world, and in my world, increasing strength is very, very difficult for normal people like me."

"At most, I can gain some skills, which are also like external items and can easily be banned if I leave my world. Just this time, I can only rely on my pets and pitiful physical strength to survive. You know, it's very embarrassing for me, who, before coming here, thought I was almost invincible."

"Sigh, anyway, so I thought if I work for you, I can at least have one more source to increase my strength, instead of passively waiting and hoping some miracle happens until my old age, and I live without any worry," Myne said seriously.

Only after losing his skills did he realize how pathetically weak he was. If not for his mysterious ability to awaken again, which had more than 90% contribution to his survival, he had no doubt that on his first day here, he would have died at the hands of that bandaged guy. After all, who in their right mind would think that a weirdo would crawl out of the toilet to kill him when he just started the game?"

"Well, what you said makes sense, and I like how you were able to see the golden opportunity before you and ask for a way to get stronger, instead of any random item to boost your power temporarily and die in a random corner because someone got jealous and killed you in your sleep to steal your treasure."

"You impressed me, kid. But before I take you under my wing, I also have a question for you: where did you get this ring?" The travelling merchant asked, pointing at the Fate Ring on Myne's hand. And as he asked that, his eyes shone with a mysterious green light, which was barely visible.