Chapter 561: Deal

After I casually put up some products for sale, it seemed like half the market’s customers came over to me.

This wasn’t because they already knew what I was selling. It was rather that all the other merchants were familiar faces, and it was quite rare for an outsider to arrive here. Not only that, it was quite obvious that I wasn’t even from the Chaos Abyss. Naturally, they wanted to see what I was selling.

But when all of them saw what I was selling, they all took deep, cold breaths. Everyone only looked; nobody came up to buy anything.

I had casually thrown an ice magic sword on the ground as if it was nothing but trash. Its crystal clear structure indicated that it was made of seemingly high-quality material. The ice spreading around it showed off its considerable magical power.

In front of this ice magic sword, the dark dwarf’s steel axe would be nothing but a toy. But judging by how casually I tossed it on the ground, it was evident that I didn’t value it one bit.

Meanwhile, some other scattered items included fruits and vegetables that emanated nature magic, a headless doll, a bottle of some sticky fluid, a wooden sword that was blunt from long years of use, and so on. None of these objects seemed very impressive, but they all had unique magical wavelengths.

Everyone kept whispering to each other, but nobody was able to tell what these items were. Since nobody could identify them, the greatest probability was that these items weren’t from the Chaos Abyss.

That still wouldn’t be much, as dimensional smugglers could be found in every dimension. There were even some demons or goblins in the Chaos Abyss that enjoyed acting as merchants. Some even had well-established trade channels. However, this particular merchant wanted to sell his wares for an astonishingly high price.

“I will only accept top-level resources, materials, and God Equipment for my wares. Don’t even think of trying to trade me garbage like dragon bones.”

Everyone had seen arrogant merchants before, but none had ever seen such an arrogant merchant. Directly asking for God Equipment on the first attempted sale? That made him seem like a total novice. But, judging from his products for sale, he was obviously no novice. In that case…

“These items are worth the same as God Equipment? I can’t tell at all. There’s even books? They have such strange magical wavelengths. Are they magic books…?”

“Hey, no touching! This is the third move of the Rulai Divine Palm, a divine martial art from the east. It’s the lifeblood work of a monk grandmaster demon (dharma)! Buy one, get one free! I’ll throw in the great nature magic manual, the Sunflower Manual for free! After you cultivate the Sunflower Manual, you’ll be able to obtain a Legend-ranked druid transformation technique—GenderChange ¹ !”

[…]

Astrya felt rather helpless with how I was so happily trying to sell off these books that had been gathering dust in my dimensional storage for so long.

Back in the day, I had indeed truly treated these books as treasures, being unwilling to toss them out no matter what dire straits I was in. I had always kept them in my storage as some of my most valuable treasures.

But now that I knew my System was Astrya, who had copied these Chinese martial arts from my original world, I knew that these technique manuals were truly deep pitfalls indeed… I would be a fool not to try and sell them to recoup some of my losses (and make myself feel better by making other people suffer instead).

[…Actually, they really are real. I used my power as a Creator Goddess to create a divine miracle and exchange for them. These are the real martial arts manuals from your original world.]

“Then why couldn’t I learn them? I think that I should have pretty good martial arts abilities.”

[That’s because you also need the Emperor Inner Qi Manual and a human body acupuncture point manual before you’ll be able to understand it. Did you think that learning ancient Chinese martial arts would be that simple? A modern-day person like you would be able to read a manual that requires ten different ancient Chinese dictionaries to translate? Do you know where the BubblingSpring ² acupuncture point is? Do you know the names of the Twelve Meridians? And even if you learned all this, do you have any knowledge of Buddhism? This is the highest-level Buddhist martial art technique. Let me tell you, the most basic requirement for truly learning this manual is that you’ve read at least two thousand Buddhist scriptures and that you truly understand them.]

“Then, you could get some Buddhist scriptures and those manuals for me…”

[That would be knowledge from another world which could change the fundamental way of thinking in this world. Sure, but you’ll have to exchange for it by paying one million Fate Points.]

“Then why did you work so hard on creating this manual for me? Just to toy with me? What difference is there from those scamming mobile games that say they have a 1% SSR gacha rate but it’s actually coded to be barely above 0%! I can only look but not touch!”

I recalled that back when I drew this manual out of my gacha, I was absolutely overjoyed, thinking that I had finally gotten some protagonist good luck. I believed that I would be able to use Chinese martial arts to conquer a western fantasy world. But in the end, all those Chinese martial arts sounded really cool, but I was unable to learn a single one.

At the time, I didn’t suspect anything despite this. I had thought that I was unable to learn them due to being unaccustomed to them now that I was in a fantasy and magic world. I figured that they would still improve my overall knowledge.

[According to my records, after you pulled these Chinese martial arts manuals from the gacha, you worked twice as hard in the next three months and earned many Fate Points. You even voluntarily asked me for more Quests. It was so rare to see you so hard-working. I was so moved. That meant that my goal had been achieved.]

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Astrya paused for a moment, and then unhesitatingly told me the painful truth.

[That’s right, I had copied this strategy from mobile game developers. How else would I get you addicted to the gacha if I didn’t give you a taste of something sweet first? Those magic books that you could read but couldn’t actually learn were the bait. The Chinese martial arts that sounded really amazing but you couldn’t use were all to make you draw more from the gacha every month!]

Drawing from the gacha so many times but always seeing what I wanted the most slip right past on the roulette wheel… That disappointment from seeing so many “near misses” transformed into a mysterious rage that burned so much that I wanted to spit blood.

My aggrievement kept piling up. When I thought about how that bastard Astrya had secretly been manipulating that damned roulette wheel all along, simply toying with me, I really wanted to drag her out for a good beating.

I finally felt like I understood Karwenz better. With such a System in my mind that tried to think of methods to make you suffer every day, it would be inconceivable not to want to drag her out and beat her up.

“Tsk, Karwenz even calls Cynthia as Mother. Is there any mother out there who intentionally makes her son suffer so much? Right, Astrya, if Cynthia is the mother of our souls, and you’re Cynthia’s older sister, doesn’t that make you my aun—”

[If you dare to finish saying that word, I’ll sing songs in your mind every day! I’ll sing tragic songs on Monday and Tuesday, children’s songs on Wednesday and Thursday, heavy metal songs on Friday and Saturday, and I’ll continuously incant the song poem that you wrote back when you were nine years old in your original world!]

“I surrender! Please don’t fill my mind with such torturous songs! I was too silly back in the day. I didn’t even have good language skills or a sense of rhythm back then, what good song could I possibly write! And I even tried to make it poetic! I was already quite pitiful enough for being laughed at by my teacher, telling me I needed to focus more on properly studying. Please don’t make me remember that embarrassing song poem!”

As we messed around, I was actually a bit astonished in my mind. I was just casually cracking a joke, yet Astrya had reacted so seriously. I could truly sense how powerfully all unmarried women objected to being addressed as “aunt”.

But, when I thought about it some more, we really were related. Did I just suddenly find a new direct relative of mine?

Yet, I thought about it again, and felt that the Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos had created the entire world. Then, all living creatures could be called their children, so it didn’t matter that much.

[…You really don’t care about it after all?]

Inconceivably, Astrya’s tone actually sounded mysteriously disappointed. Did she really want to have two nephews after all? Forget it, I decided to not think about it. It was all too messy.

While I was messing around with the Goddess of Order in my mind, I was still busy loudly proclaiming the benefits of learning this mystical martial art. I even casually sent out two waves of sword energy to prove my might. And, I was astonished that someone actually wanted to buy the manual!

Everyone else was still hesitating, but a dark dwarf didn’t say a single word as he handed me a sack of soul coins. Seeing that I was hesitating, he actually handed me another sack.

And right when he took the book from me, still without saying a single word, he turned around and ran away as if someone would be chasing after him… And then, I saw the Berserker Demon from earlier who was selling his own services get up and chase after him. After that, several more individuals swiftly went in the same direction. I could only hope that my first customer would survive to enjoy his manual.

“Ah, ptui!”

I instantly retracted my well wish for him as I had once again underestimated how shameless the residents of the Chaos Abyss could be. I understood why that dark dwarf had run away so quickly. When I opened the second sack of soul coins, only a few coins with howling souls were on top, but the rest were all ordinary silver coins on bottom.

“The Blackrock Tribe has good craftsmanship, but they lack top-level warriors. They’re also surrounded by enemy tribes. No tribe will ever sell their own warrior training manuals, so you got a good deal. He didn’t even dare to check to see if you were selling something real or fake. When he saw a Sword Saint selling his own techniques, he decided to take this gamble. You didn’t lose out, because at least the first sack of soul coins was real. If it wasn’t for the fact that I see you’ve enslaved Hakas, I would have thought that you came here just to scam money from the dark dwarves.”

An elderly Onibaba wearing a black cape walked out from among the crowd. It seemed that she was one of the more powerful Onibabas, although I was unable to tell the Onibabas apart by physical appearance as they were all equally ugly.

But judging from everyone’s attitude towards her, she was probably one of the bosses of this market.

“I am Salanlahweisikakatonfolodinlunkaben… My apologies, my name is rather long and difficult to remember. You can call me ‘Black Seven’. No need to address me with honorifics. No, no, there’s no need to tell me your name. Both of my names are fake names. There are many Onibabas here, so anyone who says their true name will be cursed.”

This Onibaba who kept talking to herself seemed rather suspicious, but she kept blinking at me as if she was trying to express her friendliness.

“Someone as old as me is being so sincere. Could a youngster like you please directly tell me your intentions? What do you want? What do you have? What are you willing to pay?”

I laughed out loud when I heard this. Although I was rather disgusted that this old Onibaba had tried to use alluring magic on me just now, such a direct way of negotiation was far easier and more convenient.

I had only set up shop to attract the attention of whoever ran this market. Since my target had arrived, I directly stood up.

“My name is Roland. That’s my real name. Feel free to try cursing me. As for my goals, let’s talk somewhere else. I’m filled with sincerity!”