**EXTRA LONG CHAPTER***

Tyr felt a wave of relief.

‘It actually worked!’ he thought to himself, glancing at the crowd and then at the merchant.

The crowd clearly loved it. Some even seemed to recognize Tyr:

“That’s the one, right? The one who caught all those petals in one day.”

“What? Are you sure? Inos wasn’t really specific about the guy’s description.”

“He doesn’t have to be! This is the guy, the one who stands around naked in the plum blossom garden.”

“Now that I think about it… you’re right!”

Some weren’t so sure, but nevertheless, it was amusing to see their expectations be surpassed.

The merchant, on the other hand, was silent. Although it hadn’t been long, Tyr could just see the man processing a dozen things in his head at once.

“No… no! This is not right! You cheated!” the merchant turned and pointed his finger at Tyr with a sour look on his face.

“How dare you cheat!” the merchant exclaimed, his eyes darting around to see if the crowd was agreeing with him.

So far, the crowd looked to become silent with confusion and intrigue.

Tyr, on the other hand, wasn’t too surprised.

‘Huh… I guess that explains why he was thinking for so long instead of just admitting defeat. The idiot wants to take away my win… but I got the win through seeing through this bastard’s cheat. He knows it too… so I have the upper hand here.’

Tyr gazed deeply into the merchant’s eyes.

“Did you think before saying that?” he said in a deep tone.

The merchant inhaled sharply.

‘Damn it! This bastard… he didn’t just overcome Mechan through strength. It seems he knows my trick…’ His eyes darted around.

‘If he exposes me, my business will collapse!’

Tyr was also thinking to himself about how to profit best from this situation:

‘No matter how you look at it, this is a silent negotiation,’ Tyr mused, getting excited.

‘And right now, I have the upper hand. Because he accused me of cheating without any proof, I can manipulate this scenario however I want, and he can’t do shit about it since I can expose him whenever I want. Bad move… dumbass.’

Tyr walked toward the merchant, thinking:

‘I won’t expose him… at least, not yet. If I do that, all of my leverage will be lost. If I expose him, he won’t have anything to lose. But… if I pretend to be clueless, the crowd will be on my side.’

“How… how did I cheat? Care to explain?” Tyr said, leaving the crowd also murmuring with similar questions as the merchant remained silent.

‘Damn it! This bastard has me stuck!’

Tyr continued after a few seconds.

“Or is it that you are scamming everyone who plays this game!? Are you that crude of a business owner!?”

The crowd began to get more rowdy as they heard this:

“Yeah! Give the guy his prize!”

“Innocent until proven guilty!”

“Give evidence of the cheating so we know what to believe!”

Tyr continued to press on the gas pedal, beads of sweat forming on the merchant’s forehead:

“You make a ton of profit, but if someone wins, then it’s cheating out of nowhere!? Be honorable, damn it! This is all about honor!” Tyr said, attempting to spin it a certain way.

‘Honor… it drives many people to do many things without really needing to,’ Tyr thought to himself.

The merchant couldn’t take it anymore.

“Fine! I-I… I was mistaken,” he exhaled.

“I got angry… my apologies. It’s just that… I really have never seen anyone defeat that machine before. It is totally my fault.” He bowed his head to the crowd.

‘Hmm…’ Tyr thought to himself as he saw this.

‘Tsk… this isn’t really that good of a situation. I was hoping to make this a lot more dramatic so I can take a bunch of this idiot’s cultivation techniques without any problem. But… if he apologizes and curries favor with the crowd, I won’t really have that power. After all, the crowd is clueless on the real details of the situation. All they are thinking about right now is the actions they are seeing happen in the live moment by the both of us.’

The crowd was slightly surprised at the abrupt apology, it seemed. Seeing this, Tyr shook his head.

‘Damn… it,’ he said to himself as he saw a smirk appear on the merchant’s face that was facing the crowd.

“Wait!” Tyr shouted, garnering the attention of the crowd.

“H-how much of an evil bastard can you be?” He paused dramatically, his face filled with disgust.

The merchant furrowed his brows.

‘What now!? What is he trying to do?’

“Huh? He already apologized!” the crowd began to shout.

“What happened?”

“Despite cheating me… he still only bows his head and apologizes to the crowd! Clearly, this man has no care about his real actions. He doesn’t give a damn that he nearly cheated me out of a victory… no… all he cares about is maintaining a good image and reputation amongst the people! Who knows how this type of dishonorable man will act in the future!”

The crowd was instantly convinced by this heartfelt statement.

“A man should always apologize because he admits his guilt, not because he wants to be forgiven!” old heads among the monks immediately began to say.

Tyr smiled, knowing that this crowd was perfect for this type of mindset.

‘Monks hold honor quite high in their morals, since honor comes from truth. Work for me… honor.’

“That’s right! Apologizing is not about oneself, but another!”

“Don’t be selfish! Do you not have any honor!?”

“How vile… turn your head away from us. You did not dishonor us, but rather, this young man!”

The merchant slowly raised his head and faced Tyr, who was grinning at him.

The merchant gritted his teeth and furrowed his eyebrows, with rage seething through his clenched fists.

‘Demonic bastard… how could he speak such high tales of honor when he knows that of my cheats and is lying right now, pretending as if he doesn’t. I’ll get payback for this…’

“Y-you all are right…” He loosened his fists and squinted his eyes, donning a frail expression of submission.

“Please… choose a cultivation technique of your liking.”

Tyr, however, put on his angry face again.

The crowd quieted down on seeing this.

“What’s wrong?”

They began to murmur again.

“Huh? He’s still angry?”

“Well… just because he got an apology doesn’t mean he has to forgive the man…”

“You think that simply apologizing will make everything okay again?” Tyr said, clearly very upset.

The merchant nearly broke his teeth from grinding them so hard.

‘What the fuck does he want now!?’

“This is about honor!” Tyr exclaimed loudly.

“So what would you like me to do then!?” the merchant blurted.

“Would you like me to give you everything that I have? Over a simple mistake like that!?”

The crowd was taken aback. They remained silent with disappointment and slight anger as Tyr responded.

“No… don’t give me everything you have. Just give me the techniques you have on this wall here. After all… it’s what an honorable man would do…” Tyr said, exaggerating the ‘honorable’ when he said it.

The merchant’s left eye couldn’t stop twitching.

The crowd didn’t seem to disagree either:

“Well… it’s the least he could do.”

“Trying to deceive us and cheat him out of his victory is going too far.”

“You’ve shown your true colors… if you want to be forgiven, do what’s honorable.”

‘Honor…’ the merchant thought to himself at that moment.

‘I swear to all the gods… from the day I leave this wretched monastery, anyone who spews the blasted word “honor” will be cut down by my own hands!’

“It’s yours… all of it is yours…” the merchant exclaimed, his tone utterly devastated.

Tyr smiled.

“It takes a lot of courage to be so honorable. Good for you…”

He faced the crowd.

“Making up for one’s mistakes isn’t easy… I think we should all forgive this man for moving forward and growing as a person, no?”

Before long, agreeing voices and slow claps began to sound, as Tyr turned and made his way to the wall of cultivation techniques.

‘This went better than I expected,’ he mused, his eyes glowing with eagerness as the shiny techniques in front of him danced with glimmer.

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