Cheat Awakening

"Huh? There\'s something in my mouth! Is that a pipe? And my nose is sealed... Am I really underwater?" Myne, slowly gaining control over his body, felt as if his mouth were open and something inside it. With considerable effort, he moved his right arm to his mouth, discovering a metal mask tied around it with a tube-like pipe in the middle.

"Where the f*ck am I? What\'s happening to my body?" Myne took a deep breath through the tube providing him oxygen, fear, cold and slithering, coiled in his gut. Swallowing a lungful of the filtered air, Myne cracked open his eyes.

Opening his eyes was a struggle. He felt heavy, shrouded in a paralyzing inertia. The sight that greeted him was more nightmare than reality. He was suspended in a chamber but through the haze, he glimpsed his own reflection on the cocoon\'s door which was made of a transparent material, though not a mirror, but still transparent enough to see his reflection and glimpse the outside.

Trapped within a cocoon-like pod, filled with a swirling green-and-black liquid. Tubes snaked in and out originated from the top of the cocoon, one clamped firmly over his nose and mouth, feeding him air with an alien tang.

Outside the surroundings was a dark room filled with similar cocoon-like pod instruments, devoid of any signs of living things—perhaps the luckiest thing for Myne.

"I have to get out of here." Myne surveyed the room, finding no one else present. He activated his Strong Arm, Rock Skin, Power, and Physical Strength Enhancement skills, then punched at the cocoon\'s door with all the remaining strength he had. To his surprise, he could hardly make a dent in it.

..."

"Seems like I have to try another method... If I use that skill, I will surely get out of this thing, but my only worry is that the skill makes too much noise. Better this time, I\'ll control my MANA input.

After mustering up 10% nervousness and 90% excitement, as if a child is about to play with a new toy, Myne first uses the Unbeatable skill to protect himself, and then he employs his most powerful skill.

"Unique Magic・Lightning."

Inside a black room filled with row after row of cocoon-like pods, each 2 to 3 meters in size, connected to a large empty bed-like pod resembling a spear placed in the middle of the room, is visible. The room is eerily silent without any kind of activity...

"BOOOM!"

Suddenly, one of the cocoons bursts open like a balloon, spreading the weird green and black liquid everywhere. Even the person inside wouldn\'t save himself from the impact and kisses the ground quite passionately.

"Woo," Myne grunted, but the groan quickly shifted into a giddy laugh. "I\'ve fallen in love with this skill. If only it didn\'t consume so much MANA, I could probably go rampage wherever I am," He said excitedly while ripping off the mask and yanked the tube from his mouth, then peeled the nose clip from his pale face, savouring the clean air before standing up weakly.

As he gets out of that cocoon filled with a weird unknown liquid, his Ultra Regeneration skill finally kicks in and starts showing its effect. Myne\'s pale face and hollow body regain a bit of vitality, but his stomach is still roaring like a beast in a cage in urgent need of something to feed.

Ignoring his stomach\'s crying voice, Myne first looks at himself. He is completely naked with a thin body, as if affected by malnutrition, revealing his ribs and veins on his hands. The previously growing tummy is nowhere to be seen. His short hair has grown quite a bit, indicating that he was inside this cocoon for quite some time.

"Just how long have I been inside this thing?" Myne wonders, confusion and horror are evident on his face. The question whispered through his mind as he stumbled towards another pod. He wiped away the grime, peering through the transparent wall. Unlike his green liquid, this pod held only a swirling mass of inky blackness, impenetrable and ominous.

Myne\'s heart hammered against his ribs as he swiftly checked the other cocoons around him, each one a swirling vortex of inky blackness.

Myne\'s heart hammered against his ribs as he swiftly checked the other cocoons around him, each one a swirling vortex of inky blackness. "What the hell\'s goin\' on here?" he muttered, a knot of unease tightening in his gut. He was about to move towards the next pod, praying to find Velvet amongst the silent forms when a flicker of movement within one of the black pods snagged his attention.

Squinting, he focused on the swirling liquid, trying to pierce the murky depths. Just as he thought his eyes were playing tricks, a horrifying, skeletal face materialized within the pod, sending Myne flying back with a startled cry.

"Frickin\' hell!" Myne roared, adrenaline pumping through his veins. He braced himself for an undead abomination to erupt from the pod and attack, but to his surprise, the horrific visage flickered, then drifted back into the black liquid with a soft thud.

"So... just a dead body, huh?" Myne gasped, placing a hand over his wildly thumping heart. He took a shaky breath, the scare still clinging to him like cobwebs.

"Are all the cocoons filled with black liquid having dead people inside?" Myne questioned himself. A grim investigation confirmed his suspicions, and indeed, all the cocoons with black liquid had dead people inside.

"¿˖˖⛧⛧¿˖⇲⛧⊢⛧¿˖˖⸝⛧⸝⛧⛧⸝⛧⇲⊢˖⛧⛧˖⛧⊢˖⛧⇲˖⸝⛧⸝⸝⛧⇲⊢˖⛧⛧⊢˖⛧⇲˖⛧⛧⸝⸝⛧?!?"

"Someone is coming!" Myne, who was about to check other cocoons to search for Velvet, stopped suddenly as he heard a weird voice with an unknown language quite similar to the Demonic Velvet language she had used to speak before.

"Damn, it would be big trouble if that thing finds out that I escaped from the cocoon. I have to do something," Myne muttered while hurriedly running toward his destroyed cocoon. There, he first used the cleaning skill to clean all the mess and hid the destroyed cocoon-like pod inside his Inventory.

Then he used the Realize skill to create a fake-looking cocoon with a dummy of himself floating inside the green liquid. After checking everything, he used the Stealth, Concealment, and Illusion skills to hide himself in a dark corner behind a random cocoon.

Myne breath hitched in his throat as a section of the wall swirled open in an Uzumaki shape, and a two-meter tall slug-like creature of obsidian hue oozed its way into the chamber. What made Myne literally vomit on the spot was, instead of the typical hard shell on its back, there was a purple, jelly-like mass clinging to its back.

If it was just that, then Myne might not have been so shocked and disgusted. However, Inside the pulsating jelly, a thin naked human figure was being slowly digested, his flesh dissolving in the acidic bath; many of its body parts were eroded and looked extremely disgusting.

Myne could even see the inner layer of the man\'s skin, but what surprised him more was that even in that condition, the man had a happy, satisfied smile on his face, as if he was having a sweet dream.

••⛧˖¿⸝⛧◆⊢⇲˖•⸝⛧⛧⸝⸝⛧⇲⊢˖⛧¿˖⇲⇲˖⸝¿˖˖⛧⛧¿˖⇲⛧⊢⛧¿˖˖⸝⛧⸝⛧⛧⸝⛧⇲⊢˖⛧⛧˖⛧⊢˖⛧⇲? ( Weird? Everything seems normal; where did that booming sound come from? Could it be from another location? )

(A/N: From now on, every creature Myne encounters will speak in their native demonic language, which Myne and Velvet couldn\'t comprehend. But now since we didn\'t have our translator ( Alban ) with us, I will write the sentence\'s meaning in front of it. )

The slug-like monstrosity, its elongated eyes scanning the chamber with chilling precision, suddenly shifted its gaze. It locked onto the direction of Myne\'s destroyed cocoon, an unsettling curiosity twitching in its slimy folds.

"••⛧˖¿⸝⛧◆⊢⇲˖•⸝⛧⛧⸝⸝⛧⇲⊢˖⛧¿˖⇲⇲˖⸝¿˖˖⛧⛧¿˖⇲⛧⊢⛧¿˖˖⸝⛧⸝⛧⛧⸝⛧⇲⊢˖⛧⛧˖⛧⊢˖⛧⇲˖⸝⛧⸝⸝⛧⇲⊢˖⛧⛧⊢˖⛧⇲˖⸝⛧⛧⸝⸝⛧⇲⊢˖⛧¿˖⇲⇲˖⸝¿˖˖⛧," ( Odd. Has someone entered this chamber without permission? Otherwise, Why else would this pod be so pristine and even the vitality liquid appears remarkably pure? )

The snail-like creature muttered in its peculiar language, leaving Myne utterly baffled, it cast another suspicious glance around the room before sluggishly retreating towards the entryway.

As the peculiar creature exited, the walls exhibited strange movements. Just as the passage opened, it closed seamlessly, leaving no trace of a door.

"Phew," Myne whispered, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. "When that thing looked toward me, I literally thought it spotted me, but thank goodness it was just my imagination. However, the way it observed my cocoon suggests it had some doubts. Without any proof, it could only retreat.

It probably didn\'t take it seriously," Myne reassured himself as he emerged from his concealed corner, and quickly started searching for Velvet.

In total, there were 25 cocoon pods inside the chamber, with a central main pod connecting them all. It took three minutes before Myne finally located Velvet at the centre of the last row.

Like everyone else, she was encased within the cocoon, a tube inserted into her mouth. Naked and suspended in the green liquid, unlike Myne, her green liquid was now 90% transformed into black, only some parts of him retained a hint of green. Although Myne had no idea about the nature of the liquid, witnessing the conditions of others made him apprehensive.

Once the green liquid turns black, Velvet might be in serious trouble, and in the worst-case scenario, she might also turn into a corpse as well like others.