Infinity Is My Affinity?!?-Chapter 112: That Pinkie Promise I Made
Stepping out of the moss-lit cavern and into the cool night air felt like walking out of a fever dream.
I raised a hand to rub the back of my neck, taking a long, deep breath of air that finally didn’t smell like pulverized goblin gore.
The micro-economy carved into the forest outside the dungeon was a completely different beast at night. The pristine Shrine of Amaterasu was quiet, but the rest of the dirt road was absolutely booming.
Massive fire pits roared in front of the gray processing plant; the very air around the place was a mix of cheap ale, roasting meat, woodsmoke, and goblin carcasses.
I trudged over to the exact same wooden table sitting at the corner of the cave mouth.
And the same heavily armored knight I had spoken to this morning looked up from his thick leather ledger, blinking in surprise to see me walking out on my own two feet with barely any blood on my clothes.
"ID and permit," the knight said, holding out a gauntleted hand.
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my adventurer’s card alongside the E-Rank permit, before flashing the card green and handing them over.
The knight checked the dates, looking past my shoulder at the empty road behind me.
"No cart?" he asked, his brow furrowing. "You were in there for the whole day, kid. Don’t tell me you came out empty-handed."
"I don’t have a party..." I replied with a deadpan shrug. "And I’m not a pack mule either. I just came here to train."
The knight snorted as he read my stats on the card, shaking his head like I was just another rich, talented kid out here to stroke my ego and possibly gain some combat experience.
"Signature," he instructed before spinning the massive ledger around to face me, tapping the blank box at the bottom of the page as he returned the card.
I flipped my adventurer’s card runes-first, pressed it firmly against the paper, and pulsed a quick hit of mana through it. And the next moment, the green rune stamped perfectly onto the page, officially taking me off the ’probably missing’ persons list, while the knight signed on the permit, making it no longer valid.
With a curt nod to the guard, I slipped my card and the permit back into my pocket and started down the hard-packed dirt road.
There was absolutely zero chance I was going to haul a cart of monster parts to the Guild’s appraisers.
Not when the System bought them in bulk without asking questions such as, ’Where were you keeping so many monsters?’
Besides, I wasn’t just planning to sell my own kills tonight. I was also going to liquidate the two days’ worth of corpses Nom-Nom had been quietly funneling into our shared inventory while she grinded that E-Rank Dungeon.
I walked past the gear shop, heading straight for the three-story Inn that doubled as the local tavern.
And damn, that place was deafeningly loud, spilling warm yellow light and raucous laughter out onto the dirt street.
And leaning against the wooden support pillars right outside the main doors were two women dressed in heavily laced corsets, actively scanning the foot traffic.
One of them, a blonde, locked eyes with me and immediately pushed off the pillar with a practiced, sultry smile.
"Hey there, handsome," she purred, stepping right into my path. "Looking to celebrate a successful dive? We know how to relieve all that dungeon tension~"
"Ladies, I appreciate the hustle," I said, offering a polite but incredibly tired chuckle. "But I’ve been sweating down in the dungeon for the entire day. Trust me, you don’t want this..."
"We can help with the bath too~" she offered, without even batting an eye as she leaned in.
"Aren’t you just an absolute temptation?" I chuckled widely, reaching out to give her cheeks a gentle, teasing pinch before smoothly pushing past her. "Good night, hun."
She blinked with a surprisingly genuine laugh breaking through her practiced persona as her fingers came up to touch her cheek.
"Suit yourself, handsome!" she called out to my back, her voice bright and amused. "Offer stands, I’ll even throw in something real special, just for you!"
I just waved a hand over my shoulder, pushing open the heavy wooden doors and stepping straight into the chaotic noise of the tavern.
I ignored the stares from the drinking adventurers who recognized me as that same blood-crusted man who came in last night, and made a beeline straight for the long wooden counter at the back.
The innkeeper looked up from wiping down a mug, his eyes narrowing the second he recognized my face.
"Room for the night," I said, leaning an elbow on the counter.
"That’ll be four hundred silvers," the innkeeper stated flatly, tossing a heavy brass key onto the counter. "And try not to put another hole in the floorboards upstairs this time. I know you paid for it this morning, but let’s not normalize it..."
"Cross my heart," I replied smoothly as I pulled a pouch of coins from my pocket and dropped the four hundred silver coins onto the wood with a satisfying thud.
The innkeeper weighed the pouch in his hand, gave a gruff nod, and went back to cleaning his mugs while I grabbed the key and headed straight up the creaky wooden stairs.
The second the lock clicked shut inside my room, the adrenaline fully crashed. I unhooked the shotgun from my back and the harness holding the khukri, then dropped them both on the small table and collapsed backward onto the lumpy mattress while shoving my boots off my feet.
"Alright, System," I breathed out, staring up at the ceiling. "Let’s get to work."
The EXP notifications and stat points were great, but my greatest priority was Peko.
I was completely immune to the Blood Pact we made with the General, thanks to the System.
And so was Nom-Nom, given that she was my Familiar, and Familiars have the right to everything their Master owns.
This also includes limited access to the System.
So, Peko was the only one who was actually affected by the Blood Pact.
And I had made her a Pinkie Promise that I would handle it. And to me, a Pinkie Promise holds more weight than any oath, Divine or otherwise.
"I need two things right now," I muttered, sitting up and crossing my legs on the bed. "First, I need something that’d absolve the Blood Pact on Peko without the General finding out. And second, I need a ’you’ backed means of telepathically communicating with her... similar to how I do it with Nom-Nom.... We need to be able to hold conference calls."
Before the System could generate the catalog, I held up a hand.
"But before you show me the price tags and ruin my night, go ahead and liquidate the entire monster inventory. All of my goblins, Pookie’s carcass, and the two massive piles Nom-Nom dumped in there over the last two days."
-Ding!
{Processing Mass Liquidation...
Total Yield: 42,592 Credits.
Confirm the liquidation?}
"Yeah, now show me the goods," I said, heart beating faster.
-Ding!
{Analyzing query. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂
The Blood Pact established with the target ’The General’ registers as Tier 6 Dark Magic.
Dissolving this tether without alerting the caster or the parties involved requires an enhanced Tier 7 solution.}
-Ding!
{
Heart of the False Martyr (Epic)
Description:
A still-beating black heart engineered to intercept and assume binding magics.
Upon consumption, the organ integrates with the user’s mana signature and flawlessly replicates their unique frequency. Soul tethers, blood pacts, sacrificial contracts, and binding geasa up to Tier 6 are forcibly redirected onto the Heart in place of the user.
To the original caster and all parties involved, the contract remains fully intact and operational.
Notes* Must be consumed raw. Integration period: Immediate. The original caster and all bound parties will continue to perceive the pact as valid and active. Destruction of the Heart will cause the binding to disintegrate/dissolve, with the effects rippling across all parties involved. This item does not nullify contracts. It assumes them.
Price: 172,000 Credits.
}
I stared at the damn thing, feeling the onset of a dull ache throbbing behind my eyes as I shoved both hands through my hair, gripping the roots tight enough to sting.
[One hundred and seventy-two thousand credits. And she has to eat a raw, beating black heart. Of course...]
"Right," I exhaled, dropping my hands to aggressively rub my face. "Let’s put a ’Suggested Reward’ pin on this grossness for now...Gimme the communication thingy. How much to just talk to her without getting caught?"
-Ding!
{Would you like to purchase the [Party Module] for 30,000 Credits?}
[Wait-what!?... A Party Module?]
