Infinity Is My Affinity?!?-Chapter 133: Hollow Cinder Mine

I mentally severed the Peko’s live feed, and the quiet, natural rustle of the dense woodland immediately rushed in to fill my senses as my boots crunched against the dirt path.

[Make me an honorary knight so I can fight their cultist war for them? Yeah, hard pass,] I scoffed, aggressively shoving my hands deep into my pockets. [They aren’t even trying to be subtle about it]

I pushed the political headache completely out of my mind, focusing my attention entirely on the massive clearing finally opening up through the tree line.

The Hollow Cinder Mine sat right in front of me.

It wasn’t just a simple hole in the ground.

The facility occupied a wide, deforested basin carved directly into the base of a towering mountain.

To my left, a modest stone Shrine of Amaterasu sat quietly near the tree line, offering a stark contrast to the gritty industrial layout.

To my right sat the living quarters and wide loading docks, stacked with wooden crates and iron mining equipment.

And straight ahead, yawning at the base of the mountain, was the entrance to the actual mine.

I scanned the gloomy, fortified compound, easily spotting a few figures actively moving around the steel barricades near the main cavern entrance.

Figuring that was where I needed to drop off my application, I pulled my hands out of my pockets and took a few casual steps forward into the open basin.

And not even a few steps later -

"Halt!"

The single word hit me like a physical shockwave. It was a thunderous roar that actually managed to rattle the loose dirt right around me.

"Who goes there?"

I stopped dead in my tracks, slowly pivoting on my heel to look behind me.

A massive man stood completely blocking the dirt path I had just walked down.

Built like a literal brick outhouse, his musculature so incredibly dense and compact he looked more like a walking boulder than an actual human being.

He crossed his thick arms over his chest, radiating the suffocating, immovable pressure of a veteran as his hardened eyes locked onto me.

"Daddy dearest, my child," I fired back without missing a single beat, offering him a perfectly deadpan smile. "And I even brought back some milk."

"I don’t like your attitude, boy," the massive man growled, his voice rumbling like grinding stones.

"And I don’t like your ugly mug. Such is life..." I sighed dramatically, throwing my hands up in a gesture of absolute defeat. "But you won’t catch me bitching about it."

The man’s face flushed a furious red.

While I let out a soft chuckle before dipping my hand back into my pocket to fish out my adventurer’s card.

Pulsing a tiny fraction of my mana through it, I instantly lit up the rune with a bright, verifying green glow before tapping my boot lightly against the dirt.

And the next second, a thick, vibrant green root erupted from the soil right beside my leg.

I curled the tip of the wooden appendage into a makeshift hand before placing both my glowing ID card and the crumpled quest acceptance letter directly into its grasp.

With a simple mental nudge, I sent the root shooting rapidly across the ten-meter gap separating us to hold the documents out right at his chest level.

The B-Rank veteran glared at me before roughly snatching the parchment and the card from the extended vine.

But just as his fingers cleared the wood, I deliberately flicked the roots.

The root instantly sprang upward, delivering two soft, highly condescending pats directly to the top of his head.

The man’s eyes instantly widened as he instantly swatted the offending plant away with a furious backhand so powerful that it shattered the root into splinters with a massive, incredibly prominent vein throbbing aggressively against his temple while he glared pure murder at me.

I couldn’t help it. I let out a loud, highly unprofessional giggle.

[God, I love being a mage...] I thought, watching the absolute mountain of a man practically steam from the ears.

"The name is Nico," I introduced myself, casually dropping my hands back to my sides. "I’m your new F-Rank replacement."

The massive man slowly inhaled, taking a deep, highly controlled breath through his nose before exhaling through heavily gritted teeth.

"I am Garek, leader of the Iron Vanguard. And a B-Rank Adventurer."

I instantly froze, the cocky smile on my face stiffening into a block of solid ice.

[I did it again...] I realized, a wave of profound, exasperated self-awareness washed over me. [I literally just pulled the exact same crap I did with the Chief back at the adventurer’s guild.]

Garek didn’t hand the documents back. Instead, he calmly folded my acceptance letter directly over my identification card before casually slipping both of them into his back pocket.

"Now, before I sign off on your little application..." Garek continued with a dark, predatory grin slowly stretching across his face. "I want to test for myself if you’re actually capable of surviving this quest. We are dealing with highly dangerous Accursed here, boy."

He planted his heavy boots firmly into the dirt, cracking his thick knuckles with a sound like snapping branches.

"You get three seconds to prepare."

I let out a low, suffering groan, feeling the sheer weight of my own consequences pressing down on my shoulders.

[Maybe I really should learn to just take a little bit of shit from people every now and then...] I thought, mentally calculating how much it was going to hurt to get punched by him.

Garek didn’t wait. His aura violently flared with a dense, suffocating pressure of a Tier 4 visibly distorting the air around him. His sheer mana made the loose pebbles on the dirt path physically levitate around his boots.

I looked at the floating rocks, then back up at his massively dense, muscle-bound frame.

[On second thought... nahh.]

With a smooth Dominium Radicus, thick, vibrant green roots erupted from the dirt directly behind me before rapidly twisting and braiding themselves together in a wave of motion that seamlessly formed a massive, highly intricate throne.

I simply dropped onto the throne before casually crossing one leg over the other, leaning to the side to rest my cheek firmly against my closed fist, and staring down at him like a bored emperor.

Garek’s eyes narrowed into absolute, furious slits at the blatant disrespect.

"You arrogant little shit!" He roared before crouching down and digging his callused fingers directly into the solid, compacted dirt of the path.

My jaw practically unhinged as I watched him physically grab the ground itself, and with a violent, guttural roar, Garek literally ripped a massive, car-sized boulder straight out of the earth before hoisting the damn thing over his head.

[Damn... well, too late to back down now...]

Letting out a chuckle that turned into a grin, I said, "Come to papa~"