Infinity Is My Affinity?!?-Chapter 152: It Is Time

I stepped out of the shrine, sliding the door shut behind me.

The last of the orange tint of evening had settled over the basin, bringing a crisp wind that immediately cut right through my jacket.

I let out a long sigh, watching my breath plume in the cold air.

[It’s especially cold...]

I had given Mitsuki the capsules, established the ground rules for my own possession, and set the board as best as I could. The rest was just waiting for the hammer to fall.

I walked down the dirt path toward the reinforced living quarters.

The mining camp was entirely dead. The clatter of equipment and loud dwarven shouting was completely gone, leaving behind a weirdly quiet emptiness.

I reached the heavy wooden doors and pushed my way inside.

The mess hall wasn’t packed like it had been this morning, since the dwarven miners were already locked securely in the reinforced basement holds below us.

Only the Iron Vanguard remained upstairs.

I scanned the room, taking in the sheer tension weighing down the hall.

Toris sat in the far corner, checking the tension on his bowstring for probably the hundredth time today like a weird fetish.

Elara sat right next to him, her usual bubbly energy completely replaced by a nervous, knee-bouncing twitch as she stared at the floorboards.

Jian stood near the center tables, slowly dragging a polishing cloth down the length of his blade, trying way too hard to look like a stoic veteran facing his final battle.

And sitting at the main table were the seniors.

Brant, the D-Rank I had dumped porridge on this morning, instantly locked eyes with me before twisting his face into an ugly sneer.

Selene sat beside him, casually swishing her black feline tail in a slow arc.

She watched me approach with those piercing green slit eyes, looking completely unbothered by the atmosphere.

And right at the head of the table sat Garek.

I walked over and pulled out a wooden chair, sitting directly across from the massive B-Rank.

Garek narrowed his bloodshot eyes, leaning his thick forearms against the table as he studied my face with deep suspicion. "You were in the shrine for a while."

"Don’t worry," I offered a dry smirk. "I wasn’t hitting on your wife."

Garek didn’t even blink, his jaw simply tightening.

"Look, I stepped into a puddle of that black goo those outsiders produce out in the forest," I continued, casually leaning back in my chair. "Got some splashed on my face and boots since I was crouching and tailing a stag... Figured it’d be best to get myself cleansed by Mitsuki’s blessing before the whole shit show began... just in case, you know."

Garek gave a dismissive grunt, crossing his massive arms over his chest. "A bit of that goo on my skin never had any adverse effects on me."

"Yeah..." I smirked, leaning forward to rest my elbows on the table. "That’s exactly what your wife said too."

The entire table went dead silent.

Brant’s eyes practically bulged out of his skull. Jian stopped polishing his sword mid-stroke, and Elara let out a tiny, horrified squeak.

Garek froze. The stoic leader routine completely evaporated from his face, replaced by a violent shade of red creeping all the way up his thick neck.

He closed his eyes, taking a massive, shuddering breath through his nose before clenching his hands into tight fists on the tabletop.

"Why..." Garek started, opening his eyes and glaring holes straight through my skull. "Why are you such an insufferable asshole?"

It wasn’t a threat, and it wasn’t a roar of blind rage like Brant’s outburst this morning. It was just genuine, exhausted frustration.

I paused, looking around the table at Elara’s nervous twitch, the dark bags under Garek’s eyes, and the sheer stress weighing down everyone in this room who was just trying to keep their people alive.

Then I looked at my own behavior. I had been acting like an absolute prick since the second I walked into this camp.

The second I came here, I nearly liquidated Garek’s internal organs, then embarrassed him in front of his wife. Even dumped porridge on Brant’s head, even though he had it coming, but still...

And if it all wasn’t enough, I roped Mitsuki in with the whole Entropy thing.

With so much going wrong over the last twenty-four hours, my brain was running on pure adrenaline.

Sitting here in the quiet just made me instinctively want to blow off some steam and have a little fun messing with people.

But here was the hard truth.

If the party you’re messing with isn’t having just as much fun as you... Then you’re not messing with them, you’re bullying them.

I let the smirk slide off my face, dropping my shoulders with a heavy sigh as I looked Garek dead in the eye.

"You know what..." I said, stripping every ounce of sarcasm out of my voice. "You’re right. I’m sorry, I just thought after the whole day, I’d mess around and blow some steam off... But what I said was not okay, even as a joke. So, I’m sorry."

The entire table just stared at me.

Garek blinked, genuinely thrown off by the sudden drop in my usual snark. He studied my face for a long second, looking for the punchline, but he didn’t find one.

Slowly, he exhaled through his nose as the red flush faded from his neck, and the tense line of his jaw finally relaxed.

"Accepted," Garek grunted, giving a stiff but genuine nod.

I leaned back in my chair, wanting to clear the awkward tension. "Those carcasses I dragged back.... I left them just outside the perimeter. Did your guys get them?"

Garek nodded, reaching for a half-empty tankard of ale. "The quartermaster hauled them down to the cold storage an hour ago. You did well."

Coming from Garek, that was practically glowing praise.

He finished the ale, setting the tankard down with a solid thud before looking past my shoulder to check the sky through the grilled windows.

Garek pushed his chair back and stood up, his massive frame towering over the table.

"It is time," he announced, his commanding rumble leaving absolutely no room for debate.

He shifted his gaze across the rest of the Vanguard team. "Everyone except Nico. Grab your gear. We are heading down to the solitary block."

The remaining tension in the room instantly snapped into rigid protocol.

Jian stood up first, sheathing his polished sword with a completely unnecessary, flashy flourish.

"Fear not, Junior," the cultivator declared, looking down at me with his usual manufactured smirk. "Though I am confined beneath the earth, my peerless sword will be ready for a moment’s notice."

I just gave him a blank nod. "Just go to sleep, dude."

Toris didn’t say a single word. The quiet archer carefully slung his recurve bow over his shoulder, adjusted his quiver, and walked right past the table toward the hallway. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

[That guy really has a thing for his bow...]

Elara followed close behind him, giving me a weak, nervous little wave, which I replied to with a nod and a smile.

Brant aggressively shoved his chair back, intentionally bumping into the back of my chair as he walked past, trying to bait a reaction, but I just stuck my tongue out at him.

And that seemed to have annoyed him more than any curse would’ve.

Selene was the last to move. She stood up, stretching her arms above her head with a fluid, feline grace.

Her black velvet tail gave one lazy flick before she turned her piercing green eyes on me, offering no parting words as she simply turned and followed the rest down the corridor.

Garek looked down at me, resting his hand on the edge of the table.

"You sit tight right here," he ordered. "I need to lock them in their Adamantite cells and double-check the locks on the dwarven group holds. I will be back upstairs in ten minutes, and then we will both go to Mitsuki and get the curse placed on you. Do not go anywhere."

"Take your time," I replied, unslinging the shotgun and resting it on the table, "I’m too tired to bother going anywhere..."

The original plan hadn’t changed. The rest of the Vanguard went into their little cages, and I stayed upstairs with the Garek.

He was the final physical failsafe, standing right between me and the front door, just in case his wife’s barrier fell and an outsider hijacked my brain. According to the original plan, if something happened to the barrier, the curse would automatically activate, severing my ability to control my mana. And taking advantage of that, Garek would knock me out cold to keep me from opening the door.

Garek turned around, his metal-plated boots thudding loudly against the floorboards, echoing down the long corridor until the steel door of the basement clanging shut resounded through the empty mess hall.

I sat there alone at the empty table. The faint smell of ale and fried meat still lingered in the air, mixing with the sudden quiet of the empty building.

I closed my eyes, letting out a slow breath as I mentally braced myself for the absolute nightmare that was about to hit this camp.

And just as I did –

-Ding!

{You have leveled up!}

"Huh...?"