Infinity Is My Affinity?!?-Chapter 125: First And Foremost

The gentle and cool night air swept over the cliffside, carrying with it the fragrance of the wild as I sat at my desk and stared out at the silver-lit canopy deep within the forest.

The moon hung bright in the night sky, bulging just two days shy of a perfect full circle, washing the endless sea of trees below in a pale, ghostly glow.

I was currently sitting exactly twenty meters in the air.

Instead of pitching a tent on the dirt like a normal person, I had erupted a massive, singular root from the cliff’s edge, guiding the thick wood to spiral straight up into the sky before curling the very top into a perfectly flat, solid platform.

To keep the local Magic Beast population from turning me into a midnight snack, I had also layered the entire vertical stalk with dense thorns dripping with my signature neurotoxin.

It was basically a highly lethal, impenetrable open-roof treehouse that comfortably fit my bed, a sturdy desk, and a wooden chair, all of which I purchased from the System’s Shop.

My copy of Mental Math: The Speed Calculation Framework rested on the corner of the table beneath the little mana lamp. I had been safely throttling my brain and burning through the Chapters up until an hour ago, but now, my focus was entirely on the two objects resting in my palms.

I held a standard, perfectly stamped gold coin in my right hand,

In my left hand sat a tiny gold nugget that I had just literally pulled out of thin air using Metal Manifestation.

I rolled the nugget between my thumb and index finger, watching the pale moonlight catch its surface, before I dropped both pieces of metal onto the wooden desk with a satisfying clatter.

Leaning back in my chair, I let out a long sigh and stretched my arms high above my head until my shoulders popped.

[Okay... A bit more practice and I can now basically print money...]

Throwing the little gold nugget and the coin back into my inventory, I noted how the nugget went into the same slot as the rest of the coins, signifying they’re basically the same thing, before pulling out a new book I had bought on Reinforcement Magic.

[Let’s see if we find something interesting...,] I thought, settling back into my chair.

But just as I flipped to the first Chapter, the familiar melodic chime rang through my head.

-Ding!

{Incoming Party Audio/Video Transmission: Peko.}

[She shouldn’t be calling me for a few more hours now...] I noted, mentally accepting the connection without a second of hesitation.

I wasn’t really worried. Peko was a full tier above Nom-Nom, had an entire arsenal of spells at her disposal, an inheritance that can make any cultivation protagonist jealous, and was a literal Phoenix.

If something was actually threatening her, a phone call wouldn’t be her first response.

As the screen rippled to life, instead of a calm greeting, I was immediately hit with Peko’s absolute, unadulterated glare.

She was standing in the middle of our temporary estate’s backyard, effortlessly holding the massive Emberwake Greatsword in one hand.

But it was the background that instantly made me freeze.

Right behind Peko, Nom-Nom was lying completely motionless on the lawn. Her arms were plastered to her sides, and her entire face was buried straight down into the dirt like an ostrich that had been violently made to give up on life. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

[Wait...] I thought, the memory of our last conversation violently crashing into my overclocked brain. ["I’m going to go find Peko... I need to see how it cuts right now."]

I stared at the unconscious dragon in the dirt, speechless at the sheer stupidity of the situation, suddenly washing over me.

[She didn’t mean she wanted Peko to help her test it...] I realized, barely suppressing the urge to rub my temples.

"Umm... so..." I started, my eyes darting from the defeated dragon back to the very angry Phoenix.

"Did you buy her this sword?" Peko cut me off as she hefted the giant sword toward the camera.

"Yes...?" I rubbed the back of my neck, suddenly feeling the freezing night air a lot more intensely.

Peko didn’t even blink. "For twenty-three thousand credits?"

[She checked the party ledger too. Fantastic.]

"Yes... I can explain..." I tried, offering a weak and thoroughly unconvincing smile.

"Then please do, young master..." Peko replied, her glare somehow dropping another few degrees in temperature. "Because you have been indulging her in every single whim since day one..."

"I bought it to help her with her dungeon dives..." I started, forcing my voice to stay steady.

"Young Master, there is no monster in an E-rank Dungeon that she cannot tear apart with her bare hands," Peko countered with a flat and uncompromising tone. "That is a remarkably lousy excuse for your inability to say no to her."

"That... is not it," I argued, but my hand instinctively rubbed the back of my neck once more before I admitted, "Okay, maybe that is it... a little. But there is an actual tactical reason for it too."

Peko replied with a single skeptical eyebrow through the holographic feed.

"Look, Pantheon will eventually find us. And it is my hope that diplomacy would work... considering we didn’t kill anyone during our escape despite having every reason to... But if it doesn’t..."

I paused, letting out a heavy sigh into the cold night air as I gathered my thoughts. "Well, I’m pretty sure a 3000-year-old international organization like Pantheon has peeps that can hit just as hard, if not harder than both of you... I mean, they literally created you two. And if diplomacy fails, those peeps in question will be fighting us with weapons as powerful as themselves, if not more. Now sending Nom-Nom bare-handed against them would just be sending her to her execution..."

I watched the gears visibly click into place behind her stoic expression, and I pressed the advantage.

"And weapons aren’t exactly something you can just pick up and use in an actual fight against highly trained and armed fighters on the same level as you, if not higher... It will take practice and time."

"I see..." Peko murmured as her voice softened and the sharp edge of her glare finally dulled.

"So it is more of an investment than anything..." I continued with a quick gesture toward the sword on the screen. "That sword, though made of low-grade materials, perfectly suits Nom, and can be repaired on the fly by simply pouring in mana... That means she can make mistakes with it. She can break it a hundred times, and figure out what went wrong, all without us going bankrupt."

I let out another breath, tilting my head up to stare at the night sky while I muttered, "So when time comes, and the brown stuff actually hits the fan, she won’t be throwing hands at dude swinging a blade that can cleave right through her. She would be swinging a sword of her own... and would know how to swing it."

"That... is wise," Peko conceded as she nodded in complete approval. "However, the issue remains that-"

I immediately raised a hand to cut her off. "I know the party funds were supposed to be for Heart of the False Martyr... But by my estimates, giving her a weapon she doesn’t have to worry about breaking should massively increase her daily earnings."

"That is not the point..." Peko said, giving her head a slow shake. "That was never the point. I know both you and Nom-Nom have the removal of the blood pact at the forefront of your priorities... I fully believe in the promise you made me... and each time I think about it, I cannot adequately describe how warm it makes me feel."

I let out an embarrassed chuckle, feeling a tight knot I didn’t even realize was sitting in my chest loosen.

"The point is, however," Peko continued as her tone shifted back to her signature strictness. "You going along with every single thing Nom-Nom asks for will have a tremendous and possibly irreparable negative impact on her in the long term. She will get used to having her way. She will expect to get whatever she wants, whenever she wants it, with absolutely no discipline or self-control to speak of."

I frowned as her words fully sank in and the gears in my own mind began to click into place while Peko pushed forward.

"Young Master, Nom-Nom is not a normal woman," Peko stressed as her eyes locked directly onto mine through the screen. "She is, first and foremost, a Chimera... a mix of a Greater Dragon and arguably the worst accursed entity to have ever been put into this world, a Wendigo. The sheer destruction she is capable of is... inconceivable. So I implore you, she must not be allowed to-"

I cut her off right there, sharply raising my hand as I leaned closer to the projection. "What Nom is first and foremost is not a Chimera, but a woman who had spent five flippin’ hundred years ravaged by eternal hunger, trapped on that island, and experimented on by Pantheon... She is a woman who never deserved any of this... She is a woman who just wants to live a life worth living... a life of freedom, full of friends and family, tasty food... and most importantly, fun. And the world be damned, Peko, I will not take that from her. Not even a little."