Infinite Farmer: A Plants vs Dungeon

Tulland took a look at his farm status, noting the high number coming in from his previous farm. Just the increase from the Dark Steel Cedars was substantial. He was hoping he could get the farm here to be almost as good.

There was plenty of optimization to do still. His Farmer’s Intuition was seeing things around the forest it thought were especially good and telling him to mix into the soil. A bit of sand here, some ash from an old hunter's fire there, and it was increasing in quality fast. As the plants came out, Tulland pruned them, pushing everything he had towards farm value and quick growth except for a few Chimera Sleeves. His combat inventory was loaded up, and he doubted he’d be able to come back to this place after they left. It was no use creating a productive farm at the loss of farm points.

After the farm work was done, Tulland found himself marveling at how good the average warrior was at waiting. They’d sit around, eat, and joke. They would do light sparring. That seemed to keep the edge off the worst of their worries. Even so, they didn’t seem to have as many as he had in the first place. His nerves were shot within the first few hours of nothing, while they played and even slept loudly, at least not seeming to have a care in the world.

“That?” Brist looked out over the men. “Morale. It’s a skill. Keeping it up over long periods of time, keeping it under attack. Several of those men were actual soldiers, at one point or another. Regardless of what you read in your books, most of army life is walking and waiting. You get a lot of practice at both.”

Everyone ate well that night, courtesy of Tulland’s generous gifts of food. By now, everyone had a pack full of provisions, which Potter assured him was still making a big difference on their overall levels of power. Food was now comparatively cheaper judged against how much experience the average warrior got from each enemy they killed, but with The Infinite shifting to a more level-based awards system, the concept of free food was still significant.

Tulland managed to get his nerves just under control enough to sleep, waking up periodically to douse his farm in magic power before going back to sleep. The next day, he kept on juicing it, adding his pail-soil as it came available. He was focusing the balance on the trees, which needed it the most, but was gratified to see it was still much better soil than he’d get otherwise even as the other plants saw it. The nutrients on the farm tended to seep into each other, especially in freshly tilled soil, and all the plants were benefiting.

Still have the feeling something is going to change?

Yes, and it’s stronger now.

Any reasons why?

Not that I could point to. It might just be because I’m spending more time sitting around and have more time to think about it. But even in the safe zone, I had almost that much time.

Premonitions aren’t always true, you know. Bad feelings are sometimes just that.

I know. Necia says the same thing. It’s just that I haven’t been able to shake it at all. Not even a little bit, and I’ve been trying.

I have a question for you. A hard one.

Shoot.

Do you ever think about the benefit your death would bring your world? Like the others do?

Tulland rolled to his side and looked out at the camp. By the dying firelight, he could see the people left in vague silhouette, wrapped up in their bedding on the ground. The System hadn’t missed the mark in saying that they kept the idea of helping their worlds central to how they saw things. The further they pushed, the more he heard people chatting about it in gatherings, how much the last similarly successful adventurers had helped their worlds, and how they expected things to change. They could imagine that because they had seen the effects of people going through the arch before. It was in all their history books, the first stuff they taught children to get them up to speed on the greatest heroes in their past.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

He had never had that luxury.

No. I think it’s harder because the Church had scrubbed so much about The Infinite. We were never really encouraged to think of it as a good place. Or to think of it at all. And… Tulland paused. Never mind.

No, you can say it. Because you don’t know how I’ll spend it. That’s fair, Tulland. Even after all this time, it’s perfectly fair to worry I’ll use the power you give me in an unwise way.

Is that even allowed? I don’t know if that’s the right word for it. But could you use it that poorly?

There’s certainly limits. I’m a system. I have to believe that everything I do is beneficial to my world in some way. Or, at worst, unrelated.

Which was I? Beneficial, or unrelated?

Both. The big loophole in the rules is that systems are supposed to encourage adventurers to see the arch as an adventure, as something admirable. It’s generally true. The benefit to your world would have been great. You yourself noted how unnatural it is to be denied a class. Yet, that is the predicament most in your world find themselves in. It was never a sustainable situation, but your Church turned a blind eye to it.

You’ve asked me to believe you’ll do better than you would have before.

I’ll ask you to believe it again now. But know this. No way I could choose to proceed now would have been worse than the way things were headed.

Tell me how.

I cannot. You understand why.

Tulland sighed, and for the first time in a long time, cut off communication channels with the System. It was a nice thought, if it was true. If he believed the System, his death really would benefit his world. As much as his raw score probably would have mattered, it would matter even more for a world starved of system energy and that had been more or less stagnant for centuries.

He wouldn’t let that thought comfort him. Not just because the System wasn’t credible. He believed it would try to minimize damage to the world, even at the expense of energy. It wasn’t a sadist, and it would have a very large budget to work from. The real reason was simply that he had made a commitment to himself when he first got to The Infinite, when he had been steeped in trauma and rapidly changing as a person into something he barely recognized now.

Deep inside him, stamped into his soul, wasn’t a commitment to do good for his world. That was nice, and it mattered. It wasn’t his terminal goal. At his very essence, he had decided that he would survive. That he wouldn’t allow for something as simple as a sure, inescapable path to death take him out. That he’d win.

That wasn’t going to change. Tulland was going to win even if it wasn’t likely. He was going to win even if it was impossible. He didn’t know how, and that almost didn’t matter. His commitment wouldn’t allow any other options to be considered.

He wasn’t comforted. Not really. But finally, he was able to drift off to sleep, hoping the next morning would be a bit better.

—

“Up, Tulland. The scouts are back.”

Tulland’s eyes flew open. Necia was standing above him with her hand outstretched. He accepted it and got to his farm first, dumping a big layer of enhancement over the entire thing before running back to the center of the encampment.

“Ten targets so far. All of them buildings, all of them guarded to some extent or another.” Licht was drawing in the dirt, making a series of figures arranged around a crude drawing of a campfire in the center. “Three of them are not possible for us, in my estimation. Too big. One of them is a fortress city. I don’t think we’d have a chance against it even if it didn’t have walls. And it does. Big ones.”

“I’ll trust your judgment. The rest?” Tulland asked.

“Three are shacks. Hardly worth messing with, except when they fall between other targets. I’ll get to that.” Licht drew a triangle between three of the circles, barely bypassing one of the smaller circles he had drawn as he passed it. “These three targets are great. One might be too much for us, but we aren’t in a position to be picky or cautious. We can go to the first one from here, then work around to the other two.”

“That still leaves one target.”

“The fourth target is here.” Licht indicated a circle near the furthest edge of his drawing. “From there, we are scouting again to find new targets anyway. There was nothing else in the search radius that was worth thinking about. The good news is that we can pick up one of the small targets on our way to the first big one, and another one just before the last.”

“Sounds good, then. Does everyone agree?” Potter asked. Nods appeared around the camp. There was no real reason not to go along with the experts on this. “Then we’ll give you a few hours to eat and rest, and then march.”

“Go to your farm now.” Necia squeezed Tulland’s arm. “Dump every bit of power you can until we pass you. I will not have you dying over something as stupid as the size of your plants.”

“It will be okay, Necia. Really.” Tulland’s farm was nowhere near what he had at home, but was catching up quick. “But yes, I’ll do that.”