Infinite Farmer-Chapter 163: Trust

Tulland put on his clothes, briars, and armor and walked outside to find the old man. He found him sitting with Yuri and a wet-haired Necia around a campfire, eating. Necia got Tulland a bowl of food ready as he walked up, and he took a seat on one of the town benches they had dragged up to the flame.

“Good. You are here.” Amrand nodded at Tulland’s food. “Would you like to eat before we get started?”

“No, just start talking. I’ll start eating. I’ll interrupt if anything vital comes up,” Tulland said.

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“Good. You were asking about the vines. I’ve compared notes with Yuri on the matter, and it appears she came to around the same conclusions I did on the issue.”

“Yup.” Yuri nodded. “The beasts weren’t trying to get through the plants. They were trying to get to them.”

“That… is that possible?” Necia set her bowl down. “Everything you’ve told us so far seemed to point to the blight being a bit mindless.”

“We thought so too. And it still might be that way. But maybe it simply didn’t consider us to be a threat before now. Or to have anything it wanted.”

“And when I managed to stop the energy flow away from the soil here…”

“Right.” Yuri interrupted. “It might have seen that. It’s not getting much from the soil this far from a dungeon, but it’s getting something. You put down a dungeon and grew plants that cut off the energy flow around an entire town in almost no time at all. A few weeks. That’s a big change for us. It might be a big change to it.”

“What does that mean? We stopped the attack. I’ll have most of the vines back by the end of tomorrow. The day after tomorrow at the latest. Is it going to keep trying this?” Tulland asked.

“Maybe.” Amrand shrugged. “Maybe this was just a fluke. But if it wasn’t, I don’t see why it would stop. It doesn’t seem to cost it much to attack us, and it has an entire world to draw energy from.”

“Couldn’t we just take it as it comes? Buy time until we figure something out?”

“No.” Necia shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that. When the enemy has unlimited troops, it can spend them until you make a mistake. You and I would probably get away, but…”

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Necia’s eyes flicked over to one particular side of the town where most of the families with children had set up camp, drawing to each other like magnets to share resources and commiserate in the difficulties of apocalypse child-rearing.

“Got it. Not an option to wait. Then what?” Tulland asked.

“That’s sort of what we were talking about while you two were getting cleaned up.” Yuri walked over and juiced Tulland with some magical power. “Let’s get started bringing those briars back first. No reason to waste magic.”

Tulland walked and ate while Yuri and Amrand laid down their plan.

“We don’t know exactly how the attack reached us here. The beasts shouldn’t have had that much range.”

“They were cannibalizing each other, I think.” Necia made a poofing hand motion. “As each one died, I think it was sustaining the others.”

“Could be. It would explain why there were so few, then.”

“That was a few?” Tulland gaped at the man. “What’s a lot?”

“The kind of troops we saw spilling out of the capital, the day of the evacuation. The king died stopping them at a pass. There was… more. More than you can imagine.”

“It makes sense.” Necia nodded. “If they were consuming each other to make it this far, there were many more before they left.”

“Before we saw the grabbers, the bears could have come from dozens of places. They are among the most common dungeon beasts. But bears and grabbers in the same force implies a dungeon that has both, and the numbers we saw imply a permanent dungeon, a larger space that can support more monsters in general.”

“You sound like that means something.”

“It does.” Amrand pulled his sword and traced in the dirt. “We are here. The capital is here. And here…”

He pointed to a spot a bit off to the left, about a quarter the distance from them as the capital was.

“This is the dungeon. It’s permanent, which means a special thing. I’ve gathered you might not know what, so to save time, it’s a dungeon that produces monsters indefinitely if it’s not completely cleared.”

“Unlike the temporary dungeons we fought, which would have collapsed eventually.”

“Yes. And in the times before the blight, they wouldn’t have collapsed at all. Permanent dungeons aren’t an incredibly distinct concept, besides being deeper and nearly impossible to clear. We think the blight emptied one out in our direction. To crush us.”

“Then we clear it,” Tulland said. “No problem.”

“No, it’s a problem.” Necia took the end of her club and drew a circle, then another much larger circle around it, like a marble sitting in the center of a circle about as long across as Tulland was tall. “If this dungeon is anything like the size of those in my world, that’s the size difference we are talking about. They were huge, and they got more dangerous the deeper you went. Only the greatest heroes could clear them, and even that was unconfirmed since they never tried to do it.”

“Ah.”

“It’s a bit worse than that because we are going to ask you to leave now. It’s a blighted dungeon. It overfills. That’s where the great number of troops the blight would have needed to attack us came from. But right now…”

“It’s empty. I see.” Tulland looked back at the city, where his new farm was growing nicely. It was ready to be staked as his primary farm location now. If it wasn’t stronger than his initial farm in this place already, it would be by morning. “How long will this take, Amrand? You’ve seen me fight, but if this dungeon is thought of as a different space than the world…”

“It will be.”

“Then I need to clear it within two days, or I’ll have to stop and grow a new farm inside of it. That could take weeks. Otherwise, I’ll lose most of my strength.”

“That does complicate things.” Amrand looked down at the big circle in the dirt. “It might be doable. Just. And a dungeon that size should teleport you out when you defeat it.”

“We’ll give it a shot then. We can’t leave the town unguarded that long, Tulland. Who knows what might happen if we do?” Necia said.

“Not just you two. I’ll be coming with you.” Yuri kicked some dust, partially filling in the border of the circle. “If it’s going to be that close, you need someone to hurry things up.”

“It’s not safe.”

“Then keep me safe. Unless you want to lose your powers in there, just as you butt heads with the boss. I’ll feed you enough power to make it worth your while.”

“Then it’s a plan. We are really leaving now?”

“As soon as you can.” Amrand held out his hand. “I mean that literally. Give me your bowl. I’ll carry it back to camp.”

—

Pretty trusting.

The System had not spoken much since Necia, Yuri, and Tulland had left camp. Now it was being coy in a way that Tulland understood meant it disapproved of something.

Of what?

Of other humans. In the dungeon, you would have never told anyone your weakness in that way. What if they burn your farm? It would be difficult for them to accomplish, but surely they could with that much time.

Oh, is that all?

I don’t think it’s a small matter.

“Yuri. Weird question,” Tulland said.

“Shoot.”

“What are the chances someone burns down my farm while I’m out as an act of sabotage?”

Yuri paused mid-step. It wasn’t out of guilt or surprise. She looked like the question had frozen her mind. It took her a beat to recover.

“Are you serious? You think we would?” Yuri asked.

“I don’t. But I’m trying to prove a point to myself,” Tulland said.

“What does that mean?”

“Don’t worry about it. Just do me that favor and answer. I’ll give you one of the orange fruits later if you do.”

Yuri looked at Necia with an unspoken question in her eyes.

“It’s worth it. Better than anything else he can grow,” Necia answered.

“Oh, no problem then.” Hunger having wiped out the last of her reluctance, Yuri smiled. “We wouldn’t do that for a lot of reasons. The first is that not everyone knows. Amrand would have to tell them, and he won’t. Do you know his type?”

“Never breaks a rule?”

“Hates that they can be broken at all. And even if he did, everyone else would fight to keep anyone from doing anything about it. Every person in that camp without exception. The kids too, probably.”

“And why?”

“Because without you, we are all dead.” Yuri looked certain. “We probably are with you, too. Sorry for saying it that way, but the chances are low. But without you? We have a year. Maybe less. After that, it’s just a bunch of starved skeletons out in the wasteland. We won’t hurt you, Tulland. I promise. We have bigger problems than someone who wants to help.”

Does that satisfy you?

The System took a moment to talk, then looked contrite.

Yes.

Then let’s forget that kind of suspicion. We have a dungeon to destroy.