Infinite Farmer-Chapter 147: Offers

“Hmm.” The Infinite watched as Tulland grabbed back his Farmer’s Tool. “I don’t suppose you’d take an apology. For making you worry. We were honestly very occupied deciding how to deal with… all this.”

“I wouldn’t. You are an omnipotent runner-of-things. Even my System would have understood what was happening. You can’t tell me you didn’t. What kind of guarantees do I have that they’re going to stay safe while I’m here? That something unexpected isn’t going to happen.”

“Pretty good ones. For one, you are unsynced from their time. Something I suppose I should have told you. You also destroyed a certain very important internal defense mechanism on that boss when you stabbed straight through it. It won’t be regenerating nearly as fast now. Is that good enough? I regret not telling you sooner. It just slipped my mind.”

“And yet, the meat didn’t.”

The Infinite looked as if he hoped Tulland wouldn’t notice that little detail.

“So you were punishing me in some way I don’t understand, or else trying to soften me up for this conversation in a way I don’t understand,” Tulland continued. “No, don’t talk. I honestly don’t care which it is. Just know you are off to a really bad start with me. I hope it was worth it.”

The Infinite sighed, pulled out a chair, and sat. “Noted. I suppose we might as well get this started. Tell me, what did you think you were doing as you pursued the Chimera Sleeves? After knowing it would break balance and force a readjustment. Certainly you knew it was breaking a rule.”

Tulland hesitated there. He wasn’t a natural-born scofflaw. Accusations of doing wrong had some effect on him, even before he thought about whether or not they were actually wrong. Luckily, he had backup.

Don’t give him that point. Did you know it was breaking a rule?

I didn’t. Is it breaking a rule?

That’s an excellent question, Tulland. Ask him.

“Tell me this, first. Was it breaking a rule? Is there any rule against thinking hard about the possibilities of your class?”

“There isn’t, but…”

“And pursuing those possibilities? Is it against some cosmic law? It’s something people get punished for?”

“Not usually. But you have to concede you had information from unusual sources on this. An unfair advantage that pushed you to think about that one plant much more than you otherwise would.”

Tulland heard the System literally scoff. Whatever instinctual fear it had of The Infinite, it had almost completely suppressed that emotion for the sake of this argument. If anything, Tulland felt like the System was almost as annoyed with the bigger, badder dungeon-running entity than he was.

Ask him where exactly you got that information. He…

The System went silent, suddenly.

System? Where’d you go? There was no reply. Hello? Are you there?

After a few more moments of silence, Tulland turned to The Infinite.

“Bring him back. Now.”

“I don’t think having three people in this conversation is very productive, Tulland. We can just continue ourselves, and keep things moving quickly.”

Tulland stood up and inspected his pitchfork. If this conversation was about to go as badly as he thought it would, he needed to be prepared to fight. Then, for the first time, it occurred to him just how badly The Infinite had cheated him with this wait. The grace period on his prior-floor usage of his farm was completely over.

Farm Status:

Total Points: 0

That new vulnerability combined with The Infinite’s refusal of his only advocate flipped a switch somewhere in his mind.

“Tell you what, Infinite.” Tulland pointed his pitchfork. “You have until I count to three to bring the System back and to reset my farm status timer to what it was when you dragged me into this place, or I’m going to give you a universal no on anything you are trying to propose, demand to be returned to my friends immediately with no further discussion, and to put in a formal complaint with whatever power is over you. This will not fly. This is not okay.”

“Tulland, just sit down.” The Infinite rolled its eyes. “Do you really think…”

“One.”

“I’m The Infinite, Tulland. You don’t think I’ve had conversations like these before?”

“Two.”

“Do you really want to be forced to sit and talk? I can assure you the process would be much less pleasant, Tulland. Much less pleasant indeed.”

Tulland had talked to the System a lot, by now. If there was one thing it mentioned a lot, it was how dungeon and world running systems were bound by rules. There were limits to what they could and couldn’t do. There were also loopholes for those rules. Lying wasn’t allowed, but misleading seemed to be. Tulland knew that one firsthand, and it made it very easy to notice that The Infinite was phrasing all its quasi-threats in an indefinite, questioning way rather than just saying that Tulland had no choice directly.

“Three. Now if you don’t mind…”

Tulland. Where was I? There was nothing. Absolutely nothing to see or hear.

“The Infinite was trying to cheat me and you were getting in the way. I made it bring you back,” Tulland said.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

“I can assure you I wasn’t trying to cheat you. I’m just worried you’ll make the wrong choice here.” That seemed true enough, at least if The Infinite was really prohibited from direct lies. “I didn’t want distractions keeping you from the goal.”

“Let’s be very clear. That’s your goal. My goals might be different. If I feel the slightest bit of pressure from you in any unfair way, if I think you are withholding any information at all, I’m going to leave. I was doing just fine.” Tulland pointed his finger to his head. “And you are going to get out of here. No more listening in to my conversations with my counsel. You lost that right when you tried to take away my help.”

“Very well. Agreed.” The Infinite looked a bit more sober about the whole affair, now. “As to the question I interrupted, I acknowledge that the information you received was part of a reward I provided, and that you didn’t break any explicit rules in pursuing advancement.”

“Thank you.” Tulland sent a quick mental query to the System, which told him just to keep going. “Then why are we here?”

“We are here because my powers do allow me to make adjustments to classes when they break the balance of The Infinite dungeon, as you have. There’s a minimum and maximum difficulty any adventurer can expect to face, and your little trick with the sleeve assistance has upset that balance more than I can tolerate you continuing on with. Whether you like it or not, an adjustment is in order.”

Tulland. Quickly, tell me exactly what you said to make him bring me back. To the word, if you can.

I told him I’d reject whatever he was going to propose and go back to my friends. Why is that important?

Because he shouldn’t have cared. What he said about the adjustment is true enough. That first change to your class months ago wasn’t something you had much of any say in. Why did your refusal scare him here?

I don’t know. Should I ask?

No. Just keep him talking. Ask him about the imbalance.

“Explain to me why I can’t just keep going. I’ve had vines on my body before. The clubbers were almost always attached to me. My plants have improved my weapon before. Why is this different?”

“Because this is additive to anything else you do. Your Market Wagon is strong enough now that keeping the Chimera Sleeves in stock isn’t much of a burden to you. Even if you don’t put magical reinforcements into them, they are strong enough that they represent many extra points in each of your stats, plus something that stats just don’t do. And that’s if you don’t improve them. We both know you would try to.”

“And? So?”

So unless he alters that ability, you will always be stronger than you should. And you’ve been doing very well already. He can’t dock the rewards and growth you’d otherwise earn. Which means if wearing the vines grants you ten or twenty points per physical stat, you are in effect approaching each level with six or twelve more levels than you should. With the assistance to your ability to fight the vines are providing on top of that from a skill perspective, that’s like tacking an entire warrior class on top of whatever kind of combat class you’d consider farmer to be.

That’s more words than I’ve ever heard you say at once.

This is important, Tulland. Keep him talking a little longer.

“So what’s your plan? To take that ability away and compensate me, like before?” Tulland asked.

“Yes.” The Infinite conjured a pot of tea and motioned for Tulland to take some. He ignored it. The Infinite shrugged. “It’s a large prize, far larger than what you were offered before and much, much larger than what anyone has ever been offered as a compensation in The Infinite at any level. Dozens of seeds complete with an encyclopedia detailing their possibilities. Some of those seeds will make armor and weapon upgrades that will carry you through a dozen floors easily. You’ll be given splicing equipment that lets you make choices about how your plants advance and alert you to failure before you test combinations. You will receive levels, Tulland, both in your class and in your skills. Every one of those skills will be improved in ways beyond levels.”

“Sounds big,” Tulland said. Dozens of seeds alone was huge. The rest of it just served to make the offer more incredibly tempting. “That’s it?”

“Oh, there’s the soil pail, as well. It will be unlimited. But that’s about the size of it. We’d limit the Chimera Sleeves, and uses of plants similar to what broke the balance in the first place. Then you’d be sent back to your friends, stronger than ever.”

This chapter is updat𝓮d by freēnovelkiss.com.

“I have some more questions, I think.”

“You get one. I’m sorry, Tulland. This has already taken too much of my attention from other matters. Even I have an energy budget.”

What do you think? Tulland noticed the System was being very quiet. It’s about what we talked about before. That this offer would be huge because of the difference. It looks like we have that, right?

Tulland, tell me this. Do you trust me? I don’t mean completely. I wouldn’t ask for that. But did you ever come to trust me at all?

Out of the blue, it was a hard question to answer. Tulland realized with a shock that telling the System no would be a lie. These days, especially today, he found he trusted it a great deal. It took every bit of resistance in him to resist that trust.

I think so.

Then ask this. Word for word, ask what I’m about to tell you to ask. See what happens.

Tulland listened to the question, feeling more nervous by the second. The question itself did nothing to calm him. It wasn’t nonsense, but he couldn’t see how it was going to help. He decided to go with it anyway.

“And that would be fair?” Tulland looked as innocent as he could. “It’s a good deal, considering what I’m giving up?”

The Infinite had managed to gather itself after Tulland’s surprise attempt on its life and his willingness to play hardball to get the System back in play. That fell apart now. It opened its mouth to answer, then closed it. He watched as a nearly omnipotent, timeless being sputtered, then slumped in its chair with its avatar’s hands pressed to its temples.

What’s wrong with it? I don’t understand.

It’s why it was willing to put up with your abuse. It took me some time to figure it out. When it adjusted your class on those floors, it was adjusting something that would eventually become obsolete. You would have been able to overgrow some floors, perhaps ten or twenty of them. But eventually something would have had a good way to counter that ability, and you would have been unprepared for that threat.

Balance breaking, but not permanently so?

Yes. The Infinite had to address it, and pay you for the inconvenience. In that case, it was something it could do. But here, you’d have an advantage that would never go away, and that was likely to improve and scale as your performance made you stronger and stronger. It would have to pay you for all of that, and it simply can’t.

That’s a big prize, System. It wouldn’t make up for it?

Not nearly. And what’s worse is that this is the second time it’s happened to an individual adventurer. It doesn’t just have to be fair, Tulland. It has to look fair. Agreeing to the deal makes it fair. Refusing a prize you honestly feel to be massive makes you look like the unfair party, someone who wouldn’t have agreed to anything. There are many workarounds it could count on in this situation.

But when I ask it directly if the deal is fair, all those go out the window, because it can’t lie. Refusing to answer gives me all the information I need, and I can keep asking it the same question until it makes the deal truly worth it.

It’s worse than that. Keep negotiating with him with this new knowledge. I think you’ll be surprised what happens.

“So? Is it fair?” Tulland grinned. It wouldn’t hurt his position if The Infinite. “It’s just compensation, as-is?”

“Oh, come off it. I think you know it isn’t.” The Infinite began rubbing its temples harder, then audibly groaned. “Tell your System that I said well done.”

“So what’s the new offer?”

“What do you mean, new offer?”

“The bigger one. The one that’s fair.”

The Infinite looked, for a moment, like it was going to cry.

“I thought it would have told you by now. No matter.” The Infinite poured itself a cup of tea and sat back. “No use keeping it from you now. I can’t make a fair offer. Not won’t. Can’t. There’s no telling how far you’d go in the dungeon with the setup you now have, and I’d have to pay everything I’d normally pay ten times over to compensate because of how involved I’ve been in your class already. There can’t be a new offer because I simply don’t have the means to pay you what your advantages are worth.”