Infinite Farmer-Chapter 156: Town

“This is stupid.” Once the storm finally stopped and the sky cleared back to a light, not-trying-to-kill-them shade of blue, Tulland hit his pitchfork really hard on a nearby rock, less as a confirmation that he couldn’t hurt it then as a celebration. The rock broke. “This is very dumb.”

“Why is your weapon glowing, again?” Necia asked.

“It’s reached the theoretical limits of weaponness.”

“It’s a legendary? You lie.” Necia reached out to grab the weapon, which Tulland allowed her to do. The weapon did not. Her hand failed to close around it in a way that at least appeared to be voluntary. “It won’t let me take it.”

“That’s supposed to be one of the effects.”

“I know! I’ve read books about it. This is pretty great, Tulland. Why under the heavens would the System of this world give it to you for a little dinky dungeon?”

“Get this: our System tricked it.”

I did not. I told it everything I was going to do.

“Technically, it didn’t trick it. Just didn’t mention a small detail,” Tulland said.

“I know.” Necia’s mouth hung open. “I can hear it now.”

That was part of what I was going to tell you, yes. Apparently, the System here has washed its hands of you to an extent. It is afraid of The Infinite judging it poorly for what goes on with you two.

“Great.” Necia put her hands to her head. “Just great. This is all the time?”

You can deactivate my ability to communicate with you whenever you wish. If I were you, I’d wait around for a bit.

“Make it quick, then.” Necia put her hands to her temples. “No offense. It’s nice to meet you, but I hate every part of this.”

Fair. The largest part of what I have to tell you is just what I said. I now have limited, uncontested authority over most System functions as they relate to you, within a set of pre-defined limits.

“Meaning what?”

Meaning I can give you very good things as you earn them, but likely nothing like that Produce Press. Not that you’d need it. I did not expect you to get quite that much out of it. That storm was not punishment. It was energy invading the local environment to fill your weapon up.

“That seems bad.”

Just once won’t hurt. But there is a reason why legendary weapons are rare. Anything over a few of them every decade on any given would start to drain down its energy stores.

“I’m going to make Necia’s shield next. Think I’ll have another storm?”

No. It won’t interact with your class in the same way. Which isn’t to say it won’t be very good.

“I’m sorry, but this is all a little mad for me.” Necia shook her head, as if trying to dislodge the System itself. “Can you just tell me if you learned anything immediately useful from the other System? I’ll get the rest of the details from Tulland.”

It would not tell me anything about the problems facing this world. It now knows your origins, and wants nothing to do with them due to the terror it holds for The Infinite. It also indicated you are going in the right direction to reach a town, and should in the next day or so. I think that last bit was a slip-up, but I took note of it.

“Good. I’m turning this off and laying down. Tulland, I brought back some small game that looks edible. I’m going to cook it. Don’t you dare show your face before me without that new shield you mentioned.” Necia gazed at Tulland’s new armor jealously and dropped her current shield on the ground before him and turned her nose up comically far. “I want it to be shiny in the same way. Do not disappoint the princess.”

“Got it. Now, System, anything else that’s pressing? Info I just have to know?” Tulland asked.

No. You know almost everything I do. The rest would be details that would either make no difference or that you wouldn’t understand.

“Then, thank you very much.” Tulland knew the next couple seconds would be a vital period for their relationship. “Absolutely incredible job there. I mean it. I feel much better about the way things are going and that’s one hundred percent you.”

The System sputtered out some “I’m going to see what else I can learn” statements before hurrying off, but Tulland knew he had done his job. It wasn’t even flattery, or an attempt to make the System work harder, or anything cynical like that. It was just that the System had in one fell swoop become perhaps the most important part of their team, and he wanted to make sure it knew that.

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Then, reluctantly, he went to work on Necia’s shield. His hands were still sore from working on his weapon and armor, or at least he believed them to be despite knowing his vitality should have long since mopped up any non-psychosomatic pain he was experiencing. Luckily, Necia’s shield project proved a lot easier now that he had an invincible club in play. Using some truly silly rocks as props, he managed to bend the edges of the giant plate of metal he had saved around the center of the shield, leaving a few strips of black wood visible above and below the large, shiny plate of metal around the center.

“Here.” he handed the item over with no build-up, since he had no idea what it would be to her until she held it. “Did that do anything interesting?”

Necia slapped a plate of food in his hand as she took the shield, then widened her eyes.

“Yes. Very much. It amplifies my active blocking abilities, for one.”

“Active?”

“Yeah. All the stuff I have to do rather than what gets soaked up just because I angled the shield right.”

“That sounds good.”

“It is, although I won’t know how much it helps until I use it.” Necia panned down the rest of the description, then dismissed it with a wave. “As for the rest, I don’t know. It seems like it’s saying it won’t fall apart as easily from the gross enemies around here. And that it blocks pure physical damage a little better.”

“That’s in line with mine too.”

“At any rate, I’m going to need you to get the rest of my armor shiny as soon as possible. How long will that take?”

Tulland winced. “I’m afraid I’m out of Silver Suns.”

“Divorce.”

“We aren’t even married!” Tulland waved his hands in front of him defensively. “I can grow more. Or we can go back to the other farm, if you want.”

“No way.” Necia looked ahead of her down the river one more time. “I need to see that town. Any town. A real one filled with real, normal people. Finish your food and then we are walking there, as soon as possible. It’s been too long, Tulland.”

He agreed. As soon as they had cleaned up their dishes, they hit the road again. They wouldn’t stop again until they found other people.

—

It was just barely dawn when they finally made it to the new village. Village might not have been the right descriptor, even. It was about the right size to be called that, or even a small town. The heavy stone wall around the whole thing made it look more like a fortress, especially when the spiky logs rammed into the earth at uncomfortable angles around the whole wall were considered. This was a defensible area if Tulland had ever seen one, and even though he was pretty sure he hadn’t ever actually seen an area like this outside of the dungeon, the books he had read seemed to combine into enough information to count.

“Doesn’t look friendly. What if they are aggressive?” Tulland asked.

“Tulland, listen. I want to teach you a little trick.” Necia took him tenderly by his armored shoulders. “Whenever you feel afraid of the other kids…”

“Necia.”

“No, I’m serious. Whenever you feel afraid or like people might not accept you, just take a moment to take a deep breath and consider one very important thing.”

Tulland knew he shouldn’t, but he bit anyway.

“And that is?”

“That you could kill any one of them with a thrown apple. Are you ready?”

“Sure.”

They strolled through the open gate, trying to look as nonchalant as possible when wearing big, shiny armor. To Tulland’s surprise, it looked like there weren’t any guards watching it. Something that large seemed like it should have at least one person looking after it, but they were through the doors and into the early morning bustle of the town before he had time to actually ask Necia if such a thing was normal.

He wasn’t sure she would have answered, anyway. One look at her face showed her to be raptured with the effects of the visit even before she had talked to a single person. She was beaming as she looked from person to person, from job to job and from stall to stall like each and every one of them was a long-lost relative returned to life and prosperity.

“It’s so beautiful. Look at them, Tulland. You know what those are?” Necia asked.

“Townsfolk?” Tulland offered.

“People who don’t expect to die. Not everything is easy, not everything is great, but they don’t walk around looking like today is their last day standing under their own power.”

“I don’t think I’m going to die, for the record. In fact, I’ve been trying very hard to live lately.”

“Yes, but you just came out of a situation where you thought you were going to die and the fact that you haven’t sunk in yet.” She hugged her arms around herself and gave a small shake. “Same thing is true of me, too, or at least it was before I saw them. Tulland, we aren’t doomed. Neither of us.”

Do I really still think I’m doomed?

Yes.

You sound so sure.

I am. I hear most of your unguarded thoughts, you know, and I’ve been with you long enough to know what they all mean. Don’t worry about it. That girl has always been a good deal more of an active thinker than you.

Sounds backhanded.

It is, and it’s also true. You will get there. I’ll help you.

The next thing that caught Necia’s attention was a small stand cooking the same kind of game animals she had caught the day before, this time over actual coals on little spits. However they were choosing to cook them, it was clear from the smell they were doing a much better job. Necia’s stomach growled in appreciation of the aroma from the stand, and she looked at Tulland plaintively.

“I’ll do my best. We don’t have money, you know.” Tulland strode up to the stand, looking down on the smaller, older man who stood there. “Hello, sir. We’d like to trade for some food, if possible.”

“Trade?” The old man’s left eyebrow quirked suspiciously, as if Tulland had asked to borrow his firstborn. “Usually I work in coin.”

“It can be a bad trade. For me, I mean. The lady is hungry and asked me to do my best. You understand,” Tulland said.

“Better than you think, but my definition of a bad trade might be a bit different than yours. What did you have in mind?”

“Well, I notice you don’t have much in the way of things to go with that meat. Most of my wealth is in the form of this.” Tulland moved his hand behind him to try and hide the fact that he was using a dimensional storage, since he had no idea how common that was around these parts. He pulled out one of the larger sacks of food he had stored in there, and set it on the counter. “Would that do it?”

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“What’s that? Dirt?” The man opened the bag and almost fell back from it, like it was full of rabid rats. “Where did you get this?”

“This? I…”

Don’t reveal. Not yet. There’s something to learn here.