Infinite Farmer-Chapter 141: Battles

System, keep that promise.

I wi….

The System never finished. The dirt man and every other enemy around Tulland crumbled to dust in that moment.

“Finally.” Tulland heard Brist yelling in the distance. “Why’d you wait so long, Potter?”

“That’s not how it works!” Potter yelled. “It’s consistent damage over time split among an entire force. Their numbers had to get pretty low before the damage mattered.”

Tulland couldn’t feel relieved because he simply couldn’t breathe. There was a dirt-filled puncture wound on his nose where the sword had made it a half-inch into his flesh, and he had to roll over to spit out the bloody, muddy results before he could take a breath. Even then, the panic didn’t leave him until minutes after Necia had found him and pulled him off to the side to let his regeneration work.

“Too close,” Tulland said. “It was too damn close. Brist, how are we supposed to get through more of these? We lost more fighters here, didn’t we?”

“We did. As for getting through more, we still have to see how that goes. It’s…” Brist grimaced and looked at Necia. “You tell him. But you did good, kid.”

“What was that about?” Tulland’s nose was just about closed up now, but he kept pressing on it with filthy fingers as the big man walked away. “What did he mean?”

“I’m not sure. Probably a couple of things. My guess of the first is, you know, anything could change. We might have been unlucky so far. We could get lucky next time and steam roll them,” Necia said.

“You think?”

“It’s not likely, but it’s possible. The second thing is a little more grim. You are sure you want to hear it?”

“Yes.”

“Things aren’t going well. We are hemorrhaging people here. There’s about a dozen of us left. And it could be that we are just unlucky, but…”

“But we might just not be up to the job.”

“That. Yes. You had that feeling before, and it’s looking like there’s the possibility it was right. Even if we survive this level, there are still several before we make the next safe zone, presumably all cooperative… it’s just not looking great.”

“How, though? We were so strong before. Nothing could touch us.”

“Everyone feels like this sometime, Tulland. You move forward until you can’t anymore. It’s not gradual. You just hit that wall.”

Tulland felt numb. It felt like it just couldn’t be that easy to write off the whole affair. Necia’s guess that everyone felt this way sometime felt true enough, and he had an idea that things were coming to an end. This just didn’t match up with that feeling he had. It was like trying to shove a square object through a round hole. Even if the hole was big enough to admit it, it still didn’t feel right.

“Maybe. I’m still hoping we can do better. And I’m getting stronger all the time, right? I can turn this around,” Tulland offered.

“Not your job.”

“Maybe not, but someone has to do it. Or else…”

He didn’t finish. Instead, Necia pulled him in a little closer and they sat as The Infinite finally rolled up their success message for the most recent win.

Medium Installment Destroyed!

You have taken out a target of real value, something that significantly effects the total force of your enemies. This target was both difficult and dangerous to destroy, and The Infinite has seen and acknowledged the risk you took in destroying the target.

While taking down one of the larger targets on the field would yield more points and taking down the elite team might yield better benefits, your efforts here have paid real dividends towards your goals.

“All right., Good job, everyone. We can hopefully do better than that on the next target.” White was still slightly cut around his face and neck, which was an unnatural enough thing to Tulland that he had trouble looking at it. “Remember to keep alive first. Prioritize safety. So long as we give him enough time, Potter will take down the groups. But we can’t give him that time if we lose much more in the way of numbers.”

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The next two conflicts turned out to be much better. When they ran into the next group of sentries on the road, Licht was far enough in front of them to give them plenty of warning. They had about half an ambush ready when the dirt men made it to their position, and swept down on them from both sides of the road. The battle took less than a minute, and ended with zero casualties on the human side.

The next encampment should have been a massacre that ended them all. The fact that it wasn’t was a Brist thing, through and through.

“That’s not a great wall,” Brist offered.

“It’s not, Brist, but it’s a wall. Any wall is an advantage.”

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“I agree. I’ll just…”

“Just sit until we’ve planned a little.” Potter nodded respectfully and Brist. “I’m sure we’ll need your strength. Now, they’ve already spotted us, so once we move forward… what in the world are you doing?”

“It’s not a very good wall,” Brist repeated. “I’m going to knock it down on them.”

The wall was more or less a giant raft of tree trunks bound together into a double layer of wood, with a platform propped up internally on the inside for their archers to stand on. Now, instead of waiting for the rest of the army, Brist was running towards it, using the trees around the encampment as cover until he got close enough to launch his attack.

“Dammit. Follow him, I guess.” White motioned the rest of the army into play. “He usually doesn’t move unless it seems like it will work out. We’ll just trust this is one of those times.”

It was. Brist, it turned out, had correctly assessed the wall as rickety, the kind of structure that was barely worth putting up in the first place and thus had the least possible amount of effort applied to making it good.

Brist didn’t even punch it. He sprang off the ground with all the force he could manage and body slammed the wall, bringing his full weight onto it as the ropes binding it snapped and the logs it consisted of fell inwards, nesting inside the far wall and crushing almost everything under a load of wood.

“That killed them?” Tulland sprinted forward with Necia. “Or hurt them?”

“Not a chance. It probably didn’t even bruise them. And they aren’t really trapped. It’s just that the logs are in their way. They’ll have to break them or shift them to get out to us and fight us. In the meantime, we can stab downwards at them, standing on the logs.”

“So it’s an advantage.”

“Yes. Brist just won the battle.”

Mopping up the enemy troops was just as quick and easy as it had seemed like it would be, especially when they burned the dry wood on the ground and made absolutely sure there were no more lurking enemies in the safest way possible.

That night’s dinner was a bit of a celebration as everyone did their best to ignore their losses and be glad that there weren’t even more. Tulland did his best to join in, but found himself tucked into bed a little earlier than most, trying to get a lead on his own worry-induced insomnia.

Tomorrow was going to start with an easy detour to another nothing encampment, one they would bulldoze without any trouble at all. After that, Tulland knew, they’d be hitting another medium target, one that very well might be the end of them.

—

“I’ll take him out, just like the last time.” Licht’s crossbow was aimed at a very weak and isolated-looking soldier guarding a shack. It was just like the last time they absolutely demolished a minor target. “And then we can torch the thing and move on. With any luck, we can get to the next target before dark.”

“Then tomorrow we can begin scouting for the next targets, correct?” Tulland asked.

“We’ll scout for a place to hide first. It would be no good if you got attacked while all your damage dealers were out and about.”

“Good, then. Make it happen.”

Licht’s bolts were fast. Tulland thought he would just about be able to dodge one if he knew it was coming and had eyes on the ranger as he fired it. The dirt mann didn’t have either advantage, and took the bolt through its head just like the last unfortunate shack-guard. As soon as it was a pile of soil, the clean-up crew moved in to set the place ablaze. So far, there had been not a single piece of equipment or provisions worth taking from the outposts, but it had been decided that they’d do a quick check anyway, just to make sure.

Potter was the best at looking at things and knowing what they were, and was in charge of verifying a lack of advantage to be gained from the shack.

“It shouldn’t be longer than a look. Just one moment, everyone, and I’ll…”

Potter never finished his words. A look of shock appeared on his face as his head fell to the ground. His body followed a few moments after.

“Run.” Brist was the first to react as he grabbed Tulland and Necia’s arms. “Run and don’t stop running. No matter what happens.”

The content of the notifications Tulland saw pop up was dire, but what convinced him of the trouble they were in. There were two kinds of notifications. One showed up on a sort of mental list, and could be called up and read at leisure, just as a note or a page in a book could be read. It took time to understand and absorb, just as normal text would. The other kind was used more sparingly, and simply injected the content of the notification into one’s awareness as if they had read it. That kind took no time at all to understand.

The Infinite usually used the second kind. The small handful of times Tulland had seen slow notifications since he got here had almost lulled him into forgetting they existed at all. But this time, for reasons Tulland thought he could guess, it used the first kind.

Elite Retribution Squad Discovered!

Either by seeking them out or just simple, spectacularly bad luck, you have run across the path of the worst of what this floor has to offer. Quite simply, the Elite Squad is not balanced for fairness in combat. It is instead a force built to be retreated from, to test your ability to run, scatter, and otherwise evade a superior force.

While you may certainly attempt to face this danger head on, it is neither advised nor wise to do so.