Infinite Farmer-Chapter 174: Beer

“So, what do you think our chances are, these days?” Tulland asked.

“Our chances?”

“You know. Of making it out of all this alive. You aren’t ever wrong, Necia. What do you think is going to happen?”

Tulland and Necia were sitting under the stars, enjoying a campfire made of the same wood as the stumps they were sitting on. They were a ways from the town, enjoying the gentle green of the growing patch of grass the town sat in. They were hopeful it was working.

“Since we planted the grass, there’s been no dungeons popping up within it. That’s not proof that they can’t, but normally, we would have seen at least one this close by now. I’d say that’s a pretty good sign.”

“It’s just a small island of safety, if so.”

“We can make it grow.” Necia pointed her war club and waved it across the horizon. “The whole continent, just this grass, with little islands of crops inside of it. It could work. Plus, I have this new armor.”

One of the most recent groups to wander into the village had included a blacksmith so thin that he had literally been carried in on the back of his son, a giant of a boy who had also dragged a cart loaded with what the old man claimed were the most precious metals they could loot from a half dozen ruined cities. They offered to trade some small amount of them for food.

Once Necia had explained they could have all the food they wanted for free as long as Tulland could grow it, the old man had proclaimed all the metal hers. Not Tulland’s, for some reason, but hers. When she had handed over her armor and some wood to burn down to charcoal, and the old man had gone a bit crazy.

Amrand claimed that the old man wasn’t that far off when he claimed he had the best metals in the world with him, and that Necia’s armor was probably a step above as a result. Necia herself didn’t really even need the extra protection, but was as relieved as Tulland had seen her to be shiny again.

She was not, however, as thrilled about the new description.

Armor of Radiant, Shiny Love

You have a paramour, an object of your passion in human form. He or she also cares for you, having made armor for you in line with the most ancient traditions of love shared between warriors. These traditions are honored throughout the universe, known world to world by different names but always carrying the same feelings and results with them.

This particular armor is crafted from large chunks of the Dark Steel Cedar, a magically constructed plant of unusual hardness and toughness. As an armor set, it heals itself of all but the most destructive of damage, and will regenerate lost chunks just as it slowly repairs cuts and dents it incurs as a cost of battle. While not as durable as the finest of metals, this wood is a more than adequate substitute for many more mundane and less rare materials.

As a natural, living armor, the Armor of love will absorb magical attacks with a greater efficiency than an armor made primarily of metal would. Where fire should burn or ice should freeze, the armor will do away with much of the ill effects, dissipating them before they ever damage your health.

These effects pale in comparison to the deeper meaning of the armor. As a symbol of love, it burns ever brighter than mere status enhancements could. It is a powerful, perfect reminder of what you feel and, as time goes on, an undying link to what you once felt.

You, discontent to let the world pass by without knowing of the burning passion within both your chests, found a craftsman. He bound the armor in ancient, powerful metals, each pound of which was more valuable than a city. Now everyone will know about the incredible intensity of your undying love for Tulland Lowstreet, Farmer Master.

As before, when you stand within ten yards of the object of your love, the effectiveness of this armor becomes slightly stronger. This effect stands so long as your love remains with the artisan themselves. The defensive power of this armor has been increased, and the magical nature of the metals involved have included them in the armor’s self-repairing function.

“It’s going overboard. Aghli-System, I mean,” Necia said.

“Maybe it’s just stressed. It’s not like it gets to make many jokes. Or talk to many people. This has all been going on under its nose and there hasn’t been any progress until just recently,” Tulland tried.

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“You think he’s letting off steam at my expense? Seems unfair.”

“Hey, you are a tank. You are supposed to be able to take it.” Tulland laughed. “Besides, it’s not as bad as your weapon.”

The Agony of Romance freёnovelkiss.com

Built for you by your soulmate, The Agony of Romance was at first a mundane wooden club that just happened to be made out of the toughest organic material to perhaps ever exist. Once bound by priceless weapons, it became something more.

When you are within potential line of sight of your love (in other words, if you could at least turn around and see them), your weapon gains a substantial boost in both its power and the speed of its movement as your heart beats ever faster with passion.

“Please, please don’t remind me. It’s the worst.” Necia leaned the club on the stump and patted it affectionately. “But as a weapon… Did you see how fast it swung earlier? Still, you aren’t allowed to tell anyone else what it says.”

“What if the blacksmith talks?” Tulland asked.

“He won’t. He owes me eternally for all the food you grew, somehow.”

The moon was now fully risen over the horizon. Tulland liked it. His world hadn’t really had much of a moon. This one was as big as a wagon wheel and perfectly smooth like a marble. It looked like an enormous pearl hanging in the sky.

“I’m going to miss you, you know,” Tulland said.

“Wuss. How did I ever get such a soft boyfriend?” Necia leaned her shoulder on Tulland’s head. “I’ll miss you too, for what it’s worth. You said you’d be gone a week?”

“Something like that. A week or more. I have no idea how long it’s going to take me to run out of seeds. I have pounds of them and I want to put a handful in every place.”

“Think about what this place will look like when you come back. We are going to use half the seeds to make new clumps out in the wilderness, and half of them just to fortify the town.”

“It’s such a weird life, you know? We are fortifying the town with a nice lawn. It’s the only thing that will keep us safe.”

“But it will. I really think it will. Not completely safe,” Necia padded her feet on the grass a bit. “Safer. Even just a bit of warning before things go wrong is valuable, you know.”

They sat around chatting for the rest of the night. Necia didn’t bring up having children again, which meant Tulland didn’t have to hyperventilate again either. But she did talk about where they’d put their house, if they had one. Apparently she had seen a hill overlooking the capital while she was out on patrol, and had fallen in love with what the view could have been, were there not a whirlwind of pure evil swirling away in the distance and filling the world with subtle poisons.

And it was the “their house” that got him thinking about something he hadn’t thought about in a long time.

—

“Married,” Tulland said. “Just like that?”

Tulland was sixteen and watching various people in his life move on towards different kinds of adventures. Just the year before, a family had moved off-island onto the mainland. In retrospect, now-adult Tulland was sure the town they had moved to was probably just as boring as the island they had moved from. To the Tulland of that time, it seemed like everything he had ever wanted but would never be able to get.

Now Klee, a boy only two or three years older than Tulland, gotten married. Just like that, he woke up one day, went and talked to a girl who apparently could stand his presence, and had gone to sleep deep in a life-long commitment.

“Just like that.” Tulland’s uncle gave him an odd, slightly amused look. “Why? You expected it to be different?”

“Of course. You don’t just get married. There’s stuff you have to do,” Tulland said.

“Is there?”

“Of course there is!” Tulland had a small, nagging doubt about that all of the sudden. “Don’t you?”

“Depends on what you mean.” His uncle jammed his fishing rod in a loop in the boat built for that purpose, grabbed a jug off the bottom of the boat, and took a long swig of water. Recorking the bottle, he picked up his rod again. “The most basic version of things is that a man and a woman both agree to it and find a cleric. You can get that done in five minutes if things work out well enough.”

“I guess. Still. Usually, it seems to take longer. Gree was engaged for… I don’t know. Years, it felt like.”

“They had their reasons. Things that needed to be worked out first. Your young friend didn’t. And even on an island like ours, people can be closer than you’d see just walking down the street. Point is, it’s not always the same thing for all people all the time.”

Tulland chewed on that for a while. The nice thing about fishing was that there was plenty of time to have long pauses in the conversation. They were almost expected.

“I just don’t know how anyone gets to that point,” Tulland said.

“Which?” His uncle was back on his jug of water, responding before and after another long gulp. It wasn’t even that hot out. “To where they get married so fast?”

“To where they get married at all.”

“I might be the wrong man to ask. I’m a bit of a bachelor, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed. Hard to miss.”

“Still, I’ve seen it happen to other people a couple times, front to back. And if I’m honest with you, I think there’s usually at least one of them that isn’t sure what’s happening either. They meet, they spend time together, and one day it’s just not something they want to give up. Or else it’s not something they know how to end. That’s a worse way of doing it.”

“I thought you’d have to try harder than that.”

“You might. You don’t look that great.”

“Ha. You know what I mean, though. That there would be more steps, or something.”

“Everyone’s different.” His uncle shrugged, and then, incredibly, went for his jug of water again. “You’ll see that when it’s you. Honestly, I think the relationships I’ve seen that worked out, there weren’t any steps they could have done or missed that would have kept them from moving forward. Eventually, it was just gonna happen.”

“So I should find something like that.”

“If you can. Like I said, everyone is different.” His uncle went for another swig off the jug, then seemed to realize all of the sudden that he was mysteriously unthirsty. “Water?”

“Sure.”

It turned out the jug held beer.