Infinite Farmer

"Woof. It's very plain in here." A tiny, very muscular woman with pink hair glanced around the room with disdain. "We couldn't do any better than this?"

"Agreed. Are we on a budget, all of a sudden?" A surprisingly skinny, underfed man clad in fur clothing was rubbing the wall with his fingers, as if he could wipe away the monochrome white to reveal a more interesting color. "This is pretty drab."

"The rooms choose the people. You know that." An older, darker, and more serious-looking woman dismissed the complaints with a wave. "Now shush."

"The Infinite?" Tulland was standing now, with his hand on his new spear weapon. "If so, tell me."

"Oh, calm down." The woman waved again, and Tulland found himself empty-handed. "We aren't here to hurt you, but you wouldn't want to see what happens if you actually attacked us. Yes, we are The Infinite. For what it's worth, we are sorry to intrude."

"I'm not." The pink haired woman plopped down on the couch. "That's just her. You brought this on yourself."

"With the treasure box?"

"With the treasure box, he says." The fur-clad man laughed in a single, barking sound. "Yes, Tulland. With the box. Also because you initiated aggression against a fourth-floor returner almost at the experience cap, and then somehow managed to more-or-less win the fight."

"Less, I'd say," the pink haired woman said. "He didn't get much of what he wanted. But yes, that's generally right. It was quite the floor, Tulland. And we've since learned our lesson about your class. Those treasure boxes are serious business. We are here to guide it, more or less. To prevent troubles for either you or us down the line. And to make sure you don't get Advanced Hoework or something else like that."

Tulland glanced at the old woman, who was now leafing through some papers, then at the other two. He decided to just let them talk for a while. If he were needed, they would let him know. Otherwise, he got the feeling him talking would hold things up.

"Agreed. I think we basically understand what happened here. Now the question is, what do we do about it? Because farmers do not generally find treasure boxes. Even if they did, the boxes would usually just give them some sort of generic skill increase. That doesn't seem fair for someone who looks, well," the businesswoman waved generally at Tulland's entire existence, "like this."

"I don't see why. He's a crafter. Getting crafter rewards isn't something we haven't thought about. We designed an entire track for it, in fact…"

"We designed it thinking they'd be entering as parts of an eventual team. Multiple people from one world entering at once and meeting up at the safe zone. That's not his situation, and he had no way of choosing his class or any experience with it." The fur-clad man made some lightning-quick stabbing motions, as with a spear. "Like it or not, he's a crafter being forced into combat situations. And that won't stop."

"That's the point, yes." The old woman rubbed her forehead. "And we've confirmed that his System gave him the class as a hostile action, not as a best-chance-of-survival decision at all. That's not in the spirit of what The Infinite is, or what it should do."

Tulland watched as the group continued to bicker on what sounded a lot like the philosophy of his own situation. He let them go on for a while before finally deciding to interrupt when it seemed like they had stopped being productive.

"This is all very nice. I mean that. It's nice to know you are thinking of me." Tulland kept his bravery up as the group turned to look at him. "But how does this actually affect me? What's going on?"

"Oh. Sorry." The fur-clad man walked a few steps closer to the couch and looked down on Tulland. "What we are proposing to do is to change your reward from that box. Not much. But at least enough to acknowledge your situation. That was supposed to be a pretty big reward for that rogue, something that would have been a cornerstone in his development. Not that he won't succeed anyway. There's more than one way to win in The Infinite. But it would be a shame to let it go to waste. So long as you allow it, we can get you a bit more than you'd otherwise receive."

"Oh." Tulland grinned. "Yes, please. Could I change classes, actually? I think I'd like that."

"Unfortunately, nothing that drastic. Your class is more or less something you are stuck with, at least in the broad strokes. We've already made an adjudication on the previous levels, something that we don't do very often. In the process, we pulled your power back in a couple different ways without giving you quite as much as you deserved in return. I think so, anyway."

The older businesswoman sat between Tulland and the pink-haired tiny-lady.

"This should hopefully rectify that. It's more of a rebalance, a way to spread the rewards from the treasure box around your class and ensure it viably scales. But you are a farmer, Tulland. Too much of that has sunk into you now to ever change that. It's who you are."

"Ah. But I'd be more powerful?"

"That all depends on how you use it." The pink-haired woman leaned around her other incarnation. "Right now, you'd just get minor tweaks to give you minor things most combat classes have, in a weakened sense. Your regeneration would be a little stronger, and you'd gain some small skill with weapons. Later, as you grew… well, the sky is the limit, kind of."

"That's true of every class. They can all develop endlessly." The businesswoman looked suddenly serious. "There are downsides, of course. You'll have to adjust a bit to how things work after this. Not much, but some."

"And you'll lose an advantage. Do you recall at the beginning of your journey, when your System lobbied for you to proceed at a slower pace? We were already considering putting you at the same pace almost everyone else enjoys. If you let us so much as touch that treasure box and your level rewards today, that will happen now."

Tulland considered that. He had never really been pushed by The Infinite to move on before he had decided to himself. Each level had given him about the best farm he could get before he left it, and had let him get to his already limited monster-kill-cap every single time. He might have to hurry now, but it didn't seem impossible to still get the most out of each level, so long as nothing less changed.

"You wouldn't change the mix of how I get experience? It would still be a combination of farming, killing, and achievements? I don't want the rug pulled out from under me in a way that gets me killed."

"Nothing like that." The man shook his head. "If anything, we are just trying to make your class make sense. It will get stronger because your performance on the last level and the treasure box assure that. But the other changes are things that should make doing your job easier, not harder."

The muscular woman picked up the conversation. "From our perspective, it's worth it to have this conversation simply to get your assent. Without it, you will get what you get. And that might cause… I suppose the word for it would be incremental progress. If we can help it, Tulland, we never want to significantly alter your course again. And that desire is only stronger when it comes to rolling back progress you've already made."

The business woman glanced down at a tiny clock she appeared to have strapped to her wrist and winced. "There's only a bit of time left to consider this, Tulland. We've told you everything you are allowed to know, at this point in time. You need to choose."

Tulland wanted to take his time making the decision, but any hopes of having an hour-long think were quickly dashed as the woman tapped her wrist-clock.

"And if I don't?" Tulland asked.

"Then things continue unguided. This is meant to be a reward, something that compensates you. It still will be, even if it is somewhat less of a compensation than it could have been. Choose."

Tulland looked at the woman, thought it over for a split second, then nodded. The moment his head came up from the downward-motion part of the nod, they were gone.

"Oh, hell yes. Are you seeing this, System?"

I am not. You did not show me. Please let me return to hiding. The Infinite might return at any…

The System had no chance to finish, at least in that place. The room chose that moment to disappear.