“What does it do?” Necia asked.

    “Something big enough that The Infinite essentially had to build using all my energy. It does something, I don’t know what, it will take a lot of power to run, and apparently I need to set it up at the very feet of the blight,” Tulland explained.

    “Is that a scared-Tulland metaphor, or…”

    “No. I have to get close if I want it to work.”

    “And do a thing you don’t understand.”

    “That’s right.”

    “Damn. Amrand was right.”

    “Meaning?”

    Necia guided Tulland to food, sensing a split second before he did how hungry he had become in his day or so of guided seed-alteration. He gobbled down food while she explained everything.

    “Amrand asked me what you were up to after you left. I said you had an idea from the conversation you had with him, and were in some kind of farmer daze, and that you hadn’t really been like this recently. He asked if it was like the Liar Grass. I told him it was worse.”

    “So where is he?”

    “He just left. I don’t know where he ended up.”

    “I’m here.” Amrand walked up. “I went to gather some troops. I figured you’d probably need them.”

    “Just like that?”

    “Just like that. It seemed like whatever story is getting told here, it was coming to some kind of end. I didn’t want to waste time if what I thought might happen happened. And I do think it’s happening.”

    “What?”

    “We are attacking the blight. Head-on.”

    He seemed so oddly sure that Tulland had to check on why.

    “You know that how?” Tulland asked.

    “Think about it. We’ve planted your grass everywhere. That’s great, it had an effect, but it’s not going to last forever. We knew that already,” Amrand said.

    “Okay. And?”

    “You’ve taken over a lot of dungeons, which helps the grass, but more are popping up every day. Not just in the outskirts, either. They’ve started to pop up in the grass.”

    “Really?” Tulland’s eyes got a bit wider. “I didn’t think they could do that.”

    “They barely can. The dungeons are a lot weaker. We’ve been clearing them ourselves. But they are getting stronger, bit by bit. And they kill the grass around them.” Sёar?h the n?vel_Fire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

    “They kill it for a mile. If we clear the dungeon fast enough, the grass bounces back. But that perimeter has been getting bigger, too. After a while, the blight is going to have that grass countered.”

    Tulland walked back to the food and made himself another bowl. Sighing, he sat down.

    “So that’s why the town is emptied out. I wondered where everyone went.”

    “We thought it was wise. Everyone who can fight or be useful in a fight is at a meeting place. Everyone else evacuated to a nearby city, with a plan to evacuate further if more dungeons open near them. They are safe enough. For now.”

    “I could make more grass, you know. Better grass. My briars have been through several iterations. The grass could be doing the same.”

    “It could. It might even eventually get strong. But if the blight can do this, it can do more. I got to asking myself what use the grass was, then, if it could all eventually be countered. And it seemed to me that it’s making an opportunity for us. One that’s rapidly dwindling.”

    Tulland rubbed his face. “And you think that means we have to attack? Right away?”

    “Think? I don’t know. I don’t think I believe this. It might be another way. But when I think about the story of Tulland, the kid that saved the world, the next part of it isn’t moving slow until all our advantage is lost. It’s something big.”

    Tulland ate his bowl of food in silence, then stood. “Okay. Fine. You got me. The Aghli System and The Infinite are saying something close, too. How many troops did you gather?”

    “More than you’d think. Less than you’d want. But enough that there might be a chance,” Amrand said.

    “Necia, you are fine with this?”

    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

    “I think so.” Necia stood and wiped the dust from her armor. It shone in the sun, as brightly as her hair. “He’s not wrong. The Infinite sent you as a hero, right? I don’t remember many heroes in the histories who succeeded by doing small things. Everything is pointing in this one direction. Still, I wouldn’t make you do it if you didn’t want to. I don’t think The Infinite would either. There are no guarantees. Tulland, is this what you want?”

    Incredible girl. You know she’s never failed you. Not even once. It was the best advice I ever gave you, telling you to stick close to her.

    Tulland, I’ve known you a while now. I could tell you I agree with most of what Amrand said. He’s making tactical decisions, and his logic is sound. I think I do agree with his plan. But that doesn’t matter.

    You are Tulland. You were always hurtling towards something like this. There’s no more chance of you saying no to a chance to help then there is if Necia abandoning you. It’s who you are, just like it’s who she is. Do you really think that someone could talk her out of helping you, like you think I could talk you out of helping this world?

    Tulland finished his food and checked his farm one last time. The overall score was higher than it had ever been, probably higher in value than any farm had ever been, anywhere, unless it was his old teacher’s garden. In the bonus dungeon, he had learned not to underestimate what she could do, whether she was at a high level or not.

    “All right.” Tulland stood and offered his hand to Amrand, who took it and looked at Tulland hopefully. “Show me these troops.”

    —

    “This is everyone?”

    “Yeah. Not enough?”

    Amrand had led Tulland straight from the town to a hollow above the blight’s home, a low spot far enough down that nothing in the crater-shaped terrain of the capital would be able to see it. As soon as Tulland got close enough to see into the hollow, his breath had caught. There were hundreds of people there. It wasn’t just the folks from the town, or the ranging warriors who had never really settled in. There were dozens and dozens of people he had never seen before, in all kinds of gear and exhibiting all kinds of builds.

    “Honestly, I don’t know what enough would be,” Tulland said. “But this seems like a lot. Where did you find them all?”

    “We put the word out. The scouts went to all the places they knew of settlements within range. You gave us a lot of time, and that compounded.”

    “Still.” Necia stepped up, gawking at the group as well. “Why would they come? Did they not explain to them we’d be fighting an entire army of darkness? Just unlimited baddies and a very limited amount of us?”

    “We made very sure everyone who went out was told to explain that. Even if they hadn’t, we explained it once they got here.”

    “And they stayed?”

    “Of course they did. What did you think?” Amrand shook his head. “You’d do it, right? Show up and help? You could have sat this one out.”

    “Come on. I’m so much higher leveled than anyone else here. Necia is, and she’s not even as far along as I am. You know it means something different for us than them.”

    “That knife cuts both ways.” Amrand turned to look at the army. “This world means something different to them than it does for you. Almost every one of them was adjacent to war or dungeoneering in some way. Those types did pretty well for themselves. Then the world just fell away from them. What would you do to get a world that you lost back?”

    Tulland’s throat grew thick. Even without considering his world, the amount that he’d do just to see his uncle again was impossible to quantify with words. If that was what this was for everyone here, it changed how he felt about it.

    “You can’t do that to me. How am I going to try to talk them out of it now?” Tulland said.

    “Try if you want.” Amrand smiled. “They aren’t going. Now, come on. I want you to meet your support.”

    “My support?”

    “Yes. I’ve got a whole team put together for you.”

    “Rand, there’s no nice way of saying this, but they’d only slow me down.”

    Amrand smiled.

    “Not this team. Just follow me. I’ll show you, and guarantee you that you won’t be disappointed.”

    Tulland and Necia fell into line behind Amrand, who led them to a smaller group slightly separated from the first, where a distinctly less burly distribution of folks stood over paper, arguing about what looked like formulas, their quiet manners doing nothing to cover up the intensity of the discussion. Tulland had seen the same kind of semi-scholarly faces twisted into the same kinds of expressions of near-rage in lots of places. People who worked in warehouses and determined the price to ship and send goods tended to argue in the same way. His uncle hadn’t used the bank much, preferring to keep most of his liquid money in an old tobacco box on his mantle. When he had gone with Tulland in tow, almost everyone working there looked like this.

    The full-nerd impression he was getting from the entire group was strong, but was still thrown into disarray when he noticed that nobody seemed nearly as much in charge of it as Yuri.

    “Tulland, meet the leader of your support group. Yuri, you of course already know Tulland.”

    “How’d you get mixed up in this, Yuri? You don’t seem the type,” Tulland asked.

    Yuri cocked her head to the side, confused.

    “What do you mean, not the type?”

    “I mean… with the paper, and the pens, and the calculations.” Tulland tried to find a very nice way to say his friend didn’t fit in with the bookish kids, and failed. “You know. With the math and all.”

    “Are you saying I don’t seem academic?”

    “Kind of. Although I’m already regretting it.”

    “He really is. Look at him.” Necia touched a finger to Tulland’s forehead and gave a light swipe. “He’s sweating!”

    “I am. And I’m sorry if that’s… you know, if I insulted you.”

    “You didn’t. I’m more of an outdoors type of buffer. Most aren’t. But doing buffing is about keeping track of a lot of vague math mentally, and the better you can do that, the better you are. There’s no way to escape the paper part of it entirely.”

    “Fine. Anyway, you should know more than enough to explain to us what’s going on, right?”

    “Right. So over here,” Yuri motioned at one group, “Are just normal people who buff other people. A few like me who deal in raw energy, a few who do defensive and offensive buffs, that kind of thing. Over there are cooldown reducers, who mostly worked with crafters before the blight came. I know you don’t really know, but can you basically understand how that would work?”

    “They’d stand behind me and either keep my batteries charged or make me hit harder?”

    “Yeah. But there’s another group. See them, over there?”

    Out of all the different people having arguments, the group Yuri pointed to was the weirdest. They weren’t bizarre people or freaky in any significant way, but where the other group would occasionally stop and talk, this group was entirely arguing on the paper. To the extent Tulland could tell they were arguing at all, it was visible in the intensity of how the pencils moved, not in their voices.

    “I do.”

    “Those are meta-buffers. They buff buffers.”