Infinite Farmer

In the swamp, the wolves were king. There were some animals that lived there that The Infinite didn't acknowledge as monsters, and not a single one of them could do anything about it when the wolves were on their trail. Today, one particular wolf was wandering through the swamp tracking one of the smaller rodents, slowly closing in on the burrow where it made its home.

The wolf stopped in its tracks as a new smell crossed over the scent-trail the swamp rat had laid down. Whatever this smell was, it was new to the wolf. But it was a lot of smell, as odors went. It came from a bigger animal, one that promised far more calories for the wolf's trouble than the rat could provide. Without much consideration, the wolf left the lucky rat to its own devices and started walking after its new quarry.

Tulland wasn't hard to track. The wolf made a beeline towards him without a single bit of hesitation, coming halfway to the tree he was crouching behind in just ten or fifteen seconds. Tulland checked his armor over one last time, took a deep breath, then stepped out from behind the tree, hitting every single briar on his body with enhancements as he did.

Go. Get him.

The wolf shied back for just a split second as its prey came into view, then pressed its feet into the ground as it sprung towards the promise of easy-pickings human meat that Tulland represented. At the same time, six vines uncurled off Tulland's body and rose to meet the wolf, who had committed far too much weight to the attack to get out of their way as they reached for its fur.

Tulland swayed to the side as the distracted wolf swished past him, barely catching his chest with one of its sharp, hooked claws. It hurt like hell, but wasn't anything Tulland couldn't take, and nothing that put him in any real danger.

As the wolf flew by, it picked up four of the six vines. From experience, Tulland knew the vines worked better when they had a bit of time to orient themselves, to dig deep into an animal without having to worry about its active attempts to shake them off. If Tulland could give them that time with his ineffectual attacks, then it hardly mattered that the attacks themselves sucked. The briars would make up for it.

Tulland pivoted, sending a few drops of blood flying as he spun in place and brought his club to bear in the general direction of the wolf. Like the Forest Duke, the wolf had no way of knowing just how slapped-together Tulland's arsenal was, and as a result had to respect anything that looked even somewhat like an attack. This gave the vines plenty of unattended time in which to work. They contracted just as the wolf attempted to jump at Tulland again, sending it tumbling awkwardly along the muddy floor of the swamp.

Tulland took the opportunity to actually hit the wolf with his Ironbranch spear a few times, then pulled back in caution to make sure he wasn't misreading the situation. He wasn't, that he could tell. As the last two vines wrapped around the wolf, it was almost immediately clear that while two of the strong vines spelled serious trouble for one of these wolves, an all-out attack from a half dozen vines total was far more than they could handle.

It can hardly move. I can pretty much stab it at will now.

Tulland took mercy on the wolf, ending its life with several well-placed shots to its neck, letting his vines feed until it was gone. That was an eerie process. He used to avoid watching the gruesome act, but these days he had taken to watching the consumption in hopes he might learn something.

It was a simple enough thing. The vines were infused with magic power, like almost every monster in this place was. They hummed with it as they worked their thorns deeper and deeper into their prey. The wolf didn't dissolve, exactly. It looked a lot like how Tulland felt when the damage from an attack on a particular part of him attacked his body's overall health. The vines slowly broke the wolf down, making it less and less substantial until it finally began to look faint. What was left of the animal seeped into the vines at that point, leaving only a bit of blood and fur where the beast used to be.

No wonder I didn't find anything of the wolf that the farm took on by itself. That's just not how these things work.

Unlike the wolf his farm had killed, though, Tulland was awake for this one and fully in command of his plants. Where The Infinite had not counted his involvement before, it fully compensated him now, giving him a big burst of experience all at once that turned out to be a more than sufficient to move him to the next level.

Tulland had put five of his points into vitality to survive the first wolf attack before. With two more levels worth of stats on top of that, he was starting to feel that much better about his chances on this floor.