Double EXP, All Mine

Map information is the first thing you check, as a rule, the moment you select a map and begin. You have to confirm the one you picked was set up properly. Otherwise you sink time and effort into it, discover later that the setup was wrong, and end up resetting the whole thing.

And yet, in all my years of Farming World, I had almost never looked at map info. There was simply no need.

I spent most of my time on the main map anyway, and the maps I dug up and tossed aside just as quickly never warranted a glance either. Unless you add mods, map info doesn't actually apply any extra effects. At most I would open it once to check the resource rarity and deposit volume of whatever map I had chosen, or to look at the grade. Beyond displaying the bonus effects of a modded map, it holds almost nothing.

So when I received this map, checking the map info was naturally the last thing on my mind. I play pure vanilla, no mods installed, and I had no memory of ever putting mods on the Secret Farming Map either.

And yet this map had mods on it.

"The Rift Dimension sits above every other dimension. It is where the energy of all life and all death comes to rest, so life grows easily here—and death comes easily, too."

Ruru's useless trivia went in one ear and out the other.

"No wonder it was growing so fast."

A Recovery Herb normally takes five days to bear fruit. This was only day three, and the stems were already stretching out, red fruit on the verge of forming. I had assumed it was a bug.

"She's not kidding..."

A growth-speed bonus of 50 percent across the entire map, stacked with the Recovery Herb's trait of growing another 10 percent faster in spring and summer, had slashed the required 120 hours of cultivation down to 48.

Two days. Sleep, wake up, and by morning the fruit would be ready to pick.

"This is insane."

It wasn't only Farming World crops, either. Haul in ordinary modern crops and plant them, and I could multiply the efficiency several times over. On top of that, I currently held an F-rank Farming ability. As it stood, the ability might as well not have existed, but raising the rank would let me craft all sorts of skills and fertilizers that speed up cultivation. Pile those on as well, and the growth time would collapse.

"Can't sell a thing if I don't have the seeds."

Two days meant I could run the cycle three times over, logout cooldown included. The problem was that I didn't have many Recovery Herb seeds. A full day of cleaning the yard today had earned me five. More than the three from the first day, but still nowhere near enough if I meant to sell them and make real money.

I wasn't especially worried. In Farming World, Recovery Herb is one of those resources you end up buried in. You have to brew your own recovery potions before hunting is even possible, so early on you farm for the herb and only get it at a miserable rate. Let a little time pass and the biome level rise, though, and the drop rate climbs on its own.

The experience option was the real shock.

Farming effects, and better odds of rare and heroic farming rewards, were welcome enough. But experience is the bedrock of this game and the heart of all growth. You can earn it from every kind of action, and with a level 999 already behind me on my main map, level might as well be power in Farming World.

In the original game, that EXP gain effect is a mod whose numbers you can tune yourself, and I had never used it. Not once. That was a vanilla player's pride. Touch a mod even once, and you would never be able to stomach going back.

If I had started that way from the very beginning, maybe. But my main map is no-mod vanilla. Start bolting extras on now, and what would even be the point of playing?

Players who use mods will tell you it's convenient. I understand. I even agree. Farming World has more to offer than pure grind—adventure, upgrading gear. I enjoy those more than grinding myself, so I can't point a finger at a mod whose whole purpose is cutting down repetitive, tedious hours. The company acknowledged as much and built mods into the game to begin with.

I had simply wanted to do without them.

That was why I could keep playing for ten years, and why I could brag about my map with a clear conscience. And if I ever did install a mod, the one I had sworn I would never, ever touch was this one: the experience multiplier. A mod that, merely by existing, shortens the time behind every ounce of effort. Had I played from the start with this +100 percent EXP gain, I could have finished that kingdom in five years instead of ten.

Judging by the level attached to it, it even looked like something I could grow.

"Ha..."

Something I could not accept had been driven straight into my heart, whether I wanted it there or not. In the old days I would have exploded. How dare they dump this shit on my map? I would have deleted it on the spot and dug a fresh vanilla map ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with no mods at all.

"...This is way too good."

But my pride didn't dig its heels in here. Honestly, there was no reason to call it pride, and no need. My head and my chest had already drawn a hard line between the Secret Farming Map and Farming World—reality on one side, a game on the other.

Hadn't Ruru said as much? Some god or whatever it was, the being that held this Rift Dimension, had selected ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a number of testers, myself included, watched us play Farming World, and picked the person it liked best. That person was me, and it had given me the master's seat over this Rift Dimension.

If Farming World had been a game built for a test, then this was reality. There was no need to drag principles I had set inside a game out into the real world with me. I was the one who had already planned to punch through the biomes by the shortest route, because growing fast is good. I had shifted that plan a little to fill out my achievements, but the goal still stood: level up quickly, and turn this map into a kingdom of my own.

"I knew it..."

Hitting level 3 after killing five Big Rats on the first day, then mining resources while I cleaned the yard today and picking off the small hunts on top of that—it had been one of several things that made me suspicious enough to open the map info. I stole a glance ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at what it would take to raise the level of the EXP gain effect.

So it really did come down to this.

Achievements had just become content I needed to chase even harder than I had thought. The Achievement Shop had probably started selling these map effects as well—the things that used to be called mods. The idea was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠genuinely exciting.

Players of Farming World like to say that mods aren't bad, so long as you finish everything you can enjoy in vanilla before you add them. Do it that way, they claim, and the same game starts to feel like an entirely new one. I would be lying if I said I had never considered it.

The map I had raised for ten years was finished to the point that I didn't have to lift a finger. Unless I quit, the only thing left to do in Farming World was dig a new map and start over. I had spent those ten years on final-difficulty maps. Dig a fresh one, and could I really pour that same passion back in?

In the end it came down to installing mods, or leaving the old map where it was and walking away. I had been stuck at that fork when this situation landed on me. I hadn't chosen it—but was this how it felt to play with mods?

"Achievement Points go here first."

Dinner tonight was Big Rat meat again. I was grilling it when Ruru sidled up beside me, watching my face.

"Master..."

"What?"

"...You're not having ramen tonight?"

"Well..."

Wings fluttering, shy as anything—she was the very picture of a foreigner who had fallen hopelessly for instant ramen. Giving her some wouldn't be hard. Grow a single Recovery Herb and I could buy several boxes. But I couldn't do that.

"You don't do a lick of work, and all you do is burn through food?"

"Hngh..."

"If you don't work, you don't eat."

"But I told you where the village was..."

"And that's why you ate yesterday. Snacks included."

This brat of a fairy was good for nothing but navigation. Cute or not, I wasn't about to cram every snack I owned into her mouth. Pay her by results, only as much as she actually worked, and some capability I didn't even know she had might come popping out.

I ignored the scorching looks Ruru kept shooting me, and the night of day three passed.

"The resource deposits are a straight-up cheat."

Resource deposit volume is how much lies buried in the map—the total stock of resources, in other words. It also affects how much you actually obtain when you harvest crops, minerals, and the rest. Below S-rank it means nothing; the effect only begins at SS-rank. A Recovery Herb that normally yields one fruit and one leaf, or sometimes no fruit at all, had borne twins.