Chapter 17: Grilled Meat

The rabbit from earlier yielded four small pieces of meat in total, which means four servings of grilled meat can be made, restoring a total of 160 hunger points.

With these four servings, Su You had more than enough food for this afternoon’s battle against the Fire Demons.

After all, when fighting the Fire Demons in the afternoon, the main damage would come from the arrow towers. She was just a bystander, watching the show—at most, she’d chip in a little or finish off a monster or two. If her building placement was good enough, she might not even need to do that; she could just lie back and wait to collect the loot.

...

[Obtained: Small Grilled Meat ×4]

As the grilling timer finished, Su You put the grilled meat into her backpack and headed straight for the depths of the forest.

Although she didn’t know the exact location of the Fire Demons, Su You was familiar with their general spawn area.

Open spaces, sparse vegetation, dry soil, and only some low, yellowing shrubs nearby—these were all telltale signs of where Fire Demons appeared.

In other words, it was the presence of Fire Demons that caused these environmental features.

Aside from these, there was always a water source near a Fire Demon nest—whether a stream or a river, there would always be one.

...

After quite a bit of searching—from the forest’s edge to its inner boundary, and then deeper in—Su You spent over an hour before finally spotting, across a small stream, a figure that looked like a walking ball of fire.

These figures were distributed much like the Stone Monsters: scattered in small groups, with the occasional one wandering alone.

Behind them, Su You saw a huge cave. There was no need to think twice—this had to be the Fire Demons’ nest.

“One, two, three...” Su You counted the Fire Demons she could see with the naked eye. When she finished, there were thirteen in total.

The forest was vast, and there was more than one spawn point for Stone Monsters, so naturally there was more than one Fire Demon nest.

Typically, a nest would spawn around 15 to 25 Fire Demons. During the day, about half of them would roam outside, while the rest stayed in the nest to “guard the house.”

In the afternoon, the ones on guard would head out, while those who’d been outside in the morning would return to the nest—basically, they worked in shifts.

Since there were thirteen Fire Demons outside now, Su You could be fairly sure this was a fully spawned nest.

With a maximum of 25, that meant 13 outside and 12 inside the cave.

Having more Fire Demons wasn’t a bad thing for Su You. The more there were, the higher her chances of getting Flame Stones, and she wouldn’t need to keep switching spawn points.

...

After locating the Fire Demons, Su You used the cover of plants to quietly circle around the stream and approach the nest from the same side.

[Spend 10 Wood to build a Basic Arrow Tower?]

Seeing the phantom outline appear before her, Su You felt nothing but calm. She decisively chose “Yes” and placed it in a wide-open area.

[Building Basic Arrow Tower. Estimated time: 300 seconds.]

Building structures was different from crafting items: the former had its own construction timer, while the latter required the workbench to be free before crafting could continue.

So, after placing the first arrow tower, Su You immediately headed to a spot where trees were clustered together.

This was her chosen spot for the second arrow tower.

Anyone else present would have noticed that the two towers were in drastically different locations—one in a wide-open area with almost no cover, and the other squeezed into a gap between dense trees. Who knows how Su You even found a spot for a tower in such a cramped place.

Another difference: the second tower, built among the trees, was closer to the Fire Demon nest, while the first was positioned directly on the line connecting the second tower and the nest.

In other words, Arrow Tower 1, Arrow Tower 2, and the Fire Demon nest were almost perfectly aligned in a straight line.

There was another detail: the straight-line distance between the two towers was exactly the maximum attack range of a basic arrow tower.

With both towers built, Su You took out the fences she’d crafted earlier.

She placed two wooden fences around Arrow Tower 2, with a gate between them. At this point, all her preparations for killing the Fire Demons were complete.

Now, all she had to do was attract the Fire Demons’ attention and lure them over...

Before that, Su You did one more thing: she loaded all twenty-four of her stone arrows into Arrow Tower 1’s ammo slot.

As for why she didn’t equip Arrow Tower 2 with stone arrows—let’s just say Tower 2 was never meant for attacking.

Both towers were necessary for killing the Fire Demons, but only one would actually attack; the other had a special role.

...

To test whether this method for killing Fire Demons would work, or how effective it would be, Su You decided to lure just one or two over first.

With only one arrow tower attacking, if she drew too many Fire Demons at once, even with her preparations, the tower wouldn’t be able to handle them all, and she’d be in trouble.

Using the cover of nearby plants, Su You moved to a spot not far from the nest, but not too close either.

Here, she stopped—any closer and there’d be no cover at all. The lack of vegetation around the Fire Demon nest meant there were no tall plants to hide behind.

Originally, Su You planned to chop a tree with her axe to make some noise and attract the Fire Demons. When they came over, she’d hide, and when they found nothing, they’d return to where they came from.

Because the Fire Demons were scattered and moved at different speeds, repeating this process a few times would separate the ones grouped together.

At that point, luring a lone Fire Demon would be much easier.

But just as Su You took out her axe to put this plan into action, she noticed that two Fire Demons were already walking in her direction.

Su You didn’t know whether this was a coincidence or if something had happened at the nest to send them her way—but her instincts kicked in, and she quickly hid where the two Fire Demons couldn’t see her.

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