Chapter 20: Digging the Pit

As long as one of the ten summoned minions is killed, it can summon another, continuing until it reaches the limit of ten... In a way, this is a kind of ""infinite summoning.""

If you really had to fight the Fire Demon Lord, Su You wouldn’t be outnumbered anymore—it would just be a one-sided beatdown.

But that’s not all.

There’s another nasty thing about the Fire Demon Lord: the fire demons it summons don’t drop any loot when they die.

That’s right—no loot at all. Nothing.

Forget about Flame Stones, you won’t even get charcoal.

If you’re playing a character that can level up, killing the summoned fire demons doesn’t even give you experience.

Because summoned creatures aren’t considered independent monsters, they don’t drop loot or give experience. Only by killing the Fire Demon Lord itself can you get the final rewards.

…

40 hours, 36 minutes, and 16 seconds... That was the countdown when Su You discovered the Fire Demon Lord.

After confirming the time, Su You started preparing.

Preparing everything she needed to kill the Fire Demon Lord.

Although it seemed like there was still plenty of time, Su You didn’t want to drag things out. After all, her plans weren’t just about building a territory. She also needed to be ready for the dark creatures’ attack on the tenth day after establishing her territory.

Since building a territory three days from now was already a given, she wanted to do it as early as possible. That way, she could use the territory’s privileges to do even more.

All this talk about how hard it is to kill the Fire Demon Lord is true, but since such a creature exists—and it drops essential early-game items—there must be a way to defeat it.

The Fire Demon Lord has one fatal weakness: it’s afraid of water.

You can tell just from the name—after all, it’s a “fire” demon. Being weak to water is only natural.

And there’s always a water source near the Fire Demon’s lair. This ties back to the “balance” we mentioned before. Of course, this is just player speculation; the developers have never confirmed it, but that doesn’t stop people from guessing.

The hardest part about killing the Fire Demon Lord is dealing with the fire demons it summons. If you can handle those minions, the boss itself isn’t that hard.

Even if you don’t know about its water weakness, you could use arrow towers and take it down the same way you deal with the fire demons. It’s troublesome, but doable.

But since Su You knew its weakness, of course she’d take advantage of it.

While the Fire Demon Lord was still wandering aimlessly nearby, Su You hurried to use her materials to craft a fourth tool.

[Consume Wood*2, Stone*1 to craft Stone Shovel*1?]

[Crafting: Stone Shovel. Estimated time: 120 seconds.]

…

Although she’d planned to use that stone for building the Town Center fire, a string of unexpected events kept disrupting Su You’s plans.

…Worst case, she’d just go kill a few more stone monsters later. Either way, she absolutely had to make this shovel.

Because without it, with what she had on hand, there was no other way to kill the Fire Demon Lord.

While waiting for the shovel, Su You didn’t sit idle. She used her other tools to clear out the open space near the fire demon lair, making sure not a single weed or scrap of debris was left.

By the time she finished, the shovel was ready. Su You quickly grabbed it and tossed a few more pieces of wood into the workbench to start making fences.

With the shovel in hand, Su You immediately started digging—right in the clearing she’d just prepared.

But Su You wasn’t just digging a simple pit.

Most people start digging from the center and gradually expand outward, making the pit bigger and bigger.

But Su You was different. She started from the edge, digging a circle to mark out the rough area, then gradually worked her way toward the center.

The finished pit looked a bit like a set of concentric circles. The inner circle wasn’t dug out—it was left as solid ground, at the same height as the surrounding terrain. The outer ring, though, was a pit three meters deep.

While digging, Su You also left a path leading to the central “island.”

This path was for the Fire Demon Lord.

It took Su You more than two hours to prepare this special trap for killing the Fire Demon Lord.

Of course, this was only possible in a digital world, and Su You had deliberately cut corners by using fences to increase the margin for error. She didn’t bother optimizing the trap, otherwise, if she’d had to do it all by hand in real life, it would’ve taken her at least a day or two.

…

With the trap ready, all that was left was to lure the Fire Demon Lord over.

Although it was a boss, maybe because it was so overpowered, its AI had been “balanced” to a certain extent... To put it bluntly, it had a boss’s body but only a minion’s brain.

So it didn’t take Su You much effort to lure the Fire Demon Lord to her trap.

Of course, there were a few hiccups along the way.

For example, before luring the boss over, Su You couldn’t let it see her. If it spotted her, it would immediately enter combat mode and start summoning fire demons.

If it started summoning before she got it into the trap, Su You would have no way to deal with all those minions.

So she had to sneak and hide the whole way. Luckily, she’d practiced stealth skills in-game for better mobility; otherwise, in this barren area with not even a single leaf for cover, she’d have been spotted in no time.

Once she finally got the Fire Demon Lord onto the platform she’d prepared, Su You jumped into the pit, used her pickaxe as leverage, and quickly climbed out of the three-meter hole.

After all that digging, sneaking, and climbing, Su You’s stamina was nearly depleted, but she didn’t have time to rest yet. Before she could take a break, she had one last thing to do—use fences to block the Fire Demon Lord’s escape route.

Actually, as soon as Su You climbed out of the pit, the Fire Demon Lord noticed her.

As an aggressive monster, the moment it saw Su You, it entered combat mode, spread its arms, and began chanting to summon fire demons."

"21. Weakness

It was precisely because the Fire Demon Leader’s first reaction upon discovering Su You was to start summoning that Su You had enough time to climb out of the pit and then block its path with a fence.

By the time the Fire Demon Leader finished summoning the first Fire Demon Minion, Su You was already fully prepared.

As for that newly summoned Fire Demon Minion, somehow it ended up right at the bottom of the pit Su You had just dug.

The whole point of Su You setting up this trap was that the Fire Demon Leader was a monster focused on summoning, not attacking. So as long as she trapped it, it would just keep summoning.

And the monsters it summoned would usually appear near the Fire Demon Leader itself… So Su You had left a single spot at the very center just for the leader, with pits dug all around it. That way, whenever it summoned a minion, the new monster would spawn at the bottom of a pit. All Su You had to do now was wait.

Once the Fire Demon Leader summoned ten minions, it would have no more tricks up its sleeve.

At that point, all ten summoned Fire Demon Minions would be stuck in the pit, and all Su You had to do was deal with the Fire Demon Leader directly.

Once the Fire Demon Leader died, all the minions it had summoned would die automatically as well—she wouldn’t have to do anything else.

…

Although she was “waiting,” it wasn’t just idle waiting.

A three-meter-deep pit isn’t exactly deep, but not that shallow either. These Fire Demon Minions couldn’t climb out on their own, but if they were smart enough to stack up, like forming a human pyramid, they might still find a way out.

So, if possible, the pit should be at least five meters deep… If not deeper, then at least wide enough so the minions couldn’t cluster together.

Because of their AI, these Fire Demon Minions wouldn’t actively try to climb out. Only when they were forced together would they possibly start stacking up.

But if the pit was big enough, they’d just wander around separately and wouldn’t “accidentally” discover that they could escape by working together.

But whether it was digging deeper or wider, Su You obviously didn’t have the time or resources for that right now, so she could only block their escape by other means.

Thanks to the Fire Demon Leader’s tireless summoning, there were now six Fire Demon Minions in the pit. Since there was no extra space around the leader, the summoned minions could only be forced to spawn in the pit.

Su You glanced at the Fire Demon Leader, who was still busy summoning, and then turned her attention to the minions in the pit.

With only four or five minions, space was still manageable. But once there were more than five, things started getting crowded.

As they jostled for space, the “human pyramid” situation Su You had anticipated finally happened.

Two minions got pushed together. Maybe because one of them was being squeezed and couldn’t move, it let out an irritated roar. First, it tried shoving the other minion, but when that didn’t work, it started trying to push all the others down to make more room for itself.

In the process of shoving each other, one minion managed to climb up onto another’s head. With the two stacked, they were nearly four meters high—enough for the one on top to climb out of the three-meter pit.

But just as that minion thought it could finally “escape from hell” and started waving its arms in excitement, it found its way blocked by a wooden fence…

Su You calmly watched as the minion, frustrated by the fence blocking its escape, grew even more agitated, and then she placed a second fence.

She still had two fences left over from earlier preparations, and just to be safe, she’d brought all her wood with her… Enough to make over twenty fences—more than enough to circle the pit one and a half times. She was well prepared.

But to save materials, Su You only made five fences for now, plus the one left over from before (she’d used one to block the Fire Demon Leader’s retreat). Whenever she saw a minion about to climb out, she’d place a fence at the spot where it might escape.

Like this, by the time Su You was down to her last two fences, the Fire Demon Leader finally finished summoning.

During the summoning process, the leader was completely absorbed and had no idea what was happening outside. Now that it was done, it finally saw that both it and all its summoned minions were trapped.

Facing the Fire Demon Leader’s furious glare, Su You gave it a taunting smile, then placed her last two fences around the pit. At the same time, she destroyed the fence blocking the leader’s path.

With no minions left, even the wildest Fire Demon Leader was nothing to fear in Su You’s eyes.

Maybe it was because it realized it had been tricked, or maybe it was Su You’s provocation, but as soon as the fence disappeared, the Fire Demon Leader charged straight at her, clearly intending to deal with this troublesome human personally.

Although the Fire Demon Leader wasn’t particularly strong, Su You still couldn’t take it head-on, so as soon as it attacked, she turned and ran.

She ran straight toward the spot where she’d set up an arrow tower and successfully killed twelve Fire Demon Minions earlier.

…

Ten minutes later, Su You, panting heavily, looked at the Fire Demon Leader, which had gone berserk after being trapped again. She leaned against a tree to catch her breath, then took out the fences she’d made on the way and completely surrounded Arrow Tower 2, making sure the leader couldn’t break through and escape.

After quickly replenishing her hunger bar, which had dropped from all the running, Su You took a stone knife and another item out of her backpack, ready to act.

The other item was a few cups filled with water.

Su You took out the water she’d prepared earlier and splashed it at the Fire Demon Leader.

She’d collected this water from a nearby stream while digging the pit, and the cups were wooden ones she’d made herself.

To make sure she had enough water to trigger the Fire Demon Leader’s “Weakness” debuff, Su You had prepared three wooden cups—enough for three full splashes.

The moment the water from the cup hit it, the Fire Demon Leader let out a howl of pain. It looked to be in great agony, and its attacks against the wooden fence clearly slowed down and weakened."

"22. Flame Stone

At this moment, the Fire Demon Leader looked just like a fire that had been doused with water—on the verge of dying. If it weren’t for the fact that its HP still showed 500/500, you’d really think it was about to drop dead.

Before activating the arrow tower to launch a full assault, Su You first checked the Fire Demon Leader’s status. Once she confirmed it was in a weakened state, she turned on the arrow tower’s attack.

[Weakened Fire Demon Leader]: The Fire Demon Leader’s power comes from fire. Water weakens its strength, greatly reducing its defense and attack. However, after the weakened state ends, the Fire Demon Leader will become even stronger. (Duration: 180 seconds. Cooldown: 24 hours.)

With a full understanding of the Fire Demon Leader’s stats, Su You could translate this in more detail—

After being splashed with water, the Fire Demon Leader will only deal 1 point of damage to enemies and its defense drops to zero for three minutes. However, this state can only be triggered once every 24 hours.

Also, if the Fire Demon Leader isn’t killed within those three minutes, it will gain a buff that makes it even stronger.

Just how strong that buff is remains to be seen, but one thing’s for sure: if you can’t finish off the Fire Demon Leader within three minutes, your best bet is to run before the weakened state ends.

One more thing to note: the Fire Demon Leader can still summon minions while weakened. The summoning is slow, but it’s still possible.

And only the Fire Demon Leader is afraid of water—the regular Fire Demons aren’t. Water has no negative effect on them. That’s why Su You had to wait for the Fire Demon Leader to summon its minions first, then lure it here to finish it off.

As soon as she saw the Fire Demon Leader enter its weakened state, Su You immediately activated the arrow tower and joined in the attack herself with a stone knife.

Now that the Fire Demon Leader was weakened, its defense and dodge were both zero. That meant every arrow from the tower would hit and deal the full 15 points of damage.

There were 19 arrows in total, each dealing 15 damage, for a total of 285 points. But the Fire Demon Leader had 500 HP, so after all the arrows were used, it would still have 215 HP left.

Since she hadn’t prepared extra arrows and couldn’t retrieve the used ones until the boss was dead, Su You had no choice but to finish it off herself.

But the Fire Demon Leader was so weak now that it couldn’t dodge attacks from the arrow tower or Su You. And when it tried to attack her, it was so slow that she could easily dodge.

Even if she didn’t dodge, with its attack power reduced to just 1, even if it managed to scratch her, it would only deal 1 point of damage—and there was a good chance it wouldn’t hurt her at all.

In this state, the Fire Demon Leader was basically a punching bag—one that couldn’t fight back or even curse at her (not that Su You would understand it anyway).

-10

-15

-20 (Critical Hit)!

Seeing the critical hit, Su You paused for a moment, then continued attacking the Fire Demon Leader.

The stone knife dealt 10 damage per hit. Without any special equipment or buffs, a critical hit would double that to 20.

Critical hits partly depend on luck, but also on the gap between attack and defense—the bigger the gap, the higher the chance of a crit.

With the Fire Demon Leader’s defense at zero, it wasn’t surprising that Su You landed a critical hit after just two swings.

But even without crits, three minutes was more than enough for Su You to attack the Fire Demon Leader 22 times and drain its HP to zero. The critical hit was just icing on the cake.

...

In less than three minutes—actually, not even two—the Fire Demon Leader let out a final wail and collapsed, completely lifeless.

Maybe it was because lord players weren’t really cut out for combat, but even after beating up a punching bag (?), Su You still felt a bit exhausted.

Still, no matter how tired she was, the moment the Fire Demon Leader fell, Su You immediately opened the gate, used her stone knife to cut open its chest, and dug out a red stone about the size of her palm.

As she looked at the red stone in her hand, information about it appeared before her eyes.

[Flame Stone]

Category: Material

Quality: Green

Description: A material dropped by fire-type monsters. Can be used to craft items or build the City Core Fire... It’s said that the Flame Stone burns eternally, its flame never extinguished.

...

This red stone was the Flame Stone.

The reason the Fire Demon Leader always drops a Flame Stone is because its “heart” is a Flame Stone.

Regular Fire Demons are incomplete evolutions of fire-type monsters, so only a rare few, the so-called “chosen ones,” will drop a Flame Stone.

Unlike regular Fire Demons, whose bodies turn to smoke and vanish instantly upon death, the Fire Demon Leader’s corpse remains for a while.

This time is not just for players to collect the Flame Stone—it’s also a test of luck.

A test of luck...

Su You: Heh.

She tossed the Flame Stone into her backpack, then carefully examined the Fire Demon Leader’s corpse from top to bottom. For some reason, despite being a corpse, it didn’t look scary at all—probably because anything that needed to be censored had already been censored.

After looking it over for a while, Su You didn’t hesitate any longer and started searching the Fire Demon Leader’s body.

She had five minutes to search, but Su You only needed three to strip the Fire Demon Leader clean. In the end, she wasn’t sure if it was because there was nothing left to find, or if the system couldn’t stand the sight of a nearly “streaking” Fire Demon Leader polluting the land. Either way, not long after she stopped, the corpse disappeared.

The moment it vanished, Su You vaguely heard a familiar voice in her ear—

[Congratulations on successfully killing the Fire Demon Leader. After establishing your territory, please go to the quest hall to claim your first kill reward chest.]

Quest hall...

Reward chest...

Su You knew what the quest hall was, but... a reward chest?

What’s that?

At least, she’d never heard of getting a chest for killing a boss before.

Usually, when you kill a boss, aside from fixed drops like the Flame Stone, any other loot depends on what you collect from the body.

Any accessory, weapon, piece of equipment, or clothing on a boss could potentially be useful.

Whether it’s actually useful or not is pure luck.

Some people kill a boss and get a high-quality [Shining Gold Saber]. Others kill a boss and end up with a gray-quality [Chipped Kitchen Knife].

Yep, Su You was that “lucky” one who got the kitchen knife.

And it was a chipped kitchen knife at that—so bad that even the cooking NPCs would rather go on strike than use it."

"23. Skill Book

Because the Fire Demon Leader had died, the entire nest of fire demons started fighting amongst themselves for the chance to seize the throne. To avoid getting caught up in the chaos, Su You didn’t have time to check what kind of junk she’d actually looted from the Fire Demon Leader.

She stuffed whatever she could into her backpack, and for the things that wouldn’t fit, she wrapped them all up in the Fire Demon Leader’s cloak and carried them in her arms.

Once she’d gathered her spoils, Su You wasted no time and hurried straight back to her temporary base.

……

……

[Obtained: Common Cloak x1]

[Obtained: Copper Coins x89]

[Obtained: Ash x99]

[Obtained: Unknown Stone x1]

[Obtained: Charcoal x99]

……

By the time Su You reached her base, she was already sorting through her loot. But she quickly realized—there really wasn’t much worth calling loot.

Ash, some unknown stone, and a whole pile of charcoal…

Although Su You was honestly quite disgusted by all this (junk), she still organized it and placed it near her base.

After all, charcoal could be burned… Nearly a hundred pieces of charcoal would last her several days.

As for the ash, while it didn’t look useful, it could actually be used to enrich the soil—a handy thing for when she’d eventually build her territory and start farming.

Then there was the unknown stone…

Su You frowned, staring at the stone up and down for a long time. She even tried scraping the surface with a stone knife, hoping something might be hidden inside…

Unfortunately, after all that effort, she still couldn’t figure out any special use for the stone.

After fiddling with it for a while and getting nowhere, Su You gave up. She tossed the stone onto the cloak along with the rest of the useless junk, planning to bundle it all up and take it to her territory later.

As for the 89 copper coins, Su You just put them straight into her backpack—they didn’t take up any space anyway.

At this point, Su You had a total of 136 copper coins: 89 from killing the Fire Demon Leader, and 47 from killing regular fire demons.

The coins weren’t useful yet, but now that she had a Flame Stone and was about to establish her territory, they’d come in handy soon enough.

Aside from all this junk, Su You managed to dig out a few barely useful items from the pile.

Some gravel, some scraps of cloth, and… a book?

Huh?!

The moment she saw the book, Su You was a little surprised. Books that dropped on Sunset Continent were usually skill books.

Here, there’s no such thing as a bad skill book—just ones that aren’t suitable for you. Skill books come in many types: combat skills, life skills, aura skills, special skills, and so on.

As mentioned before, the Lord role doesn’t have any stats that boost combat, so she couldn’t learn combat skills.

Still, skill books are valuable. Even if she couldn’t use a combat skill book, once she had a way to trade, she could sell it for money, or give it to combat-related NPCs to strengthen them—which would, in turn, strengthen her own forces.

All in all, just getting this skill book made up for the rest of the loot being junk—Su You didn’t feel too put out.

At least it was better than a chipped kitchen knife.

After sorting and cleaning up the last of her things, Su You spotted six silver coins at the very bottom. Once she put those away, she’d finally finished organizing all the loot from the Fire Demon Leader.

With everything sorted, Su You finally picked up the book. She hesitated for a long moment, hand hovering over the cover, before she finally opened it.

And the moment she did, the previously blurry text on the pages gradually became clear…

[Advanced Cooking Skill Book]

Type: Skill Book

Quality: Purple

Description: Instantly raises your Cooking skill to Advanced level upon learning.

……

No matter what the skill itself was, Su You’s luck this time was honestly pretty good. Skill books rarely dropped, and this was even an advanced one—you could tell from the “purple” quality.

There are only four grades of skill books: Basic (Green), Intermediate (Blue), Advanced (Purple), and Master (Red).

Although skill books only come in four grades, life skills actually have six levels.

Of those six, only the first four can be achieved directly with skill books; the last two require you to keep crafting things to gain proficiency and slowly level up.

Take Cooking as an example. The levels are: Basic Cooking, Intermediate Cooking, Advanced Cooking, Master Cooking, Expert Cooking, and Supreme Cooking (God of Cooking).

And for any life skill, the last level always has a special title, like “God” or “Saint”—for example, Medicine Saint (Alchemist), Craft God (Artisan), Farming God (Farmer), and so on.

But still… While getting an advanced skill book was great, why did it have to be a cooking skill book?

It’s not that Su You looked down on cooking, but the skill really wasn’t very useful in the early game, since valuable cooked dishes required too many ingredients.

If it was just basic food, Su You could make it herself—like roasted berries, berry juice, or grilled meat. She could make those with or without a skill book; it didn’t make much difference.

Only later, when she’d set up farmland, started raising animals or growing crops, or could get better ingredients from hunting beasts, would the cooking skill become truly useful. Otherwise, in the early game, it was basically pointless.

Other life skills were different, though. Many of the materials needed to craft other items were basic ones—at least, ones she could gather now.

If she could choose, Su You would rather trade this advanced cooking skill book for an intermediate artisan skill book.

Artisan skills might not be the strongest, but they were the most useful early on.

A higher artisan level meant less material consumption when making tools, slower tool durability loss, and more durability restored when using a whetstone to repair high-level gear…

Looking at this advanced but unfortunately cooking-related skill book, Su You sighed, then put it away in her backpack.

It might not be very useful… but it was still an advanced skill book, and worth a lot. Worst case, she could sell it later and buy something else.

……

38 hours, 53 minutes, 10 seconds…

That was the countdown after Su You finished sorting all her loot. In other words, it was just after 5 p.m., and there were still almost two hours until nightfall."

"24. Building Card

Two hours...

Su You did the math and felt that should be enough time. So, dragging along her pile of supplies and the materials needed to build the Heartfire, she headed to the spot she’d already picked out—a patch of fertile soil near a water source, with dense berry bushes and fiber plants growing not far away.

Once she’d settled on the location, Su You didn’t hesitate. She took out the Lord’s Token from her backpack.

This was her first time seeing the item in person.

The token was palm-sized, engraved with the words “Lord’s Token,” and the back was etched with intricate patterns she couldn’t decipher. It felt oddly light in her hand, making her wonder if it was just a piece of foam.

With the token in hand, Su You found “Heartfire” in the construction menu.

Earlier, she’d used up a piece of stone to make a shovel for setting traps to kill the Fire Demon boss. Luckily, among the loot dropped by the boss, there were some stone fragments—just enough to synthesize a piece of stone for building the Heartfire.

A familiar phantom outline appeared before her. Su You carefully placed the Heartfire right in the center.

[Consume Plank x5, Stone x5, Flame Stone x1 to build Heartfire?]

...

[Constructing Heartfire. Estimated time: 10 seconds.]

Ten seconds later, as the flames ignited, the Lord’s Token in Su You’s other hand flickered, as if it might vanish at any moment.

[Heartfire detected nearby. Create territory?]

This wasn’t Su You’s first time establishing a territory, but for some reason, while the first time had filled her with nothing but excitement and joy, this second time, along with those same feelings, she also felt a hint of nervousness.

She took several deep breaths before finally selecting [Yes].

The moment she made her choice, the Heartfire suddenly erupted in a burst of fireworks-like flames. Su You wasn’t startled; instead, she found herself drawn closer to the Heartfire.

[Congratulations, A1-16, on successfully joining the Digital World. Territory established.]

[As thanks for your efforts in joining the Digital World, the Execution System will grant you a reward.]

Before Su You could fully process these messages, three familiar buildings appeared before her.

Each building was different, but they all seemed to be “printed” on card-like objects.

“So this is... the reward?”

Although Su You had only been in this Digital World for less than two days, she’d already noticed that, while the world’s template was Sunset Continent, a lot of things were actually different.

Most of these differences were in the game’s processes; the actual data and stats were exactly the same as before.

For example, where once you could create a territory with just a Heartfire, now you also needed a Lord’s Token... or the new feature where killing a boss lets you claim a reward at the quest hall—something she’d never heard of before.

These were all process changes, part of the game’s flow.

But things like monster attributes and weaknesses, or the materials needed for crafting buildings and items—those were all exactly as she remembered.

To Su You, it felt as if... Sunset Continent was indeed a game, but only just a game.

Now, this Digital World she was in was Sunset Continent 2.0—a modified “game” designed to help them integrate more easily.

Whatever the truth was, it wasn’t something Su You needed to worry about right now.

She glanced at the three building cards and the three-minute countdown timer above them, her mind racing as she considered which card to choose as her reward.

[Tavern Card]: Use to instantly build a Tavern within your territory for free (no materials required).

[Post Station Card]: Use to instantly build a Post Station within your territory for free (no materials required).

[Statue Card]: Use to instantly build a Statue within your territory for free (no materials required). (Note: Statue’s identity is random and cannot be chosen.)

After reading the descriptions, Su You understood.

If she was right, this was the Execution System’s way of helping Lord players.

All three buildings were extremely useful—there wasn’t a single useless option.

More importantly, these buildings all required materials that were hard to gather in the early game.

With these cards, she could get one building for free. If she chose wisely, it would not only speed up her territory’s development, but also provide extra security.

Each building had its own function: recruitment, trade, and blessings.

The Tavern allowed you to recruit NPCs. While you could still recruit NPCs without a Tavern, the difference was that Tavern-recruited NPCs always came with certain skills or special identities.

Without a Tavern, a Lord could only set up a bulletin board near the Heartfire after creating a territory. Once the board was up, wandering NPCs would start to appear nearby.

These wandering NPCs might choose to join your territory, but most of them were just ordinary people with no skills.

Unless Su You provided them with skill books, or had skilled NPCs to take them as apprentices, or triggered a rare event where an NPC learned skills on their own... otherwise, at best, they could only do basic labor like chopping wood, mining, farming, or gathering surface resources (twigs, leaves, etc).

The Post Station was for trade. Once a territory had a Post Station, merchants would occasionally visit to trade with the player.

There were many types of merchants—not just by what they sold (food, materials, equipment, etc.), but also by race.

Sunset Continent wasn’t just humans, monsters, and ordinary plants and animals. There were other races, like goblins, dwarves, elves, and more.

Merchants of different races sold different things.

For example, goblin merchants mostly sold weapons and equipment, and if you built up enough favor with them, you might even be able to buy some rather dangerous items.

Elven merchants loved plants, so most of what they sold were various plants they’d grown themselves."

"Here is a fluent, natural English translation of your text:

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