Chapter 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."