Originally, Annoying Village HIM did not hold too much expectation for these iron golems, however, unexpectedly, the iron golems that had gathered actually brought back some encouraging news.
"It's strange though… On the way while digging just now, I discovered an open area, and the area was crammed full of unconscious monsters… luckily I noticed in time and avoided them…"
"An underground mine?"
"No, it was clearly a man-made area, most likely made by those Pillagers."
"I came from the east, and I ran into the same thing! The number of monsters there was shocking…"
After the iron golems entered the forest, in order not to alert the Pillagers, they chose to dig underground to advance.
In this process, two of the iron golems accidentally dug into a wide-open area.
That place was filled to the brim with all sorts of unconscious monsters.
Hearing the report of these two iron golems, Annoying Village HIM, who had originally been anxious, suddenly brightened up.
"So that's it!"
"They are stockpiling troops!"
The iron golems of the Void did not understand why so many monsters were gathered in the underground area.
But upon hearing this news, Annoying Village HIM immediately realized the reason why this group of monsters would be in the underground.
When he first stepped into the forest's outer area and looked toward the inside of the forest, he immediately felt something was off.
The forest region, because of the thick leaf cover, was almost completely lightless, basically a natural monster-spawning cage.
Yet, when Annoying Village HIM observed from the outer edge, while there were indeed a few monsters in sight, the number wasn't much.
Annoying Village HIM found it strange back then, but for a while couldn't figure out the source of the abnormality in the forest region.
After hearing the iron golems, he finally understood.
The reason there weren't many monsters seen in the forest was because the Pillagers had gathered them all underground.
The forest was an incomparably massive monster-spawning cage, endlessly producing all sorts of monsters.
The Pillagers clearly recognized this natural advantage and spared no effort to make use of it.
Since the number of Pillagers was relatively small, even if they had enough resources, their troop count was still insufficient.
Facing this situation, the Pillagers did not choose to ally with other factions, since doing so could bring restrictions and risks.
Instead, they decided to cleverly rely on the forest's natural conditions to strengthen themselves.
The monsters refreshed in the forest region lacked self-awareness, but they did follow distinct behavior patterns.
They would not attack the Pillagers, instead they would actively attack players, iron golems, villagers, and nearly every other living being.
Even more coincidentally, the targets these monsters attacked just happened to be the hostile camps that the Pillagers could never ally with.
To the Pillagers, these monsters were basically heaven-sent troops.
All they needed to do was gather them and stockpile them.
Then, once the forest faced an outside threat, they could unleash these monsters like a tidal wave to strike the enemy with an unexpected blow, catching them completely off guard.
Thinking of this, Annoying Village HIM, who had just been irritated that the players ruined his carefully prepared plan, now suddenly felt a bit fortunate.
After all, if not for the players' interference, if everything had gone exactly as planned, then the chances of successfully capturing the Pillagers would have been extremely low.
One had to know, the Pillagers were highly alert. Once they sensed an enemy invasion, they would immediately unleash these backup troops.
At that point, the whole forest would be filled with countless monsters, and the situation would surely descend into complete chaos.
Not to mention whether Annoying Village HIM's current strength was even enough to face that entire flood of monsters.
Even if he could actually defeat them, it was highly likely he would be severely disrupted, allowing the crafty Pillagers to seize the chance and escape amidst the chaos.
And furthermore, since the Pillagers knew to stockpile troops, they must also already have a retreat plan in case the forest was seized by enemies.
So, if everything went according to Annoying Village HIM's original plan, the result could very well have been tragic, heavy losses and nothing gained.
But the current situation, where the players seemed to have ruined his plan, had in truth actually helped him.
Thanks to those players' interference, the situation before HIM now became instantly clear.
The huge commotion just now undoubtedly had already alerted the Pillagers.
If they wanted to defuse this assault, the Pillagers would surely mobilize part of their forces.
Even if they didn't use their reserve troops this time, they would still continue with their stockpiling plan.
At that point, they would naturally head toward the stockpiling grounds themselves.
That being the case, HIM only needed to locate all the Pillagers' stockpiling grounds, then lie in wait nearby for them to walk right into his trap.
Thinking this through, HIM immediately gave the order to the iron golems.
"Go search for stockpiling grounds in the other two directions!" He sternly reminded them again and again.
"Remember, absolutely hide your traces. Once you find a stockpiling ground, immediately come back and report."
After all, since the Pillagers chose to stockpile troops, and since two golems had already discovered stockpiles in different directions, then it was very likely that in other areas stockpiling grounds also existed.
As long as these stockpiling grounds could be found, the plan to capture the Pillagers would already be more than halfway to success.
The next step would be simply to wait for them to deliver themselves.
———
[Underground Meat Field in the Forest Area]
Fat Cow had his ear pressed tightly against the ceiling of the meat field, fully concentrated on listening for movements above.
He quietly waited, hoping to eavesdrop on the Pillagers' plans or actions, but no expected news ever came.
However, just as he grew a little impatient, a hurried voice suddenly sounded.
"Boss!"
Fat Cow's heart tensed as he turned his head, and saw a player rushing over in a panic. He was out of breath, clearly having run nonstop.
"That villager… and that group of iron golems… they entered the forest!"
The player spoke while panting anxiously.
Fat Cow's eyes widened, hardly able to believe what he heard.
"Entered the forest?!"
The player nodded hard, confirming.
After taking a quick breath, he continued.
"After entering the forest, they started digging downward. Now it looks like they're planning to attack from below…"
A bad premonition rose in Fat Cow's heart, he realized the situation was becoming more and more troublesome.
"This is bad!" Fat Cow muttered to himself.
Just earlier, with the urgent situation, he could only come up with temporary tricks to delay the advance of the black-robed villager and the iron golems.
Originally he thought they might counterattack or temporarily retreat, but never expected they would so decisively enter the forest interior and directly go underground.
When the black-robed villager and iron golems first chose to attack from above, the underground area was relatively safe.
That was exactly why Fat Cow, after careful consideration, had decided to come to the meat field underground.
But now, things had changed, those black-robed villagers and iron golems had unexpectedly shifted to the underground, and the situation instantly became tangled and unpredictable.
To avoid unnecessary alerts, the black-robed villager and iron golems would clearly continue advancing underground deeper into the forest.
Which meant, they might dig into the meat field.
At this moment, Fat Cow was full of anxiety and unease.
He knew nothing of the stockpiling grounds the Pillagers had built; what worried him right now was this meat field.
If the black-robed villager and iron golems dug into it, the consequences would be unimaginable.
The many connecting passageways Fat Cow had ordered his men to carefully dig to link different areas were all interconnected, and all tightly linked to the meat field.
If the black-robed villager and iron golems discovered the meat field, they would certainly realize much of Xu Yuan's plan.
This was truly pulling one thread and moving the whole body.
"You go…"
Fat Cow was just about to order his men to seal off the passageways connected to the meat field, when suddenly he heard some noises from above.
"Sarah… Sarisalu!! (There's noise outside the forest, seems iron golems and players are fighting!!)
"Lusaksli?! Lukusali!! (Iron golems?! From the Void!!)
"Kusalimisu?… Salikusaman, Sarulisas?! (And those players, where did they come from?… Why are they fighting outside?!)"
"Lisakuris! Sarikumi, Lakusaliku! (Those iron golems were driven into the forest and vanished! Most likely underground! The leader isn't here, what do we do?!)"
Fat Cow didn't understand the Pillagers' language, but he could hear the urgency in their tone.
'Looks like they noticed the disturbance outside…'
Clearly, the Pillagers had been alarmed by the noise caused by Fat Cow's players and the iron golems.
'Damn it! If only I could understand what they're saying!'
Fat Cow regretted deeply that he hadn't studied languages more.
In fact, on the game forums, players had long started researching the languages of different creatures. Fat Cow had even browsed some posts before, but back then he had only treated them as entertainment, never taking them seriously.
Now he truly felt the meaning of the saying "Only regret when the book is needed."
Compared to other species, the Pillagers' language was actually the simplest and easiest to understand.
But for animals or villagers who hadn't yet learned to speak, it was much harder.
Animals still used their original cries, while the unspeaking villagers could only make all sorts of grunts and hums.
But the Pillagers had their own unique language system.
If you just spent a little time studying, you could roughly understand their meaning.
Fat Cow sighed, if only he had studied this knowledge earlier, maybe things wouldn't be so hard now.
But he knew now wasn't the time for regret.
After thinking a moment, Fat Cow finally made a decision.
No matter what the Pillagers had said, he had to go up there now.
He looked at Yoyo and the messenger player and said, "Take everyone, cut off the passageways between the meat field and the other areas!"
"Dig another passage from the meat field to somewhere else!"
"Oh, and, leave some people stationed at the cut-off passages. If you encounter iron golems, do everything to kill them!"
Since the meat field could be discovered, the first step was to cut off its connections with the other underground tunnels.
The meat field was too big; Fat Cow couldn't possibly fill it all in quickly.
Yoyo and the messenger player received the order and immediately left.
Fat Cow once more climbed up to the high platform, took a deep breath, and began digging upward.
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