Chapter 86: Monster Spawner

In the end, what they discovered was that, near the spot where they had killed the Black-Striped Tiger, something resembling a stone gate had appeared.

This stone gate was very tall, and had no fancy decorations. If there was anything noteworthy about it, it was that the gate looked ancient—at the very least, it was certainly older than the combined ages of the two of them.

The stone gate was covered in moss, a testament to the passage of time, and bore many mysterious marks whose origins were impossible to determine.

As Lyle put it, if he had to pick a suitable place for this stone gate, he would say it belonged in the ruins of some ancient, long-forgotten site.

...

After hearing Lyle’s description, Dolly was clearly a bit dazed. With her limited experience, she couldn’t fully grasp what these things meant, but she could tell from Lyle’s account that the stone gate must have some special significance.

After all, it had appeared out of nowhere—and it had only been less than two days since they killed the Black-Striped Tiger.

For such a stone gate to appear in just two days, it was certainly not something ordinary power could accomplish. It likely involved some kind of unspeakable, extraordinary force.

“In that case, how about I knock on her door and ask?” Dolly wasn’t just offering to help them—she was also a bit worried herself. She was concerned about why Su You still hadn’t gotten up so late today, and whether something might have happened.

Even though she knew nothing bad could really happen within the territory, the sunset flowers had already bloomed and closed again. Compared to Su You’s usual routine—getting up before the flowers even opened—today was truly, exceptionally late.

“Sorry to trouble you,” Lyle nodded to Dolly, then pulled Lake away from the doorway to give her space.

Dolly knocked on the door as usual. After a short while, she heard some movement inside. Before she could say anything, the door opened.

Su You stood there, looking exhausted and confused, her fatigue obvious despite the hint of puzzlement in her eyes.

Even after a night’s rest, for certain special reasons, the “Severe Fatigue” debuff on her had only downgraded to “Moderate Fatigue.” That was why Su You had slept in so late.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to get up—she simply couldn’t. She’d slept like the dead, and if Dolly hadn’t knocked, Su You might have slept straight through to the evening.

“What’s up?” Su You couldn’t help but yawn, instinctively leaning against the wall, her eyes a bit unfocused.

As she asked Dolly what was going on, she grumbled inwardly about how stingy the system was—just a few questions, and it slapped her with a debuff.

Dolly was startled to see her so worn out. Lyle and Lake were also puzzled, unable to understand what could have happened to leave her in this state.

But the debuff wasn’t life-threatening. At most, it just meant she’d need to rest a bit more, which would have some impact on her plans—but not much, since she’d already intended to stay in the territory today.

“Milady... I’m not here for myself, it’s them who wanted to see you. By the way, are you... alright?” Dolly first explained why she’d knocked, then expressed her concern for Su You’s health.

Su You shook her head slightly, took a cup of water from her bag to wake herself up, then said, “I’m fine, just stayed up too late last night. If there’s something to discuss, let’s talk inside. You guys go wait for me in the hall.”

She pointed toward the quest hall.

The brothers nodded and headed straight for the quest hall.

They were actually quite interested in the building, which had just been completed the night before. But since they’d come back late yesterday and were tired from gathering resources, they’d gone straight home to rest and hadn’t had time to check it out.

“Then I won’t bother you, Milady. Please take care and get some rest.” Seeing that Su You was alright, Dolly breathed a sigh of relief and went off to start her repair work for the day.

Su You quickly tidied herself up, checked the territory’s status, grabbed a bite to eat, and then headed to the quest hall as well.

...

...

“So, what you’re saying is, that gate appeared out of nowhere, looks ancient, and when you get close to it, there’s some kind of strange resistance?” Su You summarized Lyle’s findings, already forming a suspicion in her mind.

And after Lake’s next comment, her guess was all but confirmed.

“We actually noticed something else... though we’re not sure if it’s related to the stone gate.”

“Go on.”

“Yesterday afternoon, when we went over there, we found a lot more ghostly skeletons near the mine. There weren’t that many before. We’re not sure if they were hiding and just showed up now, or if it’s something else...”

By “something else,” Lake was clearly referring to the stone gate, though he wasn’t certain, so he didn’t say it outright—just reported what he’d seen.

A sudden surge in ghostly skeletons...

A knowing look flashed in Su You’s eyes.

Lyle caught the change and asked directly, “Milady, do you know something?”

Su You nodded. “If I’m not mistaken, this is probably a spawn... a spawning point for ghostly skeletons.” She’d almost said “monster spawner,” but that was a player term, not something she could use with NPCs.

Simply put, this stone gate would continuously spawn ghostly skeletons, much like the previous Fire Demon boss. The difference was that monsters from a spawner dropped loot and had no upper limit on their numbers. Unless the spawner was destroyed, it would keep producing ghostly skeletons.

But destroying a spawner wasn’t easy. She’d have to enter the spawner, defeat the boss inside, and then destroy the spawner’s core to put an end to it.

Of course, she wouldn’t have to go in alone. After all, a lord player couldn’t possibly clear out an entire spawner by themselves—she could bring her territory members along.

The inside of a spawner was much like a “dungeon” in an online game: you fought your way through, beat the boss, and cleared it for rewards. But if you failed... well, there was no need to elaborate—those who knew, knew.

In short, at this stage, the appearance of a spawner was not good news, because Su You simply didn’t have the strength to clear this “dungeon” yet.

(End of chapter)"