Chapter 20：Herbivorous Werewolves

This was the first time Lin Ke had seen another human.

Although they stood at a distance, Lin Ke could clearly see two very young-looking male humans.

They were wearing a similar style of uniform, wielding a small circular shield in their left hand and a two-handed sword in their right. They surveyed their surroundings cautiously.

As they surveyed the area, they seemed to be quite curious about the Elemental Tower, since they looked back at it often. Logically, they should be wondering about how this weird building had suddenly appeared in the middle of this forest.

Next to them, two horses were lazily grazing. Just a short distance away, there was a Werewolf corpse on the ground.

Lin Ke raised his brows. The dead Werewolf over there seemed like it was their doing.

Just as he was pondering on whether he should go greet the duo, the two humans muttered some stuff to each other and got on their horses, leaving in the other direction.

Lin Ke surveyed the area, noticing a few black figures disappearing into the shadows.

They were Werewolves.

"God f*cking dammit! Those persistent bastards."

Lin Ke angrily gritted his teeth. Ever since he killed the first Werewolf, these bastards had repeatedly come back here, as if the countless deaths of their brethren did not cause them any fear. Every time Lin Ke looked, there were bound to be some tracks that the Werewolves left behind.

Within just two days, at least forty-five Werewolves had died. How many Werewolves were there in this forest?!

Just as Lin Ke was getting frustrated at the thought of it, a silhouette suddenly entered his vision.

It was Avina! Lin Ke hurriedly went to the entrance to greet her.

Avina leaped down from above, landed lightly on her feet, and proceeded to walk up to Lin Ke. "My Lord, I've finished scouting the surrounding area."

"Very good."

After Lin Ke and Avina went back into the Elemental Tower, he hurriedly asked, "How much did you learn about the Werewolf den?"

"Very bad news." Avina shook her head. "Just in the surrounding area, I've seen 3 different Werewolf dens. In every single one of them, there were at least 200 Werewolves."

"Impossible!"

Lin Ke instantly denied that fact. How could such a small area like this sustain this number of Werewolves?

There was bound to be a lack of prey.

"But that is the truth."

Avina waved her hand as she explained, "I understand why my Lord says this is impossible, but these Werewolves don't eat meat."

"What?"

Lin Ke looked at Avina in surprise, as if his brain had stopped processing data for a moment.

"Unfortunately, most of the time, all these Werewolves feed on different sorts of fungus. They even started a humic farm to produce large amounts of fungus for food.

"I've collected some of these fungi." Avina suddenly pulled out a grey mushroom. Under its thick mushroom cap was a fat mushroom stalk.

Avina ripped off a small piece of the mushroom and tossed it into her mouth. "This type of mushroom isn't poisonous and grows very easily. They have a fatty texture when eaten and each one has its own unique taste. For example, this one was mildly salty, as if it was filled with a certain amount of salt."

As Lin Ke saw Avina carefreely eating a piece of the mushroom, he also took a piece from her hand. Carefully placing it on his tongue, he slowly started to assess the taste of this mushroom.

A slightly fishy smell surged down his throat, but when he actually bit down on it, a sweet and salty taste started to envelop his taste buds. As he tore through the mushroom with his teeth, he could vaguely hear the sound of it screeching.

If eating it raw tasted this good, Lin Ke could not help but think about how it would taste if he cooked it in other ways.

"In other words, these Werewolves are all herbivores?"

Looking at the mushroom in Avina's hand, he fought his urge to just take it from her. Thinking about the fact that the Werewolves were herbivorous, he could not help but feel curious about it.

"Interesting." Lin Ke rubbed his chin. "The agriculturalization of Werewolves? With the ability to produce food, it's no wonder they can grow so large in numbers. However, fungi doesn't seem too appropriate to feed an entire race though. If they really are relying on this as a means to survive, these Werewolves must not be voluntarily undergoing agriculturalization."

Maybe there were other more civilized races that came and taught these Werewolves to farm, but they just did not want to truly teach them. Hence, they were only taught how to grow fungus?

Could it be humans? Or maybe some other race? Maybe those Beastmen from the other day?

Thinking back, Dra did follow a Werewolf all the way back to a Beastmen encampment. There must be some way this was related.

Werewolves eating mushrooms… Now that was an interesting development.

Seeing Lin Ke deep in thought, Avina did not interrupt him. When he finally came to his senses, she finally said, "Due to this, the Werewolf population is growing rapidly. That's why there are so many Werewolf dens in this area. The key issue is that there doesn't seem to be any conflict between the Werewolves. On the contrary, they seem to be in quite good terms with each other."

Avina's words caught Lin Ke's attention. "What you're saying is… The Werewolves that keep coming over to harass me didn't come from the same den?"

"Yes."

Avina nodded. "After following a number of these Werewolves, I noticed that they came from various different dens. There was even a Werewolf that took rations away from this area, it seemed to be heading to a faraway den. Perhaps they are requesting reinforcements."

This is a true "You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us" mentality. Had Lin Ke just accidentally made himself out to be Public Enemy No. 1 to these Werewolves?

He could not help but laugh at himself.

Finally, Lin Ke understood why he had such an urge to deal with these Werewolves as soon as possible.

He originally thought that it was because of the Beastmen Army, but as it turned out, it was because these Werewolves wanted to do Human Wave Warfare!

Just the 3 Werewolves dens in the surrounding area totaled nearly a thousand Werewolves. Even with those numbers, they were not satisfied. They were prepared to get even more reinforcements.

In other words, the number of Werewolves that were planning on sieging this Elemental Tower was in the thousands.

With this number of enemies, it was like the floodgates were opened.

The number of Werewolves Dra could solo was limited. Even with Avina and Compassionate Priest Lucy lending her a hand, the number of Werewolves they could fend off would not increase by that much.

If so many Werewolves attacked at the same time, they would be in extreme danger.

Unless, they hid in the Tower and used the main entrance as a chokepoint. They might be able to defend from there.

However, if that was the plan, they had to have enough food and drinking water. For the Werewolves outside of their tower, they would barely have a problem with this war of attrition.

After all, their dens were nearby, it was easy for them to keep pumping resources to their troops.

"No, the number is too large."

Lin Ke shook his head. If they were to solely rely on the defenses of the Elemental Tower, the Werewolves would eventually break through. If all the Werewolves dealt a certain amount of damage to the Elemental Tower, they would start to chip away at the tower's defenses.

"Hence, we need to be the first to strike."

Lin Ke raised his head and looked at Avina. "Wait till Dra returns. Then, the three of you group up as a party and coordinate to exterminate one of the Werewolves dens. Deal as much damage to them as possible to reduce the possibility of getting assaulted by impossible numbers."

"Alright." Avina nodded. "Then, I'll go rest up first to recharge my energy."

"Yeah. you go rest."

Lin Ke nodded. Avina had been working all this time, it was about time for her to take a break.