Helen and her death hound lead Butch, Frank and his troops to the place where she saw the guardian. She brought them to the lush part of the forest, the trees here looked so full of life and the area seems very tranquil. When Helen stops everybody also stops, she points at one of the trees in the forest. Everybody looks at it, it has a face on its trunks.

It looks very old, it has wrinkles all over its face. It looks really big with the height of around 50 feet, its waistline that is around 35 ft and it probably weighs around 25 ton. I'm having second thoughts on fighting this guardian. First of all, I don't know how it fights. Second, I don't know if it can walk or not, I know it's a tree but you never know with a magical monster tree. Third, I don't know if regular methods like cutting or burning would work on him.

I need a plan, I can't let my undead fight it blindly without any information on his strength and weakness. Let this be a scouting mission on finding its weakness. At what range can it detect us? Can fire be used to burn it? Is the face it weakness? How does it fight? So many questions so little answer. I need to do some tests. It's going to take mana and monster. In the end, I had to ask myself is it worth it? Would the benefit outweigh the risk?

After thinking long and hard I concluded that Hell Yeah it's worth it. I can't run away now, there will be bigger and stronger monster that I will need to face, also the when the church of the sun god finds me I need to be ready. That's why I need to do this, the mana and the experience that the undead will get when fighting this guardian will be worth it, not to mention the loot it guards will be useful.

Well, time to test its detection range. I told Frank to let the death hound gets close to the guardian. The death hound began walking to it, the moment the death hound reached the 10 meters the guardian open its eyes and roots began chasing the death hound trying to entangle him. The death hound evades the roots and ran away back to Frank. So the guardian attacked on sight. Is it because they are undead or because did they intrude on its territory? Either way, their detection range is 10 meters from their location.

Now it's time to check the what kind of attack works against it. Like before, I told Frank to let the skeleton archer attack the guardian. First, the skeleton archer attacked the area near the guardian roots. The arrow woke it up, but other than that it didn't even scratch it. After that, the skeleton archer attacked its face. The arrow stuck to its face, it opens its eyes from anger. It pulled out the arrow from its face with its roots then roared, the roar causes the birds to fly away out of fear. So its weakness is the area around its face, now how does it interact with fire?

Helen created a small fire using sticks and dry leaves, then make a makeshift torch out of a branch. After that, she covered the small with dirt. Helen and her death hound looked at each other and began to talk? I'm just guessing here since there were only clacking sound and barking sounds. They nodded at each other and began running toward the guardian. When they got close to the guardian, they split up Helen going left and the death hound going right. When they reach the 10 meters mark roots began sprouting up from the ground trying to entangle them. They dodge left and right. When they reached throwing distance, Helen threw the torch at the guardian. The trunks began to burn, the guardian panic and then began to covered the fire with dirt to turn off the fire. While it was panicking Helen and the death hound ran out of the 10 meters range of the guardian.

Well, that solves the fire question. Now that I have all of my answers I can start planning on how to kill it. I told the undead to go back to the dungeon for now. Fire will be the biggest factor in defeating the guardian. I also need axes to get rid of those roots. Now that I have gunpowder, I have everything I need to make explosive arrows. I put gunpowder inside a small leather bag, then shape it into a ball before tying it to the front of the arrow, then I put a fuse inside the leather bag and with that, I created explosive arrows. I also created battle axes with short handles so that it can be used with one hand and iron gauntlets. Two dozen explosive arrows required 5 mana to make and it takes 10 mana to create 3 battle axes and a pair of iron gauntlets. This should be enough preparation to defeat the guardian.

After the undead return to the dungeon, I explain to them how we will defeat the guardian. I distribute the weapon to the undead two battle axes for Helen, a battle ax for Frank, a pair of iron gauntlets for Frank, and finally the explosive arrows to the skeleton archer. Now they are ready to face the guardian. The undead goes back to the guardian with new weapons and a resolve to kill it.

Frank is at the front with his buckler ready to defend against any roots. Behind him are Helen and Butch ready to attack and also protect Frank's back. The two death hounds are right behind Helen and Butch, the skeleton archer is on the back of the team not getting close to the 10 meters range. The group forms an arrow formation ready to fight the guardian.

The battle starts at the sounds of Frank roar. The group began to charge at the guardian except for the skeleton archer that began to light his explosive arrow with the torch from his two lower hands before shooting them. The arrows began to rain on the guardian while it is attacking the undead with its roots. Helen and Frank began cutting the roots with their axes while Butch attacks the roots with his gauntlet that causes an explosion and a shockwave that destroy the roots, the death hounds also tried their best to defeat the guardian by clawing and biting at the roots, that cause little to no damage.

The explosive arrow began exploding near the guardian's face, it causes embers and small fires popping up near it. Eventually, an explosive arrow hit its trunk which then exploded and causes his trunk to burn. The guardian roared out of pain, the undead used this chance to get close and began attacking the guardian's face. When they attack the guardian's face its branch began to attack them, Frank blocked it with his shield, Helen chopped the branch clean off using her battle axes, while Butch destroys it with his explosion fist.

The guardian roared, then the earth began to rumble before more roots began to sprout from the ground and start attacking the undead. Some explosive arrows hit the branch of the guardian, it exploded and the leaves caught on fire. The undead defended against the countless roots while the guardian is burning. It is a battle of attrition who will die first the undead or the guardian? Frank then roared, it empowers the undead while causing the guardian to flinch. The fire then engulfed the guardian, it died screaming in pain.

The undead after confirming that the guardian is dead began covering it with dirt to put out the fire. It's a relief that there was no forest fire. The undead looks beaten up after fighting the guardian. I told the undead to bring back the remains of the guardian. Its roots, trunk, branches, and leaves. I also told them to search the surrounding area for the guardian's loot. After searching they found the loot beneath the guardian's corpse. They bring back the guardian's corpse and its loot. Now, let's take a look at today's harvest.