Chapter 77: 71: The Anchor

“I’m not giving up on them that easily!” you declare and clench your fist in heroic determination. Still, the forest is too large to search through all by yourself. You open up your spell tab. Your energy is fully restored, so you can afford to get some help. You aim the open palm of your hand ahead of you and shout, “Summon Imps!”

Five familiar, scantily-clad, giggling little girls appear before you, with horns sticking out of their candy-colored hair.

“I’m glad to see you all!” you say, truly glad to see your most loyal and competent minions.

The loli imps simply throw glances at each other and giggle like little school girls.

“I’m looking for my friends,” you say to the girls. “Two bunny girls, two human girls, and a giant green orc. We’ll all go in different directions. They might be alive and on the run. They might be captured. They might be... dead—attacked and left for dead or eaten by dire wolves. Be on the lookout for... body parts. If you find anything, launch a fireball into the sky so that the others—and most importantly, me—know where you are. If you find any dire wolves, also launch a fireball. I prefer to have one captured alive for interrogation, but I don’t care what condition it would be in. Understood?”

All five little imps nod, looking at you like you’re about to send them to hunt for ice-cream and candy.

“Alright then. Imps, spread out and such for clues!” and with a dramatic wave of your hand you send your loli imps out into the forest like hunting dogs. The lolis run in five different directions and you run into the sixth, spread your new-formed party in a hexagon.

You have a total of twenty minutes before you need to summon them again. Considering the cost of the spell, which is eighty energy, you will use up your reserves twice as fast as you regenerate them. That will give you about an hour of searching, keeping in mind that you need to have spare energy in case you find trouble. And simple math—factoring in energy regeneration at 2 points per minute—puts that at two hundred and fifty minus eighty, plus forty, minus eighty, plus forty, minus eighty equals exactly ninety, for an emergency Imp summon and a [Hellfruit].

It is unfortunate, and at the same time fortunate, that casting the same summoning spell a second time will simply respawn the same summons, erasing the ones you summoned before, which you learn all the way back in the bandit catacombs with your Spider. On one hand it prevents you from overwhelming your enemies with dozens of little psycho loli killers, but at least you can always summon them to your side for protection.

While you think of strategize your spell use, you throw caution to the wind and rush through the forest as fast as you can, without missing a possible bloody corpse. The whole point is to find your subordinates or the wolves that attacked them, so you’re not worried too much about running into a couple of them. As for Shinde, you should be able to spot a giant cloud of death from some distance on this sunny day. And it’s not like you’re too worried about running into the colossal dire wolf, otherwise, you would not have stuck around anyway.

Your first forty minutes of searching yield no results. First of all, you run out of breath about five minutes into the search and are forced into what can only be described as a brisk pace. And even that is an accomplishment, earned by the fact that you’ve spent more time outdoors and on your feet in the past week than you probably did in the past year back before all of this started. This means that you end up being the anchor that slows down your search party since the little girls could probably outrun you in their sleep and using only one leg.

So far, the only thing you found is some signs of life: A rabbit or two, jumping into bushes as you approach; some kind of a deer in the distance. Not that you have time to stop and admire the scenery, but at least you don’t feel like you’re in some haunted forest anymore.

The only benefit to this search thus far has been the fact that you realized that—upon summoning them a second time—the lolis remembered your orders from the previous summoning. Which is convenient on many levels. The first being, that you save another minute, not having to explain the same thing over and over again, and secondly it means that your summons remember what they did even after disappearing, which makes them invaluable for gathering intelligence.

“Summon Imps!” You cast your spell for the third time. The same five adorable girls with short, candy-colored hair appear, ready to run out in all directions again. And just as you’re about to theatrically send them out, you hear branches break under heavy steps. You hear each thud of the approaching beast, even with the softening by the moss on the rocky terrain. You turn around just as you hear deep growling.

You’re looking up at a big, brown bear. Standing at least seven feet high, even though it’s still on all fours. With a single paw, the bear pushes on a smaller, growing pine in front of it and snaps it in half like a twig. With each of the bear’s steps, you see its muscles move under the thick fur. Staring the biological machine of destruction dead in the eyes, you have doubts whether your entire dire wolf pack would’ve taken it down. No, that’s the fear speaking! It’s just a fucking bear! You try to calm yourself, but already feel how wet our clenched fists are. Then you notice several white worms, like parasites, squirming and flailing inside both of the bear’s enlarged, sickly-pale blue eyes.

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