Chapter 204: Follow The Leader
With the way things looked at the moment Lake saw no reason not to take control of the small group of people he had saved. It would look great on his resume once payday came around and he wouldn't have to worry about someone with less impressive skills trying to decide what was best.
"In that case we have to worry about dealing with the groups of gargoyles that are still roaming the city. Did anyone see how many there were before they started to break off with their prey." Lake was asking if there were any people here that were part of the group that had been sent closest to the summoning formation.
Lake wasn't that surprised when only two of the people here stepped up to tell him the answer to his question. "It was only a few seconds after they were summoned that a large number of them had already run off since so many people had been on the streets so it's hard to give you an accurate answer, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were more than we just fought in the buildings surrounding us."
Lake nodded to what the man had said and looked at the other person who had stepped out to tell him what they had seen. "We only saw the ones that appeared around us but I would say that was a low estimate of how many there are left. Depending on the area of the summoning formation It could easily be that there are hundreds left."
If that ended up being the case there would also be a sizable amount of undead they would have to worry about and after thinking about it he decided he should go ahead and share his concerns on this since he was sure none of them had put together why golems would want bodies. "I think we also need to worry about the bodies they carried away."
He paused after saying that because he could tell most of them had understood with just that much information. He understood most of them would have probably realized this much sooner if they hadn't been fighting for their lives up until now. "What are you saying?" Not all of them got it though so he finished his thought. "They turned the ones they carried off into undead, or at least that's what's most likely."
After he said this he could tell almost half of the people had questions but none of them asked him anything and instead started to look around. In their minds they probably thought he would be unable to answer anything they wanted to know since he was with them and they were pretty much right since most of the questions they had were probably best answered by whoever had made these gargoyles.
He did have one thing he wanted to add to what he had said already to ease the people he wanted to make follow him for the rest of this ordeal. "You don't need to worry about us getting snuck up on. I have a skill that allows me to find enemies within a curtain range." This should be enough to cement him in a leadership role since they would all think he was the only thing that could keep them safe from the unknown threat that could be in any building they passed.
"That's good, but what do you plan to do with this skill of yours, track down every monster in the city or lead yourself and anyone who goes with you to safety?" It seemed he had made it sound like he planned to run away and made one of the dwarves mad but he had no such intentions so he said. "I would like to continue to fight but some of you need a break so I would like to find a good place for us to catch our breath before starting a clean up mission."
He went with this answer since it was the best of both worlds and would get every person here behind him no matter if they wanted to hide or fight. It worked as intended because he could see the willingness to follow him on lots of the faces around him. Since no one seemed to have anything else they wanted to say, Lake went ahead and set Detector to look for Gargoyles and started towards the closest building that seemed devoid of them. Sadly as he got closer one ended up being inside of it so Lake started towards the next giving a quick glance behind him to make sure everyone was following.
They were all in a tight group behind him which was what he wanted so he turned back around and continued to look for a place for them to rest. Street after street passed as he looked for anything that didn't have at least one gargoyle inside. Lake knew that they could go into any of them and clear it out but he wanted to find somewhere that they could rest and not have to worry about being completely surrounded now that he had seen just how many monsters there still were around the area of the summoning formation.
Getting close to where he had been sent earlier, Lake was finally able to find a place for them just outside of the mana siphon part of the grand formation. He actually had more than one choice up until now but this place was more defensible in his opinion so it was the best they were going to be able to find.
Walking up to the front door, Lake quickly switched his Detector to look for Demon Worshipers and Undead before finally just looking into the building With Mana Vision to see if any regular people were inside. Finding it completely clear, Lake tried the door to find it unlocked and opening it he saw why, this place was just some type of store house but it still had plenty of room inside of it for all of them so he waved everyone to follow him inside.
Once inside, Lake walked over to one of the crates and sat down and then watched as all of his followers did the same. Seeing them all Lake finally realized how low the odds were that none of the people he had worked with in the past few days were here and since there was a zero percent chance that none of them had come down here at the beginning of the day that meant someone he knew had probably died down here.
He wasn't too worried about this but it was the first time since arriving in this world that someone he knew on a first name basis had died so he couldn't help but start to think back to his own death. It had been a couple of weeks since he had really thought about the time he had died so he guessed that meant he was starting to get over it.
It wasn't too surprising since he had been enjoying his time here much more than the time he had spent back in his old world. In his old world he had been in trouble constantly so the amount of freedom here was really helping to take his mind off of what had happened to him. "When are we going to move again?"
Lake looked up to see the dwarf who had started to give him a hard time earlier wanted to know how long he planned to let them rest. "There's a good number of people here who are done for the day so I was planning to ask who wanted to go out to hunt in about an hour." The dwarf seemed happy with this but he wasn't done questioning Lake yet.
"Depending on the amount of people who are willing to go, do you plan to make multiple teams or have us all stay together, because if we're all in one group clearing out the city is going to take a while." Lake had to actually think about this one before answering but thinking about the state the survivors had been in when he got there he had his answer.
"We have to stick together because I don't think small groups will last long out there." The dwarf seemed to agree with this even though he had said this approach would take forever. "You are correct in choosing this method. I just feel for all of those that are still alive that are waiting for rescue."
Lake started a slow nod and said. "There's nothing we can do for them if we all die before we find them. It's a good thing all of the houses here are built like fortresses, it will buy them time." He of course meant the fact that all the buildings were made of stone and had thick solid doors. Even if the gargoyles had shown they could get through these things it was still better than nothing.
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