Karl picked off a few more Giant Boars with his bow, then sent more instructions to Hawk.
[See if you can find the team of Spellblades. They should be somewhere near here if they kept going in this direction. I don’t know if they’re going to be anywhere near us, but if they are, we should meet up with them.] [Got it. There are plenty of groups of Minotaurs, and some lizards. Oh, I see some Goblins and big goblins too. I don’t remember seeing those before. I will keep looking.]
Hawk flew off into the distance, a streak of blue fire in the sky, before he vanished into the clouds.
[Brother Hawk is fast.] Cara gasped, shocked by the speed of his departure.
[Does that happen when you get big? I’m a little faster when I’m big, but I can’t fly.] Remi pondered.
They were waiting in their spaces now that the sun was out, and Rae was napping, as was her tradition after the sun came up.
“Can we get a substitution on this side? I need to talk to my team for a minute.” Karl called out to the farmers who had come over to support Morrisa.
“No problem. We all heard the Oracle say that this will be the last of the Giant Boar spawns, so it’s nearly time for us to get to work curing, salting, smoking and drying what we can. We will have to sell a lot of it to the cities, but we’ve got a solid year’s worth of stored meat now.”
That was about as long as a cured ham was normally kept without being eaten, but Karl didn’t know how many survivors would be in the next city to trade with. The fire was out, and it didn’t start over this morning with the two Overlords present. But that didn’t mean that there was much of the city left to salvage.
The piles of boar bodies looked like hills in the countryside, with hundreds of bodies stacked for them to process and hundreds more in the fields nearby.
Some wouldn’t be salvageable, but most of them should still have edible bits. Ophelia switched positions with another of the farmers, so the whole group could gather for a short meeting when Karl came around the house.
“What’s the plan? Are we going to try to fight our way through a whole spawn?” She asked.
“That’s pretty much the plan. I sent Hawk to go scout for a bit, and we can pick a route once he’s back. The wilderness will likely be the better choice again. If the monster spawns are being influenced by the population density and power level, they won’t be as bad in the wilderness. However, the Oracle thinks that the Giants have something that’s triggering the Anomalies. Starting with the First Advancement Trial along the Hill Giant border, and now all over the Newbon Empire, the anomalies all appear to be linked to the Giants, according to his visions.” Karl explained.
Dana frowned and gestured around them. “So this, all of this, might be the result of the Giants’ interference? That might mean that the Dungeon Anomaly in the west might also be their doing, and now it’s a stable Dungeon.” The Oracle’s frustration made perfect sense to them all at that moment. How and why the Giant Clans were causing anomalies was a mystery. However, if the Oracle could see their interference, there had to be some reason. If they were trying to mess with other nations, it was one thing. But this was excessive, and there was no way that they could control that much territory even if they had an invasion plan that actually worked.
[I found Prince Guy and the Dana herd. No, the Spellblades. They’re all too large or too small to be Dana. They are north of the spawn by about twenty kilometres and headed east.] Hawk informed them.
He was getting better at sorting people. At least a little bit.
[Alright, remember where they are, or are they not hiding anymore?] Karl asked.
[They’re still hiding. But with these new flames, I can see them glowing anyhow.]
“Alright, I have a scouting report. North and then East appears to be the way for us. Now, we just need to make sure that everyone will be alright with what is left wandering the area.” Karl relayed.
However, the fact that Hawk had covered over a hundred kilometres in the last fifteen minutes was extremely impressive. Even the helicopters back home didn’t fly that fast.
Tessa referred to the map. “That works. There aren’t any major roads in that direction, but there are farms that were still fighting further from us. We can help them clear the area as we go, and then head out of the spawn area to turn east.”
The farmers were doing well at taking care of this area, so Karl didn’t feel too bad about leaving, but he did hope that someone came for the Oracle before he ended up being blamed for something happening to him.
The one – armed Royal Rank Minotaur soldier came over to join them, and nodded to Lotus, who had been nearly constantly healing the whole farmyard with her area spells.
“If you’re all headed out, I wanted to say thank you for the help. If you happen to be back this way, stop in at the farm, and we will make you something.” Lotus hugged his leg, and the Minotaur laughed. “You made enough for us in the last two days that none of our families will be satisfied with the simple fare from the fields. We’re going to have to start expanding our recipe lists.”
Lotus smiled up at him. “It’s not my fault that you prefer raw roughage. I just hope that my cooking wasn’t too hard on anyone’s stomach.”
The old Minotaur chuckled. “Our stomachs aren’t that sensitive. We will miss having your cooking around, though.”
One of the boys smirked at her. “Fear not, little cleric. I will figure out what you did to make rice and beans so good, and then make them even better.”