55 Rescue Mission

-Early the next morning-

"Every team needs a leader and I think since I have the most experience, that I should obviously be leading this mission." The older man said to Leo as they began to head out towards the cave that was now covered in webbing.

"Fine Christopher, but just remember that as the team continues to build with the more comrades we save, that we will be splitting up into two separate teams and I will lead one of those teams." Leo told the older man as they came across a spider who was all alone and dragging a deer type creature within its web.

"Haha of course, of course! Just remember kid, that if we run into any trouble, I will be the one who remains behind while you and the rest escape to safety. I was one of the lower ranked warriors within our platoon when we started the raid, so my life means much less compared to a younger kid like you and the rest of my comrades."

Leo taking the initiative, quickly disposed of the spider with a single sword strike and continued moving towards the cave with Christopher. Knowing how strong Leo's attacks would be when he used his elemental affinity to boost his strength, seeing a lower tier spider being slaughtered by him in a single move did not surprise Christopher.

"Alright kid, you said that you had a secret weapon to burn up the webbing blocking the entrance to the cave.I would suggest you pull it out now since we have arrived safely and that there are no enemies around us waiting for the ambush." Christopher told Leo as he pulled out his battle axe.

"Alright little one, it is time to play once again!" saying this sentence in a playful manner, Leo once again summoned the small tiger cub from his screen. The tiger cub looked rather sleepy but extremely cute and cuddly.

"Kid, you are full of surprises." Seeing the tiger cub appearing out of thin air, Christopher could only grin while Leo and the tiger cub made their move. Using his wind power, Leo kicked up a small gust of wind as the tiger cub gathered energy within its mouth.

"Now!" ordering the tiger cub, Leo unleashed the gust of wind while the tiger cub unleashed its fireball attack in a perfect symmetrical way. Once the attacks merged, the combined attack reached the cave's entrance and caused a small earthquake of sorts as the webbing blocking the door was burned away like paper.

After the attack hit the cave successfully, Leo quickly redeposited the tiger cub back into his inventory screen as he withdrew his powerful weapon and charged forward. Through the night while Christopher was still sleeping, Leo summoned the tiger cub and found out through a short process, that he could deposit anything he summons from using looted cards back into his inventory screen.

He was uncertain what the longer terms effects of this would be but seeing that the tiger cub had its full health and was not starving, that his inventory possibly just froze time for the tiger cub and that gave Leo comfort.

"If I am able to collect more summoning type of cards, and I end up with a large stack of similar companions like this tiger cub, how powerful could I become by just relying on a small personal army that I can constantly try to train and level up?"

Some of these thoughts popped into Leo's mind, but that did not stop him from continuing forward. Right now, what mattered the most was timing and if he delayed, that could potentially limit the amount of people that him and Christopher could save within the cave.

As they entered the cave, Leo and Christopher came across quite a few spiders lurking about within the tunnel towards their main base. Leo without wasting a single breath of time, would dispose of these spiders one by one as they continued moving forward, until they finally arrived at their destination.

"Alright so you said that you saved me from the webbings but that my body was located with the rest of those?" after masking their presence and hiding behind a boulder nearby, Christopher pointed towards the pile of human and non-human shaped webs.

"That is correct. You stay here since you are much bulkier and easier to spot than I am, and I will slowly find some more of your comrades and drag them over. Since the tunnel is now fully cleared of spiders, I will need you to take them back one by one to the waterfall area and give them a drop of the antidote I gave to you."

"If I start feeling a sense of danger, I will head back to the waterfall while carrying as many people I can find while you are gone and will meet with you on the path, we decided on that we would be using to retreat back to the waterfall area."

Christopher had no choice but to agree to these terms since Leo was clearly able to move much swifter using his wind element techniques. Plus, Christopher was indeed a bit larger built and bulkier which made him move slower in general. If Christopher could carry one or two of his comrades back at a time while Leo continued to cut them out of the webbings, then it would be more efficient of a method to use for this rescue mission.

Leo quickly made his way over to the pile and located all the human shaped webs. "So, there are actually over thirty of them? Good thing I experimented earlier with the tiger cub. If it is like this, I can easily save them all myself. I just need to send Christopher off first before I begin the real rescue." Leo thought as he finally started to free the first human.

After he originally freed Christopher, Leo was able to locate some of the thinner webbing areas which made this process much faster than before. Within only a single minute, Leo successfully freed the first human and gave him over to Christopher.

"This is someone who I ate meals with back in our village. He was a fine warrior and was able to defeat me every time we would spar in our training. If we found him, it is possible that we can find the rest of those who the spiders saved to eat for later down the road." Holding the freed man in his arms, Christopher could only explain his thoughts before quickly fleeing with this comrade over his shoulders.

Seeing that Christopher was now completely gone, Leo started to begin by separating the human shaped webs and the non-human shaped webs. He then deposited all the human shaped webs into his inventory screen as he did with the tiger cub earlier. It was not a surprise, it worked flawlessly!

"Now that the rescue mission has been completed, we can now simply bring all of these humans back to the village without delaying any longer. Once they recover their full strength again, we might be able to quickly make our way back here and destroy this base once and for all." Thought Leo as he slowly made his way back behind the boulder.