Shadow parasite

Taking a few more bites of meat, Gorn analyzed the girls. Most of them wanted to come, but they did not say anything. ‘I’ll be the one to decide anyway,’ thought Gorn, in a way, awkwardly pleased by their silence.

“Since no one wants to volunteer, I’ll go with you,” said Lora suddenly. Her words bringing quite the reaction from Elisa, and her daughters.

“Why do you mean no one? I just said that I want to go. Are you deaf or something?” retorted Ella without any mercy. At this moment, she felt like beating the shit out of Lora.

“I want to go,” said Nora with an expectant gaze.

“Me too,” added Mara from the side, feeling that she was the most deserving of this trip.

All of a sudden, breakfast turned intense. Gorn felt the start of a headache incoming. ‘Me wanting them to live in perfect harmony would be a little too much to ask, right?’ thought Gorn, noticing that this was very unlikely to happen. All of them were beautiful, so giving up on some of them wasn’t going to be easy.

‘Can I somehow make it work?’ there were other, more important things to handle at the moment, so he wanted to keep such matters rather simple. Easier said than done.

“I see… say no more, I will choose. Let’s finish eating first.” He should have just picked someone from the start, avoiding causing a small conflict.

‘In a way, I can’t say that I totally dislike seeing them fight over me,’ thought Gorn, while grinning evilly. ‘What have I become…’

Everything turned quiet yet again. The meat was delicious, and the surroundings were fairly calm. Gorn ate slowly, thoroughly enjoying the food. After a couple dozen minutes, he finally finished. “Alright, I have decided,” everyone’s attention turned yet again to him. “I want you to come with me. Of course, if you want.” His gaze was locked on no other than Nora.

Nora grinned, her face was showing a great deal of eagerness. “I want!”

“Great! We will leave in ten minutes.” He was very pleased by her reaction.

Nora quickly got up, and went to change into other clothes. Elisa smiled, pretty happy by his choice. Mara, and Ella, seemed to be the most disappointed. Lora also had a weird expression, not sure what to make out of the situation.

“While I’m not here, Elisa will be in charge. We are currently in the same team, so I expect everyone to be respectful to each-other.”

Patting Ella on the head, he continued: “Can I count on you?” this was a gentle way of scolding her for her previous rudeness. Since it was basically Lora who provoked her, Gorn was rather lenient.

Getting on one knee, he looked into her eyes: “Later, the two of us will also go on a little expedition.”

“You promise?” asked Ella with watery eyes.

“I promise!” Gorn gently stroked her hair. The little girl started to have a very special place inside his heart, so it was very unpleasant to see her sad. Ella hugged him tightly. Her previous sadness vanished into thin air.

Nora finished changing her clothes, and was already yet again at his side. She was dressed in a short skirt coupled with black stockings, and a thin sweater. It was basically the same outfit as the previous day.

“We will be back in no time. Also, there is no need to make the shelter larger, just leave it as it is. Feel free to relax, or do something else until I return.”

Digging into the tree after a certain point became almost impossible without special tools, so the effort wasn’t worth it anymore.

“Understood! Have a safe trip!” contrary to Amelia, Elisa was currently in a good mood.

Taking Nora by the hand, both of them disappeared. In just a few moments, they were already pretty far away. Landing on a tree top, Gorn squatted, signalling for her to get on his back. Carrying her by the hand like a bag of potatoes wasn’t exactly the best option.

Nora happily obliged. Getting on his back, she extended her hands over his shoulders, while her left cheeks touched his right side of the head. Gorn firmly hold her by the legs, enjoying the great sensation.

Activating the stealth ability, he started to run between the trees at a very fast speed. The once troublesome wind resistance was no more. Now, running became a very pleasant activity. Their presence remained unnoticed, making the situation even more satisfying.

Gorn advanced at a high speed, from time to time doing various flips through the air, and off the tree branches. Nora was in for quite the ride. Her heart was beating at a fast rate, still unused to such things.

Running at such speeds, and also teleporting very often, made it a little hard to keep track of the surroundings, and the location. Nora had absolutely no idea where they were, or how to get back to the others.

This wasn’t the first time for Gorn, so he didn’t have this kind of problem. Of course, he wasn’t totally immune to it, but he already had multiple means to aid him with orientation. One of them was to simply teleport high into the sky. From above, he could see a great distance away. Since certain mountains had very peculiar traits, they made for the perfect landmarks.

In a short time, they reached an area that was very close to Sara’s base. Along with the usual roaming monsters, these parts of the forest were the territory of a certain type of venomless snake. More exactly, it was the same species of snakes as the one he helped Sara to get rid of. Usually they didn’t have any skills, and that made them a good opponent for him to farm gold.

Their strength varied depending on the size. The one he previously killed was pretty much a full-grown specimen. Stopping on a smaller tree, Gorn took out a few berries, and gave some to Nora as well. “We will make a short break here. What I’m looking for is a snake, roughly ten meters in size. Keep your eyes opened, if you see something like that, let me know.”

“Ok,” she was curious for why he wanted to find such a monster, but did not say anything. She wasn’t the type of person to pry too much into other people’s businesses.