SSS-Ranked Trash Hero: I Was Scammed Into Being Summoned-Chapter 83: Planning the Hunt

The small skirmish between the guards and the worms ended quickly. They waited a while afterward, then at Lena’s request decided to leave and head back to the estate.

The walk back was quiet. Lena didn’t speak to anyone, not even Ollen. She responded only when necessary, and briefly, just enough to avoid rudeness.

By the time they arrived, the guards stepped forward, took the horses, and left them alone.

The sun had already set. Night had settled over Veth, and it was... beautiful.

The sky was filled with stars, some of them strikingly bright. It was hard to believe that a place like this belonged to the Demon Empire—a domain known for nothing but death and suffering.

After some time, Lena refreshed herself and changed into more comfortable clothes. After her bath, her beauty carried a different edge.

Some time later, Ollen invited her for tea.

The receiving room was already lit when she arrived. Oil lamps burned softly along the walls. Two short cups and a teapot rested on the table, steam still curling faintly from its spout.

Ollen poured tea into his cup without asking, then looked at her. She gave a small nod, and he poured a second.

He sat down, took a sip, and waited.

"How many men do you have," Lena asked."that you can assign to this task?"

"Estate guards, six. Reliable, all of them have faced the swarms before." He set his glass down. "I also have three mercenaries currently contracted to the estate. They came on about two months ago when the situation started getting worse. Experienced enough. They know the eastern zone better than most of my guards at this point."

"Nine total," Lena said.

"Ten," he added. "Including me."

She looked at him. He looked back at her with an expression that said the conversation about whether he was coming had already happened in his head and he had already won it.

"Fine," she said. "Ten."

She leaned forward slightly. "Now. Has anyone, in the four months this has been happening, ever tracked which direction the swarms retreat toward after you push them back?"

Ollen was quiet for a moment. The kind of quiet that meant he was thinking back through everything and coming up with nothing. "We focus on pushing them back," he said slowly. "Once they retreat we don’t follow. Following them into the growth at night with a small group would be..."

"I’m not talking about following them," Lena said. "I’m talking about watching them. From the position you’re already holding. Which direction do they go when they pull back."

He picked up his glass again. Set it down again without drinking. "No one has thought to do that."

"That’s what I thought."

She stood and moved to the side table where the teapot was and looked at the window beside it.

Dark outside now. The estate grounds were lit with the glow from the main building but beyond the rear wall there was nothing, just black.

"The swarms aren’t random," she said.

"They look random when you’re standing in the middle of one trying not to get your boots eaten through, but they’re not. They spread outward from a single point and when they’re pushed back they return to that point.

The Worm Mother is stationary. She doesn’t move. Which means every swarm that has ever come out of that eastern growth has been coming from the same location and retreating back to it every single time."

She turned from the window. "You have four months of swarms and no one has ever watched where they go."

Ollen was looking at her with an expression she was starting to recognize. It was the same one he’d had in the receiving room when she’d reasoned out the Worm Mother from his description.

"You’re saying we can find her position without going in," he said.

"I’m saying we can narrow it down significantly without going in," Lena said.

"Then going in becomes a different kind of problem. A smaller one."

She moved back to her chair and sat down.

"Here is what I want to do. Tomorrow we place your men at three separate points along the eastern edge of the growth.

Spread out, not clustered. Each group holds their position, pushes back whatever comes at them, and watches where the swarm retreats. Direction, angle, how far into the growth before they lose sight of them. All three groups report back afterward."

"Three different angles," Ollen said, following it.

"Three different angles gives us three lines. Those lines intersect somewhere. That intersection is where she is." Lena picked up her glass. "Or close enough to it that finding her from there becomes a matter of hours instead of days of searching blind."

Ollen was quiet for a long moment.

"And your role in this," he said carefully. "You’ll be observing."

"I’ll be moving between the three points throughout tommorow," she said. "Watching the pattern across all three simultaneously. Your men see one angle each. I need to see all three."

He nodded slowly. It wasn’t full acceptance yet. It was the nod of someone who had more questions but had decided to hold them for now.

"I’ll speak to the mercenaries in the morning," he said. "Brief them on the positions."

"I’ll be there for the briefing," Lena said.

He looked at her. "You don’t trust me to relay the instructions."

"I trust you fine," she said. "I want them to hear it from me so there are no gaps. They need to understand that their job tomorrow night is not to kill as many as possible. It’s to observe and report. That goes against every instinct a person develops after two months of fighting these things. I’d rather say it myself."

Ollen considered that and then nodded again.

"First light then," he said. "I’ll have them assembled."

----

She was given a room on the second floor. It was plain and clean with a narrow window that faced east. She sat on the edge of the bed for a while after the lamp was lit and let herself think about the other thing. The thing she had been setting aside since the clearing.

Her skills.

She knew what they were in the way you know something you’ve read about but never touched. Lena’s memories had given her the names, the general shape of what each one did, the broad category of power involved.

But knowing a thing and knowing how it behaves in practice were two entirely different problems.

She had felt it at the gate when the pressure had come out of her, that had been instinct, or Lena’s instinct bleeding through, and it had worked. But that was a single directed thing against a single target who was already standing still. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

A swarm was different. A swarm was hundreds of moving targets in multiple directions with her own people in the same space. Using something she didn’t fully understand in those conditions was how you ended a mission before it started. Or ended one of Ollen’s men before they could report back their angle.

She would learn what she was capable of in conditions she controlled, not in the middle of something that had already gone wrong.

She lay back and looked at the ceiling. The lamp guttered once in a draft from the window and steadied again.

She closed her eyes and slept.