Chapter 6

Ivan, whose whole body ached, struggled to his feet and, trying to ignore the terrible pain in his head, forced himself to look around. "What happened? I just can't remember, the last thing I remember - Olga climbed into her father's hiding place in the house and took out another bottle of vodka, or were there two of them? Damn dry wood, so thirsty, I wish I awakened the water element. And in general, how far am I from the village? We must return. Okay, now I'll look at the GPS on my smartphone. " Ivan took a phone out of his jeans pocket, whose screen cracked, but it still worked somehow.

The student turned on the mobile Internet and GPS, but came to his senses in time. "Damn, it's good that in this state I realized that mobile communications and the like attracts monsters to it, just a little more ... By the way, it was Clubfoot who tore up these monsters?" Ivan only noticed the corpses lying near him, on which there were wounds from claws and teeth, but not from magic. "Yes, judging by the amount of summoning element energy that I had left, Clubfoot went back to the summoning dimension shortly before my awakening, which means that this is why the monsters didn't torn me asleep. But now I quickly need to find a village, otherwise I will not get to it alive - the amount of recovered energy will be enough only for 3 minutes of maintaining the call. " Suddenly Ivan heard a loud human voice, as if calling someone, but could not make out the words. Ivan, with difficulty moving his legs, went to the sound. After some time walking, Ivan noticed a man who, seeing the student, walked in his direction, and coming close, shouted to him:

- Are you Ivan? - this man was a man of about 40 years old and his gaze was mixed with severity and surprise.

- Yes, eh, are you a magician from the village? Have you seen three more teenagers my age in this forest?

- I saw, I saw, to their happiness, they did not have time to move far from the village, unlike you. How did you survive? Your friends said that you were being chased by at least 10 large forest wolves of the lowest Servant level. Although in this state, they could remember anything. I am one of the people guarding the village.

- I don't remember anything, but most likely there were 4 lower Servants and one younger Servant, the corpses are nearby, in the clearing. - Ivan pointed with his hand in the direction of the place where he woke up. - I am a summoning mage, my recruiting beast is a Brown bear of the level of the highest Servant, if you don't believe me, I will show you how the energy of the element will be restored in the village. Do you have a drink?

A man gave Ivan a flask, and he, by some artifact, released a green ball of light into the sky, and they went to the village - on the way, the student saw a section of the forest on which there were several burnt dry trees, some of which were felled, and the ground under them was more wetter than the rest of the forest. It looked like the forest was set on fire, and then sharply extinguished with water. The guard from the village, seeing that Ivan was looking at the scorched trees, said:

- These burnt trees are the work of your company, you are lucky that the middle-level magician of the element of Water came running first to the place, otherwise, as if someone died, if not from the teeth of monsters, then from a fire.

Having reached the village, the man took Ivan not to Olga's house, but to a house in the center of the village, on the roof of which there was a watchtower. Entering the site, the first person Ivan saw was Olga, who ran up to Ivan and, to the student's great surprise, hugged him tightly. Olga's eyes were red, as if she was crying, although Ivan could not imagine such a sight.

- You are alive, I already thought ... - Olga seemed to sob, but Ivan did not let go of the embrace - The others were brought from the forest three hours ago, and I, apparently, felt so bad from alcohol that I fell asleep right by the fire and you went to forest without me, when I woke up from the noise, the guards of the village took Marina out of the forest, who was in wounds and burns, she was already helped by the healing magician and Pasha, who, apparently, fleeing with the help of earth magic, crashed into a tree and lost consciousness. What idiots we are, you have to go hunting in the forest at night, and I didn't dissuade you, and I think that if I hadn't passed out, I would have gone myself. - Olga let go of Ivan and took a step away, when a man of about 45 in camouflage clothes with a stern face came out of the house and approached Ivan:

- Oh, the fourth hero was found, of course you guys are great, you have to think of it. Come on, go to the house, there our healing magician will heal you, in the kitchen you will find a pickle in a jar, and then sleep off, as you all come to your senses, I'll talk to you four. By the way, my name is Alexander Andreevich, I am responsible for the protection of this village.

Ivan, having told Olga that it would not hurt her to sleep either, went into the house and did everything as Alexander Andreevich said. Sleeping awake, Ivan realized that the body no longer hurts - the magic of healing and sleep cured everything, and the head began to hurt less - the brine helped. Going out into the courtyard, Ivan saw that Pavel, Olga and Marina were sitting on a bench there. The student approached his friends and learned from the words of Pavel and Marina, who remembered him more and with joint efforts were able to restore part of the events:

Drunk students, deciding that because of the white nights, it practically does not get dark, you can go hunting right now. Marina at first she thought it was a bad idea, but Olga persuaded her. True, almost immediately after that, Olga vomited and passed out. Three students went into the forest, noisy and talking loudly, but due to the fact that they were drunk, they noticed a pack of large forest wolves of the level of a lower Servant, led by a younger Servant, only at the last moment: Marina was the first to release the first-level fire magic of the second stage, but hit a dry tree, which immediately ignited, along with a couple of dry trees nearby. Pavel tried to escape from the wolves using earth magic, but while moving, he crashed into a tree at full speed. Ivan ran further into the forest, but it turned out that most of the wolves who had fled from the burning trees followed him. The guy was lucky that the wolves began to chase him not immediately, but only when they ran away from the fire for a considerable distance. A burning wolf attacked Marina, but the mid-level magician of the water element, who was on duty on the tower, very quickly noticed the fire and, with the help of the wind magic of the initial level of the third stage, instantly reached the battlefield, extinguished the flame and killed the wolves remaining near the battlefield.

- I see, so most likely, when the wolves caught up with me, I still thought of summoning Clubfoot, so I survived. - Ivan said. - Marina, are you okay, did you get the most?

- Yes, thanks, the local healing magician completely cured my burns, after all, we are complete idiots, we were very lucky that everyone survived. - answered Marina.

- I completely agree with the previous speaker - said Alexander Andreevich, approaching the students. - "very lucky" is putting it mildly. Now I need to understand what to do with you, you are certainly idiots, but promising idiots, especially you, Ivan. - Ivan did not know what to answer to such a "compliment". Alexander Andreevich, after a pause, continued - I know that if you are severely punished now, locked up somewhere, or something like that, you most likely will not learn anything, and maybe repeat this "trick" again, but the outcome can be fatal. Olga said that you were going to stay here until mid-July? Then, since you have such a zeal to hunt, you will train daily under the supervision of the village guards, as well as three times a week, under the supervision, to clean up the surrounding forests from lower and younger Servants, the village guards will only interfere if you are on the brink of death. Thus, you yourself will learn, and you will help us - killing lower and younger Servants in the vicinity is unprofitable and too troublesome for a magician of average or high level, since the animals scatter, feeling the power of the magician. So the guards of the village will look after you from some distance. And to your parents, I will inform you about everything after the fact, so as not to take the "workers" from me.

Ivan and his comrades sighed with relief when they heard what fate Alexander Andreevich had prepared for them - they did not dream of more, but Olga and Marina shuddered when they learned that they would still inform their parents, because the head of the village guard was familiar only with Olga's parents and Marina, although Ivan would be interested to see how his father would react to such news, most likely it would be like this:

- Oh, well done! The guy grew up like a dad.

The next month at Olga's dacha, the students spent as Alexander Andreevich said: they trained and hunted, it was very useful for the guys: Pavel and Olga reached the second stage of the initial level, and Ivan, whose amulet devoured all the souls of monsters, increasing the speed of the guy's cultivation, reached control of the third star of space and made his way to the second stage of the initial level of the call, thereby increasing his reserve of energy of this element. True, Ivan had to partially cultivate at night, since he did not want to explain why he had enough energy to cultivate about 6 hours a day (the time increased due to the progress of the amulet). He was not burnt, since he shared a room with Paul, who always slept without his hind legs, although he snored at the same time.

Through joint hunting and training, the students worked well and learned to combine their magic, for the whole month the students killed more than a hundred lower Servants, eleven younger Servants, and Clubfoot killed one senior Servant, whom the students accidentally stumbled upon when going far into the forest.

When four friends got tired of training and cultivation, they played cards and went swimming in a small lake, which was near the village, so it was safe there.

Thus, for the students, the month passed unnoticed and it was time to go back to the city.