Why is 探そう not 探しそう?

Question

In a manga I am reading, I came across the following sentence. 注目集めてるな。早くミクを探そう。

The speaker just crashed on his skis and a crowd of people started to gather around, thus garnering a lot of attention to what just happened. The speaker is somewhat stealthy leaving the scene and saying that it seems he should look for ミク.

My question is that I believe this to be a case of そう where it should be connected to the verb steam in order to mean seems or like. Is that not how this is working here? If this is the case I suspect it to be, why did the し get dropped off of 探しそう?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Answer 1

This is the volitional, formed with おう after a 五段 verb, as in 行こう or 進もう, and よう after 一段, as in 食べよう or 感じよう. It is not the そう of 探しそう.

It has a number of uses, but one of the most common, and the one here, is roughly 'I should', 'I will', 'we should', 'let's' and such.

「注目集めてるな。早くミクを探そう{さがそう}。」= 'I'm drawing a lot of attention. I'll go and look for Miku right away.'