"And you are positive that you are willing and able to do this all on your own?" he asked, and Ashton nodded immediately and without any sense of hesitation on his face.
"Mhm. Might take a few hours, but I should get it done pretty soon. Hopefully by the time the next quest comes around," Ashton explained. It seemed like the headteacher was still worried, but this wasn't the best time to talk, and so Ashton just pulled the door shut himself and waited for the teacher to lock it.
If he had to, he could leave them a few more tips later on to make sure they didn't struggle here. Though, with the Guardian keeping such a close eye, they should be fine. Just the fact that they knew to ask for help through the community was a great sign for them.
For now, Ashton summoned the undine and started sneaking around. The shoelaces were way more effective than he could have ever thought. They were basically cloaking his feet in a thin layer of stealth magic, so every step that he took, even if he somehow stepped on some kind of stick, branch, or patch of gravel, was basically completely silent.
Of course, it wasn't perfect stealth - beings with vastly superior senses would probably be able to still hear it, but for the majority of monsters, this was already amazingly powerful. If it were just a bit later and darker, he would have the perfect conditions to infiltrate anywhere.
As he said to the kids, for now, he was going to clear out the actual school grounds so that he could secure this place. At the same time, he wanted to try and find an advantageous spot that he could take advantage of and lure some of the monsters to, so that he didn't have to take them on all at once.
He already did that in market street, and that was a stretch already... Now, it would be suicide. There were far more monsters involved, and they were all stronger than before. Plus, they were actively growing in strength as the world was flooded with more and more mana.
Before long, they would get bored of hunting the stragglers that came by because of the community post and make their way into the school. From what Ashton knew, the protection that the Guardian gave to the world's children wasn't something omnipotent. It simply weakened the monsters' instinctual aggressiveness when children were involved. That didn't mean they were suddenly docile. And it was hard to feed more than a hundred monsters.
It wouldn't take long until they attacked, so Ashton had to get to them first. The school's layout was pretty basic. The parking lot was out front. The cars were actually in a pretty decent state, all-considered. Sure, their windows were smashed and their wheels were torn open, but they should still be able to run without issues if that was fixed.
Which was a good thing - hopefully, at some point parts of this area would be cleared out to the point where cars could come in useful again.
The school itself was just a single large building, with a fairly big storage shed out back. There was a vegetable garden and a large lawn next to the playground, and everything else on the property was paved with concrete. It was all cracked up and kind of shoddy-looking. In general, the more Ashton looked around, it was clear that this school was already not doing very well before the apocalypse. It looked like that janitor did quite a lot of patching-up work over the year.
Ashton walked around, starting at the back of the property. The playground had a good few goblins sitting there, guarding all the back entrances. That red door was a little hard to find if you weren't looking for it, so it was somewhat safe, but any other entrance or exit was completely blocked off.
The playground itself was actually pretty amazing. There were small play-castles to climb, rope walls, some big slides, a swing set. The playground was in better condition than anything else here. Which probably explained why it was taken over by some of the monsters. There were two orcs, and roughly 25 goblins in clear view, climbing on the playground equipment and basically turning it into their own base.
To be honest, if those weren't murderous, blood-covered monstrosities, they might actually be pretty cute. There were a couple of summons he was friendly with that would love a place like this.
Ashton smiled somewhat bitterly, glancing over at the undine. He felt a little bad to use the elementals exclusively for combat, because that wasn't exactly their purpose in life, but this was just the situation he found himself in.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
He snuck into some bushes in front of the wall surrounding the school property, hiding behind them to try and scout out the monsters for now.
While most of them stayed on the playground, a handful were walking around, as if scouting out the school to make sure nobody was escaping.
Most goblins wouldn't do this on their own, so this was definitely the result of that leader-orc's command.
But this was great for Ashton. He positioned himself in a place that was more hidden than others that he saw a goblin walk by earlier. From there, the moment a new goblin came by and none other was in sight, Ashton channelled the undine and made a bubble of water stick to its mouth.
Of course, this wasn't choke it to death, that would take too long - it was to muffle the monster's screams for help.
Even if he managed to hit it over the head immediately, it was easy to let out a last death scream. Unless your mouth was blocked like this, of course.
So, Ashton blocked the monster's mouth, jumped out of the bush with his staff in hand, and swung it directly against the goblin's head. Though bubbles escaped through the water, it was almost entirely silent, except for the full impact of the monster falling down.
[You have killed a [Goblin]. For your valiant effort, you are awarded 15 Coins]
Ashton picked up the small monster's body and hid it behind the bush he squatted behind. First, he had to check on the items this guy had.
Groups that were led by more intelligent monsters often used items in far different ways to normal. And that was the case here as well.
It was wearing weirdly modern clothes, not in the same way as the goblins that Sam fought earlier today, though. While those had clearly stolen clothes from some kind of shop or home, these were old, ruined and ripped clothes that looked like they had been worn for years. They looked almost identical to what goblins usually wore, the clothes were simply made from materials that were common here on earth and were clearly machine-produced, rather than the rough, badly-crafted ones that goblins usually wore. Ashton had already noticed this earlier when he headed into the school, but he didn't have the time to inspect everything more closely.
This didn't seem to be an effect of the leader, though, but just one of the ways that certain monsters were adjusting to earth as they were spawned here.
Ashton continued taking a look at what the goblin carried. A number of knives, a slingshot, decently sized stones. It even had a wallet in its pocket, though this one was stolen from someone that was killed by this fucker.
Either way, it was a lot more well-equipped and -prepared than goblins usually were. That would be the case with the rest of them as well. But in the end, these were still usually rather crude or ill-fitting items. The knives were so dull that it seemed like the goblin was practicing how to use it on the school's brick walls.
In the end, these guys simply weren't particularly skilled or clever with matters like this.
Now that he had a better idea of what the goblins were going to be like, Ashton hid the body a little more and the continued on. Now, he felt more confident in taking on a larger group. After summoning the other elementals, he could almost certainly kill all the goblins on the playground, or the two orcs. All of them together would be the issue. Plus, the fight would make too much noise and probably attract the monsters from other parts of the school grounds.
So, instead, Ashton had to be a bit more clever about this.
He asked the backpacker for some of the lure coins. They weren't loud or conspicuous enough that they would draw the attention of every monster, they would just have a few 'scouts' head toward the sound source.
Ashton threw one of the coins on the pavement and it immediately started crackling and jumping around. Around half a minute later, a group of goblins approached. Immediately, Ashton followed behind them around the corner into this hidden part of the school grounds. There were three of them right now.
Ashton hit one of the goblins over the back of the head. It yelled out loudly, but Ashton pushed it down so that its face hit the ground immediately, muffling the sound as much as possible.
The goblins were already noisy as is and often hit each other as a joke, so this probably wouldn't attract too much attention quite yet since they came here as a group, but that was only if Ashton could take down the others soon.
He had the undine's water cover the mouth of one of the other goblins and then hit the last into its chest to knock the air out of its lungs.
This was all before they could even react beyond trying to yell. Killing three goblins was incredibly easy for Ashton at this point.
He cracked open the skull of the goblin with the air knocked out of it and quickly killed it, before stomping down onto the back of the head of that first goblin.
Shockingly... The sound of its face being broken in was muffled by the magical shoelaces as well. It was a weird sound, honestly, but Ashton was glad. He hated how that usually sounded, anyway.
Now, it was easy to kill the last goblin, as it was trying to rip the water off its mouth. Once they were all gone, Ashton pulled the bodies away to try and hide them at least a little.
And soon, as Ashton continued moving around the school grounds, luring small groups of goblins into slightly hidden areas, he spotted some goblins gathered in the vegetable garden. That place was apparently used to foster ecological awareness in the kids. He didn't remember if it was here when he attended, but it sounded neat.
But as he approached closer, Ashton noticed what the goblins were actually doing. They were laughing, and one of them held onto something, shaking it around.
At first glance, Ashton thought it was a doll that a kid lost out here, but then, he heard the sound of bells ringing. Those small, tiny, high-pitched ball bells.
That was a very specific sound, especially since the ringing sounded scared.
And then, Ashton saw what it really was. It was something that shouldn't exist in this world, at least not yet.
'What the hell is a fairy doing here?'
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