The zombie walked forward, bumping into the tipped-over table. It was like it knew that something was hiding behind it, but simply wasn't able to see, even if the kids should be in its line of sight to some extent. That was... weird. Usually, at this distance, even the Guardian's protection shouldn't be enough to stop a zombie.

  Not that this mattered to Ashton at the moment. For now, he tightly grabbed his staff and threw it forward like a thrown spear. It hit the zombie in the side of the head and knocked it over.

  The walking corpse, its skull dented, slowly stood up and looked back at Ashton as he rushed over and kicked his staff back up to his hand. James, the headmaster, was staring back at Ashton.

  "... Him, of all people?" Ashton ground his teeth. He didn't have the guardian's protection, so the zombie jumped at him almost immediately. Without hesitation, Ashton slammed his staff back down and crushed the slowly rotting skull against the floor.

  Immediately, Ashton clicked his fingers and started incinerating James' body. At the end of the day, he was still a zombie, and could spread the virus further.

  But Ashton didn't have a lot of time, either. He shoved the table to the side to make space, and the scared, shaking children behind it stared up at him.

  They had been so brave the last time Ashton saw them, but now, even they had no choice but to be terrified.

  "... Was she bitten?" He looked at Millie, who was holding her thing arm in pain. The flesh around the bite wound was already turning black and necrotic, and the blood in her veins was becoming so dark that they were visible through her skin. But... the virus wasn't spreading far past her elbow.

  One of the kids, Joey, nodded her head. "Mister Crombe did it... Is she... is she going to turn into one of them?"

  Ashton immediately shook his head. "No, I won't let that happen, don't worry. Guardian, you're here, right?"

  [[Guardian of the Innocent] nods]

  [[Guardian of the Innocent] is concentrating]

  "Hold on, are you personally holding back the spread? Why would you...? Of all the children in the world, why her?" Ashton started at the message confused. That explained why they weren't here earlier at least.

  But why were they intervening with Millie specifically? Millions of children will have died at this point in time, and this one was being helped by a constellation personally? If they were 'concentrating', that meant they were directly and manually interfering with the world, a privilege given only to the grandest of constellations. But it usually came with heavy drawbacks, which is why it never happened until definitely necessary.

  She was just a random little girl. Clever, sure. Definitely brave as hell. Even now, she was holding it together well, and just grinding her teeth instead of breaking down.

  [[Guardian of the Innocent] frowns]

  Ashton ground his teeth. "Fine, but fill me in after this. And the moment I'm done, prepare a quest to have me wipe out the zombies in the school. Forget about the reward too, just make it some coins or something."

  That way, Ashton would know when he was actually done getting rid of all traces of the virus.

  [[Guardian of the Innocent] nods]

  He stared at Millie's wound. It was too deep to just gouge out the flesh. The only way to save her life, at this point in time, was to fully remove her arm.

  But Ashton didn't know how to do that. He had done this sort of thing a few times before, sure, but it was usually on himself, and he didn't exactly need to be delicate.

  For himself, all Ashton had to do was rip off his own arm.

  "Shit..." Ashton ground his teeth together and placed his hand onto Millie's shoulder. The first thing he did was pulse mana into her body to forcibly manipulate her mana pattern. There were some basic ways to manipulate mana patterns that could help in survival, usually to help you tune, or rather 'trick', your senses. One of the most common ways Ashton had done it in the past was to suppress hunger, thirst, or pain.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Doing that last one in particular could potentially cripple the flow of mana in that part of your body, so Ashton hadn't done it on himself yet. Really, the only times he would use it was when he wanted to help people pass on more peacefully over in Lumia, the few times when he had that leisure.

  But now, after adjusting the mana pattern in Millie's arm to stop her from feeling the pain didn't have any consequences. Her arm would be gone soon, anyway.

  "Millie, are you okay? Can you hear me?" Ashton asked, and the young girl slowly nodded. "You need to hold out just a few more minutes, okay? I promise, everything will be fine."

  He picked her up from the ground, and quickly brought her over to one of the nearby classrooms. Most of the tables had already been cleared out, but there were still one or two left. Ashton carefully put the girl down on one of them, and then started setting up on the other.

  Ashton didn't have the abilities to perform surgery on her, he definitely didn't. The most he could do was first-aid. It was unrealistic to find a surgeon here, and even then, they wouldn't have the equipment to sedate her. Manipulating one's mana pattern had its limits, so that wouldn't be enough.

  And even then, there wasn't any of the medicine needed to treat her after that. Potions could make up for that to some degree, but a wound like that couldn't just be treated with a regular potion, and a weakened child couldn't survive a Potion of Rapid Healing.

  None of the healing spirits with lowest grade contracts he knew of had the abilities for this, and a low grade contract with a healing spirit wasn't in the cards.

  "What if I turn her arm into an aberration..? No, that would just kill her... A construct using surgical tools..? No, that's nonsense..." Ashton ground his teeth, gripping the edges of the table while Joey and Sean stared at his back, standing next to their friend.

  "Please, just... just do something!" Sean sobbed, and Ashton's heart almost broke.

  [[Daughter of the Scarlet Heart] taps the arm of their throne]

  He glared at the message. "Yes! I know it already, fuck off!"

  [[Daughter of the Scarlet Heart] laughs with joy]

  Ashton pushed off his jacket and threw it to the ground. "Backpacker! A knife, a bowl, a pestle, inkcap ink, the watercolour kit, and the warlord orc's bone!"

  The spirit did as asked as silently and quickly as they could, as Ashton clicked his finger. The Drunken Bear appeared, holding their bottle but not drinking. "Can you grind the bone down? As finely as you can."

  The bear did so without hesitation. They crushed the heavy bone in the metal bowl prepared by the Backpacker, as Ashton grabbed a small bit of particular types of pigment from the watercolour kit, mostly from different poisonous flowers as well as a bit of pigment from simple chalk.

  Ashton put the pigments into the bowl with the crushed-up bone. Once it was all crushed cleanly enough, Ashton poured the black inkcap ink into the bowl as he looked for a spot on his arm. If he was going to form this contract, he better make use of it properly and make this accessible.

  He took a deep breath and used the knife in his hand to carve something into his arm. It was a sigil; a mark that would be branded into his flesh soon enough. It was a small mark, since this was still a lowest grade contract at the end of the day.

  But not all contracts were the same, not even of the same grade. The real 'grade' was usually just determined by how much of one's vessel it would take up. How much power it took to form it, and how high the connected cost was.

  The indirect consequences of the contract, or the permanence was usually not part of this.

  Most of the contracts that Ashton wanted to form were of an equal relationship, but this type was different. The Summoner could do as they pleased, but Ashton wasn't strong enough. He wanted to wait until he formed this until he had the leverage for an equal contract. But right now, he had to choose between being chained to a contract he couldn't undo of his own free will, or letting a child die when he knew he could have prevented it.

  It was probably the easiest choice Ashton ever made.

  The sigil, just around three inches long, was placed on his inner arm, and the cut was deep. Blood streamed out of his wound right into the bowl until Ashton was satisfied with the amount.

  With his bare hand, Ashton started mixing the 'ink'. The poisonous pigments were hurting his hand, but this was how he had to do it.

  He dropped to the ground. Since all the tables and chairs were already gone, there was plenty of space for him.

  [[Observer in the Veil] watches your summoning curiously]

  [[Executor of the End] asks if you are sure you want to contract one of them]

  [[Daughter of the Scarlet Heart] glares at the Executor]

  "I said to fuck off!" Ashton yelled. The kids flinched at his voice, but he just turned around to them with a smile. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. Just a little longer, I promise."

  They were scared. Obviously, actually facing death was the scariest thing in the world.

  Even Ashton, who once did nothing more than wish for death, could do nothing more than wish for it right now.

  As he dropped to his knees and started drawing the summoning circle, grotesque in its shape like thought up by a madman, he began to whisper. "... Executor, can you...? Can you calm them, maybe?"

  [[Executor of the End] asks what you expect them to do]

  "... Just tell them something... anything to make them less scared. Anything that can convince them that all three of them will live," Ashton asked, and there was a momentary break.

  [[Executor of the End] points out that you words will be more powerful than any of theirs]

  Ashton closed his eyes for a moment. His arm was still bleeding, but that was fine. That wouldn't mess up the summoning.

  "Kids... you see those friends of mine there?" he asked. "That bear, the one with the backpack, and this little buddy in the lantern?"

  Joey and Sean looked over at Ashton, confused. They didn't know why he suddenly spoke about that.

  "The bear, they can lift a car over their head without breaking a sweat. The inside of that backpack will be as big as this classroom at some point. And the salamander can call flames from nowhere. Like this," Ashton said, pulling a wisp of fire from the lantern. He split it up into eight parts. It was difficult, but as long as he thought of those eight parts as the same 'thing' and moved them as a whole, it was doable. "Right now, I'm preparing to make a new... a new friend. One that I promise will save Millie for us."

  He didn't want to lie, but he had to. It would save Millie, but at least in his experience, Demons weren't the kind to make friends.