"I'll come back once I'm done with the lizardmen. Until then, just make sure to regularly check on your shoulder. Swap out the bandages at least once every day, and clean the area properly," Ashton advised, looking down at Millie. Her eyes and nose were still puffy and bright red.

  "Okay." She nodded, her voice quiet. She seemed tired, barely able to keep her eyes open, but was at least trying to stand a little.

  Ashton had taken the cloak off again, since it would just get in the way after this. Especially, since he was going to take the bike to speed up the trip to the costco.

  "And don't let anyone push you around, not you two either." Ashton slowly looked over to Joey and Sean, who clearly never even thought about letting that happen in the first place. "If anyone keeps bothering you because of the bite, just go to Rory."

  Sean rolled his eyes and groaned loudly. "What are you, our dad?"

  "... How old do you think I am?"

  "I don't know, 40?"

  Ashton smiled lightly, quickly reaching out and completely messing up Sean's hair. "Close enough. Alright, take care of yourselves, and each other."

  And with that, he turned around and headed toward the gym's exit. He turned around when he got to the door and waved at them again briefly, before going to the school's main gate.

  [A number of constellations are moved by your care for these children]

  [A small amount of constellations are annoyed by this waste of time]

  Ashton let out a loud groan. That was annoying. He was being watched by a lot of constellations right now, so these messages were popping up every once in a while.

  It was uncomfortable.

  "Can't you three do something about this? Aren't you, like, bigshots or something?" he asked, though it took a moment for the specific constellations he was talking to to send out a message. There were a couple of other ones trying to get his attention though, sending individual messages to him. Ashton ignored all of them as best as he could.

  [[Observer in the Veil] says that it is impossible to truly monopolise an unsponsored individual]

  [[Daughter of the Scarlet Heart] points out that if you had chosen a sponsor, this would not be happening]

  [[Executor of the End] tells you to just wait it out and take advantage of this opportunity while it lasts]

  "Take advantage of the opportunity, what's that supposed to mean?" Ashton asked, but he knew he wouldn't get a specific answer to that. How annoying, Ashton really just wanted to speak to the constellations in private. Maybe once he formed the summoning contracts with them, the other constellations would stop bothering him.

  What was even more annoying was that they weren't even gifting him anything. Usually, that was the main way that constellations tried to get one on their side, but maybe because they knew that they couldn't compete with the three bigshots already following Ashton around, they weren't even trying.

  If they had been gifting him more, then he would have been able to buy a few more items at the vending machine. But whatever, ten thousand coins were already a pretty big deal, especially since there weren't even that many ways to use that money yet.

  Though, when he was at Market Street, it did seem like people had started exchanging coins here and there, actually using it as a proper currency. Digital payment wasn't an option anymore, so that made sense.

  With an annoyed face and a slight headache coming in in the back of his head from all this attention, Ashton got on his bike and started riding down the road. Luckily, he had that small souvenir map with him and had marked down the location of the costco on that, otherwise he would probably get lost again.

  Ashton got a speed boost from Poppy, and then started riding down the road. Cracks started covering the asphalt, and where there weren't cracks, roots were covering the ground and making it hard to pass through easily. But with Ashton's current speed and the speed boost from Poppy, he was able to move around all the obstacles. Left right, pushing through that small spot between the overgrown cars, just before pulling to the side. He made small adjustments when it felt like the tires were slipping on wet leaves or moss, quickly pulled himself up and pushed the bike back down to skip over small bumps, and whenever necessary, used his staff to bash some skulls in.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Since he was in such a rush, he didn't stop to collect any materials. The only reason he killed any monsters at all instead of just rushing past them, since it wasn't like most of them could follow him as they were anyway. Every once in a while, there were those that could, such as the red wolves and some of the other animal monsters that had started popping up.

  Birds, foxes, cats; they were rushing after him as best as they could, but as soon as Ashton hit them either with a wall of flames through the salamander, a force blast through the wisp, or a combination of both in the case of the more persistent ones.

  Now that Ashton had more freedom when it came to channelling his summons, he could get rid of them basically with just a glance.

  This way, Ashton rode through the streets, continuing to keep an eye out on his surroundings. He ran into plenty of survivors, and would stop to either quickly help them out and direct them to one of the nearby camps that Ashton knew about, or asked them about any suspicious people or particularly strong monsters that they saw.

  By the time he reached the edge of town, where the forest and fields were slowly becoming more prominent, he collected a fair amount of useful info. Potential elite monsters with special traits or abilities, people that could very well be Marked, and he even heard about a few more small camps scattered throughout. Though some of them sounded like they could be some trouble.

  There were three in particular that sounded like he should check them out. One by the cathedral, one by the police station, and one a bit outside of town, probably by the edges of the region.

  Hearing some details, they all seemed troublesome for different reasons, though Ashton didn't have too much time to focus on them. He could check them out later and see if there was any trouble. The three main camps that Ashton had interacted with had dealt with constellations trying to exert their influence already. The 'Shadow Behind the Throne' at Calibur, the 'Knight of Blood and Bone' at Market Street, and of course the Guardian and the coalition at the primary school.

  However, there was also another large camp that seemed pretty promising. There was a larger group of survivors that had gathered at the university. Apparently, most of it had been destroyed by a fire after the monsters showed up, but there were still plenty of students that survived and were able to help take charge of the area.

  There were some smaller camps, too, ones with a dozen people at best, but those seven were apparently the largest, as far as Ashton could tell.

  Well, there were a lot of parts of town that had already been fully taken over by monsters and were hard to inhabit anymore, so people seemed to either use their flats as bases, or were pushed out to those seven larger places that had already established themselves.

  Either way, Ashton should check out those places now. If not for the sake of helping each other out, then in preparation for one of the coming quests. Having the right information could make a huge difference.

  But before long, instead of being surrounded by buildings, Ashton was riding down some long, empty roads. This was the town's industrial district. A lot of places had completely burnt down or were otherwise collapsed, others were being inhabited by different monsters. But overall, this place was relatively empty. Surely, a lot of the leftover buildings would be turning into dungeons soon, so Ashton would leave them alone. Since there weren't a ton of people around that could fall victim to these places, it was more valuable to conquer them later.

  There was one exception, of course, and that was the massive building at the end of the road. At its centre, just as Ashton thought, a huge pillar of mana was pushing its way through the clouds. His Veil Mastery skill let him fully perceive that obelisk of energy for the first time. He had seen a couple all over the place, but this one was probably the largest that Ashton had seen so far.

  It was right in the centre of the costco. No wonder that camp had settled there instead of other places.

  But now, it was time for Ashton to start going by foot. It was too risky to keep driving around on the bike, since it would draw too much attention. However, if he just stuck to the shadows of all the cars and trucks stuck on the road, Ashton should be able to easily continue on and kill the roaming lizardmen.

  With the summons in his vessel for now, Ashton moved quietly and soon got closer to the store. What he saw there was surprising, to say the least. Right out front was a long tailer, and attached to the front, instead of the large truck that was supposed to be there, it was a 'Ground Dragon'.

  The same way that Komodo Dragons weren't real dragons, these ones weren't either. They were just large, bulky, and incredibly strong lizards. Honestly, it looked closer to some kind of dinosaur than a normal lizard. Something like a bulkier, Ankylosaurus and a Triceratops, without the horns. Either way, it looked pretty cool. It was a shame that Ashton had to kill it, but he didn't have the right materials to form beast contracts yet, as sad as it was.

  Especially since this was a monster instead of an existing animal, Ashton would need to first anchor it down into this world before forming a contract, and that wasn't easy to do, either. Starting at the second phase, things would be different, though.

  But the most important part about this was that this dinosaur was used to draw the trailer, like some sort of carriage, and the people that the lizardmen were gathering were brought here in the back of that. It was empty right now, but it looked like they were heading out to grab another batch. That meant that there was still some time left before the ritual could start.

  So... Ashton slowly snuck toward one of the walls. He called out the gnome, and quickly started channelling the elemental, placing the earth magic onto his hands and feet.

  With a slight push, his fingers were buried in the brick fa?ade. His feet did the same, creating a slight divot as his shoes were pushed against the wall, allowing him to easily climb up.

  It was a bright and clear day, even if evening was starting to approach already, so Ashton had enough shadows to hide in and avoid the lookouts hanging off the walls all over the place.

  He peeked over the edge of the roof. A number of lizardmen were standing up here. Some were just sunbathing, others were actually still guarding the place, looking out. Most of them were just fooling or lazing around, though.

  Ashton almost felt bad that he was about to interrupt that by bashing their skulls in.