A bag filled with magic stones and monster fangs in his hand, Ashton walked over to the nearby public bathroom here in the park, right next to that 'plaza' where the fight went down, so that he could clean himself up a little. While he didn't care about all the blood he was covered in, he knew that it wasn't an exactly 'normal' sight in this world, at least not yet. While he wasn't going to go out of his way to help strangers, it would be a bother if they were scared of him just because he didn't manage to clean up the bare minimum.

  Luckily, running water was still available at the moment. The infrastructure to support this would probably stop working sooner or later, which meant that Ashton had to make use of it while he still could.

  "Wh-What the hell happened here?" a voice came from outside the public bathroom.

  Someone else seemed to respond, equally nervous, "Maybe they killed each other?"

  "Each other? They've all been absolutely butchered, how would they do that to each other?"

  "Hey! Lay off her, we're all confused!"

  Rolling his eyes, Ashton walked out of the bathroom, his staff in hand. By now, the wisp had been unsummoned, so he just looked like a regular person with a quarterstaff, "That was me."

  The five people that had been talking to each other snapped their heads toward Ashton. He looked relatively unassuming. Plus, he was just a single guy, and he was saying he killed all these monsters?

  Ashton was equally surprised, actually. The tutorial was barely halfway done, and there was already a pretty decent party in the area. Three guys, two girls. One of the guys was carrying a baseball bat, and another an old, well-used sledgehammer. The third guy was carrying a massive backpack with him, clearly taking care of everyone's supplies, and was using a trashcan lid as a makeshift shield. As for the girls, one was holding an actually pretty decent-looking bow, like the ones that you use for sport. The other was clutching a large kitchen knife in her hand, as though she was scared to let go of it. They were covered in blood, though it largely didn't seem to be their own. But all in all, they seem to be handling themselves surprisingly well.

  "You killed all of them? On your own? You got a crew back there or somethin'?" one of the guys, the one carrying the baseball bat, asked while trying to peek behind him to see if anyone else was in that small public bathroom.

  "Just me," Ashton responded, walking past the group, "You can go check. You came here for the bathroom, right? The water still works, so fill up your bottles and get cleaned up or whatever."

  The group shot glances at each other hesitantly. They silently decided on taking turns, always leaving at least two people out here to keep an eye on Ashton. He couldn't help himself but smile a little. Humans were adaptive like that, adjusting to chaos and catastrophe immediately. These guys, clearly around Ashton's age, maybe a year or two younger and still going to uni, were probably a good way to gauge people in general. The sort that would survive at least the first batch of quests if they were a little smart about their choices.

  "You guys got your status window already?" he wondered, and the two guys, the ones with the sledgehammer and backpack, glanced at each other. They nodded.

  "What about it?"

  "Nothing," Ashton sighed, "Just wondering, that's all. Good sign."

  The one wearing the backpack nervously stuttered out a response, "Good... good sign for what?"

  "That you'll get through all of this."

  "Won't it... won't it be over in seven hours?"

  Ashton scoffed, shaking his head, "When have you ever played a game where the tutorial is all there is?"

  As if the daunting realization that they had been running away from came over them all at once, both of their faces went as pale as they could be. A moment later, the one with the baseball bat came out of the bathroom, tagging in the one with the bat.

  He scoffed, "So what, you acting like some kind of expert? Just because you managed to kill an... uh..."

  "Orc."

  "Right, an orc. Just 'cause you did that, you think you know more about this than the rest of us?"

  Rolling his eyes, Ashton approached one of the benches at the edge of the circular plaza. This was as good a place as any to hide out for now. With the mana well, he should be able to get his hands on a couple more basic summons he needed. They would fill up his current contract capacity fast, compared to the lesser wisps which had one of the lowest volumes around, but they were absolute necessities going forward.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  The two girls came out of the bathroom together and the last of the group went in, and they looked at the bat-wielding guy together, "What's going on?"

  "Nothing, just that guy acting all high and mighty for some reason. Like he's better than us or-"

  "Oh can you just shut up for a second?" the girl with the bow groaned, "I know you get like this whenever you're anxious, and this is a situation to be anxious about for sure, but just can it, yeah?"

  Clicking his tongue, he looked away and put the bat onto his shoulder, "Whatever."

  The archer looked over at Ashton and smiled, "Will you be okay on your own?"

  Ashton raised a brow and glanced over at the bodies of the dozen goblins and the massive orc laying right next to the girl, and then looked back over at her.

  "Right..." she replied, "Point is, do you want to join us? Oh, I'm Jacky, by the way."

  "... Ashton."

  "So, uh... What do you say?" Jacky asked, clearly not sure how to deal with someone like Ashton.

  But he just shook his head, "No, thanks."

  Jacky was a bit surprised, "Are you... sure? This is pretty dangerous. And sure, you're clearly really strong, but isn't it safer to not be alone?"

  "Who says I'm alone?" Ashton replied, letting his arms hang down the back of the bench.

  "Oh fuck off, you said it was just you like a minute ago," the guy with the bat barked out, and Jacky quickly stepped in front of him.

  "That's Oliver, he gets a bit loud sometimes. Anyway, if you're not alone, maybe you and your friends want to join us together? The more people the safer, right?"

  Figuring he should be a lot more clear about his intentions, Ashton sighed and leaned back forward, "I'm not going to join you. I'm planning on moving alone whenever I can."

  "Now he's saying he's alone again? Come on..." Oliver turned around, starting to pace around the area. Jacky was also clearly getting a bit frustrated, and the other girl walked up to her.

  "Uhm... Jacky, I think we should just leave when John and Paul come back out," she looked over at the corpses strewn around. She probably didn't think that Ashton could overhear her, but with his increase in stats, his hearing had gotten a little better. The 'power' stat somehow seemed to govern sensory power as well as overall physical strength, "He's using a staff, but... those bodies were all... cut up..."

  Glancing at the bodies herself, Jacky swallowed nervously, "You don't think it was him?"

  "That's not it... they died from blunt impact, and then they were cut open post-mortem."

  "Nicole, what are you saying?"

  Ashton rolled his eyes. Of course it was going to go that way. The dickhead trio also reacted like that earlier. But well, if it made them get out of here faster, Ashton didn't really mind.

  Nicole looked at Ashton, clearly more than a little scared, "He cut them up afterward... for fun..."

  Though Ashton wanted to laugh at that, of course it would look like he was some kind of psychopath. It wasn't like he enjoyed it, he was just desensitised by now.

  Ashton looked down at his watch. He really just wanted to hurry up, summon some elementals and spirits, and then head out to prepare for the first main quest.

  "Are you... staying here?" Jacky asked while looking over at Ashton, and he shrugged.

  "Another hour or so."

  "... Do you mind if we stay here for a while too?"

  Nicole anxiously held onto Jacky's arm, but she stared back, whispering, "We're five, he's one. Plus, now that he took out all the monsters here, so it should be-"

  "If you think it's safe here, you're dead wrong," Ashton pointed out, interrupting Jacky, "The monsters aren't stationary, and it's a hot day out. All those corpses are going to stink pretty soon. That's the smell those fuckers seem to love the most."

  Oliver turned back around, staring at Ashton, "Are you saying there'll be more of those coming here?"

  "Probably."

  "So why are you staying here, then?" Jacky wondered, "Isn't that dangerous for you, too?"

  Right then, the other two came out of the bathroom. As if the universe knew the perfect timing for everything, Ashton could hear the snarling of a herd of monsters. He got up and stretched a bit. His shoulder still hurt, but it should be easy enough to take them out now that he had proper weapon.

  And almost as soon as Ashton did, the others reacted as well, though their focus was on the other side of the plaza. From one side, a group of three ratmen and two goblins came, while from the other, five ratmen and six goblins were coming around.

  'Makes sense. Mana wells attract monsters, that's why the orc was here in the first place', Ashton thought to himself, but he didn't have to say that out loud. Instead, he walked up toward the larger group of monsters, "You take care of those."

  Confused, the party of five stared at Ashton's back. He knew what they were thinking. Wouldn't it make more sense for Ashton to take the smaller group? But he didn't give them much of a choice, since he was already walking straight at the bigger one.

  "Fine!" Jacky yelled out while nocking an arrow onto her bow. Her hand was shaking, but she was still reacting well enough. With time, she would probably unlock the 'Archer' class. She fired the first shot, as the others ran forward. Oliver with his bat, and John with the sledgehammer tried to swing at the monsters in the front, while Paul was trying to fend them off with that improvised shield. Nicole as well, seemed to be trying to find a good time to attack with her knife.

  But... they were clumsy. Really, really clumsy. Keeping too much distance. They were nervous, not taking very obvious opportunities to attack because they were too scared to get hurt. Was that what Ashton was like in the beginning?

  Well, if they managed to survive long enough, Ashton might try to help them out a bit. If they got injured, they might try to stick around a place with clean water, the bathrooms, even longer.

  Looking away from that group, Ashton stared over at the ratman that came running at him at full speed. He started spinning his staff and smiled lightly ahead of the battle.