But that Ashton wasn't giving them any further response than what he had already said. He didn't have time for that. Instead, he squatted down in front of the goblin's body and pulled out one of the kitchen knives that he had stuffed into the side of his backpack, as well as a small plastic bottle.
He had to hurry. The other goblins may have been distracted for a moment, but that wouldn't be the case for long. And so, without hesitation, Ashton cut into the dead goblin's chest, just slightly below the ribs. Blood slowly pooled up in the wound, which he quickly collected in the bottle. He didn't need a lot, just a little bit to act as a starting point.
Once he was satisfied, he pulled up his sleeve and pushed his hand into the goblin's ribcage. With all this blood, already obscuring everything, it would be too annoying to go through the goblin's small ribcage without breaking it, so he had to push his hand through under to get to the heart. Or rather, the small crystal formations embedded inside of the heart.
Monsters like goblins had mana mixed into their blood, but their bodies weren't able to filter and absorb it properly. So, the leftover mana often tended to gather together and crystalize inside of the heart. Sometimes, you could also find these crystal formations in other organs, like their stomach or lungs, but the heart was the most reliable place and tended to create the largest crystals as well.
Ashton pulled on the heart until it was easier to get to, and then cut it out with the knife in his other hand. He cut into the heart to properly extract the small, rice-grain sized magic stones and put them into a small plastic bag. These were almost completely useless, but there should be a few things that Ashton could do with them.
While he finished working and wiping the blood off his hands, he heard some footsteps behind him, though. One of the guys was acting. But the footsteps were too light. Mickey was trying to reach out to the metal bar that Ashton put down on the ground, most likely to strike at him while he wasn't looking, but Ashton wasn't that easy to take down. While still squatting down, Ashton kicked his foot back and pulled that metal bar closer toward him, slightly hooking it with the tip of his foot.
With a swift motion, he stood up and spun the bar, sweeping Mickey off his feet.
"What do you want?" Ashton asked, and Mickey glared up at him, grinding his teeth together.
"You- You fucking psycho, you- How could you kill someone like that?! I know it stabbed Chris, but you went-"
"Too far?" With a sigh, Ashton packed away the newly gathered materials, "You might think that now, but by the end of the week, you'll get why I'm doing this. Out of you three..."
Ashton looked each member of the dickhead trio up and down. Chris wasn't able to handle even the pain of just getting stabbed in the shoulder without becoming completely useless. Bart and Mickey froze up, and though Bart reacted quickly to help Chris out, he was completely defenceless. But Mickey? He at least had that look on his face that showed some real dedication in the face of danger, though in this case, Ashton was that danger. If he could stop freezing up, he might actually have a shot.
As he turned around and began walking away, Ashton smiled a little, knowing the consequences that his words would have on that trio going forward, "Out of you three, Mickey's got the best shot at surviving."
The trio stared at Ashton, all stunned and scared by the situation they found themselves in. They were... Pitiful.
Ashton sighed. "Listen, you guys are massive fucking assholes, but to be totally honest, I can barely remember who you guys even are or what you did to me, so I'll leave you with a gift. Simply because... I don't want to see people die unnecessarily," he started, and then glanced over at the group of goblins that the lucky straggler just belonged to. "Don't hesitate to hunt monsters, or you will die. Don't hesitate to become stronger, or you will die. Don't hesitate to use all the disgusting little traits that you have hidden away in the back of your skull, or you will die."
It was a little weird, coming from Ashton, to tell them that they should be the disgusting men that he could feel in the pit of his stomach they were. But that was just the kind of situation they were in. The world was coming to its end, whether he, or anyone else, wanted it to or not.
"Be selfish, be mean, struggle. But... always remember that your actions have consequences. Especially in the world that we will soon see, though you have to use anything you can to survive... no matter how selfish or mean you are, no matter how much you struggle, there will always be those that put your efforts to shame."
And with that, Ashton left them on their own. They were confused, didn't know what to say. But Ashton wasn't able to hold their hand through this, nor did he want to.. He had to worry about other things. This time, there was a group of goblins running at him instead. There were four of them. Actually, he was ridiculously lucky to have a single goblin come at him so early on, otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to get these materials already.
The group of other goblins was approaching, and Ashton got ready. He spun the metal bar around, trying to build momentum, and as the first of the group approached, Ashton swung the bar toward the head of the one in the front. Tutorial monsters are even weaker than they are normally, so this goblin was too slow to even try to dodge before being hit. It fell to the ground, and two of the others lunged at Ashton next. He stabbed the improvised staff forward and pushed one end into the goblin's eye.
The staff got stuck, and Ashton took advantage of this to throw this goblin at the one beside it. The extra weight was also good to help him dodge. He was inches away from being stabbed just now.
As the staff was freed and the two goblins were knocked onto each other, Ashton focused back on the first of the bunch. It was helped up by the fourth, or rather, the fourth pulled it up by the back of its neck, as though it were annoyed. It was yelling something at the other goblin. And though Ashton had picked up a few things here and there... right now, he only knew that there were a ton of cuss words in there.
The goblin who seemed to be the leader shoved the other forward, and it soon tripped, barely catching itself - just to have its feet swept away by Ashton. As it fell on its face and broke its nose, Ashton slammed down the end of the staff, cracking open the goblin's skull. The notification appeared to his side so Ashton knew it was dead.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The leader, though it outwardly appeared just like the others, swore to itself, and then yelled at the other two to get up. One of them held its eye in pain, with tears of blood streaming down its face. Its dagger was on the ground, as though it forgot it even had it as it ran at Ashton. He pushed the staff at the monster, hitting the goblin's shoulder. The second one beside it tried to stab at Ashton, but he pulled away his arm just in time. His sleeve was cut up and a small scratch began to bleed.
He kicked the goblin away and then grasped the staff at just one end, using the extra range to shove it away even more. By now, the leader had also taken initiative. Surprisingly, instead of trying to stab Ashton, it threw its dagger forward.
'*Does it have some kind of special trait that makes it smarter than others..?*' Ashton thought to himself, just barely managing to hit the dagger away. By now, the goblin with the injured eye had crawled over and was holding onto Ashton's leg. Its sharp nails were digging into his leg. Ashton himself practically growled as he slammed the staff down again and again until its grip loosened and the death message appeared.
By now, the leader goblin had grabbed the dagger the one-eyed had dropped, and was running back at Ashton. It and the other one attacked him together, but Ashton threw his staff forward horizontally at the monsters running side by side. He kicked the staff once it made contact with the goblins and threw them both back, quite suddenly. One of them fell down, but the leader could slip away. Ashton kicked down on the staff and inured the monster, before pulling the weapon back up with his foot. He stabbed the staff down into the goblin's throat and onto its spine, killing it.
Now, just the leader was left. It was clever. Smarter than other tutorial goblins would be. But even so, it was still just a goblin. Ashton locked eyes with it. The feral monster, forced to be violent, ran straight at him, its bloodshot eyes more red than white.
"Sorry. I know you also don't have a choice in any of this."
Ashton ended the fight, trying to do so with just a few painless moves. With these four now dead as well, Ashton wanted to collect materials from these, too, but this wasn't the best place or time for that. More and more monsters would be coming here soon. Either way, right then, a separate message appeared as he killed his first five monsters.
[Congratulations! You have achieved the requirements to unlock the [Status Window] function early!]
"Finally," Ashton sighed. He had tried pulling it up before, but it didn't work yet. He had a moment, so he figured he should check it out for the time being, but he was taken aback by what he saw, "Huh?"
[Ashton Garling] [Age - 23] [Coins - 50 (New!)]
[Stats]
[Power - 7]
[Resilience - 7]
[Speed - 8]
[Spirit - 10]
That was absolutely not what he was used to seeing. His status window looked completely different. It didn't have his species, type, or grade... he didn't have a level either, that was weird. Plus, his innate traits weren't displayed, so what was-
"Oh..." Ashton realised. That was the weird feeling he got when he got coins earlier. Of course this was different to what he was used to. He was looking at the system window of a 'User'. But back then, he wasn't one of those - he was a summon. A being forcibly dragged away from his home and placed under a terrible contract he could never escape from.
The system had invaded that other world while he was there, so due to his position, he wasn't considered a 'User', but an 'ability'. What he was looking at back then wasn't his actual status window... it was just the description of the ability that Ashton embodied.
Grinding his teeth, Ashton stared at the window and then just wiped it away. It was looking annoyingly bare, anyway. First things first, he had to expand it by getting himself an actual class.
The way that getting a class worked in this system was fairly straightforward. You just had to fulfil the right conditions. Beating a certain amount of monsters with a particular weapon like a sword could get you a 'Swordsman' class. Now, your prior level of proficiency would change which form that class took. 'Beginner', 'Seasoned', 'Master'... those were common addendums for these weapon-type classes. Classes could also change over time, but the conditions for changing that were pretty complicated at times, too.
Plus, class requirements were easier to fulfil depending on the number of classes you had. The first is always the easiest to get, and the second and third are subsequently tougher and tougher.
For the time being, though, Ashton just had one main goal - getting the 'Summoner' class. And he knew the conditions for that. Back when his own Summoner had gotten it, practically instantly in fact, he saw the conditions over their shoulder.
If you got it as your first class, the condition was simply to 'Summon Anything'.
Considering how complicated the summoning process was, though, that was much harder to do than you would think, especially considering the situation Ashton found himself in. But from his time with the Summoner, he had learned everything he needed to know.
But there was something important he needed to do before being able to summon something.
First, he needed more materials. The magic stones and goblin blood were a good start, but it wasn't enough. There were a few more things that he needed to get his hands on.
Ashton left behind the goblin corpses, lamenting the fact that he didn't have the time to collect anymore. As he moved forward, not running or even jogging, just keeping a steady pace, Ashton kept taking down more and more goblins. Part of the combat experience he was gathering here should be transferred to him once he got his class. It wasn't perfectly compatible with the summoner class, but it should be better than nothing.
Plus, this body didn't have the same experiences that Ashton's mind had. He had to first get used to actually moving like this again, rebuilding the muscle memory and physical strength that he needed to fight at his peak.
By the time he made his way to the nearby road, the world around him had turned into total and utter chaos. People were dying and running away, pushing each other to the side, and while some of them seemed to try fighting back, the amount of goblins that were streaming out of the dark alleyways was slowly overtaking them. There would be no end for quite a while.
People were dying left and right, and Ashton couldn't do a thing about it. He could try and save them, but... the vast majority of the people in this world would continue to die throughout the coming questline.
Even if he managed to save everyone here... they would all most certainly die within the coming months. Ashton didn't have the time to waste on saving people that he didn't even know or care for. As much as it pained him.
For now, there was a specific item that Ashton needed. He didn't have one in his apartment, but there was a certain store that he knew would probably have one just near here.
He ran down the road, killing goblins on his way, until he finally got to the corner. In the window in front of him, there was a sign reading the words, 'Help Wanted', and the usually always-on neon sign above the door was off and just showing slight flickers of light.
Ashton pushed open the door and stepped inside the convenience store.
There was a group of monsters completely ransacking the place. A few people were dead in the corner, having been violently torn apart. But now that everyone was dead, these creatures were just ripping open the bags of chips and chewing on soda cans.
With a smile on his face, Ashton looked down at the bent metal bar in his hand. It wouldn't be useful as a weapon for much longer, so he might as well just switch for the time being and use this sturdier one for something else.
He turned around and stared at the walking sources of magic stones staring at him from throughout the shop.