He squatted down on the ground in front of a bush in its corner, smiling lightly.
"Poppy? Are you still there?" Ashton asked, waiting for a few moment in complete silence. Just the wind rustling through the nearby bushes was heard. Again, it was a pleasant thing.
And then, a bell rang out, as Poppy slowly stretched their head out from behind a patch of leaves. They had clearly been crying a lot more since Ashton left.
"Hey, hey, it's okay, they're gone. They're gone," he explained, and Poppy slowly looked out from the bush. They glanced past Ashton, seeing that there really weren't any monsters left alive, and then stared at the man before their with a broad smile.
Poppy jumped out from the bush, trying to float in the air. Their wings fluttered around, but they were barely able to keep themself upright.
So, Ashton extended his hand toward them to give them something to stand on. Once they were standing, Poppy grabbed the ends of their dress and curtsied to him with a bright smile.
"Don't even worry about it." Ashton stood up with Poppy on his hand. "Actually, I have an offer for you. Would you like to form a contract with me?"
The fairy tilted their head to the side, curious about what Ashton was saying. Since fairies were beings that existed on the same plane as their contractors, it was possible to contract them without having to summon them initially. The Summoner would do that by forcing them into submission on sight, but Ashton wouldn't do that, obviously.
But he would still have to write up the contract itself for that. At least Pixie contracts had pretty 'easy' offerings. To form the contract, you usually had to do something for them. It was generally a fairly small task, though with the more powerful fairies it was something like clearing a dungeon all on your own.
Ashton was certain that saving Poppy would count as that task here. But that wasn't all. There was a simpler, more baseline requirement for their contract.
In a lot of cases, they just had to be happy, and often, one of the easiest ways to accomplish that is through rather... vain methods.
Echo pixies liked pleasant voices, fairies that dabble in item enhancement tended to be fashionistas, and flower pixies, well... they like handsome and beautiful people. And though it was a little embarrassing to admit, Ashton knew he was pretty handsome.
It was one of the reasons why the Summoner had forced Ashton to learn how to sew and make his own clothes — so that he could be the easiest way to keep the extremely picky fairies at least a little compliant. There were other ways to keep them happy, obviously, but the Summoner didn't like to put in that kind of effort and waste resources where they felt they didn't need to.
However, there was something else that made fairies a bit more complicated. They couldn't lie. If they promised something, they had to stick to it. There were plenty of fairies that liked to play 'games' with people, and even if they were beat and humiliated in their own game, they would always give up gracefully, because that was in their very nature.
So, being the same in that sense, being true to your word was another more basic requirement. Though in this case, it was just that fairies lost all respect for their contractor if they didn't keep promises. They understood the purpose of lies to some degree, and keeping secrets and speaking in riddles was something they themselves loved to do, but if you said something important, it better be the truth. And most importantly... if Ashton failed a quest, he would probably lose Poppy's respect very fast.
But for now, after a bit of thought, it seemed like Poppy would be very happy to come to an agreement with Ashton. So now, he just had to write up the contract.
Ashton asked the Backpacker for some paper and ink, and quickly got started. The good thing about forming a contract like this was that it lowered the basic material requirements. He didn't need as much magic in the ink, and the summoning circle wasn't really needed. Ashton wasn't summoning anything right now, after all. So, just creating the baseline form of a fairy contract, he quickly wrote down the conditions into the outer circle.
Ashton placed the contract down onto the ground, and Poppy slowly stepped onto it.
"You know what a contract means, right?"
Poppy slightly tilted their head, so Ashton slowly explained.
"Your existence will be tied to me. You're allowed to always cancel the contract when you want to. Though, if you do it one-sidedly, you will lose most of the benefits you were given through the growth of our contract. Most new spells, magics, anything like that will be gone, because they were bestowed upon you by our contract. Now, some things will stay, like if your existence changes into something else. Like... you're probably 'Lowest' grade right now, but if you grade-up into a 'Low' grade fairy, that would stay. And if we both agree to dissolve the contract, you can keep most of your growth," Ashton explained, and Poppy didn't hesitate for even a moment after listening. They nodded their head, seemingly understanding what they were being told. Really, Ashton was just repeating what was already on the contract terms he laid out.
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"Okay, if you're sure. Also, you don't have to stick by me. You can stay here, or somewhere else that's safe if you prefer. I can summon you then, though it might be good to talk about a summoning offering you would like. Flower pixies usually like berries or candy, right?"
Furiously, Poppy nodded their head, smiling broadly at the mention of some sweet treats.
"I'll get you those anyway, don't worry. I do also need to give you something to be able to borrow your powers, after all. Are sweets fine for that?"
Poppy once more nodded, placing their hands behind their back excitedly.
"And for the initial offering to establish the contract, me getting rid of the monsters counts, yes?"
As though they were getting a bit impatient, Poppy tried grabbing Ashton's hand to push it down onto the paper they were standing on. And so, Ashton poured his mana into the pattern, and established the contract.
Poppy was enveloped in a white light for a moment, like a shell was forming around them. That shell soon cracked, and an outwardly unchanged Poppy re-emerged.
[You have formed a contract with a [Flower Pixie]!]
[[Fairy Summoning] Category is being created under the [Summoning] Skill]
[[Flower Pixie] is being registered in the [Fairy Summoning] Category]
[Skill | Summoning - Level 5 -> Summoning - Level 6]
Ashton smiled lightly as he looked at the pixie in front of him. To his surprise, she had already told a few more things to him just through that contract.
Usually, these were things that only came with a certain level of familiarity. Basically, the connection between the two contractors was strengthened, and they simply came to learn more things about the other. Poppy, for example, just told Ashton that she was a girl. At the same time, with that stronger connection came the knowledge that Poppy was acting tougher than she really was. She was in a ton of pain.
"Let's get you healed up in a bit, yeah?" Ashton smiled, and Poppy immediately nodded her head. She jumped up and flapped her wings, quickly climbing onto Ashton's head.
"You like it up there?" he asked, and though he couldn't see, he figured she was nodding her head. With that, Ashton had ticked that off his list. Contracting a fairy was something he hadn't expected to do in quite a while, and his contract capacity increased enough to give him the space for emergency contracts he wanted to have at the moment while allowing this one with Poppy. Plus a few more, depending on the strength of the contract.
Either way, for now, Ashton had a companion with him. That was another fun part of beings that belonged to the material plane. Even if you couldn't afford the offering at the moment, you still didn't have to be alone.
Amongst types of beings you could contract, there were just three that fell under that category. Constructs, Fairies, and Beasts. Though, at lower levels, constructs were generally 'asleep' and had to stay in the contractor's vessel a lot. For a construct like the Pen of Insight, that should change with roughly level 10, if he had to guess.
And while fairies and beasts could technically be summoned from far away, if you formed a contract with them like this or sought them out outside of their summoning, they could just stick around. Just like the backpacker, for example. They could also easily disappear within their summoner's vessel if they wanted to. But it seemed like Poppy preferred being outside, at least for now.
Ashton made his way back to the front of the school grounds, to the parking lot. That way, he could make sure that no other monsters just wandered onto the grounds. He sat down on the trunk of a car and decided to look through some things. For one, what abilities Poppy actually had. Since she was a young fairy, she probably didn't have a lot of baseline abilities.
[Flower Pixie - Level 1]
[Familiarity - 26]
[Type - Fairy]
[Grade - Lowest]
[Abilities]
[Flower of Swiftness]
"Hm..." Ashton let out. He didn't love that it just showed the species name there at the top, but that was just the way things worked. It was stupid, but whatever. That high familiarity did explain the immediate knowledge Ashton got about Poppy, as well. And then, there was her ability, 'Flower of Swiftness'.
And now came the best part of fairy summons. As long as they were happy, they could use their abilities without problem. The only offering that was required was the part that was needed to actually summon them to your location, and since Poppy was already here, Ashton didn't need that.
While jumping off the car's trunk, he quickly channelled the pixie sitting on his head and 'tagged' himself. As his feet silently hit the ground, he could see ethereal petals folding up from the ground, enveloping Ashton for just a moment.
And once that happened, his body suddenly felt weirdly light. Ashton jogged around the parking lot for a moment as a test, and could feel that he was noticeably faster, even if just physically.
It was a difference worth at least one point in the Speed stat. And that would only grow as Poppy did.
At some point, Ashton noticed someone standing at the edge of the parking lot. It was an older man, in his late 50's or early 60's. A thick grey beard sprinkled with brown here and there, and messy hair that made it clear he didn't really care for his looks.
He walked forward with a slight limp. An old injury, clearly, not from all of this. The man stretched out his hand toward Ashton, and started to speak with a Scottish accent that had clearly survived through years and years spent around Englishmen.
"Ashton? I'm Rory Campbell, the janitor."
Ashton smiled broadly and shook the man's hand, "Oh, it's a pleasure to meet you!" And that was nothing but the truth, as well. But Rory just placed his other hand around Ashton's as well, squeezing it tightly.
"Thank you. I saw what ye did to those... things. We're in yer debt for protecting the bairn."
Ashton had no idea how he was supposed to reply to that. It wasn't like he did this to have someone be in his debt. Well, he gladly took something from a constellation, but these people? That wasn't why he did this.
"No, you're not in my debt. This world's going to shit. If you all keep looking out for the kids, that's enough."
Rory laughed a bit, "Good Samaritan, aye?"
"Nothing like that," Ashton replied, shaking his head. "Just someone that doesn't want to see any more kids die."
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