Ashton had basically decided to 'donate' all the corpses to school, so that they could build up a small base of magic stones to begin with.
And once those stones were harvested, the bodies were carried out to the street in front of the parking lot, so that they could be picked off by scavengers away from the actual school grounds.
Some of the other teachers were helping Rory with the fortifications, using the cars to block the entrance and then using old tables and parts from other cars to block it off fully.
The rest of the property was blocked off by fairly tall brick walls. They weren't exactly 'safe' directly, but they were better than nothing.
"You, lad, come with me fer a second," Rory walked past Ashton, waving his hand toward him. Of course, Ashton did exactly that, following behind.
"What's up?"
Rory grunted slightly and guided Ashton toward the shed standing at the edge of the schoolgrounds. He pulled out a set of keys and opened it up. There was all sorts of random clutter in here. A few broken chairs, some woodworking equipment, random pieces of wood in different sizes, buckets of paint, a lawnmower, and a massive spool of metal wire that Rory placed his hand onto.
"I was thinkin' of usin' this to make a small fence in front of the bushes. The bairn always climb into them and get hurt. Not good for the bushes either," Rory explained, "If we turn this into barbed wire, how well would it hold those things off?"
Ashton crossed his arms for a moment, "Well... You guys are already pretty protected because of the Guardian. Now, that immediate protection is going to wear off at some point, but by then there's other ways to keep the kids safe..." he said, basically just thinking out loud, "Now, usually, monsters are forced to attack people, but with the kids here, and you all acting as the protectors of those kids, don't have that as strong. So the incentive for monsters climbing over a tall wall like that is already pretty low. And if you make it even more annoying to potentially climb... Sure? That should work. Can't hurt to be extra safe. It's going to take a while to set up though."
"Mm. That's fine," Rory replied, starting to look through the shed for some tools, "I've had some other questions for ye."
"Alright, shoot."
"First. Why've ye got a toy on yer noggin?" Rory stared at the small figure sitting cross-legged on Ashton's head.
"Hm? Oh, yeah, she's not a toy," Ashton said, holding his hand up toward Poppy. She climbed down onto his palm, and as she was held forward quickly waved at Rory.
"Well, ah'll be..." Rory started to laugh, and Ashton smiled.
"That's Poppy, she's a Flower Pixie. She lived and presumably was born in the garden now that magic is flooding this world," Ashton explained, though Poppy turned around to him and shook her head. "Hm? Oh, you weren't born there?"
Poppy shook her head even more furiously.
"So that's not what you meant? What, do you mean you weren't just born?"
With a proud nod of her head, Poppy put her hands onto her hips. That... was confusing. There was no way that pixies could exist in this world beforehand. But slowly, Poppy placed both her hands onto her right cheek, miming the action of sleeping.
"You were just... okay, okay got it," Ashton whispered, though he quickly looked back at Rory who seemed just enamoured by the pixie, barely listening to what Ashton was saying, "So, anyway. I formed a contract with her, so she's going to stick with me from now on."
"Contract? Like, she works for ye?"
"Sort of? But it's a bit more equal than that. But anyway." Ashton let Poppy back onto his head. "I also have a question for you, actually."
"Mm, what'd ye want to know?"
"Do you have the Carpenter class yet?"
Rory's eyes widened, "What? How'd ye know about that?"
"You've done a lot of work with wood inside. Those windows and doorways weren't just blocked with randomly cobbled-together tables and planks. They were all really solidly made, and clearly by the same person with fairly high skill. That should be enough to get you the Carpenter class. And I'm guessing it's not just the basic one, but probably a 'skilled' class."
The older man let out a laugh, nodding his head as a smile peered out from under his thick beard, "Yes, that's exactly it. I'm a 'Skilled Carpenter' now, apparently."
"Did you know what a class was before you accepted it?"
"Naw. Asked some of those troublemakers upstairs, they seemed to get what's happening a bit more."
"They do. They're pretty tuned in," Ashton agreed. "Okay, I'll give you a tip. The carpenter class is incredibly useful, especially at this stage. Take apart anything wooden that you can and keep fortifying this place, make random knick-knacks out of scraps, and make the school more... liveable. Have the headmaster keep posting things when possible to invite people over, particularly folk with combat classes."
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Rory frowned lightly, a bit confused, "Didn't ya say that we'd be safe in here?"
"Well, you're safer, not safe. You're also going to need to leave sooner or later. Whether it's for food, quests, medical supplies, things like that. Or for you, so that you can strip some houses for their materials," Ashton explained, watching as Rory grabbed an old, filled-out notebook and took notes inside of it with a pencil he had rolling around in his pocket. "Make sure to explore your skills well. They might seem pretty basic or useless for now, they're going to be far more useful than you'd ever think. Plus, since you're a 'Skilled' Carpenter, your stat growth will be higher than a regular carpenter."
"Right, about all that. These 'skill' things. One of'm says I can cut wood better. Another that I can get wood into the perfect state fer workin'. The last is something called 'Blueprint'. The first I get and notice, but the other two're a mystery." Rory grabbed a piece of wood from the pile in the corner, and Ashton quickly explained.
"Right, okay. Uhm, I don't know exactly what the details are, but from what I know generally... that first skill is just a passive boost. Blueprint skills should let you design things beforehand, or save things you've already built, and will then give you some kind of 'guide' while you work." Ashton started, waiting for Rory to finish taking his notes before continuing. "And the second one you mentioned, it should be a transmutation type skill. Drying, compressing, that sort of things."
"But... how'd I do that?" Rory questioned, and Ashton thought for a moment.
"Usually, there's certain activation conditions for skills. For that transmutation skill, to begin with, just try to hold onto the wood, think about the skill deeply, and then hopefully it should work. For the blueprint one... Try drawing sketches of what you want to make, or concentrate on a 'thing' that you've built."
"Mm. That should work. What about you? Do ye have a class?"
Ashton smiled, "Yup. I'm a Summoner."
He clicked his finger, and the Backpacker appeared from behind a pile of chairs, happily tapping away on the phone. Rory stepped back, startled, "Jesus fuckin' Christ! What's that?!"
The Backpacker looked up at Rory, their shoulders slumping a bit.
"That's a Backpacker spirit. He's helping me out a lot," Ashton explained, smiling at the spirit to tell them it was fine to get back into the vessel. It didn't seem like the Backpacker particularly liked Rory, the way they were looking at him. They disappeared after a moment, and Ashton looked back at Rory, "Anyway. I'm a magic user. That won't be a common type of class for a while."
With a loud laugh, Rory nodded his head, "Ya, that explains it."
Ashton smiled, stepping back out of the shed with Rory following right behind, "Anyway. I'll leave you guys with a map before I leave, I've marked two important camps that I know of so far. Send someone to either one if you need help. Keep an eye out on the community, specifically posts from the user 'Pendragon', he's going to keep posting guides on different system functions."
Rory nodded, "Mm, that your account?"
"Oh, no, he's Sam Penn, my friend." Ashton replied, "Oh, and I want to give you guys one more tip, but for that, I need to talk to the headmaster."
"I'll come with ye," Rory and Ashton walked through the school grounds. For the time being, they were fairly well-secured, and most of the monsters' corpses were finally gone, with just a few exceptions.
It didn't took long to find James Crombe, the school's headmaster. He, as well, was getting his hands dirty. He was basically leading by example, really putting in the effort. That was one of the big reasons why Ashton was sure he could properly talk to him about this.
He pulled James aside, and didn't hesitate, "You need to let the kids join in."
Both James and Rory stared at Ashton like he was absolutely insane. The headmaster stared at him with a confused frown, "Excuse me? We need to let them join in?!"
"Yes. For the record, I don't mean the fighting. That's still too dangerous. But let them do things. Let them help prepare this place. Expand the garden, fortify the walls."
"I'll have you know, we will not rely on the labour of children for our survival!" James yelled out, and soon, some other teachers got closer, clearly also unhappy at the idea.
With a long sigh, Ashton rolled his eyes, "The protections you all have won't last forever. The monsters will only get stronger, and the quests more difficult. I'm not saying to work them to the death, but listen... You have a couple of extremely eager kids that clearly know what they're talking about. Especially those three, Millie, Joey, and Sean, they seem extremely bright. They somehow gathered all the information I needed to take down the monsters from inside the school." Ashton explained, but the teachers seemed just uncomfortable at the idea. "And you can't just have the other kids sit there and cry and mope around. They need something to do. Just keep them busy somehow. It's best if they can get their own classes as well."
"Hold on, they can get those as well?" Rory asked, surprised. Clearly, the other teachers had no idea what classes were supposed to be, so Ashton just told them to look at Sam's post later, and then continued.
"Younger kids, around the age where they still get protection from the Guardian, can get 'trainee' classes. Easy to level up, but extremely low growth potential. But they can always be replaced by other trainee classes. Let them test out what they want to do, how they can feel useful and helpful. Kids aren't stupid, and they're a lot more resilient than you may think. The guardian is going to do what they can to protect them, but that has its limits. And you yourselves also have a limit," Ashton tried to make sure that the teachers all understood this idea. As he did, though, the Backpacker came out of Ashton's vessel and showed him a post on the community. He continued. "And uhm... sooner or later, some of their parents or siblings or aunts and uncles, the ones that survived, at least, will come here and join you and make things easier. But until then, just please, don't let the kids just fester away."
The headmaster let out a long sigh, "Okay. I guess you've got a point there... but it's not like we can do whatever they want. What do you think we should-"
"I'm sorry, man, that's your job to figure out. Kids are cute and all, but I do not get them. Please, just talk and figure out... I don't know, a curriculum for the apocalypse! How's that sound?"
"A curriculum for the apocalypse?" James laughed, "Fine, if you think so. Would you at least be able to consult on that?"
Ashton grimaced slightly, "Listen, I would love to, and I'm going to come back in a few days to check on you guys and all, but I have to leave. I can't stick around here too long, especially not right now."
It was clear that the teachers noticed something had come up, "Wait, are you already leaving?" the headmaster questioned with a puzzled expression, and Ashton quickly nodded. The Backpacker had just shown him a post that he couldn't ignore.
"Not quite yet, I'm going to head inside and grab some things from that vending machine, and I want to talk to the kids upstairs again," Ashton replied, turning around and heading over to the red door.
It might have been a bit sudden, but he didn't really care. He just had to do what he wanted to right now, and then head out.
The post that the Backpacker showed Ashton was from one of the Market Street survivors. They were talking about a group of people running through the city centre alongside monsters.
Ashton knew who these people were. They were those that had made a terrible choice extremely early on. They were the 'Marked'.
In this world, where there were so many possible things to hunt, quite easily at that, when the first quest told them to kill '5 creatures', they didn't choose monsters.
They chose people.
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