Though, when he got to the building's main entrance, he saw a group gathered there. It was Jacky's party. They were discussing something with people from the other offices.
One of them was injured, holding their arm. Their face was pale, and their shoulder was twitching. On the ground outside, Ashton could see a number of large spiders, around the size of cats or small dogs.
He already knew what was happening, and asked the Backpacker to give him a cup and a bottle of the antidote potion, and quickly poured some of it into the cup.
"Drink this," Ashton said, holding it forward to the man, "Those spiders have pretty powerful venom, but this should help with that. Afterward, just rest and try to stay awake and aware if you can. Do some activity, maybe something that could help toward you getting your class."
The man looked at Ashton confused, not sure what he was supposed to do with that cup filled with a suspicious liquid. Realising this, Jacky quickly spoke up.
"It's a potion! It's going to help, maybe heal you a bit," she explained, and the desperate man, though still clearly suspicious, took the cup and sipped it. His slightly blue lips seemed to quiver nervously, but the moment it flowed down his throat, he probably felt a relief in the pain he was feeling and downed the rest.
"Good. Now, what happened?" Ashton asked, though he basically already knew. The group surrounding the man quickly explained, and it was exactly as thought.
They were about to go outside to try and work toward getting their classes. These guys seemed like they worked out to keep themselves healthy outside of their desk jobs, so they might have felt they were quite fit for some kind of combat class. But then, when they were outside, they encountered those giant spiders.
Frankly, monstrous insects were some of the hardest things for Ashton to get used to back then as well. People were already terrified of them when they were tiny and harmless, so having them be this massive and trying to kill them? Yeah, that was understandably terrifying.
So, they ran back here and tried to escape, but being spiders, the monsters climbed over the barricade and were then quickly dispatched by Jacky's party.
"Hm, alright. Where's Sam right now?" Ashton asked. He wanted to see him before he left.
"Ah, he went out with some people from Calibur earlier," Jacky explained, "I think he's trying to get them their class as well."
With a nod, Ashton walked to the front door, "Sounds like him. Alright, I'll see if I run into him while I'm at it."
"... While you're at it?"
"... While I'm clearing out the spider nest, obviously."
Jacky stared at him confused, "On your own?"
"That was the plan at least, yes."
Though Jacky wanted to ask if he was insane, the sheer confidence that Ashton was exuding right now was stopping her.
"Can we..." she slowly started, but Ashton shook his head.
"No, not to this one, I'm sorry. I'm going to need your help with something else later, though, so don't go too far," he explained. It felt a bit scummy, but Ashton was going to capitalize this monster nest. He had to level up as much as he could, and though he wanted Jacky's party to get stronger as well, if he were to take them along, he was simply going to grow less.
It was one thing to take along Sam, his best friend and someone that was basically like a brother to him, but he couldn't afford to give up some of his growth for these guys that he barely knew.
Plus... if it was those spider monsters, going into their nest might be a bit too much for them right now. Strength-wise, sure, they should be fine, but until now they will have only fought monsters on an equal level, since most dangerous monsters here were stuck to the ground. But spiders that could attack from every direction, that were most likely hiding out in dark corners, and would set traps with their webs... dealing with them wasn't a matter of strength, it was a matter of experience. Experience that they simply didn't have yet.
And then, without discussing this with them any further, Ashton left. He stepped out onto the street, seeing some more of the dead spiders there. Ashton would love to take these guys apart, but well, they weren't his prey so he wasn't going to do that.
He was told roughly where the spiders' nest was supposed to be, and decided to make his way there basically immediately. But there was something else that he wanted to do before that.
Something that he was far too nervous to do before now. He got a jackpot once, and completely flunked the second time.
That's right, he wanted to open the last random box. He had filled it with as much mana as he could last night before heading down to the office. But this time when he opened it, Ashton had a secret weapon. He asked the Backpacker for one of the potions that he bought. Ashton had also asked the Pen of Insight to inspect it, and it made things a lot more complicated.
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Rabbit's Foot Potion
Grade - Rare
Volume - 330ml
Flavour - Raspberry
Effect - Luck increases for 30 Minutes
The Rabbit's Foot Potion is a wonderfully potent concoction that can turn the day right upside down! It will immediately move the needles of your luck to the extremes! But be careful, because Lady Luck has two faces!
Ashton sighed again as he looked down at the note with the potion's information. It was generally an amazing item, if it weren't for that last sentence.
'Lady Luck has two faces' was a saying that Ashton knew all too well. It was a saying that was engraved into a shrine that they had encountered in Lumia during one of the later quests. After all, 'Good' and 'Bad' luck are at the end of the day both 'Luck'. So, the effect of this potion was clear.
When he drank this, any event that would happen to him out of chance would be turned to the extreme. And he knew what 'bad luck' was like, it really wasn't anything pleasant in the slightest. Of course, most of the time it was just something unimportant.
You would trip more often, you would spill your drink or drop your food somehow. It was usually minor things. This sort of potion wouldn't possibly have the effect of changing the 'scale' of your luck, just the direction it was pointed.
Just how you weren't likely to find a winning lottery ticket on the street, you probably wouldn't get struck by lightning.
However, for something where luck was more direct, like in games of chance for example, the outcome was obvious. If you rolled a die, if you were unlucky, you would never get the number that you wanted, and if you were lucky, you would always get that number.
But with this potion, since the cosmic force of 'luck' itself had no direct distinction between good or bad, every little thing he did would randomly be either affected by good or bad luck. Either way, the next thirty minutes were going to be... rough.
On the other hand, they were also going to be extremely beneficial for him. There was no reason to complain about good luck in the first place, and if he managed to overcome any bad luck coming his way, Ashton might be able to grow just that little bit more.
So, as long as he didn't end up being randomly summoned to a new hell again, Ashton would be fine.
As Ashton pulled the can open and brought it to his lip, he hesitated for a moment.
"... I won't be pulled away again, right..?"
He grumbled lightly and decided to drink the potion. It said the taste was 'raspberry', and sure that was the case, but there was also a really weird aftertaste.
And then came the wave of the 'effect'. Potions like these were a bit more intense than others. Ones with such a specific magical effect were generally more something like a spell trapped inside of a potion, rather than the ingredients simply working together to naturally form an effect. So as this magic coursed through Ashton's body, he felt himself shiver slightly.
Ashton glanced at his watch and started up a mental thirty-minute timer. Now, he had to be extremely careful. But the first step was to ask the Backpacker for the random box. When the spirit tried giving it to Ashton, though, the two somehow mistimed the hand-off, and the box fell to the ground. Startled, Ashton reached out his foot and caught the box. It landed on it flat perfectly. He knew that these things weren't exactly fragile, but you never knew what could happen when twists of luck were involved.
He picked up the box and took a deep breath. As Ashton did so, though, a hair got stuck in his mouth.
"Urgh, bad luck is the most annoying shit in the world..." he groaned. Worst case, he would just sit down on the ground and wait the thirty minutes out. Again, most of the 'bad luck' he would experience here was going to be a little bothersome at best. If the potion had the power to do more than that, it wouldn't just be a 'rare' item that was sold at a vending machine.
Ashton tried to click the button on the side. But he pressed it at a slightly awkward angle that made his skin get stuck as the button pushed back out before the box dissolved.
He just stayed silent for a moment as he watched the item appear before his eyes. However, something else happened that was more than just unexpected.
As the item was formed... confetti was shot in all directions. It seemed to be just some small, magical illusion, because the scraps of paper disappeared before they hit the ground, but this was a weird effect. Rather, Ashton had only seen this once before.
Ashton had hit the absolute jackpot. He must have gotten one of the rarest items in the collection. It was... an Instant-Print Camera. It looked like a pretty old model, though it was in a brand new condition.
He was about to ask the Pen of Insight to inspect it, but he didn't even need to to realise it was something great.
[[Observer in the Veil] looks at the object in shock]
[[Observer in the Veil] laughs at the scale of luck hidden away in your body]
"... Hm?" Ashton let out surprised. Either way, he knew that there was no reason to hesitate. He pulled out the Pen of Insight and asked the Backpacker to give him some ink. Sadly, it would be the old ink and not the inkcap ink. For one, Ashton wanted to use all of the old ink up so that it didn't take up unnecessary space, and also because Ashton didn't want to waste the ink in case something went wrong.
Luckily, nothing happened when he took it out, though as the Pen was writing everything on the paper, a few big splotches of ink were left behind. The Pen actually seemed a little embarrassed about it, but Ashton managed to calm it down.
But well, there was something much more important.
A single, small word made him understand why the Observer was so shocked. It was an 'Epic' item, something that shouldn't appear just yet.
Magix Instant Print Camera
Grade - Epic
Charges - 6
*An Instant Print Camera created by a magic-item workshop called Magix. Taking inspiration from the technology of Earth, they created this wonderful item.
A charge will recover 24 Hours after use.
This camera has three different built-in filters which can be applied and changed with a dial by the lens.*
Filter 1 - The magic flowing through the world will be shown.
Filter 2 - The truth of the world will be shown.
Filter 3 - XXXXX
And the effect was ridiculous as well! There was a splotch of ink covering the last bit of the page, so Ashton should be able to ask the pen to just rewrite that. However, then... something happened.
[Contract | Pen of Insight - Level 5 -> Pen of Insight - Level 7]
The pen of insight levelled up twice. That just came to show how big of a deal epic items were. Ashton genuinely didn't expect to see one of those for a few more weeks, maybe a month or two, but now? That was crazy, and understandably, the Pen of Insight was rewarded accordingly.
But... something else happened. The pen's consciousness immediately split off its body and disappeared in Ashton's vessel. Inspecting something like this must have been straining, so it basically went to recover afterward.
Good. That was... good. Right?
Maybe it was just a bad-luck induced stomach-ache, but Ashton didn't have a good feeling about this.