The tall, light brown bear let out what could only be described as a laugh after pulling the bottle of gin away from its mouth. Drunken Bears were one of those species of spirits that couldn't speak. There were a lot of those. They could hear perfectly fine, and they could understand English since Ashton spoke it, but they just couldn't actually speak. At least, not in any language beside the language of spirits. Which Ashton didn't actually speak.

  It was similar to the draconic language, in the way that meaning was conveyed through magic rather than pure sound. Though, it was a lot more attuned toward magic than the draconic language. It was also why it was easier for Ashton to understand the Backpacker's intentions and thoughts than it was with the elementals. That magical language set up a great basis for the connection between summoner and summoned spirit.

  But well, it wasn't like the Drunken Bear needed to talk. Ashton got a good gist of them already. They like a pretty happy-go-lucky fellow, so they would be great to work with.

  Now, Drunken Bears were strong. Ridiculously, insanely strong. This fellow here could probably lift a car with ease. However, they were also absolute pacifists and refused to get directly involved in combat. Now, setting up barricades, or even carrying heavier weapons was one thing, but a Drunken Bear would never voluntarily get involved in a fight.

  They were also pretty good with their hands, though mostly in a jack-of-all-trades kind of way. They were okay at working with wood and stone, but they weren't comparable to anyone that specialised in that work. But well, that didn't mean that a Drunken Bear wasn't great to have around. Except that you had to balance how much they actually drank.

  A sober Drunken Bear was absolutely useless and would literally lose all their strength, barely allowing them to lift up a bicycle, and if they were too drunk they would just go and take a nap somewhere and would be hard to wake up.

  Then again, it took a lot of alcohol for that to happen, so it wasn't exactly an issue in this scenario.

  Ashton was about to take a sip of the antidotal potion, but being drunk, he was actually more pulled toward something else. He grabbed his pack with antidote mixes, specifically pulling out the one marked with a small blue dot on the filter side.

  This one was pretty good at neutralising neurotoxins like alcohol. Plus, it was actually pretty smooth. Something about the mix of dried herbs, petals and leaves in here balanced the tobacco that Ashton used as a filler really well.

  He grabbed a small spark from the Salamander and used it to light the cigarette, before smiling at the bear. "Do you think you could try picking up that slot machine over there? That black slab in the middle there."

  With a happy nod, the Drunken Bear walked over to the slot machines, and Sabrina pulled back, slightly limping to the side since her leg was still injured. It should already be starting to close, but the wounds below the direct surface would still take a few hours to heal despite the potion.

  With complete ease, the Drunken Bear picked up the slot machine off the ground and proved that it was a worthwhile summon despite taking up a huge chunk of the contract capacity that he had left over. Ashton wouldn't be able to form any new contract right now. Until this moment, he usually gave himself at least a little bit of space for any sort of emergency contract he might have to form, but that wasn't the case right now.

  It did make Ashton a little anxious. He liked being prepared for any and all emergencies to any extent he could. Keeping extra potions on hand for himself to use, which he had brewed with materials gathered on his own and tools he had improvised. The Summoner would never let him use potions created using the materials and tools provided by them. Though, it weirdly did prepare him for the situation he was currently in, where he had to improvise however he possibly could.

  "Great, could you put it down next to the door for now? We'll head out in a bit," Ashton suggested, and the Drunken Bear just held their hand toward him and showed him a thumbs-up.

  "Wait, you're going?" Sabrina asked, though her eyes were still completely stuck on the brown bear standing by the door and drinking the gin.

  "Yes, I'll be headed back to the place I'll be staying. There's two camps near here, the closer one is an office building, and the one further away is at Market Street. The latter is much bigger, obviously."

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  "Wait, Market Street? Like, the entirety of Market Street?"

  "Hm, by now, it should cover a pretty big area, but not all of it yet. It's a pretty good place to survive this kind of thing. Tons of supplies and space, it's very central, and most people have a rough idea of where it is so it's easy to direct people there."

  Sabrina slowly nodded along, though she still seemed a bit surprised, "I just... I walked by super close to there, and I completely missed it?"

  With a scoff, Ashton nodded, "Yeah, I guess so. I can help get you there, with your leg the way it is, and all. Or I can take you to the camp where I'm staying. Either way, it'd be safer there than here."

  With a long sigh, Sabrina shrugged, "I've been levelling up so much here. My skills, my class... it just feels like a waste to leave this behind."

  "Well, you'll run out of money at some point, and I'm not giving you any more after this. Your class isn't made for solo combat. At early levels, a gambler going around, fighting on their own is one thing, but in a few weeks? No, a few days? You'll be screwed."

  Sabrina was hesitant to reply to that. She probably didn't even want to think about it.

  "... Then what am I supposed to do? Just keep making bets with people while stuck inside some office building?"

  "Well, keep making bets, definitely. But I only said that solo combat isn't a good idea, not that you can't go out and fight. Basically everyone gets a little bit of experience when killing monsters. For non-combat classes it's less than if they did exclusively what their specialty is, but if you keep fighting while using your skills, you should be fine. Plus, I think the place I'm staying would work for you pretty well."

  Sabrina was confused by what Ashton meant with that last part.

  "What do you mean?"

  "One of the offices in that building belongs to Calibur Games, a game development studio. Pretty sure they should know a thing or two about games of chance, so they can help you figure out the best ways to level up," he suggested. Calibur was going to be Ashton's main base of operations for the time being, so getting Sabrina to stick around there would make things fall perfectly into place.

  "... Do you really think we'd be safe with a bunch of nerds and geeks? During the apocalypse?"

  Ashton scoffed, "Those nerds and geeks are pretty damn good at what they do. Once you see my friend Sam, you'll probably change your mental image of them."

  "Okay fine, I'll come with you and take a look at them. But first, and I'm really worried about this right now... Is it really okay to give a bear hard liquor?"

  With an immediate nod, Ashton laughed. "For this bear? Hell yes. Speaking of, tell me if you need more to drink on the way, I'll pack the rest of the booze in here. I'll have to drop by Market Street to grab a bit more, too," he said to the spirit while walking over to the bar, ashing his cigarette.

  Now that he had contracted the Drunken Bear, he wanted to make use of them. However, the more physical labour they did, the faster the alcohol left the spirit's system.

  But there were a few places he could think of that could be useful for him. There were plenty of pubs in Drakewood. Actually, there should be one right nearby as well. Liquor stores should give him enough to last a while, too, but the place that he was actually looking forward to most was the Costco. Not only did that place have all the alcohol he could ever need, but there should also be ingredients to spice some of that booze up to make it last longer.

  Magically-infused alcohol did usually last longer in a Drunken Bear's system. Plus, the Drunken Bear did take pretty damn well to alcoholic potions. When spirits were affected by that kind of magic, since they were beings fully created of magic in the first place, potions sometimes caused fairly huge changes to their physicality even if the potion's base effect didn't make that happen. Technically, the bear would take well to any sort of potion, it was just that they refused to drink anything that was below 3% ABV, give or take, so alcoholic potions had to do. However, the actual alcohol made potion-brewing extremely difficult because it interacted with a lot of the regular potion materials in really annoying ways.

  He gave as much as he could to the Backpacker, and then walked back over to the slot machines.

  "How's it looking? I'd like to head out as soon as I can."

  "Huh? Oh, well, I've made a little bit of a profit. Not a ton, but I turned the 250 you gave me into 290," Sabrina said smugly. Ashton smiled back at her and took the coins back for now.

  "Great. I'll try to come back later and bring in these two machines. They should be safe for the time being," he explained, smiling. "That way, you can waste all the money you get right from the comfort of your own home."

  Sabrina scoffed, "Yeah, yeah..."

  She slowly got up from her stool and walked over to the door together with Ashton. He made sure to grab everything he could, hooking the lantern with the salamander up to his belt. Beside it and the wisp, the other elementals were inside Ashton's vessel. It was too much to keep them around with the Spirit summoned. His head was starting to hurt like a bitch, actually. He should unsummon some of the elementals later to recharge his mental strength for a bit.

  "Come on, let's go. Sabrina, if you need help walking, just let me know. Your leg isn't fully healed yet."

  But Sabrina quickly denied that help, "I'll be fine. Thanks, though."

  "If you say so."

  With a shrug, Ashton started walking. Relatively slowly, keeping in mind the gambler's condition, but since she said she was fine, Ashton didn't pay too much attention to her unless she started looking too bad or actively asked for help.

  The Drunken Bear picked up the slot machine and carried it with ease. On the way, Ashton had to give them a new bottle, but beside that, it was fine. Ashton himself was also still a bit drunk, though the cigarette was helping a lot.

  Now, he headed back to Calibur, with the spider problem largely taken care of for the time being.