Ashton stared at the people standing here in front of him through the Arcane Pocket Watch. They had been fighting here earlier this afternoon, and he was watching it all unfold in front of him.

  It would have been more interesting than anything if the individuals he was looking at weren't who they were. The dickhead trio had messed with Ashton for years, and though he mostly didn't care anymore, it was hard to forget all those lingering feelings connected to them.

  Ashton gave them a couple tips before he left them alone, but he frankly didn't have a ton of hope for them. But it looked like they were able to survive well enough, somehow.

  After the fight had come to and end, Chris, the one in the full suit out of armour started stretching his shoulder. It still seemed to hurt a lot, though not nearly as much as it should have. He was stabbed with a rusty knife; that kind of injury wasn't something you could recover from to this degree in this short amount of time. They must have found some kind of potion or maybe even someone with a class that was able to help him heal.

  While Chris was grumbling to himself, Mickey walked around and began to clean his knives. He seemed pretty precise overall. Even though the knives weren't exactly uniformly sized, he was able to aim them well enough. While Chris and Mickey were doing their own thing, Bart was walking around and collecting the magic stones from the monsters. It looked like they picked up on the fact that those things were useful.

  The amount of posts in the community had decreased considerably over the past few days, and it wasn't just because more and more people were dying. Though that was a large factor to it, it was also just true that people's phones were running out of battery and they didn't know about magic stones or their ability to recharge those phones yet. But the dickhead trio might have figured it out. At least, when he was done cleaning his knives, Mickey took out his phone and started scrolling.

  It looked like the three of them were discussing something, though the watch didn't produce sounds, so he could only see their mouths move. Ashton knew how to read lips a little bit, but he wasn't exactly great at it even in Lumia. And humans' mouths moved different to those of the people of Lumia, so he would need to completely relearn most of it anyway. But from their body-language... it seemed like they weren't quite happy.

  Bart and Mickey were annoyed, and Chris was yelling and was getting annoyed. Then, Mickey said something, and Chris got even more angry. It just ended up with a full-on fight between those two, while Bart was silently doing his work. And he did it pretty well, too. The magic stones had been removed quite fast, and it looked like they were ready to leave, just as the argument between Chris and Mickey reached the climax.

  Chris grasped his sword tightly, and walked over to the orc's body, starting to stab it repeatedly. He was just taking his anger out on it, kicking it and cutting its skin.

  "Yikes..." Ashton grimaced slightly. They still seemed pretty trashy, and who knew how Chris even got his hands on that armour. He should go to the university and ask about it sometime, though he wouldn't be able to find the time for that before his 'long sleep'.

  [[Executor of the End] is curious about your dislike of these people]

  [[Daughter of the Scarlet Heart] nods and points out that they do not seem worth your time]

  Ashton let out a long sigh. "They were just some assholes that were messing with me for a while during university. In retrospect, I realised that I just barely have any good memories with them, so it's a bit weird to see them again."

  [[Daughter of the Scarlet Heart] laughs at the morons that dared bully you]

  "Okay, I didn't say they bullied me, they just... weren't very nice. You know, they'd 'borrow' stuff from me and didn't give it back, always made me pay for them at the pub, got me really fucking drunk right before exams, made up fucked-up rumours about me..." Ashton recounted, though he slowed down at the end when he was speaking. "Holy shit, these fuckers totally bullied me. What is this, year 9? Urgh..."

  [[Observer in the Veil] shakes their head at the behaviour of the youths]

  [[Daughter of the Scarlet Heart] wonders if you wish to take revenge on them for their actions]

  "Youths? We were full adults when I met them. And no, I'm not going to take revenge on them... Well, maybe I'll scare them a little if I see them, I don't know. But for the most part I don't care that much," Ashton said, running his hand through his hair. "Things are just weird right now... The longer I'm back, the more all these memories come back, and the feelings that I thought I threw away even before I was dragged off are coming back with them. This will just take a while to get used to, but I'll be fine. I think."

  Ashton grimaced slightly and held the watch tightly in his hand. For now, he fast-forwarded through the rest of the day to see if anything else interesting happened, but there was nothing. Some rats came and nibbles on the bodies, bugs were starting to crawl over them, but nothing else. Until Ashton himself walked into the watch's range just a little while ago.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Of course, he was well aware of how he looked right now. He could 'see' himself through the wisp-sight, too, and made sure to check up on himself a couple times after compressing his channelling range, but this was the first time he was looking at himself from this outside perspective. Usually he just barely even noticed himself, like how you usually wouldn't pay attention to your own nose, even though you could technically constantly see it.

  Ashton really did look quite... dishevelled. He had cleaned the blood out of his hair at least, but that didn't mean it was looking good. His boots were covered in mud, and the hems of his trousers were all ripped-up, plus, he wasn't even wearing a shirt and was just running around with a dirt-covered upper body. His facial hair was getting a little bit too unkempt for himself, too.

  Ashton tried making a beard work for himself for a while, but it wasn't a great match unless he really let it grow out. For some reason, though Ashton's body didn't age, his hair and nails still grew when he was in Lumia, so he didn't have much choice but to end up with a beard there sometimes. It only really started looking good after at least a month or two of letting it grow out, but right now, he didn't exactly have that sort of time.

  There were plenty of beings that put worth in someone's appearance, and having that awkward in-between beard wasn't exactly a great match for the style he'd be going for with the new outfit he would be making.

  Maybe Ashton should grab a razor blade somewhere. There should actually be a construct that he could summon that could help with a shave. But... even if Ashton technically had the capacity to waste on a few more lowest grade contracts, it still felt bad to form pure quality-of-life contracts when he could just as well shave manually. Maybe there was space for that sort of thing in the future.

  But even so, Ashton really had to shave. Maybe he should stop by some stores on the way back and see if they still had any razor blades. He should pick up a few things for Sam as well, he was already going crazy not being able to trim his beard properly.

  The rest of the way back home was pretty uneventful. A few monsters came out and tried to attack Ashton, but stray monsters weren't really a threat to him at all anymore. It was barely worth mentioning. By the time he got back to the camp, it looked like people started cooking something, taking advantage of some rain-free time.

  From the look, and smell, of it, they were roasting some ground-dragon meat. The group that went to check out the costco after Ashton left there must have returned by now, then.

  He couldn't see them, but he could hear them. The talking. The badly-hidden whispering. Of course... they went into the store, so they must have seen what happened there, and how many monsters had been killed. Not even mentioning the snowstorm that Ashton inadvertently caused. They all knew how strong these monsters were, and the strongest ones here beside Ashton himself were probably able to take maybe a dozen lizardmen at a time. And Ashton slaughtered a whole building filled with hundreds of them, and temporarily changed the climate of the area in the process.

  To them, Ashton must seem like a bit of a monster himself, especially now that he returned with his eyes the way they were. There were apparently more and more rumours spreading throughout the community as well, talking about something killing monsters while throwing around fire, water, and parts of the asphalt roads.

  While hiding in their flats, some people must have seen Ashton running by and using magic. There wasn't exactly a way for people to differentiate between monsters and people directly, especially not from afar, so it made sense that some people could get confused.

  Either way, it didn't really matter to Ashton. Actually, this might be useful, long-term. He didn't know of many being that took positive rumours as payment for a contract, but there were a lot that took negative ones. Well, there were celestials, but Ashton wanted to deal with them about as much as he wanted to deal with demons. And at least demons let you do whatever you wanted most of the time, while celestials tended to act high and mighty while pushing their expectations on you.

  Ashton grumbled to himself, involuntarily thinking about the last time that he had to deal with a pretty annoying celestial. Amongst the groups of beings that were enslaved by the Summoner was an angel of actually pretty high status, who kept on annoying Ashton. The only saving grace was that he didn't have the organs to actually be able to hear the voice of celestials, so he could ignore that guy pretty easily.

  "What's with that expression? Did something happen while you were out there?" John entered Ashton's channelling range. It looked like he had been training while Ashton was gone, probably trying to use his skills in new ways to understand them better.

  "I'm fine, why?" Ashton was a bit confused. What kind of expression was he making right now? He could technically see himself, but he couldn't really tell, especially not with his channelling range how it was right now.

  "... It's fine, nevermind."

  "Come on, tell me. Was I looking pissed-off again? Sam and Clem always told me I always look like I'm about to punch someone in the face."

  John was quiet, slightly leaning onto his war-hammer. "No, it's just... you looked sad, I guess? I don't know."

  "Oh." Ashton was taken aback. Did he look sad? Was he feeling sad? Well, maybe. It was complicated. All he always really wanted was to escape from the Summoner, but all the other summons... Ashton had befriended them. Many of them were like a family for more than a century. Of course he would miss them, but all of them would be hidden away for all eternity. If they managed to survive the way that Ashton did and were catapulted back to where they were from originally when the Summoner died, then they would try everything they could to ensure that they would never fall victim to something like that again. Maybe there was a way for him to contact them, to at least speak to them, but... their times as summons were over.

  Even if they could help Ashton, they deserved a true break from it all. Compared to the other summons... Ashton was a 'unique'. The Summoner had apparently called him on complete accident while trying to pull over something else, and was never able to even reach out to earth again. Which was a good thing, all things considered.

  But that also meant that, even if Ashton was tortured, he never actually had to worry about being annihilated. Contracts had to be singular, in the way that you could only contract one being of the same species at a time. Only one Backpacker, only one Pen of Insight. But if those beings were totally annihilated, for one reason or another, they could just force a similar being into that same contract again. But not with Ashton. That meant that, all in all, the Summoner was probably a lot more careful with him and his soul than with others'. He couldn't even imagine what they went through in ways that Ashton couldn't even imagine.

  He shuddered at the thought, and decided to step past John.

  "Man, seriously, are you good?" John asked one more time, but Ashton shrugged.

  "I don't know. It's complicated. But thank you for asking." He walked into the building, and past all the people whispering and muttering about him, and then back up into the Calibur office space.

  Ashton walked into Sam's office again, where the man in question was currently doing hand-stand push-ups.