After collecting the materials from the mass of insects that were left behind, at least the ones with anything salvageable that wasn't crushed or burnt already, Ashton looked down at the corpse in front of him. He had no idea what was going on with this Marked, to be totally honest, but they weren't actually all that strong.

  It seemed like everything went into developing that ability to control insects, and barely anything into strengthening their own physical body, which made sense. Usually, 'commander' types were on the weaker side physically. Technically, although he was skilled enough to overcome it, this was the same case for Ashton. Compared to pure physical fighters, especially in a world with a system and classes, Ashton's physical stat growth and the amount of combat abilities he had access to for now was simply... less.

  Now, he could counteract that a lot once he developed his core, at which point Ashton could finally bring out some of his real strength, but who knew what was going to happen a few years into this? His personal combat ability would become far less important compared to his summoning.

  He was already dreading how annoying things were going to be in the future as the wrong people got extremely powerful, but that was something he would deal with in the future, not now. Now, Ashton had to continue through the forest and try to keep finding a sanctuary, however hopeless it may seem. There just had to be the slightest sense of it.

  Since time was starting to get a bit too tight for Ashton, he started running again. The forest ground was muddy, but it wasn't the first time he had to run in these conditions. He knew how to balance himself. Plus, with the undine, it was easy to clean himself up should he slip. Which may have happened a few times by this point.

  Ashton continued on running and running, hoping that the pixies showed any sort of sign that there was a sanctuary nearby.

  But by the time Ashton had passed through more than half, almost three quarters, of the forest, there was nothing. He was starting to have a bad premonition.

  "No, no, there might just be none at all..." Ashton said to himself, starting to move back toward town. There was a last part of the forest as well, but he wasn't going to head there. Not yet. There was supposed to be another Marked somewhere near the edge of town, basically right on the way to the primary school, so he would grab that one. After that, he just had to take care of a single last Marked, and he would be fine. There should be another one on the way back to Calibur.

  Compared to navigating the forest, this part was much, much easier. Here, Ashton could just keep track of all the houses and streets and turns to know exactly where he was, but in the forest? He barely even knew which direction he was going. The only thing that saved him was that there were paths every once in a while that he could use to orient himself through, but for the most part it was just tree after tree after tree. It was hard to navigate forests even when you weren't only able to see the blurry shapes of things a dozen feet away.

  But here, he could run and turn and climb onto things without losing his sense of where he was at all. Like this, finding the ninth Marked of his quest was easy enough.

  Ashton found them in the middle of what was some kind of farmer's market just last week, sleeping and curled-up next to a human corpse that it had been feeding on. The stalls were still set up, at least the ones that weren't torn apart. The food had been taken away, with just some bits and pieces still rotting away beneath them.

  This Marked was turning into some kind of beast. Fur covered their body, their nails turned into claws, and their body bulked up and grew a lot compared to what should be a normal stature for a person. They looked like some kind of werewolf, though the transformation wasn't advanced enough to tell that for sure.

  Hopefully they weren't turning into a werewolf, those were pretty annoying. They were hard to kill with non-magical weapons and without any techniques at all. Any mundane attacks were simply healed immediately. Simply adding a bit of mana into your attacks wasn't enough either.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  So, just to give it a go, Ashton ran at the Marked. He didn't have the silent step shoelaces anymore, but with a sleeping half-beast, Ashton didn't need those. He still knew how to move quietly and without being noticed, and could run fast enough that he managed to strike the Marked without them even waking up first.

  Ashton struck the monster's body, splitting its skin with the impact. Blood poured out from the wound, but almost immediately, the blood started to bubble around the wound.

  "Tsk, seriously?" Ashton clicked his tongue, annoyed. Werebeasts, while not the most rare type of creature for a Marked to turn into, were definitely extremely dangerous this early on. Most people still didn't know how to use their skills efficiently in combat, ending up with them attacking with mostly mundane attacks and their skills as special tricks to finish off their opponent.

  Now, werebeasts were going to appear sooner or later anyway, but they would start out as special opponents like bosses instead of regular enemies. At least, for now. After the first phase was over, the average level of monsters was going to be much higher, but that was still a while away. Until then, people should be able to use their skills properly.

  And for now, Ashton was here to take care of such outliers like this Marked. Luckily, his main jig was being a summoner. Ashton clicked his fingers, and called on the salamander. This werewolf wasn't fully transformed yet, but they still had a lot of fur. And that fur made for the perfect material to catch a flame.

  The moment the salamander's fire touched the Marked's body, it started to spread across its body. The smell of burning hair and fur was disgusting, but at least it was effective.

  The werewolf Marked started to scream out in pain, trying to swat away the fire, but that made it spread just that much more. This was a definitive weakness of Marked compared to real, full monsters.

  While most Marked did have that murderous instinct to kill people, their human instincts still survived. Monsters would focus on killing people even if it meant dying, but a human's foremost instinct was self-preservation. And especially those that would stoop to killing other people for that had an extremely high drive to survive by any means possible.

  However, that was only for a while. Soon, they realised that the fire simply wouldn't go out, and that realization was enough for the werewolf to start thinking about what was going on, rather than just focusing on the pain.

  They saw Ashton standing there, and immediately ran at him, limping. It seemed that in the middle of it, they realised that running on all fours would be faster, and switched to that.

  But Ashton struck the werewolf's snout the moment they approached him. It was crushed by the weight of the metal bar. The attack would heal, but that didn't mean that damage couldn't accumulate.

  Ashton kept attacking the monster, taking a few steps back to lure it toward a particular spot. There was a quite deep puddle just a little distance away, and the moment the Marked stepped into it, they seemed to show some relief.

  After all, while the magical flames of the salamander wouldn't go out as long as they were supplied with Ashton's mana, that didn't mean that they could burn quite as well as before.

  The relief spread over the werewolf's body as the water climbed up into its fur, controlled by the undine. The half-monster wasn't realising what was happening, they were just happy that the pain was lessened even slightly, and snarled while staring at Ashton.

  They once again started to run forward, but Ashton quickly hardened the water on the werewolf's body with the undine's new ability. Right now, it was basically lukewarm, extremely strong ice that made it hard for the Marked to move. And the flames, no longer smothered, began to spread across the fur again. But this time, they were heating up the water as well.

  The lukewarm ice was slowly starting to turn hot, and soon even started to become hotter than boiling. With this new ability, Ashton could stop the water from turning into steam, and instead, the fire simply kept heating it up to ridiculous temperatures.

  The werewolf cried out in pain. This was literal torture, but luckily it wouldn't persist for much longer. Before long, the half-monster wasn't able to move anymore, and Ashton pulled away a bit of water from its body and turned it into a large, solid spike.

  With a flick of his wrist, he forced the spike into its heart.

  [You have killed a [Marked Human]. For your efforts, you are awarded 27 Coins]

  Staring at the scorched corpse, Ashton felt a little bit of pity. But just a little bit. It was sad that this Marked ended up being the victim for Ashton testing out the super-heated ice, but that was just how it had to be sometimes.

  Ashton turned, and could feel some warmth on his face.

  "Hm? Poppy, is the sun coming up?" The pixie climbed out of Ashton's pocket, and her bell-like voice seemed to confirm it. With a sigh, Ashton had the Backpacker give him the Arcane Pocket Watch. Around 5am. He forgot how early the sun rose in the middle of summer.

  This still gave Ashton a good amount of time to do what he had to. He was starting to feel a bit tired, but he could push through this for another two or so hours until taking the last dose of the potions.

  And so, he made his way to the primary school again. He was just hoping that this time, there wasn't another huge emergency there.