The schoolyard was chaos when they arrived, even with a swarm of teachers trying to calm them all down.
As they reached the grassy area where the kids were gathered for their break, Karl switched to his armour and then used [Brutality] to increase his size, then [Haste] to buff his speed to the level he would need for his next show.
A sharp clap of his hands sent out a boom of dislocated air at supersonic speeds, and caught the attention of everyone on the playground.
“Listen up. I need everyone gathered here in front of me. If any of the little ones have gone inside, I need them back out here.
Come on, we don’t have all day.” He shouted before letting his size reduce back to normal.
The Children dutifully lined up in front of Karl in a jumbled group, with a few beastkin at the front. They seemed almost drawn to him, and it was their response that brought the others.
“Hello everyone. My name is Karl, and you already met my friend Cara, the Void Badger. Now it has come to my attention that the clerics are not happy with some of the gifts that she picked, so instead of having them confiscated, I came over to give you a chance to exchange them.
You see, young Cara just learned that the Orphanages don’t celebrate birthdays, and she wanted everyone to have a late birthday present from her. So it wouldn’t be right if it was taken away.” A small boy ran up and hugged Karl, while the teachers smiled.
“It’s my real birthday today.” The boy explained, then held up a hand wearing a Giant Strength ring.
He was too young to have awakened a Class, but the item had equipped to him, so Karl was fairly certain that he would be awakening one in the near future.
“And the teachers thought that making you super strong was likely to break stuff.” Karl agreed.
Cara was working frantically to prepare gift bags full of snacks, each with one special treat at the bottom. Nothing that would cause the chaos of the rings she started passing out after the security team began chasing her, though.
Cara wanted them to have one long-lasting item to remember her by, so some of the items were looted broken magical items, decorative jewellery that she had stuck a pretty stone into, replacing the ugly or missing stones or other similar items.
She passed Karl a bag, and he traded the preschool aged boy for the ring of Giant Strength.
He pulled it out and found a simple brass amulet on a chain, then opened it to find a crude self-portrait of Cara, carved with one of her claws into a quartz flake.
“It’s so pretty! I will keep this forever.” The boy declared.
“I will tell Cara that you like it. Happy birthday.”
The ring returned to its normal size as the boy took it off, and Karl set it back into one of his inventory spaces.
There were far more trash quality magical items in there than Karl remembered. Sure, they looted the Giants’ bodies empty, but there had to be thousands of damaged or extremely low-quality rings, bracelets, amulets and other bits of magical jewellery in there.
[Did we really kill that many monsters?] Karl asked.
[I don’t think so. Well, maybe before I got here? Lots of that stuff smells like cold.]
That was right. They had looted the Frost Giant City. Or, Rae had. Remi wasn’t coming out of her space in that weather, but Rae had stockpiled everything that she could get her hands on, just so the Giants couldn’t have it.
[You can pick items that protect against the cold to give to the kids as well. Nobody will complain about those if they don’t increase strength or magical power enough for the kids to become a problem.]
That made Cara’s gift package giving much easier, though she was going to pick the food bushes in her space clean by the time they finished. She only kept them for decoration, and the others were all busy, except Hawk, who was still asleep, enjoying his day off.
There were only a half dozen items that needed to be swapped, and a few kids that Cara had missed the first time through, as everyone was moving around, and she was being chased by annoying people.
“Did we miss anyone?” Karl asked.
“The twins are in the closet, and the doofus with funny hair is sick today.” One of the boys announced.
“His name is Ronald, and he’s not a doofus.” One of the girls defended him, though Karl noted that she didn’t mention his hair.
The teachers were the ones that caught the important part. “Why are the twins in the closet?” The old woman asked.
“Because they’re stupid and nobody likes them.” One of the boys in back muttered, too low for human hearing to pick up.
Karl turned to the teacher. “Bullying. How about I give you this for Ronald, and you can go get the twins?”
The teacher nodded and jogged off to get the twins, while a number of the students gave the boy who had outed them a dirty look. It didn’t take long to find the twins, and even less time for the teachers who remained outside to determine who the culprits were. The twins were brought out to meet with him, and Karl gave them a quick inspection. They didn’t appear to be injured, and there was nothing visible strange about them. He had expected that they might have something odd about them, like part beastkin lineage, being too small for their age, or even an unusual hair colour. But they seemed perfectly normal so far.
The twin girls glared at the boys from their class, and the teachers sighed.
One of the teachers, a younger woman and still an Awakened Rank Red Dragon cleric, leaned over to whisper to Karl.
“They’re recent arrivals. They lost their family to a monster spawn a couple of months ago, and they don’t get along well with the boys. They’re fine at the dorms, but classes are mixed.” She explained.
That was understandable. They had just lost their family, and now they were in a new place, strangers among a group of kids who had mostly grown up together.
[I have just the right thing. Here, give them these bags.] The bags contained matching pendants, which added three points to agility. Not a major increase, though it would be noticeable for the children. The important part was that they were two halves of a matched set, so the twins would have their own thing, but not something that the other didn’t have.