The next day, in King's palace...
Well, the day did not start the way mistress wanted to. For starters, when the king said he would like to meet Ashton, he meant he would like to meet him alone. No one else. The mistress was baffled by this but it wasn't like she could have done anything about it.
So Ashton went in and sat in silence in the courtroom alone. Out of boredom his eyes eventually began wandering through the room feeling a bit overwhelmed because of the sheer size of the room.
He could not believe it was the same room in which he had been put on a trial. Probably having all those people sitting there and the tense atmosphere made Ashton not aware of his surroundings.
The room was more or less like the one the mistress had in Maddencreek, only this room was about five times as large as the mistress's throne room if it could be called that. As got the decorations, everything in the room was either covered in gold and silver or in innumerable precious stones.
"How the hell did I miss all of this yesterday?" Ashton mumbled absentmindedly.
"Sometimes things are better left unnoticed." A sharp, authoritative voice echoed from behind.
Ashton immediately turned around only to see Jonathan standing there in some basic yet elegant attire. He wasn't wearing a tuxedo or anything, just a simple black turtleneck sweater along with a pair of black jeans. However, his sword was right by his side, as usual.
'How did he appear here out of nowhere?'
It was only yesterday when Ashton could sense Jonathan's indomitable aura even before he had entered the room, but now, he was standing right behind him and yet his [perception] could not trace him?
But there was one more thing... when Ashton tried viewing Jonathan's stats, he could only see a bunch of '?'.
__
Name: Jonathan Bismark
Species: Werewolf
Status: Werewolf
Class: ??
Title: ??, ??, ??, ??
Age: 86 years
Gender: Male
Grade: ??
Affiliation: Werewolves.
Level:
> Werewolf Level: ??
Stats:
HP: ??/??
Damage: ??
Armour: ??
Stealth: ??
Stamina: ??
Agility: ??
Intelligence: ??
Nature:
???
Abilities/skills/spells:
??
??
+ 12 more
__
Although Ashton was familiar with being denied to view someone's stats. This was the first time he had seen so many '?' on someone's status page. Hell, he wasn't even strong enough to view Jonathan's grade, class or title.
'Just how strong is this guy...'
The next moment Ashton ended up chuckling. He did not want to but he couldn't help but do so after thinking how the mistress wanted to challenge someone like the king on his turf. Just thinking about it was much worse than committing suicide.
"Mind if I ask what you find so amusing?" Jonathan asked Ashton and although he had a smile on his face, it didn't look like the king was in the mood for joking around.
"N-Nothing, your highness."
Jonathan sighed before speaking again, and the words he spoke... were nothing less than a threat concealed in flowery words. he explained how he had been wanting to claim the other kingdoms for himself but facing setback after setbacks. All thanks to the swamp lying between him and his ambition.
The conversation was long but the gist of it was that Jonathan wanted Ashton to work for him.
"Don't overthink it. I don't have any interest in you. But the skills that you possess." Jonathan made his intentions clear from the get-go, "But since both of you come as a single package, I have to make do with whatever I can."
When Ashton did not reply to him, Jonathan put his offer in even simpler terms.
"Join the royal guards and I'll personally train you to become an excellent warrior. A true force to be reckoned with. And once you are done with the tasks I give you, you'll be generously rewarded. Women, riches, hell, you can even have one of my daughters if you like."
He continued, "But I don't think you are someone who would be interested in such meagre things. So how about... the location of your lost parents?"
As soon as those words escaped Jonathan's mouth, Ashton could not keep his face expressionless anymore. He was happy, angry and confused at the same time. How the hell did everyone knew about them except him? Just what were these people hiding from him?
"How do you-"
"How do I know them? What a foolish question to ask." Jonathan said with a faint smile, "How can I not know two of the founding members of the Resistance?"
"Founding members?"
Ashton was getting too much information all of a sudden. How could his parents be the founding members of the resistance? If they were so important, then shouldn't they have been the last ones to get arrested? Nothing was making sense anymore...
Then Ashton remembered something he had heard a lot of oldies in the enclosure said about him. How he was different because unlike them he wasn't born in the enclosure. However, before they could tell much they were immediately silenced by the guards so Ashton thought it was just another one of their made-up tales to make him feel special.
But now those tales did not seem to be made-up at all. While Ashton was still thinking about all that, Jonathan immediately began hammering the iron while it was still hot.
"Oh, I assumed you already knew all that considering you are quite close with the third founding member." He acted all surprised but deep inside he was laughing hilariously because his plan was working brilliantly, "After all, she showed up with you during the trial."
'Close with the third member? Who could that be- no... way. It can't be her.'
Everything finally made sense. How the director knew about his real name and his parents... why she was trying to protect him at all cost... everything made sense. She herself had told him that she too was a mutt when they first met after the entrance examination. The dots were floating right in front of him and yet he wasn't able to connect them.
"But why would she hide it from me?" Ashton started mumbling to himself in his confused state.
"Maybe because she is ashamed of what she did." Jonathan shrugged his shoulder in a nonchalant way.
"Ashamed for what?"
"For betraying them. Who do you think helped Mera to catch them?"