Lord Marlus was the current unofficial ruler of their current area; he had multiple henchmens he could send all around, especially for cases like this, which makes his personal presence even scarier.
"Lord Marlus, what are you doing here?" Ashton asked with a deep bow of respect.
But the man at his door didn’t immediately answer; he just looked at Ashton with a singular raised eyebrow.
"Ohhh, where are my manners? Come in, Lord," he finally realized.
He took a few steps back while opening his door wider, inviting the strange lord in.
Ashton hadn’t really had a personal meeting with this man before; the only reason he recognized him was because he had seen him once on one of those Lord festivals.
Lord Marlus looked at Ashton’s attempt at courtesy and just sneered loudly before helping himself in. On top of that, he didn’t bother asking any questions; he just walked towards the bedroom Selene was currently lying in.
Ashton also noticed that, and almost immediately he became defensive and rushed to block his path.
"Lord Marlus, there’s nothing in there. It’s his wife, sir, and she is currently asleep."
Noticing the slight change in demeanor from Ashton when the matter was about his wife, the Lord himself couldn’t help but smirk.
"Asleep? Is that the new word for "vegetative" nowadays?"
"Being a Lord really makes you slightly outdated on the recent slang in the world, doesn’t it?"
When he finished that sentence, his eyes had already gone twisted and his face had darkened by quite a lot.
"My wife is asleep, Lord Marlus," Ashton responded again without holding back.
"Alright, alright, there’s no need for you to blaze so fiercely,dear Ashton,"
"I am not here to mock you or your wife; I am here to offer a warning, a really important warning."
"Do not get overambitious."
While he was saying that, he had already slowly begun approaching the chair, probably to get a seat.
"Do you know something, Young Ashton? Ambition is the bringer of chaos, and in order to avoid chaos, we lords need to step in."
dm,
"One of my servants reported that you were getting ambitious, so I decided to confirm myself."
"Seeing the way to fiercely retort against what I was saying, it seems it’s actually true."
Ashton stood there listening to this silently creepy lord speak with slightly shivering hands; after every word the man said, he could feel an intangible pressure weighing on him with increasing force.
"I have bad news for you, Young Ashton. I won’t be allowing that; this needs to stop."
"And what other can I do than to take away the new presence?" while he said that Lord Marlus’ eyes glanced towards the bedroom, which Ashton caught immediately.
"You won’t be doing anything to my wife," Ashton barked.
"Alright, let’s wait and se—"
He hadn’t even finished speaking when his body slowly started breaking apart into tiny shadow fragments, and then the next instant he was nowhere to be found.
Immediately after experiencing that, Ashton didn’t try to wait for an explanation or confirm anything; he just turned around and rushed into the room to check up on Selene.
When he entered the room, he saw Selene still lying peacefully on the bed, her face looking tranquil, definitely not like the face of someone that was just threatened.
Ashton didn’t just stop at checking up on his wife; he began searching the whole room for anomalies. When he was done with the room, he moved to the living room, and then the kitchen, and finally the bathroom.
He didn’t stop until every corner had been searched; it was only then that he returned to the bedroom.
"I won’t let anyone touch you," Ashton muttered as he sat down beside her without any intention of standing back up.
Just like that, his plans for the day had changed. There was no more farming on the agenda anymore; he would rather spend the whole day watching Selene.
He stared at Selene’s face for quite a while, hoping to catch anything. At this point he won’t let a single spec of dust land on her.
But for a man that had always spent his whole day doing tasks on a farm for the last two-plus years, sitting idle has become a more stressful task.
It cost even more energy than doing actual work.
’Damn, I am thirsty.’
He had been so focused on giving Selene water that he didn’t realize how much he himself needed water. Potatoes were a really dehydrating meal.
’Should I quickly head to the kitchen for a small cup?’
’No no no, I can’t. What if something happens while I am gone?’
’I will stay and bear it,’
Despite the raging thirst in his throat and his dry cracked lips, Ashton still persevered; he unhesitatingly sat there with a stern face.
Sadly, no matter how determined he was, he was still only human. Sometime during his watch duty, he had fallen asleep.
It started off as a doze, but with no one or anything around to wake him back up, he only fell deeper and deeper into the dream realm.
His task to guard was now abandoned.
Time went by without him knowing, and soon, the sun was already setting on the horizon.
The lantern on the table, not too far away, was moving again, though the movement was just a little at a time; it added up, and soon it was at the very edge.
Clack! Cluck!
The sound of the metal lantern hitting the ground rang throughout the building, snapping Ashton awake.
He hurriedly looked in that direction to see what it was, and relief washed over him when he saw what it was; he didn’t even try to question how it fell.
He was about to fall back asleep when he suddenly caught sight of something.
A figure, a shadow, was looming directly over Selene, and though he wasn’t quite sure, he noticed the glint of a blade.
Ashton wanted to react, but he was a tad too slow; the blade was already falling.
"Noooooooooo."