__________ POV Narration__________
Even after Ashton left the room, the class didn't continue as usual. It was quite silent for a while, most of the princes were contemplating what Ashton had told them.
The teacher was still too scared to speak, the experience might've left him a bit traumatized.
Halkenburg and Camilla were quite interested in Ashton's techniques, but the main subject in everyone's mind was his age. How exactly does a human get to live that long?
They hadn't gotten to asking that question before Ashton had left the classroom. Momoze was one of the more confused people, although she wasn't exactly too bummed out about it.
She actually found Ashton's honesty to be a good thing. She already knew that he was old, and it never bothered her in the past, so it had no reason to bother her now.
"That was quite shocking..." Said Kacho, she hadn't even realized that Ashton was old in the first place. She remembered him being Middle-Aged, maybe the same age as Sevanti or Oita.
She certainly wasn't expecting that to happen, but even Kacho wasn't as thoroughly confused as Fugetsu. Nen was still somewhat of a foreign concept to the royal family(at least to most of it) so they didn't know that most Nen users live longer lives.
Although they had been told of it before.
"Must be tough for you, Momoze," Camilla said while looking at her half-sister with a mischievous smile.
After Camilla was spared, she didn't really see her siblings in the same light. She didn't consider them as hateful or as much of an eyesore(with few expectations). Although she still very much hated most of the Kakin Empire and still wished to rule them into their graves.
"Well... Not really? One should already know that Ashton is unpredictable, his age shouldn't come as a surprise to us." The one that responded ended up being Oita.
"Well, yes, but Momoze is the one in love with him," Camilla said while keeping her smile.
Momoze just looked up at her with a red face. "Don't bring it up now! Besides, it's not like he kept this a secret, it didn't seem to bother him, so it won't bother me." She said with determination.
She did like Ashton, that much was obvious, even if she had yet to vocalize her love for him. Although, she now technically admitted to it in her response to Camilla.
Which was, exactly what her blonde half-sister was aiming for.
It took Momoze a few seconds of looking at Camilla's widening smile to realise what she had done.
She was about to start denying things(mostly a reflex) but her mother, Sevanti, decided to speak up on the matter.
"From what I've observed until now Ashton doesn't seem like a bad person. But you need to think of this properly Momoze, don't jump into a relationship while blind." Sevanti, in the end, decided to keep her neutrality.
She didn't want to outright deny her daughter's love for Ashton. But she still wasn't exactly pleased with the idea. Ashton's real age only amplified that feeling.
It was bad enough when she thought he was just middle-aged. But Ashton seemed to be older than even the first emperor of the Kakin Empire.
Also, at this point, the teacher, who had somewhat recovered his bearings, felt too awkward to interrupt the conversation of the royal family.
"I'm not jumping into it blind. I've known him for a while now, I've spent enough time with him. Besides, I don't know if there is time for any relationship to happen. He seems to barely have any free time as of late..." Momoze said with a pout.
She wasn't exactly satisfied with the way things were progressing. She had expected to spend more time with Ashton after their reunion, but then all of these things happened all at once, leading to Ashton having to spend a lot of time in other cities.
Not only that, Momoze couldn't even go and follow him around, she also needed to do her best to learn Nen if she wanted to be helpful to him in the future.
Sevanti, after hearing her daughter's response, just sighed and looked at the ceiling for a bit. She didn't even know how she could go about making Momoze reconsider.
Were this a normal situation, she would've used the fact that Momoze was ultimately royalty. She couldn't just go and date anyone she wanted.
But this wasn't even a normal situation. Ashton wasn't some commoner, he was a veteran hunter, one of the most influential people in Lake Mobius, and one of the leaders of the expedition.
There was also the fact that Sevanti didn't know if they were even royalty at that point. Was the Kakin Empire still around even? Had they all died? Even if they didn't, they had forgotten about them for sure.
They would've had at least some attempt at communication. But it seemed that this expedition was the last bastion of humanity. At least at the moment.
So, they were stranded in an unknown land. This was not mentioned to any of the citizens and workers that were part of the expedition.
It was unknown if it was going to cause panic or not, but the leaders decided that it would be better not to talk about it for now.
"Well, Ashton is a busy man. He is basically the one planning out a way to deal with our current threat. We don't even know what will come, for now, we need to do our best to become stronger." Halkenburg was the one to bring everyone out of their thoughts.
After catching the attention of his siblings and mother-in-law's he motioned to the teacher to continue his lecture.
The man that stood at the blackboard just sighed. He continued the lecture from where he had let off.
And, while all of that was happening. Ashton and Pitou decided to wait for Momoze in her room. There was no reason for them to leave since they had already arrived.
So, Ashton spent some time alone with Pitou. The two continued to speak for quite some time, all until Momoze finally finished her classes.
The princess was quite pleasantly surprised to find Ashton and Pitou in her room. Well, it was mostly because of Ashton, but she was still glad to have the opportunity to get to know Pitou better.
And so, the three of them spoke into the night, Ashton even giving Momoze some pointers about her use of Nen.
The night ended when Momoze passed out while clinging to Ashton's arm. Followed by Pitou, who followed Momoze's example, using his other arm as a pillow. The old hunter also decided to drift off to sleep.
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