Is this really a Game?!

“You said that John Ashburn was the leader of one of the orders right?” Reign suddenly asked Marco as the latter nodded with a slightly nervous expression.

‘What’s wrong with him, was he a fan of John back during his fighting days, no, even if he was, his reaction shouldn’t be anything like this, maybe, maybe he knew John?’ Marco thought to himself as he continued looking at Reign with a nervous expression.

“You’re absolutely sure?”

“Yeah, w-why?” Marco scratched the back of his head as he asked Reign. Reign however offered no response, he simply put his hand inside his armor before suddenly taking out a picture. Marco watched apprehensively but was surprised when Reign actually handed him the picture, he turned it around and saw a picture of a family of three.

‘This picture, this is him, and the other two-‘ Marco’s eyes widened in shock as he looked at the familiar face in the picture. A tall and muscular man had his hand on Reign’s shoulder whilst hugging his wife who was next to him. The man was of course John Ashburn, former heavyweight champion of the world, one of the two leaders of a large-scale order and Reign’s father.

“My name is Reign Ashburn, you have probably already realized it, but John Ashburn was my father.” Reign said with a weak smile on his face. Marco’s hand on the other hand started shaking slightly before he returned the picture to Reign who put it back into the inner pocket he had made with Adrian’s help.

“I see, I’m sorry for your loss kid, your dad was a hell of a man.”

“I know.” Reign said before taking a deep breath.

“But Mr. Marco, since you have said that my dad was strong, how is it possible he died in a car crash?”

“It’s not,” Marco said resolutely.

“I have seen your father use his powers before, he was an expert in physical enhancement, after wrapping himself in mana he was even able to stop a truck that was going full speed at him, for someone like him, a car crash would simply result in a few bruises, no matter how serious the crash was.”

“I see, so what you’re saying is.”

“He was targeted by someone, nobody knows who it was, but I know that his order combed through the whole state but found nothing, I can’t even begin to tell you how many small-sized orders were almost completely annihilated after being suspected, not even medium-sized orders were able to escape their wrath, your father’s friend, Hwang, seemed to be on a crusade at that point, for 3 whole months every single order that was near and was suspected had to face his wrath, in the end, however, they still failed to find those that did it.”

“So nobody knows who killed my parents?”

“Not necessarily.” Marco suddenly said as he stared at Reign.

“There was a suspect, an old member of your father’s order, he left shortly after your dad became one of the leaders, nobody knew where he went or what he did but he did make an appearance 2 days before your father’s death, and then he appeared once more the day after, even though Hwang used every single connection he had with the other orders he was still unable to find him though, it was as if he had disappeared into the ground.”

“One of the members, I don’t know his name, well to be honest rarely anyone knows his real identity, but the man was probably right beneath those two when it came to strength, anyway, from what I know he used to be an assassin and was even hired to assassinate your father a long time ago, but in the end, he protected him and joined the order.” Marco continued speaking.

“He went everywhere, used his connections in the underground, and left a trail of death behind him, he was close to finding that man, but that was mere days before the game started, so I have no idea if he found him or not.”

“Who is he?” Reign suddenly asked Marco as the latter tried to remember.

“If I remember correctly his name was –” Upon saying the name Marco suddenly stopped moving, his breath was stuck in his throat as an overwhelming amount of mana was suddenly gushing out from Reign. Black and white lightning flickered around him as his eyes were bloodshot in anger, the rock where he was sitting started cracking apart from the pressure as Marco tried his best to channel his mana in order to not pass out.

‘What the hell is this, how, how could he be this powerful?!’ Marco gulped in fear as he looked at Reign, it seemed that Reign knew the person that was suspected to have killed his father, otherwise he wouldn’t have had such a reaction. ｂｎ𝚘ｖ𝚕．𝚘𝚛𝚐

‘And here I thought his father was a monster since his strength was so great back then, but this kid, to describe him as a monster would be an understatement.’

Reign on the other hand was having many thoughts in his head. He remembered the day of the funeral. He came back to New York with Shadow and was completely heartbroken, he could barely even walk normally after entering his apartment that was filled with friends and family. He broke down after entering the apartment and it took him hours to calm down.

During the funeral he was lifeless, he responded to everyone that came to greet him in the same, robotic kind of way. But one person stood out however, his demeanor was different and Reign noticed it, however that was all that he noticed as his mind was still in turmoil back then. Thanks to his huge stats, however, Reign could remember things much more clearly compared to before, he was able to easily remember how the man looked like, how he behaved, and talked, and of course, he remembered the man’s name.

Another peculiar thing that happened during the funeral was the behavior of Shadow’s father after seeing the man. He quickly excused himself and went after the man who had left the building, only to return back a couple of minutes later with a heavy look on his face.

‘So he was the one!’ Reign’s mana was becoming more and more violent as time passed and his anger grew.

“R-Reign, please,” Marco said as he was barely able to hold on anymore. His cry of help was heard by Reign who had seemingly woken up from a stupor, he quickly restrained his mana as Marco was finally able to breathe normally. The man however was spent, he used up a lot of his mana in order to defend against Reign’s mana and started breathing heavily after that.

“Sir Marco, why don’t you come to the territory to rest, you can go back to your boss tomorrow.” Reign said as Marco nodded weakly. He knew that he was in no shape to go back now and he also knew that Reign meant no harm, instead it was highly plausible that they would be allies from now on.

‘Sir John’s son, truly astonishing.’ Marco told himself as he made his way back to the safe zone with Reign who quickly gave him a place to stay for the night. As for himself, he went back to his building and entered his room, but was unable to sleep.

‘I will find you, I swear it on my life, I will find you and make you wish you were dead, nothing on this world will be able to save you from my wrath, nothing!’ Reign repeated those words until he was finally able to fall asleep early in the morning. He only slept for a couple of hours before waking up as he had a nightmare, he dreamt of his parents and the day he was informed of their deaths.

Cold sweat drenched his back as he made his way to the shower and then outside. Greenie could see that something was wrong with Reign, but decided against asking him, if Reign wanted to tell him, he would tell him.

He quickly met Marco and the other four people who were seemingly on their way to see Reign. Reign had previously given Marco clearance to use the elevator to the 5th floor and the man was planning to see him before he set off.

“Sir Marco.”

“Please stop with the honorifics sir Reign, I was on my way to you, but since we met then I can tell you of my intentions here,” Marco said with a serious expression on his face.

“I will tell my boss of what happened and of what I have learned, the chance of my boss wanting to meet you will be high, very high.”

Reign simply nodded at Marco’s words before the man continued.

“I would like to propose an alliance of our two groups, even though I can’t speak for my leader, but I am certain he would not object.”

“I would agree to that, also, if you guys want to, you’re free to relocate here, the territory is huge and as you see, we’re only using a small part of it, and as these four have probably already told you, the tax and everything else is as low as it can be, you will not be discriminated against and of course, you will still continue operating as a group.”

“I will tell the leader that, I will see you soon.” Marco bowed to Reign before leaving the territory, the other four were left here, they had found out parts of what happened last night from Marco and were happy to find that they were in good relations with Reign and his people now.

A couple of minutes had passed before suddenly a bright light could be seen in the middle of the territory before a blonde man walked out. The man was Wolf who had finally returned from the challenge.