Leveling Up by Seducing Milfs-Chapter 245. Shoulder to Shoulder

In the afternoon, they traveled through quieter areas, including the gardens, the market, and a long stretch drifting through one of Meridia’s beautiful corridors, where the crystal walls displayed the open ocean in all directions, causing the sharp edges of the day to blur.

Zara was talking about the Eastern Wastes with the blunt affection of someone who really loved a place that most people thought was unlivable. Sylvia was asking questions about demon terrain with what seemed like real curiosity instead of competitive interest.

Rick sat on a coral bench between them and listened to both of them. When the conversation started to turn into an argument, he would occasionally change the subject.

Over time, it became more like a real conversation.

"You’ve never seen the volcanic plains in the late season," Zara said. "Someone must have set the whole landscape on fire, but it’s just the light hitting the rocks."

"Zork used to take me out there when we needed to think."

There was a moment of silence after that, the kind that always came when Zara talked about Zork.

Sylvia didn’t say anything that made her feel bad. She looked at the water outside the hallway wall for a moment and then said, "Therion loved the Northern Peaks in winter."

"He said the silence was the cleanest thing in the world." She stopped. "I didn’t get what he meant until he left."

Rick didn’t say anything.

Zara looked at Sylvia. Instead of the usual tense energy in their interactions, Zara’s gaze was filled with something different, more calm.

"How long ago?"

"Five hundred years."

For a moment, Zara was quiet. "That’s a long time... to carry that."

"Yeah... it is."

Another silence fell between them, but this one wasn’t as sharp as usual.

Sylvia said, with a slight smile at the corner of her mouth, "He would have thought this whole thing was funny."

"A twenty-four-year-old human making Spirit Bonds with ancient powers to save the world. He had a very strange sense of humor."

"Hahaha! Zork already tried to get Rick to join the demon army in the first five minutes of meeting him," Zara said. "And Rick would have said yes right away to avoid making things weird."

Rick opened his mouth.

"You would have," Zara said before he could say a thing.

Rick shut his mouth.

Sylvia made a noise that would have been called a snort by anyone else who wasn’t so dignified. "He definitely would have."

The two of them shared a quick, sarcastic look over Rick’s head. It was closer to friendship than anything that had happened between them that morning when they were looking at a broken coral sculpture.

Rick saw this and felt something warm settle in his chest.

As the deep-ocean evening set in, the bioluminescent light that served as Meridia’s version of sunset slowly faded. They made their way back to Rick’s chambers.

Rick had said that they could have dinner with the others later, or not, depending on how everyone felt. Despite not making any decisions, the night continued until they found themselves back in Rick’s room.

It had happened slowly, as it usually did on nights like this, through talking and the comfortable laziness of people who had been together all day and weren’t quite ready for it to end.

Sylvia sat on the wide window ledge at the edge of the room with her legs crossed. The light from outside made her red-gold hair shine. Zara sat down in a chair as easily as someone who considers every surface to be a throne and is fine with all of them.

Rick was sitting on the edge of the bed, and both of them were watching him. This wasn’t new, but it was something that happened a lot.

"You’re... looking at me," he said.

"It’s more like I’m watching," Sylvia said.

"That’s the same thing!"

"It is not at all."

Zara got up from the chair. She moved with the same purposeful quality that she always had, the kind that came from years of military command when every move was a conscious choice.

"You spent the whole day with us," she said, "but I see you’re still doing that thing where you’re waiting to see what happens next."

"W-What!?" Rick panicked and said, "I’m not, and I’m trying not to as well!"

"You are," Zara and Sylvia said at the same time.

They both stopped, and then they looked at each other. Both of their faces showed a brief flash of annoyance at having agreed on something.

Sylvia got off the ledge of the window. She moved with the calm grace of someone who had all the time in the world, which was true because of how old she was.

"You care for us," Sylvia said, and it sounded like she was saying it was true instead of asking. "You care for both of us, even when we are being hard on ourselves."

Rick said, "Well... yeah, ’especially when you’re being difficult’ is the right word for it."

"That’s very diplomatic," Zara said.

"I have my times."

Zara got closer. Sylvia had stopped a few feet away on the other side of him, and Rick was once again in the middle of something, which he had long accepted as his most common geographic position in life.

The mood in the room had changed from relaxed to charged, the kind of tension that didn’t feel dangerous but definitely had a purpose behind it.

After that, Zara looked at Sylvia.

And Sylvia looked back at her.

The look they gave each other for exactly one second was the kind that comes before a fight. Then it changed into something else: a recognition, a competitive spark that had nothing to do with hostility and everything to do with two very confident women who had the same idea at the same time and weren’t going to back down from each other.

"I’ll make him forget his own name before you do," Zara said.

Sylvia raised her chin. "I have been doing this for a thousand years."

"I have excitement."

"That is not the same."

"Well... let’s just see."

At the same time, they both stepped forward. Zara’s shoulder collided with Sylvia’s, but neither of them stepped back.

Instead, they stood shoulder to shoulder in front of Rick, occupying the entire space between him and the rest of the room.

"This is a competition now," Zara said to Rick in a direct tone, like someone giving orders in the military.

"It always was," Sylvia said.

Zara reached up and unfastened the clasp on her shoulder. She threw the outer layer of her coat onto the chair behind her without looking.

Sylvia, not to be outdone, carefully unfastened the front of her formal robe, as if she knew what she was doing was not casual. The two layers of clothing ended up behind them, but neither woman took her eyes off of Rick for a second.

What was left was a lot less.

Zara, with her shoulders rolled back, exuded a sense of complete self-assure, as if she had never felt the need to alter her identity. Sylvia’s stance was just as unapologetic and regal without trying, and she had a presence that came from real self-confidence instead of acting.

They were still standing next to each other. They still won’t give in to each other.

Rick noticed, though, that they were somehow competing with each other while working together toward the same goal.

"No fucking way... this is truly heaven for me if I can have sex repeatedly, especially with two streaks of threesomes!"

’LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOO~!’

For a brief moment, Zara’s eyes darted to Sylvia’s side. Sylvia’s golden eyes turned back.

There was a mix of competition and understanding between them, like two people who have been arguing all day but still ended up at the same place.

After that, they both looked at Rick.

Zara’s tongue slowly and purposefully touched her lower lip. Her dark eyes locked onto his with the kind of confidence that comes from knowing how this will end.

Sylvia’s face changed from warm to completely heartbreaking. Her golden eyes were calm and sure, like someone who has waited a thousand years for what they want and learned that patience is a kind of power.

"Well," Sylvia said, her voice getting softer.

"Yeah," Zara said, her voice having that familiar edge that was always both challenging and inviting at the same time.

Rick looked at both of them: Sylvia’s ancient, golden certainty and Zara’s direct, unashamed desire.

They were standing shoulder to shoulder in a rare and complete agreement about one thing, and he was pretty sure that whatever his name was, he was about to forget it completely.

"Thank you, God... for giving me this life..."

"I’ve said this many times, but I don’t care..."