Leveling Up by Seducing Milfs-Chapter 253. How Did He Pull That Baddie?

From the air, Valdris looked different than it did before the corruption crisis. The skyline changed after the dragon attack, and plants have regrown in some damaged areas.

The view from the noble district showed a city that was recovering, growing, and more alive than before. Rick noticed this every time he came back to it: how stubborn a place could be that wouldn’t stop.

When heroes came back, word spread quickly. By the time Sylvia flew over the city, there was a crowd in the landing district.

She changed back into a person high above the buildings and came down next to the group with the kind of casual grace that made people on the ground stop and stare.

Rick landed without any fuss, and... the crowd cheered anyway.

"THERE HE IS!!! OUR SAVIOOORRRRR~!"

"THE MILF LOVEEERRRR~!"

"W-What the fuck...?" Rick looked confused while the others tried not to laugh at him.

And there, Rick can see Fredrich was at the platform.

He really seemed happy. His silver hair was perfect, his council robes were perfect, and the smile on his face was the kind of smile a man has when he is pleased to see something he was expecting go according to plan.

He shook Rick’s hand with real enthusiasm and called the Ocean Empire alliance a historic achievement, which it was.

He then congratulated each member of the team separately, and his words were perfectly suited to each person, which Rick saw as a sign of skilled political attention.

"W-What’s wrong...? Did you already do this back then?" Rick asked with a confused look.

"Saying it again many times couldn’t go wrong, right? This way, your history will be remembered in Zorathia." Fredrich laughed.

There was nothing suspicious about what he did. He was charming, well-spoken, and perfectly adjusted for someone with his level of experience and position.

Rick realized he was looking for something wrong with Fredrich’s welcome but couldn’t find anything. He then wrote that down and put it in the same mental folder as everything else.

Roderick was also on the platform. His handshake was much less graceful than Fredrich’s, but his enthusiasm was much more real.

He pumped Rick’s arm twice and said that twenty-seven nobles and officials had asked him formally for Rick’s time.

He looked at Rick. "Twenty-seven...? Holy shit, that’s a lot!"

"And that is... after I got rid of the ones that didn’t make sense."

"How many of them were unreasonable?"

Roderick stopped for a moment, looking like a deciding man how honest to be. "Forty."

"Hell nah..."

Fredrich smoothly suggested that they meet again in the Council chambers tomorrow morning for a full update on the administrative issues he had been handling. That makes perfect sense. Rick smiled and said yes.

People were still cheering. It seemed to amuse Sylvia a little, and it looked like Zara was making a list of ways to get out.

As the formal welcome came to an end and they started to walk through the crowd toward the noble district, Carmilla walked next to Rick.

She waited until the noise was loud enough to hide her voice, then said softly, "Did you see it...?"

"Huh? See what...?"

"He said hello to each person separately."

"He named Nerissa’s alliance and said he hoped Liora was well." Carmilla stopped. "He already knew she wasn’t with us."

Rick thought about the welcome again, and she was correct. Fredrich handled the absence with the ease of someone who had already planned for it, not someone who was shocked that a team member was missing.

Rick said, "He knew before we landed."

"He knew before we left Meridia," Carmilla said, and her voice was calm. "Which means he has ways to get information that we don’t know about."

They kept going. Rick’s face stayed calm and pleasant, and he put that note in the same folder as all the others.

...

The mansion in the noble district was just as they had left it: big, a little overwhelming, and full of rooms that no one had yet decided what to do with.

The staff Fredrich had hired to take care of it while they were gone had kept it clean and stocked, which was the right thing to do and also the kind of gesture that Rick knew would keep him in debt.

Everyone went to their own rooms, knowing that they could do whatever they wanted with the rest of the day.

Carmilla went straight to the training courtyard.

Natasha found the study room.

Zara found out that there was a tactical map room near the east wing, and she seemed thrilled about it, which was probably more than the room had hoped for.

Sylvia found the biggest chair in the main common room and tested its strength with the critical eye of someone who has broken a lot of furniture by being a dragon and getting out too late.

She decided it was fine and sat down with a text that looked old and that she had apparently been carrying with her the whole time.

Rick was about to lie down for an hour when someone knocked on the front door of the mansion.

He answered it himself, mostly because he was closest.

Zephyra was standing there with Sophia on her hip and her folio under her arm. Her face was even flatter than usual, which for Zephyra meant that she was really feeling something.

"Uhh... Is everything... okay?" Rick asked, feeling nervous that this is a rare sight for him.

"My husband lost the key to our quarters and gave our bags to the wrong courier," Zephyra said. "He also made the building steward mad in a way that I haven’t figured out yet, but it has led to our room being moved to a broom closet."

Then there’s a pause between them.

Rick said, breaking the pause. "A broom... closet?"

"A changed one, and Heinz says it has character."

A man came out of nowhere behind her. He was in his late thirties, about average height, and had a nice face that made him look like he meant well and had come to terms with the fact that things happened to him anyway.

It was her husband, and he was holding a small potted plant with both hands, cradling it with the care of someone who knew it was important.

Heinz said, "I found this in the hallway. I thought it might make the room feel more welcoming."

Zephyra looked at him for exactly three seconds with an expression that said many things at once, but none of them were very loud.

"Heinz," she said.

"Yes?"

"That plant... belongs to someone else."

Heinz stared at the plant. Then at Rick. Then back to the plant.

His face went through a range of emotions, from recognizing him to mild distress to the resigned acceptance of a man who has been here before.

He said, "I’ll put it back."

He turned around and walked away, sure of himself, in the wrong direction.

"W-What the fuck...? H-How did a guy like this pull a baddie like her?" Rick said in his mind while looking at both of them.

Rick saw him leave. Then he looked at Zephyra, who was watching Heinz walk around the corner with the calmness of someone who has accepted a situation they can’t change and no longer wishes it were different.

"I was hoping to take advantage of your hospitality for a short time." She looked back at Rick. "There is an extra room in this house, right?"

"Ah! O-Of course," Rick said. "Stay as long as you want."

Rick then screamed in his mind...

"WOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO~!!!"