Leveling Up by Seducing Milfs-Chapter 272. Threads Being Stretched But Not Broken

Rick’s voice came from his still body, which was quiet and thin but still his. The Absolute Stillness kept the corruption at bay without making him aware of it.

He was in there, clear, holding on to six threads of bond-light with all his might.

"Why would you do that?" He said, "You’ve been hiding things from me for months."

Fredrich looked at the body that was Rick but wasn’t. "Because thirty-one years ago I promised someone who thought he was doing the right thing that I would keep that promise."

"I kept that promise for thirty-one years, even through doubts I should have taken more seriously." He stopped. "And then a corruption node blew up in a civilian area."

"After that, someone tried to take over your body using the socket in your head." He looked Rick straight in the eye, his political mask completely gone. "I am helping because it is the right thing to do, and that should be enough of an explanation."

Liora held the Stillness for the last time and looked at Fredrich.

"The horses." She said, "Now."

Rick thought that the ward Zephyra built in the twelve minutes between Liora releasing the Stillness and the horses being ready was one of the most impressive things he had ever seen someone do under pressure.

He had thought she had things in her coat, but he hadn’t been sure until she started pulling them out quickly, like someone who had thought about what a portable crisis kit should have.

While Liora put the secondary divine seal on the socket, she worked at the desk in Fredrich’s study. She didn’t look up or say anything until she was done.

The result was a new eyepatch that was heavier than Rick’s old one and had a thin layer of warded material sewn into the lining. She gave it to him without any fuss.

"The third rune layer needed to be changed." She said, "The ward makes the socket less sensitive to outside corruption by about 40%."

"It also gives you about two extra hours before the secondary seal starts to break down."

Rick looked at it and then at her. "You did that in twelve minutes."

"I said I needed to redo the third rune layer... and it was twelve, not fifteen." She was already getting her folio ready. "Put it on."

He put it on.

The socket’s warmth faded to a state of awareness rather than a demand. Rick took a breath that was deeper than the last few he had.

"Thanks the Milfs... I’m starting to get this weird feeling in my body that I want cured fast!"

"Don’t worry. We’ll find the solution fast." Liora patted his head.

...

The partner meeting at the mansion was quick because it had to be. It took forty minutes to get from Fredrich’s study to the south gate, with a stop in between to cover everything that needed to be covered.

Zara grabbed Rick’s arm before the horses came out.

"Next time... you better come back with some working eyes," she said. "I hope you remove both of my husband’s eyes completely this time, so you don’t act weird like that again." 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

"I only have one good eye... and yes, I want to get rid of it without disrespecting his treasure."

"Then come back with the one that still works and the one that isn’t trying to kill everyone around you." She held his arm for one more second before letting go. "Don’t make me come after you."

Next, Carmilla held his arm and didn’t say anything. The Unbreakable Bond said everything for her, all of it, everything that would have taken too long to fit in a sentence.

"Don’t worry, Carmilla..." Rick said. "I’m coming back better than ever. That’s a promise!"

She smiled and let go.

Natasha came up to him from the other side and handed him a small monitoring crystal. "Ward calibration tool."

"It reads the degradation rate on the suppression seal Liora applied."

"If it approaches twenty percent remaining, the socket will begin to reopen within an hour." She paused with the particular quality of Natasha, pausing before stating the part she knew he needed to hear most. "Don’t let it get to zero."

"Thanks, Natasha..." Rick put it in his pocket.

Sylvia was at the door. She looked at him for a long time with the old patience of someone who had said goodbye to people many times and knew how heavy it was.

"My Consort." She said, "Please come back home safely..."

He nodded and then left.

"I will."

...

At this hour, the south road out of Valdris was clear, which was the best thing Rick could say about the time. Four excellent horses, the ones Fredrich had promised, were going south under a sky that was just starting to show the first stars of the night.

Liora rode with the calm focus of someone who was carefully managing a small amount of something. Her divine reserves weren’t empty; she had gotten some of her strength back since the node battle.

But Absolute Stillness had taken from a different reserve than her usual one, one that refilled slowly. She was monitoring herself with the same attentiveness she applied to Rick’s socket.

Zephyra rode with her folio strapped to the saddlebag and Sophia asleep in the chest carrier. Sophia had apparently decided at some point during her nine months of life that movement helped her sleep instead of waking her up.

Heinz rode with the strong will of a man who wasn’t a good rider but had decided that his shortcomings wouldn’t stop him from doing what needed to be done. He was doing well with a lot of hard work and small corrections, and he had dropped his reins twice and picked them up both times without saying anything.

Rick rode at the front, feeling the warmth of the warded socket at a level that was comfortable and the bond network behind him at a distance that felt like threads being stretched but not broken.

In the first twenty minutes, he removed Natasha’s crystal twice, reinserting it each time. The reading was 91%. Then it dropped to eighty-eight.

The decline was slow and steady. They still had time.

The city lights of Valdris faded behind them, and the countryside took over. There were dark fields and the occasional light from a farmhouse on the side of the road.

It was the sounds of a world that was mostly sleeping at night.

Heinz’s horse made a noise of mild displeasure about twenty minutes in, and Heinz said in a voice low enough that it might have been meant only for the horse, "I’m sorry."

"I know. Left rein, sorry, it’s my fault."

Zephyra, without turning her head, said, "Are you apologizing to the horse?"

"I pulled too hard on the left side, and it wasn’t his fault."

"He’s a horse."

"He is still helping me and doing it patiently, and it seems right to say when I’ve made his job harder."

A pause that was long enough to be a real thought.

Liora spoke quietly, her voice reflecting the warmth of someone who had been carrying a heavy burden for a long time and had finally found a small thing genuinely pleasant. "I think that is actually very kind of you."

Heinz said, "Thank you."

Zephyra didn’t answer. But her posture changed by about two degrees, which Rick had learned was her way of saying she agreed without actually saying it.

Rick stood at the front of the group and thought about the twelve minutes in the ward, the twenty-four minutes on the floor, and the flat, precise voice saying his name through a room full of magical interference.

Then he thought about a man sincerely apologizing to a horse for not correcting the reins correctly.

He didn’t say anything about any of it.

Sebastian appeared next to Rick’s horse, floating as if he didn’t need a horse and he found the whole thing mildly amusing.

He said, "Affection update," in the same calm voice he had used since Rick had shouted the night before.

Rick said, "Yeah, yeah, I know that."

"Still going up."

"Aight, gotcha."

"She made you a ward in twelve minutes," Sebastian giggled. "She always carried crisis supplies in her coat for work and used them to protect someone she doesn’t have a Spirit Bond with yet."

"Sebastian."

"I’m just writing down facts," he said, leaving without saying goodbye. "That’s all."