Leveling Up by Seducing Milfs-Chapter 269. A Foundation That Would Fail

Rick had expected Fredrich’s private study to be just like what he had in mind, which was a kind of information in itself. The bookshelves were used, and the spines were worn down at different rates, showing they were read at different times.

’Oh yeah... this is something straight coming out of a fantasy novel, but it’s a western one... like Harry... hmmm... Harry... what again...?’

’I forgot the classic, but it’s alright.’

Rick continued observing what was in front, and he could see the desk had organized papers instead of clear ones, which was the difference between a man who worked and a man who did work.

The light from the lamp was pleasantly warm, and it worked well. Rick could hear the room seemingly say, "This is where I think," even though it did not actually attempt to express it.

’I’m going crazy slowly now... it’s because of my other eye, isn’t it...?’

Sebastian replied. ’You can stop talking by yourself, by the way... it’s an option.’

’Fuck off.’

When Rick and Liora got there, Fredrich was already sitting down.

And then he stood up when he noticed both of them had arrived. "Thank you for coming on such a short notice," and his face looked different from every other version of it that Rick had seen in the last few days.

It was warm but not politically correct, and it was calm but not professionally managed. Just worn out.

The exhaustion had been simmering beneath the surface for some time, but it had finally surfaced.

Rick then saw that the room wasn’t empty, just because he noticed right away that Zephyra and her family were there.

Zephyra was sitting in the corner armchair with her folio closed on her lap. When Rick walked in, she looked at him with a look that said, in the way she usually said things, that she had been here for about ten minutes and had been using that time to figure out what it meant to be invited here.

Heinz was close to the window. He had Sophia pressed against his chest with both arms, and he was paying close attention to her because he knew he wasn’t very good at handling delicate things and had decided to make up for it by being very focused.

Sophia was awake and looking at one of Heinz’s collar buttons with the intense interest of a student who has found a topic worth studying.

Rick gave Fredrich a look. "You said by yourself, but there’s a rather small crowd here."

"Well, you brought someone as well." Fredrich, but Rick didn’t laugh at all.

"Ehem! I told you I had something to say that I couldn’t say in the session, so I invited Grand Sorceress Zephyra because what I’m going to tell you is directly related to her area of expertise."

"And it’s someone that we can trust." Fredrich pointed at Heinz without really looking at him. "Her husband is here as well because the east wing of the building closes at this hour, and I didn’t want him to get lost in the area again."

Heinz said, "Oh my goodness... that was very nice of you," and he really meant it.

Zephyra said, "He got lost last time," without looking up.

"I got back."

"After two hours."

"The map makes the city look smaller than it is."

Fredrich calmly pointed to the other chairs, like someone who learned to change the current instead of fighting it. "Please sit down."

"What I have to say will take a while, and I’d rather say it all at once than have to correct myself over and over again."

They sat down. Liora sat in the chair next to Rick because it was a habit.

Zephyra stayed where she was. Heinz stayed close to the window because the chair there was comfortable enough, and Sophia was at a key point in her button investigation.

Fredrich poured four cups of something warm that smelled like spiced wine from a decanter on the desk. He drank from one of them first.

Rick saw this, and then Fredrich put down his cup and started.

’I want to drink, but Liora said I can’t drink any alcohol-related things... aww man..."

"Thirty-one years ago," he said, "I made a promise to a man I believed in."

"He came to me with proof that the post-coalition governance structure in Valdris was built on a foundation that would fail within two generations."

"He was very specific about why and very specific about the timeline."

"I reviewed his evidence over the course of several months and concluded that he was correct," he paused. "I have spent thirty years watching him be right, year by year, in exactly the way he described."

He put down his cup.

"His name was Caelith Morwen, and he was an academic, a historian, and an expert in pre-coalition theory."

Zephyra lifted her head from her folio.

Fredrich noticed her head lifted. "Yup, the same name."

"That can’t be... Caelith Morwen died thirty-two years ago," she said.

Her voice was flat, but there was something going on beneath the flatness, like when someone learns something that changes the way they think about many things.

Fredrich agreed, "Indeed, Caelith Morwen died thirty-two years ago."

"The man who came to me thirty-one years ago was not Caelith Morwen."

"He used the name because it opened certain archives and because the real Caelith had been his colleague."

"He told me he took the name with the family’s permission, which he said the real Caelith’s family gave freely because they believed in what he was trying to do." Fredrich’s voice was even. "I believe that says something about the kind of person the real Caelith was."

"Who is he...?" Rick asked. "The man who came to you."

"I don’t know his real name because I never asked..."

’Bruh.’

"By the time I realized I should have, it seemed rude to push the issue." For the first time since Rick had met him, Fredrich leaned back in his chair, completely shedding his political posture.

Instead, he looked like a man in his late fifties who had been carrying a heavy burden for a long time and was deciding whether to put it down. "He said he was there when the government fell before the coalition and survived."

"He also told me that he watched what replaced it get built and that he has been working to make sure it doesn’t fail in the same way."

"He was alive when the coalition fell," Liora said in a low voice.

"Which puts his real age at more than two hundred years... yes."

The room took that in. Rick looked at the fire in the small hearth and thought about how he had waited and watched for two hundred years while building infrastructure inside a city that didn’t know it was being built inside.

Fredrich went on. "I promised that I would use my position in the current structure to make sure that certain safety measures were in place before the structure fell apart."

"Not to destroy it or hasten its end, but to ensure that when it inevitably failed—he was quite clear about its eventual failure—the remnants would be capable of fostering something better." He turned his gaze toward Rick.

"I want to be clear about the difference... Every policy motion I passed while you were gone and every administrative change I made was to get ready for a transition, not a takeover."

Rick asked, "What about the surveillance nodes in the Divine Temple’s faith network?"