[1% LIFESTEAL] Chapter 172 - Currying Favor

Freddy walked into Travis’s office. “Hey, what the hell is—” But before he could say anything else, Travis leaped at him and embraced him in a bear hug.

“My man!” Travis said with emotion seeping out of his voice. “Sorry I treated you so poorly. I will never be mean to you again.”

Freddy sighed. “Can you please let me go?”

“Give me a few more seconds.” The man said, patting Freddy on the back as he finally pulled away. “So. Which overlord are you the spawn of?”

“None, I presume,” Freddy said.

“You presume?” Travis asked with an amused and overly suspicious grin.

“Yeah, I never met my parents. Who knows though, maybe they are overlords?” he said jokingly.

Travis cringed a bit. “Oh, sorry.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. At any rate, I believe we should talk about what’s happening here.”

“Yeah, we should,” Travis said, turning a bit more serious as he crossed his arms and leaned against his desk. He briefly glanced at Sophia, and looked to be about to ask something, but he thought better of it and turned back to Freddy. “You seem a bit confused about what’s happening. Let me clear something up, then—the adjudicator has said that the help we’ve received is courtesy of you.” The man squinted. “And that’s…?”

“True. That is true.” Then Freddy scowled a bit. “Although I am a bit confused as to how this happened so quickly, but for the most part, it isn’t a lie.”

“Okay… okay, okay.” Travis nodded vigorously.

Freddy leaned in a bit with a slight scowl. “Did the adjudicator say what I did?”

“No,” Travis denied. “He just said you are to thank for most of it.”

“Good.”

“So… what did you do, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Freddy said. “Let’s just say I made a deal.” After a brief moment of escalating panic on Travis’s face, Freddy rushed to add, “Don’t worry, I didn’t sign my soul away or whatever.”

“Does that deal include—”

“It does not include Valhalla or Repentawa in any way,” Freddy cut in. “Don’t worry.”

“Okay then, I’m done prying.”

“Now it’s my turn,” Freddy said. “How the fuck is that wall already up?”

Travis suddenly looked a bit hesitant. “I actually don’t really know. I was hoping you’d know more about it.”

“Well my deal did include a shit ton of funding,” Freddy said. “But from what I gathered during my talks with the coordinators, the wall construction wouldn’t even start before the monsters arrived, and it was then supposed to take weeks of work at the most optimistic.”

Sophia stepped forward and inserted herself into the conversation. “Well, from what little I heard in gossip, that was supposed to be the case.”

“But then something changed,” Travis said. “The construction started about two days ago.”

“What!?” Freddy spat. “It was finished in two days?”

“Yes,” Travis and Sophia said at the same time.

Travis sighed deeply and looked Freddy directly in the eye. “Go talk to the adjudicator. Now.”

Freddy didn’t like the man’s tone. “You sound like there’s a problem.”

“That’s because there might be.” The man glanced at Sophia again, and this time, he failed to hold his tongue. “I’m sorry, but are you sure you’re okay with her being here?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. You can tell her anything you’d want to tell me.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Freddy groaned. “Sophia, did you do something weird?”

“No!” she said, sounding offended. But then she looked like she suddenly remembered something. “Maybe…”

“Travis what did she do?”

“She’s been beating several of the members from her training group. Things got quite heated a few times which ended in serious injuries.”

Freddy gave her a shocked look. “Sophia, what the hell?”

“Okay,” she said, raising both her index fingers. “In my defense, I’m not the one who started it.”

“Yes she is,” Travis said.

She gaped at him. “Hold on a bit! Lucas is the one who said—”

“You beat Lucas?” Freddy asked incredulously.

“And Jeffrey,” Travis added. “And Marcus. And Lara, almost, although she did lose that one.”

Freddy gave her a look.

She looked away. “I’m weak against fire.”

“That is not the problem here!”

“I was defending you!” she said. “Lucas keeps telling people you’re a monster for what you did to his mom. And I told them in a very civil manner that you had no choice, and—”

Freddy raised a hand to cut her off. “You know what, I really don’t care right now.” He pointed at Travis. “I’ll go talk to the adjudicator. Do you know where he is?”

Travis hopped off the desk and walked up to the window. There, he pointed a finger towards a relatively distant section of the wall. It was smack dab in the middle of where the wall cut off the valley North of the city.

There was a structure there. A tower of sorts, but thick, so closer to a fortress.

The whole wall was made of what appeared to be giant blocks of fused stone, and this fortress was the same, albeit with evidently thicker protections. It was cold and practical, with square, small windows and a parapet along the roof, where he could vaguely make out several guards walking.

Freddy nodded and walked out, briefly pointing at Sophia. “We’ll talk later.”

And then, he headed to meet with the adjudicator.

***

It didn’t take much to be allowed entry into the fortress. There, he was guided to the top floor, where the adjudicator waited in a massive room overlooking the valley below. It was the only part of the fortress with any degree of decoration, and one wall was just a massive window. Along the corners Freddy spotted what appeared to be etching in the glass, filled with a silver-hued metallic substance as a medium for whatever the enchantments were doing, likely reinforcing the glass.

The adjudicator was standing right before the window, holding a glass of wine in one hand while his other arm rested behind his back. “You’re here,” the man declared without turning around.

“Yeah, I’m here,” Freddy confirmed as he stepped forward, allowing his gaze to wander around the richly decorated room. “And this is…?”

“My room,” the man said with a light chuckle. “I’ll be overseeing the defense.” He moved his other arm from behind his back and gestured across the valley, pointing to what appeared to be a massive quarry where hordes of workers extracted stone and transported along a vast number of routes. It was like watching ants from above. Highly effective ants, at that, who were already in the middle of building a vast number of towers and shorter walls all across the mountains and the valley below.

The man took a sip of his wine. “The bulk of the monsters will be coming from this direction. Optimally, we will manage to funnel where the defenses are the strongest. Whether they fall for it or not depends on how intelligent the individual species are. But still, these defenses will do wonders to lighten the workload.”

“Things went much smoother than I was led to believe they would,” Freddy simply said.

“Yes. Unfortunately,” the man said, downing the glass and turning around.

Freddy sighed. “What happened?”

“Usually, I would have the authority to stop such power plays,” the man said as he started pacing across the room. “But given that this is an emergency, and that the empire had opened a number of… ‘charities’ to help manage this crisis, they ended up acting through channels I couldn’t do anything about.”

Freddy raised an eyebrow. “They?”

“Factions from the mainland, Mr. Cliff.” The man smiled sourly. “They have come to your aid.”

Freddy was tempted to ask, “Isn’t this a good thing?” but he knew better than to say something so naive. The “charities” the man mentioned were no doubt just means for factions to ship off their fighters and their young to get some experience in the incoming disaster.

But this was something else.

Freddy remembered some of the talks between the coordinators back when this all started. One of the biggest problems with this whole project was the logistics behind delivering the resources and workers necessary to get started. They needed to turn to the empire. There were scant few ways to speed it up. Throwing money at the problem couldn’t fix anything at all.

Even if they’d tried to offer more money to workers, past a certain point, it would only make people think that this project was a suicide mission, or very close to it.

But if mainland factions were involved, that was a different story. They had their own workers, ones they already had contracts with, and making those people come here required nothing but a word from their bosses. But just because they could tell their workers to come here it didn’t mean that it was easy for them.

Forcing one’s non-combatants into dangerous circumstances was pretty high on the list of things factions shouldn’t do unless they had a really, really good reason for it.

It destroyed trust and sowed discontent.

It would make almost all their future dealings more expensive for a long time to come, and word would spread—people would be reluctant to sign with them knowing that they might get abruptly shipped to a danger zone.

Contrary to what Freddy used to believe, non-combatants had quite a bit of power in the empire, especially those who were at the second star or above. These people weren’t lowly slaves who could be used like human resources. They were wealthy, and, at that point, knew how to keep themselves safe.

This wall being finished so quickly wasn’t just a matter of a few outside factions throwing a few extra pennies at them out of pity. This was no mere charity. This was a big deal. And if they went this far, they would only do so for a really, really good reason.

He groaned. “Currying favor, huh?”

“Indeed.” The man gave him a saccharine smile. “They are here to build relations with you, Mr. Cliff.”

He snorted. “Well, they’re free to try.”

“Oh, dear Freddy,” the man said with an overly familiar tone, “you don’t understand. They will build relations with you. Don’t think you can ignore them and hope they will simply go away. They will walk away from here either on good or bad terms with you.” The man’s expression darkened. “And you won’t get good terms with all of them. There are two daughters from prominent families waiting.”

Freddy’s eyes widened. “You don’t fucking mean…?”

The man nodded. “They’re here to court you.”

Freddy walked to the nearest couch, then slumped into it and buried his face in his hands. “Fu-hu-hu-huk!” he shouted as he released something between a laugh and a wail of agony. And when he put his hands down, he couldn’t wipe the grin off his face.

“This is no laughing matter.”

“Oh, I know!” Freddy said. “I know damn well this is not something to laugh about.” The grin was still on his face. “But what else do I do? Should I cry instead? God, this is so stupid.” Suddenly, he came to a realization. “Should I tell them I’m gay?”

“One’s sexuality is rarely a deterrent in these kinds of situations,” the man said. “Such political marriages rarely have any love to them, to begin with.”

“Shit. What do I do then?”

“Well, I would love to coach you on how to behave, but, sadly, we have something of a crisis coming our way. To put it bluntly, good luck.”

“What, no advice at all?”

“You’re a resident of the Northern Belt. They aren’t expecting you to be… civilized by their standards, not quite. But if you need me to tell you not to be rude, you probably need a whole lot more than that. And I can’t just give you a few pointers, since it’s overall better for you to be truly ignorant. As long as you’re a total rube, most of what you say can be seen as something to be expected from you. But if they have any reason to expect better from you, that will make your mistakes a lot more offensive.”

“Wow. That is the most polite way anyone ever told me I’m a peasant without manners.”

The man simply smiled at that. “Well then. Perhaps we should talk a bit about how this will impact the coming crisis.”

Freddy nodded and sat upright in the couch. “Right. That’s still a thing. So”—he gestured towards the valley below—”I’m guessing it will go a bit more smoothly?”

The man sighed. “Perhaps. Remember, we still do not know what exactly we’re dealing with. The Frozen Wastes are no joke. Depending on what comes this way, not even these walls will keep the city safe.”

“What about the plans to evacuate the citizens into the local interspace?”

“That is still a logistical nightmare,” the man said. “There are good reasons why settlements out in the interspace are rarely seen. We can build something to temporarily hide the people away. But that is the extent of what that plan can achieve.”

“Right… Shit. Well, at least the walls are already finished,” he said. Then, he thought back on the “reinforcements.” “How many people did these factions send?”

“Many,” the adjudicator said. “Hundreds per faction. And good fighters at that. Five of them are extreme elites, including the two women who’d come to court you. And more might come later.”

Freddy winced at the reminder. “Well, that’s good at least.”

“Do note, however, that if you greatly offend any of these people, they are highly likely to pull their forces back, or at least, send them elsewhere. Do not take the help for granted.”

“I won’t. Speaking of which, who exactly are these factions?”

“I made a promise not to tell you so that they can make their introductions themselves.”

“Fair enough, I guess. And they will introduce themselves…?”

The man smiled. “I will let them know you’re here. They’ve already made a deal to introduce themselves in a group to prevent fights from breaking out because of who got to you first.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Freddy raised his hands. “Right now!?” He looked down to himself. He was wearing clean, albeit casual clothing, but he was rather dusty and filthy from the time he’d spent in the dessert realm. “Let me clean myself first!”

The man shrugged. “I thought it might be better to introduce yourself like that. It will let them know what to expect.”

Freddy shot the man a flat look.

“I’m kidding!” the adjudicator said with a somewhat sinister laugh. “You can relax.” The man clapped. A second later, the servant he’d already met at the adjudicator’s compound walked into the room with a towel draped over his arm. The man made a quick bow and gestured out of the room. The adjudicator turned to face Freddy. “We’ll get you dressed first, obviously. My reputation is at stake, too.”

Freddy groaned. “Let’s get this over with.”

He followed the servant to a nearby room. It was a toilet of sorts, but extended with a section for cosmetic stuff. He took a quick shower, and when he left, he was welcomed by a small group of servants who then proceeded to take his measurements and quickly produce a tailored suit for him on the spot. His hair had already grown out a bit. He wanted them to keep it that way, but the woman who was there to do his hair literally begged him on her knees to let her give him a new haircut.

It kind of hurt his feelings a bit. Enough for him to buckle.

She gave him a trim on the sides and left most of the hair on top, which was touched up into a sort of messy yet rather stylish look. It was treated with some sort of substance which made his already naturally wavy hair a lot curlier.

Before he could protest, the woman started shaving his beard. He couldn’t quite tell her to stop now that he had a large patch of it missing. And this wasn’t just a mistake. The woman knew what she was doing. She had been quick and subtle to make sure she put him in this position.

He gave the woman a stern glare. She maintained her apologetic stance, shooting him an innocent look. Short on time and too exasperated to care, he told her to continue.

The final result was, admittedly, really impressive. He had quite masculine features, but the way he was styled made him look as young as he, well, was. He looked quite good without a beard.

He squinted his eyes and turned to face the hairdresser. She gave him a beaming smile and two big thumbs up.

Freddy couldn’t help but laugh at the woman’s antics. “You’re a real pro at this, aren’t you?”

“Not my first stubborn client,” she said. “I believe you will agree this is a better look for you.”

He sighed.

Goddamn it, she’s right.

The woman chuckled at his resigned look.

Feeling quite good, Freddy was fitted with his new suit. It was quite something. Nearly pitch black, hewn of fine, soft cloth, and tailored to perfectly contain his absurd musculature. On top of that, he was given a golden watch, a platinum necklace, and a black earring on his right ear. The piercing was done by a life-affinity arch, so it was quick and utterly painless.

Once he finished, he stepped before a mirror. He had never looked better in his life. Not even close.

It was thus that he returned to the adjudicator’s room with no small degree of confidence.

The man smiled at him and gave him a thumbs up. “You’re looking quite good, Mr. Cliff.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Are you ready?”

Freddy took a deep breath and nodded.

“Good.” The adjudicator pressed something behind his ear and said, “You may let them in.”

In the next moment, five people walked into the room.

Three of them were women, and two were men.

However, as these people entered, Freddy barely even registered them. All except for one man.

A handsome, roughly middle-aged looking man with dazzling auburn hair walked into the room. He stood straight and proud, but his demeanor was a little less haughty than the rest and a bit more respectful.

Freddy met his eyes. And the man, Matt Canstone, the assistant of Madame Morleppe, smiled at him and mouthed silently, “Good to see you again, Freddy Stern.”