<~> Chapter 172roup was chattiedly as we went dowairs of the Ruby Vixen. It was still pretty early which made it kind of a surprise that the lobby was so busy and full of people this m. Oe, Grace, Lia, Eira, Nadia, Jade, Tisha, Theo, and the many other women I've talked to and spent time with here were all gathered waiting for us.

  Oe slithered up to us and took me in a hug that caught me off guard. "You will always be wele here, Lilith. You are our family, our Mother," she said somewhat sarcastically, "and you will always have a pe home to." I could feel the siy in her words through the bond and the ho emotion from someone who was usually so stern almost made me tear up.

  Whe go Grad Lia took her pd pulled me into a hug betweewo of them. When they pulled back Grace cupped the side of my face with one hand. "Lilith, I ot begin to thank you for everything you have done for me and my sister. I will always be ied to you, stay safe, e bae someday, and keep us in your heart." She leaned in and kissed me on the lips which drew a fes from the crowd around us.

  Lia smiled at me with a lopsided grin. "Thanks again fiving me a sed ce at life, with what you've done here at the brothel, I'm sure it'll be aing one."

  Whewo of them let me go it was Eira and Nadia's turn to give me a quick hug. Nadia leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek befiving me a sad look. "I'm sorry that I didn't get the ce to get to know you better, you probably saved my life too. I'm not sure if I would have recovered from what felt like my life crumbling around me when we first met. Maybe I was overreag over losing my arm but I really wasn't sure what I was going to do. Thank you, Lilith."

  Eira ughed and pulled me into a bear hug. The enthusiastic demi-cheetah woman never failed to lift my spirits. "I'll really miss you. If I was an adventurer like the rest of yirlfriends, I wouldn't hesitate to try and join your harem! I'll just have to settle for leaving an open invitation to join me in bed anytime you're around!" I could feel her cock harden against my leg as she squeezed me tight. "Hehe, sorry, I'm still getting used to it. It has a mind of its own!" She pulled away and showed me her goofy grin. "e home to us someday, I won't tolerate this being the st time we see each other!"

  I patted Eira on the shoulder. "I'll be baeday, I promise."

  Eira moved on to hugging and flirting with my girlfriends as Tisha and Jade came up to me . Jade gripped my shoulder and smiled. "We'll be keeping an eye on you through the bond like we said. Be careful, you're strong but there are always others out there that are stronger. I want you to know that you're important to all of us even the ones here who don't know you too well." The two of them pulled me into a hug. "Stay safe, Mother."

  I flushed a bit as they pulled away from me and a crowd of irls that I didn't know circled arouo say their goodbyes as well. I couldn't help but smile from ear to ear as all of the different women thanked me and told me how I ged their lives. Long marathies aside, this was the first time it really sank in how much I ged the dire of all of these people's lives for the better. I couldn't help but be embarrassed by how many of them called me mother though...

  I wasn't the only one who received hugs from everyone. Bel retty popur with the friends we've made here and Mimi basically had a crowd of girls around her givieary goodbyes. Mimi wasn't quite sure how to react to it but she did her best to fort some of the girls that were... maybe a bit too attached to her.

  Theo had a surprising number of women who were sad to see him go. He was... a lot more popur with them than I had thought. I knew he was sleeping with girls basically every night in the short time he had stayed here but several of them actually looked a bit smitten with him. Four different girls even promised to write to him, something I wouldn't have expected from women who lived at a brothel and chose to bee Succubi. One of them was the t horse beastfolk who clearly held the top spot in their retionship if how possessively she groped his ass was any indication.

  Sibyl said her goodbyes to Grad Oe, they didn't outwardly hug the same way a lot of the oodbyes went but I could feel the mencholy in it through the bond. The three of them have been friends for decades and the goodbye was bittersweet. Sibyl also had a number of irls she said goodbye to, no one was quite as close to her as Raya had been before her transformation, but she was still close with a lot of people there. I got the feeling that none of them held Sibyl leaving against her though, if anything they were happy that the loner had finally admitted her feelings for Raya.

  Oe held Raya in a hug for much lohan I would have expected. A perhaps... inappropriate peek at their emotions showed me how surprisingly proud of Raya Oe was. Earlier I had thought that Oe and Raya had a bit of a mother-daughter retionship with each other and that didn't seem far off from based on what I was seeing right now. Maybe a mentor-studeionship didn't feel quite as dirty for how much they fucked a few nights ago.

  Unfortunately, as heartwarming as all of this was, we were probably pushing it on time. It was Grace who reminded everyohat we didn't have all day to say oodbyes, it wasn't going to be me who ehe moment, I'd rather be te. Graanded respe a way that I might have thought was odd if hadn't seen firsthand how stribsp;she could be the night before st. My ass still had phantom soreness when she spoke in that tone.

  It wasn't until we were actually walking out of the Ruby Vixen that oodbye became teary. I couldn't help but wipe a few tears away from my eyes as we headed towards the stable. It was odd, we had only been in town for a week but so much had happened in such a short amount of time that it felt like much longer. I shifted the bag on my back as I thought about all of the different people we've met here and what they mean to me now. It's been about a month now since I've e to this world and even without the memories of my past life I khat this month has felt like the lo month of my life.

  I smiled and looked around at all of my friends. I've grown closer to all of them. Raya and Sibyl were ing with us hand in hand. Silva and Torien were chatting, the tall demi-rabbit's teasing was stantly making the catgirl blush. Bel and Man chatted like close friends and even had moments of chaste flirtiweewo of them. Mimi was stantly looking around, examining everything we walked past while keeping hold of Bel's hand. Theo seemed happy to chime into versations where he could, he did a good job of navigating when he could join a versation and when to exit one when it was clear the girls were more ied in flirting with each other than actually discussing anything.

  Eventually, we reached the stable. The pce was even crazier tha time I had been there with all sorts of people running around aing things packed and loaded onto the carts and carriages. Despite the chaos, I was able to pick out our behemoth of a carriage near one of the exits. The thing looked huge with the two uunas strapped to it, especially pared to other nearby carriages made for horses.

  roup was able to successfully navigate through the crowd to our carriage and Cecilia spotted us ing right away. "Great! I was hoping all of you would be here on time! We're still a bit ter than I would have liked to leave but I know from experiehat goodbyes take a while."

  Nikka and Landa chuffed merrily at my arrival, clearly happy to see me again so soon. I peeked into the back of the carriage and saw everything that was loaded into the back. Boxes of fresh food and barrels of water were loaded up. It looked like a lot of food there for a pce that still currently had a food she but maybe priority was given tes. There were also six crates with red paint markings on them.

  Cecilia noticed me peeking in the back. "I took a deal to transport those crates to the capital for this mert I know. It was how I was able to secure as much food and water as I did with the shes. It still probably won't be enough to make it the whole way there without hunting but it'll take a lot of the pressure off."

  "How many days travel is it to the capital?" I asked.

  "Ten, twice as long as the trip to Traehall but much less dangerous. You'll be bored most of the way rather thaing knocked on your ass by a featherjacks."

  I felt really embarrassed of the reminder and it unfortunately made Raya grin at me with her mischievous smile. "Oh? I don't think I've heard that story."

  "Not much to tell," I quickly interjected. "I was fighting off a featherjad got pecked through my armor. It wasn't pleasant."

  Cecilia sighed. "Way to ruin it. Don't worry hot stuff, I'll tell you ter," she said to Raya with a wink.

  Sibyl patted me on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Lilith, I know featherjacks are much harder to fight than people make them out to be." I could tell Sibyl was trying to e but it kind of just made me feel even more embarrassed.

  I cleared my throat. "Aren't we on a schedule? We should get loaded up and ready to ght?"

  Rather than ge the subject that only invited a round of ughter.

  When Cecilia finally got trol over herself again she smacked me on the shoulder. "Lilith is right though, we're wasting daylight and we have a ways to go. Everyoo the carriage. I want someoh good eyes on the cart today, if we're going to run into bandits there's a good ce it'll be in the first three days of our trip."

  Torien raised her hand. "I'll do it, I have the best eyes in the group."

  Cecilia took one g her bow and nodded. "Great, Torien was it? You're with me up front. Everyone else, there's a door here in the side. Don't make the carriage rouch while we're riding, I don't want us to tip over!" Her joke got another round of ughs as we got on board the carriage.

  The carriage retty ni the inside. Eight padded couches and four tables lihe edges, making it look like four carriages stuck together with a small aisle down the middle. It kind of reminded me of a tour bus or something on the ihere was a small log door in the back that led to the ste partment I was looking inside earlier. A long nice-looking rug ran down the aisle that covered the cherry colored wood fl. The fe windows had white curtains and log folded wood shutters on the ihat could be closed and locked into pce to protect everyone inside. On the roof he front hatch that was also locked from the ihis carriage was rather amazing.

  The one downside of this carriage is that there isn't any way to talk to the people in the an's seat without stig your head out of the hat the ronaling by banging against the side. I sat in the seat he door as everyone found their way inside. Each couch could fortably seat two, meaning a total of sixteen people could theoretically sit in here, though I'm not sure if the uunas could hahat many people riding at full capacity. Practically speaking though, it meant that all eleven of us including Cecilia could sit inside fortably if we o.

  "Alright! We're headed out! We'll have to stop by the gate for an iion so have your identification ready. All of you should have yuild cards right? Oh, I suppose the rabbit-ki need one. Okay! I'm closing the door and we're going to get moving!"

  I tched the door shut from the inside and banged on the wall opposite the coach seat to signal it was shut. After a few moments, our carriage lurched forward and we were soon approag the gate.

  One of the guards stopped us to look over our papers and identification before nodding. "Everything looks good. Oh, I was told to look out for a Lilith, one moment please."

  My friends looked at me nervously before he came back carrying a thick letter. "The head priest told us to give this to a Sheep-folk named Lilith if they came through here."

  I accepted the letter with raised eyebrows. "Oh, er, thank you." He nodded and waved us through. roup quickly got ba and peered out the windows as the carriage began to move again. I decided to look at the letter ter, I was more ied in the sights going past right now. I was excited to be on the road again.

  The fields outside the gate were being pnted right now si was early spring. There were dozens of people all w the nd as our carriage rode by. Several people on horseback patrolled the outskirts of town to protect the farmers. They had what looked like gives and longbows as their horses walked the nearby trails. In a few pces, I could see the bodies of dead monsters being dragged back for their meat by some of the workers. It looked like the armed people on patrol were a necessary expense.

  Terrain passed us by as we made our way away from Goldeh. We were finally headed to the Capital of Torlimal.

  End of Book 3

  Saine

  Hello! And there we are, the end of book 3! This has been a long one, lohahers by a fair bit, but this one needed a bit more time to some loose plot threads that had been hanging around. This has been my favorite arc of the bunch so far, we're starting to see Lilith grow into her p the world and things are starting to e together. There have been a lot of great moments and I've also had fun sneaking in a few little clues to the dire the story is heading in and watg to see if anyone picks up on them! As with the st books, there won't be any break between the posting of the chapter so the normal one will go up at its usual time. So far this story is about 414k words and I don't feel anywhere near finished with it, in a lot of ways it feels like we're just getting started. Thank you as always for reading so far and I hope you tio enjoy the ride!

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