<~> Chapter 329I knocked on the door before cracking it open. Mimi could get quite tunnel-visioned on her work when she was focused. Luckily, that wasn't a problem today.

  "Lilith! I finished it!" Mimi happily called out.

  "Oh yeah? Show me what you got," I replied.

  She slid a box out from under the counter and lifted the lid. On top of a plush pillow was an ornamental pocket watch. I picked it up and popped open the cover to reveal the face. The second hand ticked its way across the dial, showing a time of eleven fifty-two. I was excited for this style of clock to spread, since it was really annoying to convert hours to bells in my head, even after the eight and change months I had been in this world. This one had additional markings on it that converted the bell number for me, so I wouldn't have to try as hard to convert the number for other people in my head.

  "This looks amazing, Mimi! Was it hard to figure out?"

  I smiled as I saw Mimi nod enthusiastically. She had grown more natural looking in these st six months. Just like her eyes had shifted from static rubies to actual eyes, her body's base form had started to incorporate some of the traits she often used, like the shiny golden fur that covered her body. She still looked like an interesting mix of Me, Bel, and the triplets, but her natural form looked like an odd beastfolk, rather than a living statue. I'm just gd people didn't see her standing perfectly still, staring at things anymore.

  Mimi excitedly locked things up and started closing her workshop. "You put me on the right track, but I had to figure out the gear yout from scratch. You still have to wind this one, but I'm working on one that can stay powered from ambient magic using a monster core. It's coming along, but I wanted to at least finish one of this style, so I have something to compare it to before scrapping it and moving on to the next project. Besides, I had almost finished this one anyway, so it would be a shame not to complete it."

  "I love it, Mimi. Thank you," I said with a smile.

  "Of course! Anything for you! Consider it a way for me to show you my love!" Mimi wrapped an arm around my waist and nuzzled into my side. She had gotten a lot more physically affectionate tely. When I asked her about it, she said she finally felt confident enough that her desires wouldn't come off as strange to others. Over our time in Traehall, we had come in contact with enough touchy-feely people that she now understood that it's not too uncommon to have someone who enjoys physically expressing their emotions to the extent that she likes to. In short, Mimi is a hugger.

  I slipped my new pocket watch into my pant pocket happily as I stroked my fingers along Mimi's soft shiny fur. "Have there been any others interested in your clockworks?" I asked.

  Mimi shrugged. "So far, it's mostly been repairs of other people's clocks. Each one is like a fun puzzle to work through since there isn't any standard way to do things that I can tell. I've shown all of them the clockface design you wanted, and I've gotten some interest, but no buyers yet. I'm not too worried about it, though."

  The two of us walked past the adventurer's guild into the council building next to it. Raksha'va had gotten the next-door neighbor to sell her the house and had it renovated into a space for our city's leadership to have meetings. With all the chaos and some of the disgruntled people even in Traehall, it was partially done for safety reasons. Things hadn't gotten as bad here as they had in some other pces, but the loss of the system had been hard on nearly everyone, and almost nobody handled it well.

  I sat down across from Brominn, the elf who had worked as Raksha'va's second in command in the guild before. Now that Raksha'va has become the mayor, Brominn has taken over for her as the guild master of the adventurer's guild. No one else was here yet, so it was only the three of us for now. Mimi sat off to the side in a chair against the wall. She was here mainly to listen in, but she came today to deliver a mithril ingot from Meena, Twill, and Tenna.

  "How are you doing, Brominn?" I asked.

  The elf nodded at me with a smile. "I am doing well, Lilith. How are you? Is Bel doing well?"

  I smiled. "As well as she can be. It seems pregnancy isn't quite as hard on a succubus's body as it can be for other races, but there's still plenty of the usual discomfort and bloating. We think she's getting close, even though it's only been half a year."

  Brominn smiled. "Yet another blessing for the succubi, then. It is unfortunate that I wouldn't be able to remain a man if I were to undergo the transformation."

  "Are you interested?" I asked.

  "The thought had crossed my mind, I admit. But I think that kind of change in my life is not for me at this stage," he said warmly.

  I nodded and returned his smile. Shortly after system's end and the formation of the city council, we decided to go public about the succubi. It would be an open secret, with the expectation that people wouldn't directly tell outsiders about it, but we knew that it was only a matter of time for the news to spread. From the few letters I have been able to trade with Oceane, things had finally gotten out about the succubi in Goldenhearth as well, but the Ruby Vixen was so popur at that point that it went over better than expected. It wasn't difficult for people to realize that the associated Ruby Vixen Mercenary Company was almost entirely comprised of succubi too, but they also had a good reputation. In Traehall, since the council decided as a group that we wanted this city to become the homend of the succubi, I was 'elected' to the council to represent their needs and concerns. On paper, I'm on the council as the town's city pnner and architect since my measurement rituals have been so helpful, but in reality, I was mostly elected just to represent the succubi. My skills have been useful in rebuilding and reorganizing the town after the siege though, so it's not like I'm useless in this position. There wasn't any strong pushback to me taking this role, given all the more critical matters people were dealing with at the time, but sentiment toward the succubi seemed positive despite the unease about our shapeshifting abilities. It also helped that many people witnessed us help the city firsthand during the siege, and we were the only ones who ever came to help them while they were completely surrounded by demons.

  Aquil and Tenna came through the doors arguing. Aquil had become the head of the equivalent of the judicial and administration branches of the city's government, while Tenna was here representing the city's crafters and merchants. I was a bit surprised that Tenna had managed to convince everyone to vote for her as their representation, considering she was a beastfolk and hadn't even lived in Traehall that long, but it seems the city's crafters tended to be a pragmatic sort who were more interested in getting their way than pying racist games. The opinions of the merchants were more mixed, but it was hard to compin when she was so effective. Tenna was tenacious about getting what she wanted, and as a result, the city's crafters and merchants were thriving despite being cut off from imports for so long.

  The two had been arguing for more than a week over an expansion of the crafting district's area, but it seems that at some point, Tenna shifted her argument to doing away with any zoning requirements in the city. Something in the back of my mind gave me mixed feelings about that, but I decided to stay out of it for now. I would only have to deal with it if Tenna could convince Aquil and the administrative branch of Traehall's government to do away with or bend the zoning rules for her. The two continued to argue even as they took their seats.

  The next one to arrive was a tall human man named Kaligan, who was the head of the city's guards and soldiers. The line had been blurring between the two for a while, since we had been preparing to decre ourselves independent of Torlimal. He was a handsome man, built like a tank, and had dark hair and blue eyes that created a pretty striking contrast, but when combined with his demeanor, he came off as a little broody. Our town had many strong fighters, even more so after many grew stronger during the siege. Kaligan had stood out as someone who was able to earn everyone's respect as a leader. He was well-liked among both the city guards and the adventurers because he had been so skilled at coordinating with everyone to make the best use of everyone's strengths during the siege. There are many people in the city who believe that he may be the primary reason the city was able to hold on for as long as it had, including Raksha'va.

  Behind him was Morrigan, who gave me a smile and a small wave as she sat across from me near Kaligan. Morrigan had become the de facto leader of all the mages in the city. Because she was so heavily invested in wild casting, she was able to use her magic without the system's help from day one, even if she had been a bit stunted until she was able to learn how to use her skills without the system. Stunted was a lot better than completely unable to cast like most of the mages in the city in the aftermath of system's end. Her role of teaching the other mages about wild casting and tapping into their mana pools directly without the system's help made her an incredibly important person in the city overnight.

  On the other side of Morrigan sat Traehall's best terra mage, a dwarven man named Tornick. He was already the highest level terra mage in the city before the siege started, and he had gained a lot of levels throughout the siege from constantly repairing the walls and defenses. He was also one of the first mages Morrigan was able to help relearn magic, since he had often used mana sense to help him with his work. Since being able to use some form of sense mana was such an essential part of wild casting, he was already halfway there to using his magic again at the start. By now, he's probably on par with how skilled he would have been before system's end. He got along with Morrigan and was one of the few other people who were able to help Mori teach others how to use magic again. I worked with him a lot when constructing new buildings. I had to send any of my architecture pns to him for approval, just in case there would be an issue with building any of them using terra magic. I rarely sent him anything impossible, but more often than not, he sent me back notes with simplified designs that wouldn't have been possible without a terra mage. I found my job working as an architect and city pnner fulfilling.

  Arriving just before Raksha'va was a human with dirty blond hair named Dominik, the head of the rangers and scouts. He was the guy in charge of coordinating patrols and expeditions, and the one Torien and Lori worked under. I never really liked the guy, he always seemed irritated and intense. I would have liked for Nora to be voted in instead, but after her time being held by the cultists, she wanted to quietly retire. So, she declined when asked to run for the position. Despite his attitude, he was really intelligent and had an extremely good sense for how dangerous any given assignment would be, and was also very cognizant of how many missions each person he works with can comfortably take without breaks. As annoying as the guy was, he is undeniably good at his job and popur because of it.

  Raksha'va was the st one to enter and sat near the center of the table. She hasn't changed much, other than her position in the city. Since the baron-appointed mayor had been killed by demons, there had been a vacuum of power that she stepped into unopposed after the siege and system's end. After some long conversations about it, I was able to convince her and some of the appointed council members at the time that we should hold a vote on who should represent everyone. We've had a form of republic ever since. No one ran against her in the election we had, though. She is the city's leader in pce of the mayor, and since the new baroness in Goldenhearth is busy with other things reted to their civil war, we're practically independent already. Raksha'va didn't exactly want to be the mayor in the first pce, so it wasn't tough to convince her that trying a republic would be a good idea. The hardest sell was actually many of the people who didn't understand the concept, since it was kind of a foreign idea to them. But because this city had such a high adventurer popution, they understood the idea better, since it was in line with how a lot of adventurers dealt with things on a smaller scale. Regardless, for the immediate future, it seemed like Raksha'va would be in charge for a long time.

  She sat down in her chair with a scowl on her face, not something that was a common look on the normally unfppable tiger woman. Tenna and Aquil were about to start 'officially' arguing, but Raksha'va raised a hand to cut them off. "Dominik just brought me some news that is more important than the zoning issues. The scouts found a rge contingent of soldiers all wearing padin armor. It seems a rge group of former Tamin padins and priests are headed this way."

  "Former?" I asked.

  Dominik nodded. "They carry defaced Tamin banners and white fgs, indicating they no longer follow that church, yet they haven't disbanded from each other. Oh, right. Torien told me to mention that one of the leaders of the contingent is a woman named Corrine."

  Saine

  Hello! I've always had mixed feelings about time skips. Sometimes it feels like it skips over all of the interesting stuff, and other times it causes a lot of exposition dumps. There's a little bit of the tter here, but I hope it's not too bad. Luckily, we already have some interesting stuff coming up! I hope you enjoyed the chapter, thanks for reading!

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