Boosted Continuation

Chapter 273 – Long time no see

Everyone was still traveling towards Maya’s hometown before heading into the monster country afterward. On the way, lots of teasing and messing with each other had been had to make traveling a little more fun and entertaining.

“Ohh!” A few days had passed since the group had left the crater where Canir’s joke dungeon used to be, and Maya happily clapped her hands when an all-too-familiar town came into view in front of them. “It’s been so long!”

“Is that your home?” Anna looked at the place with a curious expression. “Raumont, right? One of the three major outpost cities bordering the monster country.”

“I’m not sure if major is the right word to describe it, but sure!” The cat-girl scratched her cheek while glancing at the roughly 200-300 houses roughly scrambled together in a town shape, with some bigger buildings here and there as well as a marketplace in the middle of all. “Then again, the only other places in the same distance to the border that I know of are even smaller, by a good bit even, so I guess it’s not wrong.”

“There are generally few settlements this close to the border, let alone any massive ones, so this one definitely counts as big in the region.” The princess nodded a few times.

“I guess so.” Maya shrugged in return. “Anyway, let’s get going!” She wanted to get to her home as soon as possible.

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The group, although without Fen and Aura, who took the day off, leisurely walked for another 20 minutes before reaching the actual city. Naturally, they got quite a bit of attention from everyone around as a tiger in such a remote place as this, let alone two of them at once, was far from a daily occurrence for the residents of Raumont. However, things only got really hectic when a certain brownish-orange-haired cat-girl spotted them while walking down the main street.

“Maya…?” The girl in question stared at the other cat with a confused and dumbfounded expression.

“Heyo, Chiyo~.” Maya, who was leading the group as it was her home, lazily waved at her while walking up to the girl. She then got even closer and lightly hugged the fellow cat-girl with the bewildered look. “It’s been a while, huh?”

“Uhh… yeah…?” Still rather confused, she promptly returned the hug. “Where did you come from? Also, why are there two tigers with you?! Even more, where's the wolf and… Sophia you left with last year?!" Once they parted, Chiyo had many questions.

“Excellent questions!” Maya smiled at her. “All of them.” She then lightly scratched her cheek while thinking about what to say. “Well, Fen, the wolf, probably is taking a nap somewhere.” She decided to take care of the easiest one first.

“Maya is a dear friend of ours.” Anna took over the explaining. “My name is Anna, and I’m the first princess of this nation. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“I’m just your friendly neighborhood tiger~.” Sophia decided to go with the usual.

“…?” Hearing her voice, Chiyo’s expression changed. “That voice… It’s a little different, but it sounds oddly familiar.”

“Ahaha…” It was time for the blonde to sound awkward.

“That wouldn’t make any sense, though.” Chiyo got closer to Sophia and stared right at her for a while. “That voice belonged to a cute demon, after all. Not a blonde and beautiful royal tiger.”

“Ehehe~.” She decided to focus only on a single part of that.

“Is that really you, Sophia?” Chiyo couldn’t believe it for obvious reasons. “What is going on here?”

“Yes.” She responded with a wry smile. “I, uhh, had a bit of a glow up.”

“That’s not how those work!” The cat-girl’s reply was instantaneous.

“Well, I don’t do things halfheartedly, so my glow-ups are a bit over the top, too.” Sophia was convinced that her tiger form was an improvement on every level, so, in her eyes, she was definitely not lying.

“…” Chiyo kept staring at her.

“Okay, this might take a while.” Sophia scratched her cheek before looking at Anna and the others. “How about you all explore the place a little while Maya and I catch up with her?”

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“Sounds good!” The princess clapped her hands. “I actually was getting a little hungry, so that works for me!”

“Great idea!” The others smiled at the tall tiger.

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While the others went to explore the city and grab a bit to eat, Sophia, Maya, and Chiyo went to the bar where Sophia and Fen had spent their time with the adventurer group, including the cat-girl, whom they had saved over a year ago.

“So, what is going on here?” The trio went to a table in the corner of the tavern, where the resident cat-girl immediately started questioning them. “You weren’t a tiger back when we first met! Sure, you behaved like a cat, but you were a demon, were you not?!”

“Pfft!” Maya chuckled in response. “Yeah, that checks out.” She knew that Sophia definitely had always been a cat

at heart.”“Shush!” The tiger didn’t appreciate that.

“Focus, please!” Chiyo lightly raised her voice.

“You changed a little, huh?” Maya smiled at her. “You were a little more reserved, weren’t you?”

“You are not allowed to notice that about others!" The resident cat-girl got even louder.

“Fair enough.” The duo had nothing to say in their defense.

“Could I please get an explanation already?” She kept staring at them before eventually focusing on Sophia. “You were a demon back when you left with Maya last year! How are you suddenly a tiger now?! The rulers of our country! WAIT! Is the royal family infiltrated by the demons?! I thought they were nice?!”

"Haha, I miss those silly kinds of misunderstandings." The blonde let out a chuckle. “First, someone took me for a demon princess, and now I’m an infiltrator toppling the royal family, huh?”

“Mine’s a lot less loaded if you ask me.” Maya smiled at her.

“Quite true.” She nodded a few times before looking at Chiyo as she pointed at her striped self. “This is the true me.” The timeline didn’t match, but Sophia indeed treated her new tiger form as her true self. “The demon thing was just a misunderstanding because of my powers that I unfortunately didn’t clear up because it was convenient at the time.”

"BUT YOU ALSO HAD NO TIGER BITS BACK THEN!" It wasn't making the slightest bit of sense to the resident cat-girl. “Your powers are only a secondary issue there!”

“Being a tiger is complicated.” Sophia scratched her cheek. “For a long time, I didn’t even know that being one is something special. That wasn’t the case from where I’m from, after all.” As the beastfolk as a whole wasn’t a thing, it was close enough for her. “I only found out after people in the kingdom started recognizing who I am, and it was quite the pain at first.” She was hoping that Chiyo didn’t pry too much, especially because all of this happened after they met.

“Ha… That’s something…” Chiyo needed a little moment to process all of this. “I think that I preferred the demon story and disguise better. Sure, you are hot

, but the demon from back then was so cute! I prefer cute!”"Well, that much is obvious," Maya smirked at her. "With how much of a crush you had on her back then. Also, she’s still plenty cute on top of being hot!” She couldn’t let that slide, either. Helping Sophia by distracting her was a positive side effect as well.

“…” She stared at her fellow cat-girl for a moment. “That was uncalled for. Also, were you really instantly okay with the girl you left with turning into someone else entirely?”

“It only made me love her even more!” Maya’s expression got even more playful. “Also, I thought she was a demon princess, but it turned out she’s more like a tiger princess, although not exactly true, so my delusion still kind of worked~.” She winked at her princess before continuing. “She’s also still the same on the inside. It’s just that her outsides became extremely hot!”

“…” Chiyo looked at Sophia again. “Fair.” She then shrugged, though. “Still, again, I prefer the cute type, but, as you said, she still is cute, and if you’ve been with her the entire time, I guess it’s less of a stark difference compared to me, who hasn't seen her in over a year. Also, it made you love her even more, huh? So, that really was the case when you two left back then, wasn’t it?”

“Uhh,” Maya scratched her cheek. “I, at the very least, was not aware of my feelings back then. They were likely already developing at that point, though. Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine.” The resident cat smiled at her. “It was a pretty fast-burning crush, so the damage was not that bad. In fact, it made me realize things, so it was a good thing at the end of the day.”

“Why are you so… mature?” The white-haired cat-girl got confused again. “You were so much more reserved, especially when it came to romance! We played so much back when I still lived here, so I’d know!” She then paused for a second. “Not that I was a good example for being knowledgeable about romance.” She was a bit of a musclehead, after all.

“W-Well, being engaged makes you understand things a little better.” Chiyo’s expression suddenly turned a little sheepish as her cheeks turned red.

“HUH?!” Sophia and Maya raised their voices.

“Long time, no see, Maya.” Another voice suddenly joined their conversation as a waitress placed some drinks on the table before smirking at the cat-girl while holding up her hand to show off the golden ring on her ring finger there. “I helped making her get used to romance~.”

“Dannie!” A broad smile appeared on Chiyo’s face as she smiled at the red-haired dog-girl whose fluffy tail was wagging almost as vigorously as Steph's usually does. At the same time, she also brushed away some of the fur that covered part of her hand and fingers to reveal her own ring.

“Let’s go, girl!” Maya gave Dannie two thumbs-up. “I’m so glad it finally worked out! Though, engaged already?! Wow, you really went for it, huh?”

“Congratulations!” Sophia lightly clapped her hands. “Enough about me! Tell us everything!” As a fellow romance enjoyer, her eyes started sparkling. Drawing the attention away from her was only a secondary motivation.

Afterward, Dannie took a break from her waitress job as things were relatively quiet in the tavern and joined the trio for a lively chat.