Chapter 51: Chapter 49: Explorers

Lia shut the book, face burning red. She had known the book was steamy, but she hadn’t expected it to be that steamy; it had pictures! Perhaps…perhaps it was better for her to dive into things slowly; she had barely any experience with sexual things before, and this was far beyond anything she had experienced with her old boyfriend, Liam.

She had never let anything get far with him, preferring to wait until they had both finished their education, but…well, she had never gotten a chance to finish school, so things never progressed. She wondered about him for a moment before she realized that her family was here now, and she could just ask what had happened with him.

So, she got up and sought out Robin. Her parents were out clearing one of the dorms, Olivia had never paid much attention to Liam, or romance in general, and Maria had been rather preoccupied with her book the last time Lia had seen her, so that left only Robin if she wanted answers now.

“Hey, Robin, you have a minute to talk?” Lia asked, knocking on the door to Robin’s room. “I’ve got a couple of questions for you.”

“Huh?” Robin called out, clearly startled. “Um, yeah, give me a minute.”

Lia waited patiently as Robin shuffled around in her room for a bit, then, finally, came to the door. “Sorry about that.” Robin breathed. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much, I was just thinking, and realized I never asked about Liam. Do you know how he’s doing nowadays?”

Robin made a face. “Oh. Him.” She spat. “Yeah, unfortunately he’s doing just fine.”

Lia frowned. “Did something happen between you two?”

“No, he just showed his true colors after you died. He had a new girlfriend literally two days after you died. He didn’t even come to your funeral. And he had the gall to hit on Maria a year or two ago, after virtually no contact that entire time. He’s awful and we all distanced ourselves from him.”

“Oh.” Lia said. “I…didn’t know.”

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“None of us did. You’re…not thinking about getting back together with him, right?”

“No.” Lia said quickly. “I was just curious. I’m very happy with Rose, and I hadn’t really even thought about him until now. Now that I’ve heard about how he acted…well, I’ll have to think about how to treat him when he’s converted, but it’s not going to be anything like how people are treated now. He’ll be a ‘normal’ member of the swarm at best.”

“Well, that’s good to hear.” Robin said. “Um…anything else or can I get back to it?”

“Sure, but what were you doing in there, anyway?” Lia asked curiously.

“Nothing, good talk, bye!” Robin blurted out, then shut the door on Lia.

Lia just chuckled and headed back to her room. She still had some time while she waited for the conversions to finish, and while the book she had been reading was a bit much, she had others. And, if she began feeling bold again…well, she’d just have to see.

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Lia had just worked up the courage to return to her book when she got a notification informing her that the first of the new conversions had finished, followed shortly by another for the second.  She took a moment to check her stores of Blood Money, found that she had just over two thousand, then set off for where she had left the cocoons.

When she got there, she found that the two new monsters were just sitting there, waiting for instructions. One looked much like Lia’s mother, but the other was…different. She had four arms and bee wings, but instead of the carapace that bee-kobolds had, her skin was a thick, leathery black material, like the worms from the library.

As she approached them, they looked up at her expectantly. “Alright…” She muttered, placing a hand on each of their heads. “Be enlightened.”

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