Book 2: Chapter 2: Travelling to Lothian

'Ughh, I'm so hungry'

"You know Sophie, you need to learn to keep your thoughts to yourself. We've only been walking for an hour or so."

"I can't help it. We only had a small breakfast before we left." Sophie groaned, holding her stomach as the 4 of us walked.

Amaterasu was sitting in my soul, she said something about keeping the monsters at bay as they're highly attracted to divinity. I didn't believe that the moment we left half an hour ago and we were surrounded by demon's. They looked like the masks with the huge curved teeth at the front and they had massive humanoid bodies. I tried my Fire Breath out and burned a couple of trees down. The girls looked at me as if I had two heads, to which I declared no more fire breathing from that moment on. Honestly At this point now I just thought that dearest first wife just didn't want to walk at that point.

"Why do we have to walk anyway?!" Sophie complained again.

"Gaël already told you at the start, weren't you listening?! All of their caravans aren't in Esta anymore, they won't be back for a while. We've packed enough food to get us to the capital which is about a 5 day walk from Esta." Ruby berated her little sister.

Yuna didn't mind what was going on, as she was used to going on missions on her own, so the company was a nice change of pace for her. She just walked along with us at a leisurely pace, listening in on the bickering. I myself, well my nerves were at my wits end. I had to keep my eyes and ears on the road and the woods surrounding us, a spoiled Goddess of a wife chilling in my soul probably intending to make things more difficult on me, a young teen with a growing appetite and my other two wives vying for my attention while I'm trying to navigate us safely, oh and carrying all of our supplies on my back. Believe it or not the last thing that was weighing me down was the least of my troubles, I've grown in strength since then.

A few hours went by and we heard some squawking in the background.

Yuna started patting down her short dress robe to get rid of her sweat.

"Are you starting to feel hotter?" I asked out of concern.

"Yeah, it's nothing major though, Some Basan are nearby. They're completely harmless, though what confuses me is that the fire they breathe is supposed to be cold and now I'm feeling the temperature rising."

"It's possible that Malice has corrupted them. We've seen it with the people in Esta when they were under Izanami's influence." Ruby expressed her thoughts.

"If that's the case then their temperament could be on the rise as well as their temperature."

"Temperament?" They all asked. Amaterasu was laughing to herself as I gave them yet another word that doesn't exist here.

"It means their personality will change to a more unpleasant version of themselves. They could be hungry and we will be next on their menu." They all nodded in understanding.

'Amat, how long is it going to take before they get used to the modern language?'

'Who knows my dear, I'm sure they will get used to the language eventually, you'll just have to stay patient until then.' I nodded internally as we kept walking.

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Some time passes, and I've been giving Yuna water to keep her hydrated. We had decided to put the food in her shadow as Yuna suggested to try and not spoil the food. To be honest I thought it was super convenient and wondered why we didn't do it at the start. The heat was starting to get unbearable for her. To the point where she almost collapsed a few times as she found it difficult to even breathe and I was starting to get pissed off.

"Right, I've had enough of this now, where are these damn Basan? What do they look like?"

"They look like large birds. They walk on two feet and have a weird crown of fur on their head." Without a moment to waste, once I heard their description. I leapt up into the air and latched on to the top of a tree and looked around.

'Amat, can you help me out with this? Give me a skill or something to help me find them.'

'You already have one my dear, use your divine senses. It should give you vision on any Malice in the area as well as divine abilities, if these creatures are really corrupted by malice, you'll see them close by.'

I did as I was advised and focused my mana into my eyes and enchanted my vision.

'There, I see them, they're not too far into the woods off to the side of the road to our right. They're just standing there?'

'They must have grown into malicious creatures, waiting for someone to fall before they attack to feed.'

'That literally makes them no different than Vultures. Did you create these creatures to act this way?'

'I did not, no, like Yuna said earlier. They are peaceful creatures with a cold breath of fire. They eat plants mostly.'

'Well I'm going to have to take them out, I can't have Yuna collapsing because of them.'

'That's perfectly fine dear.'

I was annoyed with these damn birds. So I decided to try out the Orbital Bombardment to stun them.

A pressured heat wave struck the ground and they flattened completely. Thankfully these creatures were incredibly weak to be stunned instantly, unfortunately I scorched the area around it due to my temper rather than my carelessness but it wasn't as bad as earlier on.

Yuna took in a massive breath as the heat prison she was relieved completely from the heat.

After landing on the floor from my successful strike, I walked over to Ruby and Sophie.

"You two haven't killed anything before, right? Here's your chance, I want you to go over there and

Finish those birds off. They're going to be our dinner tonight."

"I'll do it." Ruby volunteered herself, "I don't want Sophie getting her hands bloody yet."

"Alright then, you know you can't keep her away from this forever right?"

"I know, just let her be for a while longer." I nodded in understanding this request.

"That's fine by me, as long as you're okay with taking the entire burden for now." I smiled at Sophie, "Don't worry, I'm not going to make you do something you don't want to do."

"Thanks Gaël, I don't know the first thing about killing anything, I wouldn't know where to start, I'm more afraid about messing up than anything." Honestly, not the reason I was expecting her to be nervous about. Maybe these two have seen more death in the past than I actually expected them to.

I walked over to Yuna who was on the floor still recovering.

"I'm sorry it took so long, I thought they were just going to walk by and the heat would die down after a while." I spread my feeling of concern for Yuna, to which she greatly appreciated.

"I wouldn't worry about it darling, I thought the same myself. It appears they were following us for a while." I gave her a hug, to which she lovingly returned.

A few moments later Ruby returned, needing a change of clothes, when she came back we all turned to see her covered in blood holding the two dead birds by their necks.

"Well Sophie, I hope you're still hungry." I turned to face her and her gaze glowed golden. Her mouth figuratively watering at the food before her.

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Evening time came and we had set up camp to clean our clothes with the provisions we had stored. Yuna had set up Trip wires, Amaterasu went to lay down in her tent and Sophie was still munching on the Basan we had caught earlier that day. I sat on guard at the perimeter, leaning against a tree with only my slacks on and holding my spear guarding around the edges as Ruby was washing the sweat and blood off our clothes.

"I've finished our clothes." Ruby walked over to me with a dried shirt to hand over to me. "Fire magic is super useful with drying."

"Yeah, tell me about it. In my old world we have these machine contraptions that we put our clothes in and in a couple of hours our clothes are completely dry after washing them."

"Do you wash them by hand as well?"

"Certain clothes, not all of them. Most of them can be washed with the contraption."

"What's this contraption called?"

"A washing machine and a dryer." Ruby stared at me dead in the eye.

"Not a very innovative name, I know, with the right kind of magic and a bit of thought into making it function, we could create one in this world as well. Amaterasu told me that the vast majority of magic in this world uses runes or chants. I've yet to see anyone besides Yuna that uses chants for their magic and there were no Runes in sight back in Esta."

"The reason for that is that Esta, despite having lordship, is not a very big place, it doesn't bring in a lot of funding as runic magic as far as I understand it. Chanting takes a while to learn as it's very in depth and the men in our village, even those who are adventurers, are mostly just hunter's and gatherers and the women help support them, so they haven't found any real use for magic. Also it's very expensive as the books are few and far between and they are only held in larger kingdom's such as Taiyo."

"So magic in this world is a privilege? Who taught you this?"

"Our parents." Ruby looked down trodden from mentioning their parents again.

"I'm sorry for bringing up a bad memory." I put my spear down and gave her a hug, Ruby leaned into me, she smelt fresh with the soap used from earlier. I placed my head down onto her shoulder and held Ruby tight around her small waist. I kissed her soft neck to which she moved her head out of the way for easier access.

"Gaël, I've wanted you since I met you. I'm so glad you made me yours, please don't leave any of us. I've become so much happier with you around."

"What was it like before you met me?" With a big breath, she fell further into my arms and then proceeded to explain.

"It wasn't so bad in the beginning, when Mama and Papa were around. Sophie and I would help Mama around the house, Papa would go and get firewood and he would go out hunting. He was one of the better hunters in Esta and he was an adventurer as well. Through adventuring was how our parents met. They settled in Esta to get away from the city life they said, preferring to settle down far away where it was more manageable to live. Mama would always try and set me up with the young men in Esta, wanting grandchildren she would say." She laughed thinking about her mothers antics, which she then followed up with. "Papa disagreed with all the men she tried to set me up with because he didn't approve of any of them. Always saying that "Any man that would want to take away my little girl had to beat me in a fight, one on one. That was the only way I'll settle my little Ruby to be taken away from me." Not long before we met, the people of Esta were already going crazy, the guards were too scared to do anything about their people and our family were in hiding. They crashed into our home, while they were on a raid to look for people to sacrifice and they killed my father in cold blood, Sophie, Mama and I couldn't do anything but watch. They then took my mother away after she and the Guard in Esta helped get us away from the Town."

From the sounds of things she had a good thing going for her until everything went tits up. I'm just glad she's alive and well now.

I looked over to Amaterasu thinking about how much I need to thank her for this new life she has given me. I felt pressure on my cheek, it was soft, warm and comforting as I turned my head back to Ruby. She had gotten up from laying on me to look me in the eyes, her gaze was golden. Her cheeks were flushed and her breath was short.

"Will you stay with me tonight?" She asked tentatively. I gave her a soft smile and I brought her in for a kiss.

When we separated I stated "Yes, I'll stay with you tonight my beautiful wife. Unfortunately no bedroom fun while your sister is around though." She frowned a little at what I said there.

"That hasn't stopped you before, you know we can all hear you when you're with the Goddess or Yuna, right?" The colour dropped from my skin at the sudden realisation of being overheard. Ruby laughed at my epiphone and gave me another kiss.

"Don't worry, out in the woods is not my ideal of having my first time anyway. I don't mind us waiting until we get back to Esta." I laughed in relief from the thought.

"Well I'm on watch duty tonight, you can stay with me until Yuna takes over in a couple of hours or so." Ruby's smile that formed was beautiful. Something I had only just noticed about her. Her eyes turned back into a beautiful scarlet and they captivated me in that moment and brought her in for another hug. We stayed like this for the rest of the night until we went back to our tent.

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The next day.

We had walked a fair amount of distance so much so, we spotted what looked like a purple dome in the distance.

"So we're finally here, we've arrived at Lothian."

'Getting cold feet, dearest husband' Amaterasu poked at me.

'Wouldn't you? Actually nevermind, you wouldn't.'

"So, how are we going to take that dome barrier down?" Yuna questioned. Amaterasu Immediately popped in with the answer thankfully.

"It's simple, we go in, we take down Benzaiten and her husband or we talk them into taking down the barrier." Her confidence from this plan was brimming.

"Question, what's the contingency plan?" I chimed in.

"There is no contingency plan, either we go in and win or convince them, or we don't come back out alive. They are the reason this barrier exists, therefore there's nothing else we can do than already stated."

"Right, well let's get a move on, the quicker we get this done the quicker we can move onto the capital of Taiyo."

"Yes sir!" Amaterasu mockingly saluted me. The other girls laughed at her joke.

I shook my head as we moved onwards to Lothian, the monsters around the area were more intense and aggressive than, much like the demon's we met when we left Esta, Ruby, Yuna I moved forward to take them out quickly while Amaterasu stood back with Sophie to protect her, she surrounded the pair of them in a small barrier and all the monsters that went to attack them were evaporated from the searing heat.

This carried on at a slow pace as we moved forward through the woods until we eventually arrived in front of the barrier.

Upon inspecting the barrier, it looked like a shroud of a gas like substance but it had clear definition to its shape which was maintained by a clear film that felt like rubber to the touch. I place my hand on it and it would spring back into place after pressure being applied to an area.

"Amat, do you know anything about barriers like this?"

"What I do know is that it can simply lead to the next area or it could take you somewhere else completely." I turned around to face her with disbelief, that statement made no sense.

"Could you please clarify what you mean by that, I'm not really getting the full picture here?"

"To put it differently is that it depends on the spell caster, these kinds of spells are here to deter intruders. Meaning these barriers are either here to keep people out with a strengthened defence, or they plan to use the entrance as a way to keep people lost. You could appear literally on the other side of the wall, or you could appear right in front of the caster if they so wished."

"So we all walk in, we could be potentially split up in five different corners of the map?"

"If it's that kind of spell, yes." After understanding more clearly what she meant by that, I started pacing back and forth and began to think.

"What if we all walk in holding each other's hands so we don't get split?" Sophie chipped in with her thought. I stopped pacing to face her with a smile.

"That's not a bad idea, we'll hold on to that thought and just come up with a few others. Does anyone else have any good ideas?" Everyone began to think. After a few moments of thinking, nobody thought of anything better, at the end of the day. Anything else could have been far too risky, and we all decided to avoid that risk.

"Sophie, Grab onto my hand."

"Okay." She responded in a sing-song voice.

The moment she grabbed onto my hand, the barrier shot out towards us and grabbed us both, then sucked us into the barrier.

"Sophie!"

"Gaël!"

The three of them screamed as we were pulled in.

Ruby went to run at the barrier when Yuna stopped her and the Barrier reached out and grabbed the pair of them as well.

It was just Amaterasu left. Terrified and tears shedding, she didn't know what to do with herself.

'Should I run in? I can't reach Gaël, Ruby or Sophie out here with my telepathy.'

"Damnit!" The moment she screamed that, Searing flames roared up into the air. She walked into the barrier ready to bring them all back at a moment's notice.